Starwave Defender

It doesn’t take much work to develop an average shoot ‘em up, given the fact that all you need is a bunch of enemies and enough room to fit them all on the screen at the same time. On the other hand, if you want to design something to withstand the test of time and provide players with something truly unique, you may need to put a little bit more effort into it.

Starwave Defender is a top-down shooter in which your only goal is to keep shooting until every enemy is gone. However, more are always on the way, and in greater numbers, so it’s pretty difficult to avoid their shots after a while. As might have gathered so far, the game is not meant to redefine your opinion on the genre. Instead, it’s just something to keep you occupied when you have nothing better to do.

The enemies do not seem to differ in any way, except that they multiply in the later stages of the game. Both the enemy ships and your ship shoot the same kind of projectiles, although only one of yours is enough to completely destroy a foe. On the other hand, your ship has a shield that protects it from quite a bit of damage, as well as multiple lives to be able to come back if you happen to die a couple of times.

The actual gameplay mechanics are nothing special either, but they work, which is always good news. Other than moving around and shooting your lasers, there is not much else you can do, but at least you have the option to destroy the larger asteroids that drift around you. Speaking of which, crashing into an enemy ship does a lot more damage to your craft than taking a bullet, so you should keep that in mind.

As far as the graphics are concerned, the game is designed using Unreal Engine 4, although it’s obviously not used to its full potential. In fact, the ships are quite small and not very detailed, while the background doesn’t really change too much, which gets boring after a while. On the other hand, the controls are very accurate and responsive, at least in most situations, which is always nice to see in a game that requires fast reflexes.

Starwave Defender is not the kind of game that gets you hooked and keeps you playing for hours on end. However, it can be the perfect way to spend a few minutes when there’s nothing better to do.