Back: Star Raiders

Star Raiders! Do you remember it? I think I do. But a) I have the memory of a geriatric terrier and b) I shot an awful lot of things in space when I was young. I could be thinking of anything. Maybe I'm thinking of that time I went to space and shot an awful lot of things.

Regardless of whether my errant mind is feeding me the wrong signals again, the good news is that we're getting a space sim of sorts again. It's been dry times for interstellar adventures of late, so this is to be welcomed. Atari are remaking olden interstellar dogfighting game Star Raiders, promising us a first-spaceship-perspective shooter with transforming craft and even a level of strategy. Strategy, eh? That'd be nice.

Like the original, it's primarily about shooting zoomy spaceships from a pilot's perspective, but energy management stops it from being mindless.

Here's probably the key quote from a rather marketingy reveal-interview: "we are building on that great feeling that the original had of dogfighting in space, while adding another dimension through ship transformations, where the combat vehicle changes its flight characteristics on the fly. Other original components that we felt were important are the galactic map and the energy pool. Managing the energy pool was a core part to combat and gives players another layer of strategy."

Hopefully the galactic map element allows some sort of exploration: picking where you're going and dealing with the consequences, rather than a simple charge through escalating challenge.

Mostly, though: space! There's not enough of it these days. Star Raiders memories, then? Go on, you can tell Auntie Alec.

Star Raiders is out early next year, for PC and some strangely-named boxes.