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One of the things that make the best games of the Metroid series such a joy to play after
all these years isn't just the large map ripe for exploration, but also the sense of loneliness
and danger the player feels when traversing a hostile, alien world. You are the lone survivor
of your ship after it has crashed on an uncharted planet. Can you stay alive long enough to
possibly make it off it?
Astronot uses a traditional on-screen button control scheme. There's a left and right button,
a jump button, and a button for shooting or activating switches. All the buttons are large
and respond quite well. You certainly won't have any trouble with the controls as you
make your way around. The crux of the gameplay is to pick a direction and to start moving
until you can't move no more, then either find another new path to take or wait till
you find a power-up that might allow you access to previously inaccessible terrain. Most of
the power-ups increase your jumping and shooting power, as well as your health bar... oh and
there are collectible squares littered around the place as well.
The art style, well it's how you'd imagine a game with this scope would look if it was
made back in the early eighties for the Atari 2600 (if that system used pixels instead of
filling in the scan lines on your television). Everything is made up of a few pixels of a
flat color, but despite the self-imposed artistic limitations, there is a sense of atmosphere
as you make your way through the caverns and flee from enemies too powerful for you to
tackle at the current point in time. The sound does not covey the same positive atmosphere.
What passes for music is quite annoying and will have you muting the game fairly quickly.
One final mention for the presentation is the ability to apply different visual filters
changing either the skin of the protagonist, or the look of the entire game. It's just
a shame you have to quit out to the main menu and reload the game to make these changes.
Astronot is probably meant for the retro gamers out there, but aside from being a well-controlled
platformer, it also satisfies that exploration itch that some may be wishing to scratch.
The lack of map (and the urge to start drawing your own) is a product of its throwback charm,
and whether that's a positive or a negative to you will be a good indicator of whether
or not you'll have fun with this title.