Super Stardust HD - Hints & Tips - Blu-ray Forum

Zotar · 01-23-2008, 04:53 PM

I thought I'd start a thread for those wishing to improve their Stardust HD highscores. (mods I've got the name wrong in the title - how lame is that!)

My personal topscore is just over 14,000,000 which means that there are far better players on this forum than me. However I've learned a few things since the days when I'd be lucky to get 1,000,000

My biggest tip is to use the Fire weapon on Lave and build it up even though it isn't supposed to be the weapon of choice on that level. You should be able to get through with it almost unscathed with a bit of practice and then have a 100% fire weapon by the time you get to the next level which is what the fire weapon was built for.

Once the fire weapon is at 100% I'd recommend building up the ice weapon for level 3.

The above has helped me alot but I'd love to hear what others think and have learned....

bruceleeroy · 01-23-2008, 04:59 PM

starburst lol.

my tip would be to not use your bombs b/c the more you have the more your score is multiplied by at the end of each stage.

bruceleeroy · 01-23-2008, 05:07 PM

also make sure to boost through the points tokens as that multiplies its value and when given the chance with an extra ship token let it degrade to a shield if u dont have one yet.

Icemage · 01-23-2008, 06:13 PM

My first post on this forum was a bunch of hints on how to do well in Super Stardust HD.

I don't play nearly as much as I used to, but I'm still in the top 50 worldwide on Arcade mode, and top 20 in all five planet modes.

In the interests of this thead, I will copy my original post here, and amend based on what I know now.

----

General tips for scoring:

#1: Stay alive.
Your score multiplier increases as you destroy more and more things, but drops to x1 if you die. So try not to die if you want points.

#2: Boost.
Boosting through the point bonus powerups (white color) gives you a multiplier on the point bonus. The basic point value of the white point bonus powerup is 2500 points. Multiply by your current score multiplier (so if your current multiplier is x4, the point value is 10000). When you Boost through one or more point powerups at a time (i.e. one application of boost), you get an additional multiplier. The first point bonus you fly through while Boosted gives x2 points, the second gives x3, third one gives x4, etc.

For instance, if your score multiplier is x4 and you boost through a total of 5 point bonuses in a single pass, you'd earn:

First bonus : 2500 x 4 x 2 = 20000
+ Second bonus : 2500 x 4 x 3 = 30000
+ Third bonus : 2500 x 4 x 4 = 40000
+ Fourth bonus : 2500 x 4 x 5 = 50000
+ Fifth bonus : 2500 x 4 x 6 = 60000
Total bonus points: 200000 points!

Bear in mind that Boost is also your primary method of defense, however, so using it to boost your score can get you killed if you're not careful.

3. Be fast.
Destroy as much as you can using the best suited weapon for maximum speed. Using the right weapons means you deal double damage against the correct targets (more on this later), which means you shave precious seconds off of your completion time.

4. DON'T use your bombs if you can avoid it
At the end of each of the 5 phases of each planet, you get a bonus based on the amount of time you took to finish the phase after a pre-determined trigger point. The more time you have left over, the more points you score. I finally figured out how bombs figure into the equation.

The bonus points at each stage give you 2000 points per second, base, which is then multiplied by your score bonus. For each bomb that you are carrying, add 100 points to the 2000 base.

So if you finish a level with 100 seconds to spare, 5 bombs, and a x5 score multiplier, you'll earn:

100 seconds x (2000 + 500 for bombs) x 5 multiplier = 1,250,000 points

Especially in Arcade mode, these extra points add up fast. I had something like 80 bombs accumulated when I completed my game with 294 million-odd points. (EDIT: My current high score is now 449 million)

Granted, there are times when you're just swarmed with no boost gauge available, and that's a good time to use a bomb to get out of trouble... but if you want points, try very, very hard to not be in that situation.

5. Accumulate multipliers
I'm even now not 100% certain exactly how the game tracks your score multiplier, but you seem to get more credit when you destroy targets using the correct weapon than when you use an incorrect weapon, bombs, or Boost to destroy them. Both asteroids and enemies count towards accumulating your score multiplier. (EDIT: As far as I can tell, your multiplier goes up a bit faster if you don't use Boost to blow stuff up, and also if you pick up lots of white Bonus Tokens).

