|
Give
Your Jag A Little Soul
by David Sherwin
Soul Star is one
of the games for the Atari Jaguar for which
possession marks the distinction between gaming
enthusiast and true collector. Though few may
admit it, the game has been widely disseminated
for a number of years in a group of core collectors
among whom I, like most folk, cannot count
myself a member. Soul Star's release to the general
gaming community has been hindered by concerns
regarding copyright, legal ownership and, I
am quite sad to say, efforts to maintain the
high value of the game, but pirate copies have
recently begun to pop up faster than dandelions
in March. I, being only human and no fool, snapped
up one of these third-party copy-of-a-copy copies
when my curiosity overcame my gaming budget.
You can only
imagine the delightful degree of anticipation
I felt when I saw that hot little package arrive
in the mail, and the degree of disappointment
I felt when I popped it into my CD player (bypass
cart required) and actually began to play it.
Contrary to all of the hype, Soul Star isn't
the Second Coming, and it probably wouldn't
have saved the Jag from extinction; it is, in
all aspects, just another space blaster.
I was disappointed,
all right, but as I began to play the game I
could see a few of its greater merits peek through
the game engine. Soul Star may be an overblown
windbag of a game, but there's a certain charm
to be found in Atari's failed attempts at ostentation
and grandeur. It may not be Super Battlemorph, but it's also not - to my eternal thanks
- Trevor McFur 2, and it's offered quite a
fair bit of gaming value for the super-inflated
price that I paid for it.
Gameplay Soul
Star offers
nothing new to Jaguar gamers; it just offers
a lot of it. After all, why present just one
clichéd effort when you can repackage several
of them as "gaming missions" and call
it something new? OK - I admit that I am, perhaps,
being a bit too harsh, but memory of that purchase
price still stings.
Players will
begin their games on approach to the space station
from which all secondary gaming missions may
be launched. The typical space obstacles -
fighters, indestructible objects - present
themselves as players are inexorably drawn to
the station, but playability isn't too bad here.
I like to think of this part of the game as
Gyruss flipped on a horizontal plane, with three
warps to the space station core.
Players who successfully
run the gauntlet of space ships and extra-terrestrials
will find themselves at the space station, where
a new gaming goal will be revealed. Players
who best this stage may then select any one
of a number of presented missions which they
may access through a certain portal. I haven't
yet made it out of the space station, but have
heard from players who have that the subsequent
missions, while entertaining, aren't exactly
ground-breaking in themselves.
Graphics My copy of Soul
Star
contains a number of graphical glitches which
may either be the result of poor copying techniques
or due to the fact that I have an incomplete
version of the game; my source himself didn't
know.
Flaws aside,
the graphic environment of Soul Star may be described
as a middling effort that is punctuated by moments
of true graphic ingenuity (for a Jag game).
Most of the game's sub-environments have been
planned quite well and are quite pretty, though
it is, in its totality, certainly nothing that
we haven't seen before.
Gaming sprites
are nicely detailed, but I note that several
characters seemed to have been inspired by other
Atari games. Look closely at the spider-like
creatures that attack you from the space station
in the game's first stage: they're escapees
from the Lynx's Gates of Zendocon! And didn't
we see those weird, bipedal droids stalking
the halls of Electrocop? Did Atari have a Mysterious
Plan in which minor details from older Lynx
games were to be incorporated into its showpieces
for the Jaguar? Clearly, the mysteries of this
game extend beyond speculation regarding its
proposed commercial release date.
Music and sound Soul
Star boasts
an elegant, if pompous soundtrack that is decidedly
evocative of Holst's The Planets. I'd
like to think that this was a deliberate joke
on the part of Atari's coders, but realize that
the choice was probably made more by accident
than with planning and deliberation. My heart
always does, nevertheless, beat a little faster
when I hear the game's opening chords, and the
quasi-classical score complements Soul Star's
endless battles quite nicely.
Sound effects
are also quite good, and are similar both in
quality and variety to Atari's other Jaguar
CD games. Voice samples are, in particular,
well done, and I particularly like the crisp,
bitchy tones of the computer. However did they
get Judi Dench to volunteer her efforts?
Summary The value that
you find in Soul Star will most likely be directly
proportional to the amount of time and
money that you expend in obtaining it. I must
admit that I enjoyed the thrill of this particular
hunt as it took me, over the course of the year,
to several dead ends (and unreturned e-mails),
and that both my appetite for and taste of the
kill was greatly enhanced by the ardours of
the chase. For those not so enthused by the
game of collecting, and who merely want to play
the damned thing, I can state that Soul Star
ranks among CD games below Battlemorph, and
somewhere between Primal Rage and Baldies. It
will, however, cost you more than three times
the combined value of all of them just to get
a pirate copy. Spend your valuable gaming dollars
accordingly.
Verdict
|
Name:
|
Soul
Star
|
Requires:
|
Jaguar
CD system
|
Pros:
|
-
It's Battlemorph
Lite
- It'll probably
take you months to get a copy (experience the
thrill of the hunt!)
|
Cons:
|
-
It's Battlemorph
Lite
- It'll probably
take you months to get a copy (expreience the
thrill of the hunt!)
|
Rating:
|
|
|
|