Interface

Moving your juggler

You have the option to control Starshot's movement with either the keyboard, mouse, or joystick. There is also an option to switch movement control off, but, well, we don't get it either. As this is such a console-esque game, a joypad (we used a Sidewinder) is your best bet. The controls are completely intuitive; nice, but to be expected, since I've played Mario 64 already.

Unfortunately, when ripping off Mario 64, the game's designers didn't do so hot a job, and because of this, Starshot can be frustratingly hard to control. Although you're in a 3D world, you can only pivot one of four directions. In the default control mode, these directions are dependant on which way the camera is facing. This means that if the camera suddenly decides to pivot around you, what you thought was forward could suddenly be off a cliff. Unfortunately, switching to relative mode, while it will solve this problem, will also make Starshot much more difficult and counterintuitive to control. The choice is yours.

Look, action!

Other controls

What else needs controlling? The other two main things are your camera, whose controls are the best in the game, and the stars you shoot. The camera button works well: one tap will take you to camera control mode, where you can rotate and zoom, and two taps will center the camera (more or less) behind Starshot. The former is useful every so often to look around, the latter essential to controlling Starshot and seeing what's going on.

As far as the stars, you can either fire them fast, or fire them one at a time and control them in flight. To control the stars, you hold down the fire button after shooting, then use the control pad to control the star. There isn't really much control involved; you can make the star turn 90 degrees left or right. Once. It can be useful to destroy robots behind walls, although with short walls, it's usually easier to just jump and fire.

Running