6. Kill things in groups
Any time you destroy a cluster of asteroids and/or a bunch of enemies, you get more points. In addition, if the total point value of the cluster of targets destroyed is greater than 1000 points, you'll gain bonus points equal to double the point value, which will show up on your screen as neon green text a few moments after you see the red text for the base point score. (EDIT: Note that you must destroy at least 3 objects/enemies simultaneously, or close to simultaneously to get these bonus points. Killing 2 enemies together with nothing else will not produce the green bonus points, even if a single enemy is worth over 1000 points)

---

Weaponry

There are 3 weapons in Stardust HD, and each of them is most effective against certain types of targets.

Rock Crusher
Spread fire weapon. Gains additional spread and shot speed as it gets upgraded. Damage per shot does not increase, ever. Does extra damage against rock asteroids (dark brown), bomb cases (the ones on those ships that fly in once in a while) and green worms (shoot the heads to kill).

Gold Melter
Lashing energy tail. Gains additional damage and range as it gets upgraded. Has mild heat-seeking capability as well against targets the beam gets close to. Does extra damage against gold asteroids (orange), black worms (red), cannons (red), buzzsaw saucers (red), space crabs (shoot the red crystal), red mines, and the rocket launcher pads on the Segomo level that you use to attack the Star Penguin.

Ice Splitter
Tightly focused shot beam. Gains slightly more spread and shot speed as it gets upgraded, similar to the Rock Crusher. Damage per shot does not increase. Does extra damage against ice asteroids (blue), black space mines (dark blue), flying saucers (boss, shoot the glowing engines), space fighters (little blue ships that dive toward you and sometimes shoot at you), ice cubes.

---

General tips on planets:

Lave (planet 1)
Rock Crusher is the way to go here. Upgrade it all the way if you possibly can. Don't bother with the other weapons; splitting your power between weapons on this world just slows you down and reduces your score while not making things any safer for you. Even though the Rock Crusher is not the ideal weapon to use against the boss, it makes no sense to try to upgrade the Ice Splitter just for a single enemy.

To kill the saucer, try to concentrate your fire on a single engine at a time. When each engine is destroyed, the saucer will close all its shields up, spin around and fling out a stream of energy bullets. Fly away from it until the shots are far enough apart so you can fly between them safely, and then boost your way back into range to resume the attack.

Coventina (planet 2)
Almost everything on this level is weak to the Gold Melter except for the little ice cubes which are putatively weak to the Ice Splitter but are actually easier to kill with the Rock Crusher or Gold Melter in most circumstances.

To kill the space crab, stand at maximum possible range and use the Gold Melter to hit the eye while dodging the energy bullets. When the crab "flips", it'll stop shooting. Don't fly around it. Fly right through it using Boost and punish the eye at very close range to make it close up its arms. While this sounds suicidal, it's actually your safest ploy; while you're inside the "ring", the only thing you can be attacked by is a beam of green energy that the crab will shoot occasional. Gently nudge the control stick to get your ship out of the line of fire without colliding with the crab, and continue to punish it with the Gold Melter. When it "flips" again, Boost through it and resume shooting at long range; repeat until it does (2-3 flips should do it with a fully upgraded Gold Melter).

Nemain (planet 3)
A lot of people have problems with this planet because the weapon of choice is the hard-to-use Ice Splitter, which has the least firing angle and thus harder to protect yourself with. Persevere, use your boosts defensively, and upgrade your Ice Splitter to maximum 100% for the ending, because fighting two saucers at the same time is very painful. The trick here is not to get caught in the crossfire. The saucers can't shoot through each other, so try to keep one saucer behind the other one relative to your ship so you only have to dodge one wave of bullets at a time, then dash in and punish them when they stop firing.

Taranis (planet 4)
Heavy use of Gold Melter on this planet, with an occasional sprinkling of rock and ice asteroids. Stay on the move, always, and don't get to close to the very aggressive black space mines; instead pick them off at long range using the Ice Splitter if you can. Watch out for waves of cannons. Circle them carefully, and use your Boost and/or Bombs to get yourself out of sticky situations. You can also Boost straight through cannons to destroy them. The 2 space crabs at the end of this level can be dealt with pretty much the same way as you dealt with a single one in level 2 Coventina. Focus on killing one at a time and you'll be fine.

