Bigger and better sequel to Astro Avenger. Bring your mouse back to scroller shooter duty and blow up more beautiful 3D space ships.

Release Date

Pros

The graphics have improved from the first game.

The level design is more varied now. It does not feel as same same as Astro Avenger.

The music is very good.

The variety of enemies have also increased since the first game, which is good. Those that have played the first game will be familiar with some of the enemies.

Apart from gun upgrades and missiles, you can now also purchase droid sidekicks to help you out. Unlike other games though, the sidekicks do take damage and can die.

Cons

It is still a simple scroller shooter, so it does get repetitive.

Other Points

Although in general there is more variety than the first Astro Avenger, there is still not as much stuff as in Tyrian 2000.

The guns are pretty much the same as the first Astro Avenger. There is one gun that is different from the first game and another extra secret gun that you have to collect parts to assemble. The regular gun types have upgrades as usual. I have not got the secret gun yet so I know nothing about it.

Because you can use the mouse to move the ship so fast, it is actually possible to fly in front of the bullets you just fired. It does not damage your ship or anything but just looks funny to me.

Biases

Reviewed version 2.0.9.

I really liked Tyrian 2000, Xenon 2: Megablast and Raptor: Call of the Shadows.

I also liked Astro Avenger.

I also really liked RIP 3 The Last Hero and liked Theseus – Return of the Hero and Larva Mortus. They are not scroller shooters, but they are simple action shooters.

I have not completed the game.

DRM

There is a registration key you must enter to play the full version.

Minimum Requirements (from Readme.txt)

• Windows 98/2000/XP/ME/Vista
• Pentium 700MHz or better
• Direct3D compatable video card
• RAM: 256Mb
• 35 megs free hard drive space
• Sound card (optional)
• DirectX 8.0 or higher
• I am not sure if it is a typo but it does say DirectX 8. The previous Astro Avenger had DirectX 9 as a requirement.

Computer Played On

• Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz
• 2Gb RAM
• ATI Radeon X1600 256Mb RAM (laptop version)
• Logitech G35 headset and/or Realtek HD Audio(no idea what model) with Altec Lansing ACS41 speakers or Logitech ClearChat Premium PC Headset.
• Win XP Pro
• Graphics settings are set to whatever I feel comfortable with playing on this PC. They are usually not set to the highest settings. All screenshots are taken with my settings.