Perhaps you haven't yet played the original release. Stardust graced the PlayStation Store with beautiful, particle-filled shooting action that placed you in control of a small ship against hundreds of dangerous asteroids, enemies and bosses. In Geometry Wars fashion, you controlled your ship with the left stick and shot in any direction with the right. Stardust provided a more engaging experience, however, by giving you the ability to cycle between three very specific weapons that had strengths and weaknesses against different targets. On top of that, you could perform an invulnerable boost for a short period of time as well as trigger a bomb to wipe your surroundings clean.
The game is absolutely fantastic and it happens to be my favorite dual thumbstick shooter. Thus, I was immensely excited to try out the Solo pack and see what it brought to the table. The Solo pack does several things for your Stardust experience. Not only does it deliver a brand new soundtrack (entitled "Retro") filled with new tunes for each planet, but you now have access to a variety of new single-player modes. Arcade mode has been tweaked to allow for difficulty selection, but new to the lineup are the Endless, Survival, Bomber and Time Attack modes. That sounds like quite an addition to us.
Before we discuss the specifics, we should stress that the majority of the content present in Super Stardust, including planets and weapon types, have been left unchanged. Of course, a few additions have been made that are pretty neat, but the "core" Arcade experience is identical, besides the difficulty tweaks and new music.
After spending some time with the Solo pack, I have to say I enjoyed all the new modes quite a bit. Endless puts your ship against an endless wave of rocks and baddies (go figure). A few new elements have been added as well, including a massive pyramid structure that, when destroyed, sends a jaw-dropping explosive wave across the entire planet's surface, annihilating all the enemies in its path. For such a hectic mode, this is extremely helpful.
Survival was perhaps the most difficult addition to Stardust. You have one life and the single planet you roam across continuously fills with indestructible spheres -- or probes -- that bounce around freely. Your goal is to stay alive for as long as possible while navigating a mind-bending sea of obstacles -- and a few enemies to boot. Instead of Point bonuses, you can snag Time icons that add more time to your score. This keeps item collection fresh and exciting.
Bomber was a real treat. Guided by an equally obvious principle, Bomber gives you just one weapon to use and nothing else -- can you guess what that weapon is? Your ship's boost has also been disabled, meaning that your basic movement and bomb deployment are your only chances to score points. The mode forces you to strategically fly around the planet and detonate your bombs to clear asteroids as well as destroy supply ships to gather more explosives. I found this mode to be the most technical of the new additions and a great challenge. And of course, I can't forget to mention Time Attack. As you might expect, your goal is to score the lowest time possible on one planet. This is most similar to the Arcade and Planet modes but again it adds a new spin on old content.
And that's it. I've basically documented the entire add-on pack and told you that each of the new modes is a generally positive addition. But what's holding this expansion back? A few very critical elements, unfortunately. First and foremost, the add-on is $4.99. I'm not going to claim that this is a grand amount of cash, but it's half the price of the original game. Although you're getting some refreshing new game types, I don't think you're getting quite enough. I was disappointed that there were (as far as I can tell) no awesome new planets to play on or something akin to that.
More problematic is the continued absence of the game's most needed feature: online co-op. Obviously, this is the solo add-on, but it hurts to dish out five bucks and still not be totally satisfied. And lastly, I was (beyond!) ecstatic when I heard the incredible remix of the original Lave theme (electric guitar and all), but I was devastated to learn that the same first-class musical treatment wasn't given to the other planets' themes. As odd as it may sound, Super Stardust HD has always been a very musical experience for me and I wanted that to be expanded even more.
Verdict
If you're as big a fan of the original Super Stardust HD and you're itching for more content, this download is an absolute must. If you liked the game and you don't mind parting with five dollars, it certainly adds a fair amount of content. I would even go so far as to say that gamers completely unversed in Stardust should buy the original and then pick up this pack if they want more. But, I would have been infinitely more pleased had new planets, more music and perhaps online co-op been included in this pack. But I image many of those features will show up if Housemarque decides to develop a Multi pack next time. Only time will tell.