Segomo (planet 5)
This planet is actually a bit easier than Planet 3 Nemain, even though the Ice Splitter is still the preferred weapon. Target types switch a lot on this board, but the vast majority of the asteroids are ice, which makes using the Ice Splitter an absolute must. The space penguin boss is laughably easy compared to the double saucer attack in Nemain. Use the Rock Crusher to clear the rock asteroids that constantly drop into the playfield, then switch to the Gold Melter to activate the 5 red panels on the rocket launching pad to attack the Star Penguin. You'll also get the occasional token red buzzsaw saucers, but it's not even worth switching weapons to the Gold Melter to kill them since the asteroids are actually a greater threat. 3 activations of the launcher pads should destroy the Star Penguin with ease.

---

Note about Arcade mode:

After you complete the game once on normal difficulty, the game restarts on Hard mode, where enemies move a bit faster and the asteroids move move faster and have more wild spinning paths.

After you complete the game on Hard, the game restarts on Elite mode, where enemies are now significantly faster and agressive, and the asteroids start moving very fast indeed.

After you complete the game on Elite mode, the game restarts on Hardcore mode. Enemies and asteroids are now ludicrously fast and aggressive.

I have no idea what happens if you beat Hardcore mode because I've never survived past the first couple of levels of Lave in this mode.

Good luck to everyone, and enjoy the game!

Zotar · 01-23-2008, 08:06 PM

Excellent post Icemage! Thanks very much.

prowlah · 01-24-2008, 01:36 AM

Excellent post, icemage.

I'm curious if you know anything about how weapon (or ship/shield) powerups spawn? Some games I'm able to powerup my weapons very quickly (it just seems like powerups are everywhere), and other games it seems like it just isn't giving me very many. I can't find a pattern to this.

My high score on arcade is 310,000,000, and I've been to the 3rd planet on hardcore. You're absolutely right, it's ridiculous how fast things are moving, the ice gets me everytime. It also seems to me like the hit box gets smaller and smaller as you progress through the levels, making the same things harder and harder to hit.

bilbravo · 01-24-2008, 02:21 AM

A friend of mine turned me on to this game, so I downloaded the demo. Will probably buy the full version, it's pretty addicting.

Icemage · 01-24-2008, 05:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by prowlah

Excellent post, icemage.

I'm curious if you know anything about how weapon (or ship/shield) powerups spawn? Some games I'm able to powerup my weapons very quickly (it just seems like powerups are everywhere), and other games it seems like it just isn't giving me very many. I can't find a pattern to this.

There's not so much a pattern, per se.

There are two general rules to weapon powerup spawning.

(1) If the total number of weapon powerups you have on your ship is less than 3, if there are fewer than 3 powerups in the playfield, new ones that you break out of green powerup rocks will always be a weapon powerup. Any powerup tokens spawned after 3 will spawn as white point bonus tokens.

This rule only applies when you start planet Lave with 0% on all 3 weapons, either in Planet mode, or Arcade mode when you first start or finish the game and hit a new difficulty.

Why is it important? Well, if you break 3 powerup rocks right at the start, you'll notice they're always weapons. If you pick up two of them, and break two more you will notice they will always be weapon powerups.

This lets you start the first level with five guaranteed weapon powerups, which is especially handy for surviving those higher difficulties. Each time the game resets you can do this, which is a nice insurance policy.

(2) Blowing up powerups right after they spawn increases your chance for a non-white powerup token, and tends to improve their quality. It's very rare to see Shield tokens after an asteroid has been in play for more than a few seconds, and I've almost never seen Extra Ship tokens except after immediately blowing a powerup token right after the asteroid it was in hit the playing field. You also get a slightly larger number of weapon powerups this way, as it improves their frequency as well. It's not a huge difference, but play the game enough and you'll notice it.

Quote:

My high score on arcade is 310,000,000, and I've been to the 3rd planet on hardcore. You're absolutely right, it's ridiculous how fast things are moving, the ice gets me everytime. It also seems to me like the hit box gets smaller and smaller as you progress through the levels, making the same things harder and harder to hit.

It's not just the hitboxes. Your weapons get weaker overall each time the difficulty rises. The Rock Crusher shots get smaller and smaller, the Gold Melter gets less speed and range, and the Ice Splitter gets even less spread than usual. In addition, enemies and asteroids of all types move faster; if you hadn't noticed, the rocks in Hardcore mode are just absurdly fast - it's very easy to fall behind a bonus cluster and lose it because it spins out of range in Hardcore mode.

Enemies are even more deadly. Black space mines are the kiss of death if you're not already in motion when they start falling into the playfield. Black worms, too. And those cute little shots that you can dodge between from the UFO boss on planet Lave and Nemain? They're not so cute on Hardcore; it's a solid freaking wall of shots. I don't think it's possible to beat the two UFO bosses without dying or using bombs on Hardcore mode at all.

AlaskaDon · 01-31-2008, 09:39 PM

After reading all the good things people here have posted about Super Stardust HD, I purchased it last night. What a mistake!! I couldn't put the controller down until 2am this morning. Now I'm hopelessly addicted

Seriously though, I had a problem crop up with it while playing and was wondering if anybody else has had this happen. Since I moved my PS3 back to my living room a while ago, it's now connected directly to my plasma with an HDMI cable. No AVR and I'm just using the TV's built-in speakers. While I was playing Super Stardust, I lost all control of the volume using the TV's controls. The volume went really loud and I could only make very minor adjustments to it using the games options menu.

I quit the game and started up a game of PixelJunk Monsters, but still had no control on the volume, making it look like the problem was maybe HDMI related as it was now present in more than one application. Finally I had to shut everything down and restart the PS3 and the TV. As this only happened once, I can't blame Super Stardust for sure, but it is the only time I've ever had this happen. Will play around with it some more later today when I get home from work. Anybody have any idea what's going on?

Icemage · 02-01-2008, 12:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlaskaDon

After reading all the good things people here have posted about Super Stardust HD, I purchased it last night. What a mistake!! I couldn't put the controller down until 2am this morning. Now I'm hopelessly addicted

Seriously though, I had a problem crop up with it while playing and was wondering if anybody else has had this happen. Since I moved my PS3 back to my living room a while ago, it's now connected directly to my plasma with an HDMI cable. No AVR and I'm just using the TV's built-in speakers. While I was playing Super Stardust, I lost all control of the volume using the TV's controls. The volume went really loud and I could only make very minor adjustments to it using the games options menu.

I quit the game and started up a game of PixelJunk Monsters, but still had no control on the volume, making it look like the problem was maybe HDMI related as it was now present in more than one application. Finally I had to shut everything down and restart the PS3 and the TV. As this only happened once, I can't blame Super Stardust for sure, but it is the only time I've ever had this happen. Will play around with it some more later today when I get home from work. Anybody have any idea what's going on?

Sounds like a bad HDMI handshaking issue, rather than being specific to Super Stardust HD. Have you tried a different HDMI cable?

owa · 02-01-2008, 12:06 AM

Thanks for the tips, I need them. I love this game but have trouble breaking 5 mil while a friend of mine has around 15 mil. Sigh...lately I haven't even been able to get close to my own high score. The game is definitely addicting though.

AlaskaDon · 02-01-2008, 12:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icemage

Sounds like a bad HDMI handshaking issue, rather than being specific to Super Stardust HD. Have you tried a different HDMI cable?

I haven't tried a different cable yet. I guess that will be my first step if it happens again. The cable that I'm using is the one Monster cable that I own. I bought it back before I knew that they were way overpriced. Pretty ironic if that cable is bad.

prowlah · 02-05-2008, 06:11 AM

Icemage I was able to pass hardcore, though it certainly wasn't pretty and involved dying quite a few times along with some very generous use of bombs towards the end. I'm kind of upset than I set a new high score (428 million!) and it doesn't seem to have updated the high scores list properly, it still shows my old high score at 342 million. Anyway, here's what comes after hardcore:

I got so far as the last phase on the first planet on this one by just throwing bombs away in an effort to survive until I ran out of ships. It's completely insane.

