The Atari ST version of Argonaut Software‘s pioneering 3D shooter, Starglider, first came out in 1986 – a year before the Amiga version (for some reason – I don’t know why).

It plays very nicely, but is a fairly simple game overall. You’re basically flying a small attack craft over the surface of an alien planet, shooting hostiles, and trying to stay alive. You can (and should) dock with rotating blue bases often, where you can get your shields and ammo replenished.

Control of the craft is by mouse, which gives the game a smooth, intuitive feel. Shooting stuff successfully does take a little practise, though, because you need a steady hand, and good control of the throttle (which is via the right mouse button), to get enough hits in to make something explode.

Some types of enemies are more deadly than others, so it’s worth learning to identify them (which is not too difficult, because they’re quite well colour-coded), and avoiding the toughest until you’ve collected enough missiles to take them out. You fire a missile by pressing ‘L’, and when you do so you’re then put in control of it for a short period of time, before it self-destructs. It’s then a case of steering the missile onto its intended target, which is not easy.

Another tricky, but essential, task is to re-fill your energy tanks. Your energy level is shown by the pink horizontal bar on the right-hand side of the ship’s cockpit, and if this drops to zero then it’s game over. To re-fill it, you need to find the three light blue towers with the beams travelling between them, and fly through them at just the right height. This does take some practise, but is essential to learn. When you do it right, the screen will turn red and a message will appear saying “Energy Cells Refuelling”.

The aim of Starglider is to score as many points as possible by destroying as many enemies as possible, and you get a ranking at the end of the game. When you reach a certain points threshold (10,000 points), you must then destroy the enemy called “Starglider One” to complete the level.

Overall, Starglider on the ST is still reasonably interesting to play now, but it’s not a patch on the sequel – Starglider 2 – which is much more rich and complex than the overt simplicity of this first game. That said: there is more to Starglider than meets the eye. To keep a game going, you really need to understand how to survive, and how to whittle down the number of enemies firing at you. There are also subtle features – like tunnels that take you to new areas – which are not apparent from the outset. So the game does have some hidden depth.

More: Starglider on Wikipedia