Argonaut Software‘s Starglider, when it first came out, was a flashy release. It came in a big blue box, with a novella, a manual, and a single floppy disk. Magazines were raving about it, and I remember buying it… for the ZX Spectrum. LOL.

I couldn’t afford an Amiga back then, but the 16-bit versions of the game were much better than the 8-bit versions, and used analogue mouse controls, so felt much nicer to control. The Amiga version even opens with a suitable ’80s song! “Staaaar-gliderrrr! By Rain-birrrd… Rain-birrrd!” It’s very cheesy-sounding now, but back then it was pretty bloody awesome…

The basic aim of Starglider is to fly around an alien planet, blasting stuff and trying to stay alive. The key to survival is to regularly dock at the rotating blue bases, where you’ll get your lasers and shields replenished. You can then go out for another brief sortie and hopefully survive long enough to destroy something, and score some points, before returning to base again. If you stay out too long, then you’re just going to end up dead, so you can’t get too greedy…

While inside a base you can “interrogate” a computer, which basically allows you to cycle through all the different hostiles, giving you information about them. Some of them, like the blue Starglider Drones, or the orange Starglider One, are highly aggressive bird-like Mecha that you’re advised to stay well away from, but there are plenty of other enemy installations and vehicles that won’t think twice about putting numerous rockets up your back bottom, if they get the opportunity.

To complete a level, though, you have to destroy the Starglider One, which is only possible by shooting it with numerous missiles. You fire a missile by pressing ‘L’, then guiding it to its intended target. If you run out of missiles, you can return to a blue base and get some more.

It’s also vitally important to figure out how to re-charge your craft’s energy cells, because the game will end if they deplete completely. This is something that many players seem to ignore, or can’t work out how to do. You do this by flying at the right height, through the two tall blue towers, in the direction of the single tower opposite. If you do it right, the screen will turn red and a message will say “Power Cells Recharging”, and your energy levels will increase. If you manage to fly straight enough, without moving too quickly, then your energy bar (shown in pink on the right-hand side of the cockpit) will re-fill completely, giving you a new lease of life. A second run – doing the same thing – may be required if you ran off course or didn’t manage to fully re-charge. It’s good to give yourself a long, straight run-up to the two towers, if you’re able to (using the single tower in the distance to line yourself up), and to drop your speed when you’re near them. Practising these re-charge runs is a good idea, and eventually they’ll become much easier.

Starglider is a simple game overall, but it’s still playable and fun. Is it a classic? I think I’d say that it probably is. It’s not perfect (it suffers from a bit from slowdown occasionally, when there’s a lot going on, on-screen), but there is more to Starglider than at first meets the eye, and the smooth mouse controls are a joy to use.

Starglider was first published by Rainbird Software in 1986 for the Atari ST. The Amiga version, written by Jez San and Richard Clucas, was released in 1987. A sequel – called Starglider 2 – was released in 1988.

More: Starglider on Wikipedia