Icemage · 02-05-2008, 06:43 AM

^ yikes.

I've gotten as far as the first phase of Segomo on Hardcore but I don't like using Bombs, and it's hard to let go of the habit.

Similar Threads
thread	Forum	Thread Starter	Replies	Last Post
Super Stardust HD	PS3	DealsR4theDevil	35	02-21-2014 08:52 PM
Super Stardust HD – 4-Year Anniversary Competition	PS3	Shin-Ra	440	07-01-2011 05:05 PM
Super Stardust Portable	PlayStation Vita and PlayStation Portable	Shin-Ra	26	12-19-2008 05:49 PM
Super Stardust HD	PS3	cajun1975	24	08-06-2008 12:05 AM
Hints and Tips for PS3 Users	PS3	dominica	0	12-15-2007 10:44 PM

01-23-2008, 04:53 PM	#1
Zotar Active Member Member since:Oct 2006	Super Stardust HD - Hints & Tips I thought I'd start a thread for those wishing to improve their Stardust HD highscores. (mods I've got the name wrong in the title - how lame is that!) My personal topscore is just over 14,000,000 which means that there are far better players on this forum than me. However I've learned a few things since the days when I'd be lucky to get 1,000,000 My biggest tip is to use the Fire weapon on Lave and build it up even though it isn't supposed to be the weapon of choice on that level. You should be able to get through with it almost unscathed with a bit of practice and then have a 100% fire weapon by the time you get to the next level which is what the fire weapon was built for. Once the fire weapon is at 100% I'd recommend building up the ice weapon for level 3. The above has helped me alot but I'd love to hear what others think and have learned....

01-23-2008, 04:59 PM	#2
bruceleeroy Member Member since:Dec 2007	starburst lol. my tip would be to not use your bombs b/c the more you have the more your score is multiplied by at the end of each stage.

01-23-2008, 05:07 PM	#3
bruceleeroy Member Member since:Dec 2007	also make sure to boost through the points tokens as that multiplies its value and when given the chance with an extra ship token let it degrade to a shield if u dont have one yet.

01-23-2008, 06:13 PM	#4
Icemage Blu-ray Ninja Top contributor Member since:Jul 2007	My first post on this forum was a bunch of hints on how to do well in Super Stardust HD. I don't play nearly as much as I used to, but I'm still in the top 50 worldwide on Arcade mode, and top 20 in all five planet modes. In the interests of this thead, I will copy my original post here, and amend based on what I know now. ---- General tips for scoring: #1: Stay alive. Your score multiplier increases as you destroy more and more things, but drops to x1 if you die. So try not to die if you want points. #2: Boost. Boosting through the point bonus powerups (white color) gives you a multiplier on the point bonus. The basic point value of the white point bonus powerup is 2500 points. Multiply by your current score multiplier (so if your current multiplier is x4, the point value is 10000). When you Boost through one or more point powerups at a time (i.e. one application of boost), you get an additional multiplier. The first point bonus you fly through while Boosted gives x2 points, the second gives x3, third one gives x4, etc. For instance, if your score multiplier is x4 and you boost through a total of 5 point bonuses in a single pass, you'd earn: First bonus : 2500 x 4 x 2 = 20000 + Second bonus : 2500 x 4 x 3 = 30000 + Third bonus : 2500 x 4 x 4 = 40000 + Fourth bonus : 2500 x 4 x 5 = 50000 + Fifth bonus : 2500 x 4 x 6 = 60000 Total bonus points: 200000 points! Bear in mind that Boost is also your primary method of defense, however, so using it to boost your score can get you killed if you're not careful. 3. Be fast. Destroy as much as you can using the best suited weapon for maximum speed. Using the right weapons means you deal double damage against the correct targets (more on this later), which means you shave precious seconds off of your completion time. 4. DON'T use your bombs if you can avoid it At the end of each of the 5 phases of each planet, you get a bonus based on the amount of time you took to finish the phase after a pre-determined trigger point. The more time you have left over, the more points you score. I finally figured out how bombs figure into the equation. The bonus points at each stage give you 2000 points per second, base, which is then multiplied by your score bonus. For each bomb that you are carrying, add 100 points to the 2000 base. So if you finish a level with 100 seconds to spare, 5 bombs, and a x5 score multiplier, you'll earn: 100 seconds x (2000 + 500 for bombs) x 5 multiplier = 1,250,000 points Especially in Arcade mode, these extra points add up fast. I had something like 80 bombs accumulated when I completed my game with 294 million-odd points. (EDIT: My current high score is now 449 million) Granted, there are times when you're just swarmed with no boost gauge available, and that's a good time to use a bomb to get out of trouble... but if you want points, try very, very hard to not be in that situation. 5. Accumulate multipliers I'm even now not 100% certain exactly how the game tracks your score multiplier, but you seem to get more credit when you destroy targets using the correct weapon than when you use an incorrect weapon, bombs, or Boost to destroy them. Both asteroids and enemies count towards accumulating your score multiplier. (EDIT: As far as I can tell, your multiplier goes up a bit faster if you don't use Boost to blow stuff up, and also if you pick up lots of white Bonus Tokens). 6. Kill things in groups Any time you destroy a cluster of asteroids and/or a bunch of enemies, you get more points. In addition, if the total point value of the cluster of targets destroyed is greater than 1000 points, you'll gain bonus points equal to double the point value, which will show up on your screen as neon green text a few moments after you see the red text for the base point score. (EDIT: Note that you must destroy at least 3 objects/enemies simultaneously, or close to simultaneously to get these bonus points. Killing 2 enemies together with nothing else will not produce the green bonus points, even if a single enemy is worth over 1000 points) --- Weaponry There are 3 weapons in Stardust HD, and each of them is most effective against certain types of targets. Rock Crusher Spread fire weapon. Gains additional spread and shot speed as it gets upgraded. Damage per shot does not increase, ever. Does extra damage against rock asteroids (dark brown), bomb cases (the ones on those ships that fly in once in a while) and green worms (shoot the heads to kill). Gold Melter Lashing energy tail. Gains additional damage and range as it gets upgraded. Has mild heat-seeking capability as well against targets the beam gets close to. Does extra damage against gold asteroids (orange), black worms (red), cannons (red), buzzsaw saucers (red), space crabs (shoot the red crystal), red mines, and the rocket launcher pads on the Segomo level that you use to attack the Star Penguin. Ice Splitter Tightly focused shot beam. Gains slightly more spread and shot speed as it gets upgraded, similar to the Rock Crusher. Damage per shot does not increase. Does extra damage against ice asteroids (blue), black space mines (dark blue), flying saucers (boss, shoot the glowing engines), space fighters (little blue ships that dive toward you and sometimes shoot at you), ice cubes. --- General tips on planets: Lave (planet 1) Rock Crusher is the way to go here. Upgrade it all the way if you possibly can. Don't bother with the other weapons; splitting your power between weapons on this world just slows you down and reduces your score while not making things any safer for you. Even though the Rock Crusher is not the ideal weapon to use against the boss, it makes no sense to try to upgrade the Ice Splitter just for a single enemy. To kill the saucer, try to concentrate your fire on a single engine at a time. When each engine is destroyed, the saucer will close all its shields up, spin around and fling out a stream of energy bullets. Fly away from it until the shots are far enough apart so you can fly between them safely, and then boost your way back into range to resume the attack. Coventina (planet 2) Almost everything on this level is weak to the Gold Melter except for the little ice cubes which are putatively weak to the Ice Splitter but are actually easier to kill with the Rock Crusher or Gold Melter in most circumstances. To kill the space crab, stand at maximum possible range and use the Gold Melter to hit the eye while dodging the energy bullets. When the crab "flips", it'll stop shooting. Don't fly around it. Fly right through it using Boost and punish the eye at very close range to make it close up its arms. While this sounds suicidal, it's actually your safest ploy; while you're inside the "ring", the only thing you can be attacked by is a beam of green energy that the crab will shoot occasional. Gently nudge the control stick to get your ship out of the line of fire without colliding with the crab, and continue to punish it with the Gold Melter. When it "flips" again, