Star X Review | Piko Interactive Collection 4

[@jayme69]

I remember being blown away by Driller back in '87 on the ZX Spectrum which utilised the Freescape engine and was, as far as I'm aware, the first commercially successful 3D Filled Polygon game. Then stuff like this starts coming out on handhelds! It's pure witchcraft I tell yeh, lol :-) Great video as always Steve and keep up the awesome work!

[@VEGANVANIA]

Hmmm... setting aside the word _"filled",_ I would have thought most people gave that award to the BBC Micro's _Elite_ in 1984, but "filled polygon" carefully defined might well move the award forward a few years… but as late as 1987?

[@jayme69]

@@VEGANVANIA As I said "as far as I'm aware" :-)

[@jayme69]

@@VEGANVANIA #QuickGoogleSearch "I, Robot was the first commercially produced arcade video game rendered entirely with real-time, flat-shaded, 3D polygon graphics." Circa 1984/85 :-)

[@aboyandhisdogRE]

I've got one on the cd32 but I'd have to dig it out, can't remember the game, but that wasn't on rails that was like in an arena 🤔

[@scooby-poo8667]

Cool looking game even though it seems a bit janky. Loved Star Fox on SNES back in the day. Nice review my friend 👍

[@aboyandhisdogRE]

Hey Scooby, oh it's definitely a janky star wing 😂 but I kinda love it for it. Janky starwing is better than no starwing at all 😂

[@bjornh1527]

I wonder why Star X wasn’t more talked about? I recall IGN being so excited about the first person shooter Ecks vs. Sever, and this game seems to do even more with 3D on GBA.

[@aboyandhisdogRE]

Hey Bjorn, yeah I don't remember hearing a thing about this game at the time. But that could just me my mist if a past memory 😂

[@iansims2984]

This cart seems to be in short supply atm as it's sold out on fun stock not listed in argos and selling at £23 on amazon at present. Seems like Blaze has made a short run on this, so i hope they do another run as I've yet to pick up a copy, but I am not happy paying £5 over the normal RRP for it. Shame, really, as this cart was what re peaked my interest after a dogey period following the duke nukem roll out. Great review as always, mate 👍

[@genejoke8538]

I'm sure more will roll out pretty soon.

[@jayme69]

I was in the same boat but if you keep an eye on Amazon they keep coming up in small quantities at the normal price. I managed to pick a copy up for £17.99 just before the weekend :-)

[@iansims2984]

Cheers for that I'll keep checking. Glad you managed to pick one up at the RRP 👍​@jayme69

[@aboyandhisdogRE]

Hey Ian I've had the same problem with the tate mode weird add on thingie, I held off ordering a EXP-R until they explain what an alpha is, cos funstock you have to pay upfront pre orders so it's more of a fiddle to cancel and I see the add ons are out of stock in the new colour all ready.

[@iansims2984]

@aboyandhisdogRE I'm with you on that as I was going to pre-order a VS as I only own an EXP and a Super pocket, but I've also held off as I want to know what Alpha is first 👍

[@genejoke8538]

agreed it's a fun little game.

[@aboyandhisdogRE]

Hey Gene, yeah it's great fun. Enjoyed it all except some of the bosses were a bit wonky 😂

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

It's always a bit frustrating when developers ignore basic genre foundations.
Space Harrier and Starfox know a d-pad and low resolution require a little interpretation of what the player intends. They slightly steer your shots - not enough to break the game, just enough to help you remain immersed.
And games like this and Flight of the Falcoln, don't bother to include that feature, because their loving tribute was just based on ripping off the aesthetic.

[@aboyandhisdogRE]

Yeah it would defo help if they slightly steered at least on easy with an assist option. But I got used to it pretty much as is after awhile.

[@VEGANVANIA]

It does seem to me that customizing the settings in "a real emulator" could make this particular game play more smoothly. A romhack (to use more system resources) would be even better, but lifting some of the (emulated) original hardware limitations (overclocking, etc.)… ?

[@aboyandhisdogRE]

I dare say the frame rate could definitely be improved if you get into all that emulator hacking shenanigans, am assume this is pretty much as was at the time though, doubt it was smooth as butter on the game boy advance.

[@CrazyGoth631]

Star fox clone. You don’t say. 👀

[@aboyandhisdogRE]

Lmao 😂😂😂