STASH BLASTA

Main review

The future. A place of wonder, majesty and… cloned heads floating through open space? Yes, it would seem that the “evil” Stash has returned, after his initial outing in Slarti And Stash Space Saga where he was banished to space for a bit of drug use, he has returned to wreak vengeance for the way he was mistreated. And to do this, he has cloned himself thousands of times to produce a clone army and they are all heading towards Earth bent on making people smoke lots of drugs. Anyway, our foray into the blackness of space is somewhat blacker than usual because, we’re told, Stash and his evil minions have destroyed all of the stars. Quite how we’re seeing our ship and Stash’s brood is anyone’s guess but perhaps they have torches. Thinking about it, they don’t appear to have bodies so how they’re holding those torches (or how they destroyed the stars) is probably best left unanswered!

The in-game music is rather good and, whilst it’s a venerable piece by Mixer of Origo and has seen a lot of previous use, it actually fits an action game quite well. The graphics are scarily weak, not actively bad as such but very simplistic and there is absolutely no variety throughout the game; the player’s craft is a red triangle with a bias relief cabin on it’s top and the clone army are very reminiscent of the Licker ships from Llamasoft’s excellent Iridis Alpha, although only visually because whereas Minter’s creations are vicious little bleeders who, once released, hounded the player without mercy until one of the two was dead, these incarnations are reduced to simply trudging down the screen.

WE LIKE THE MISTER MASTER – WE DON’T LIKE YOU

Difficulty is reduced to how fast the Lickers… erm sorry, clones are moving, shoot a hundred and suddenly there’s a lurch as all of those remaining on the screen begin to move faster. Not sideways or anything involved like that (which would have made it play more like the first stage of Pirates In Hyperspace, something I might have actually applauded it for since I’ve always been almost perversely fond of that game), just faster. And that’s where the real rot sets in with this game because, along with being monotonous to the extreme for the first four levels, after that the slow reload time of the weapon carried by the player’s ship means there are a large number of situations where it’s simply not possible to get another shot off in time to defend yourself properly and the Liclones are going too fast to even consider dodging through them, so the remaining shields get eaten away very rapidly.

On a final note, one thing that bugged me all the way through writing this review was a feeling of familiarity. Stash Blasta just reminded me so much of another game but I just couldn’t put my finger on it and I’ve finally worked out why; this is Richard Bayliss’s Missile Blasta, the source code for which he supplies as part of his Assemble It page and, whilst a few small cosmetic changes have been made to the sprites and status bar and the background removed, this remains true to it’s heritage and is painfully simplistic and the crude “scenario” pasted over the top does nothing to disguise that; there aren’t many Earthlings who’d look upon a comedic version of the Toclafane invasion where heads float up to people and give them a spliff as being aggressive as such.

Second opinion

Well there goes three minutes of my life… there really isn’t that much to say about this game that Jason hasn’t already said, so i’ll concentrate on the features… which is a bit of a struggle, because there aren’t really any.

To judge the graphics you have to have a good long hard look as there’s almost bugger all in there apart from some very simple sprites on a plain black background and not even a starfield in sight. The sprites representing Stash are very basic, and seem to be suffering from a case of the shakes throughout the game (probably intentional, but it seems like a bug). Presentation is sparse and almost non-existent and the music is the game’s strongest point overall, although its ripped and is an old tune which has got around more than Ulrika Jonsson.

The game itself is even less inspiring with a simple aim, just shooting the heads which fall downwards. Once you hit a certain target the game speeds up, but that is all there is to it. You get five lives (called shields in the game) but you’ll probably switch it off before you even lose one. Additionally, for a very simple game, it’s a shame the enemy randomisation doesn’t actually put any sprites in the centre part of the screen for the majority of the game! Overall, this is a very poor effort and i’ve seen far better with many mini game entries in the past. It did however make me feel better about the crap i’ve churned out in the past! Steer well clear.

Editors note: this game contains text of an adult nature and covers various subjects that might be offensive to some more sensitive readers – please do not download this game if you feel that you are likely to be offended by such things.