Loadstar
My brother always did always pick out the weirdest games when we were kids. Admittedly having chosen this game simply based on the back of the box, Loadstar really was an oddball title. Or at least, it seemed more unusual at the time than it does in retrospect.
Loadstar was yet another Full Motion Video driven rail-shooter amongst many others that populated CD games as this new media now allowed for games that couldn't fit onto a cartridge or set of floppy disks. Loadstar though, was a rail shooter in a more literal sense. It wasn't so much that your path was predetermined as you were traversing a set of mag-lev railways in space on a transport ship-slash-train.
In the end the footage was actually pretty good. The introductory sequence and interstitial clips were fairly well acted and contained some pretty high-end sets and props. I just hopped over to Youtube and checked out he 7 minute intro movie again and realised it's actually got a few notable actors in it including Michael Anderson from Carnivale and The X-Files.
The overall game was pretty acceptable, like Sewer Shark you find yourself shooting at various enemies on screen while trying to navigate a maze-like series of video clips. Unfortunately the shooting uses a D-pad which can be a big pain and on top of it all initiating a turn requires you stop shooting whatever is attacking at the moment and race to get your cursor all the way to the edge of the screen. It really would have been better played with either a mouse or an analog joystick.
Nevertheless, it was a unique game that looked incredible in both design and at the time, graphics. FMV based games really did feel like the future at the time since they could incorporate high-end prerendered CG graphics or live-action video footage. Of course, looking back on it now is almost painful, though I can honestly say the story footage is worth looking up. It's a neat little watch.
My brother always did always pick out the weirdest games when we were kids. Admittedly having chosen this game simply based on the back of the box, Loadstar really was an oddball title. Or at least, it seemed more unusual at the time than it does in retrospect.Loadstar was yet another Full Motion Video driven rail-shooter amongst many others that populated CD games as this new media now allowed for games that couldn't fit onto a cartridge or set of floppy disks. Loadstar though, was a rail shooter in a more literal sense. It wasn't so much that your path was predetermined as you were traversing a set of mag-lev railways in space on a transport ship-slash-train.
In the end the footage was actually pretty good. The introductory sequence and interstitial clips were fairly well acted and contained some pretty high-end sets and props. I just hopped over to Youtube and checked out he 7 minute intro movie again and realised it's actually got a few notable actors in it including Michael Anderson from Carnivale and The X-Files.
The overall game was pretty acceptable, like Sewer Shark you find yourself shooting at various enemies on screen while trying to navigate a maze-like series of video clips. Unfortunately the shooting uses a D-pad which can be a big pain and on top of it all initiating a turn requires you stop shooting whatever is attacking at the moment and race to get your cursor all the way to the edge of the screen. It really would have been better played with either a mouse or an analog joystick. Nevertheless, it was a unique game that looked incredible in both design and at the time, graphics. FMV based games really did feel like the future at the time since they could incorporate high-end prerendered CG graphics or live-action video footage. Of course, looking back on it now is almost painful, though I can honestly say the story footage is worth looking up. It's a neat little watch.
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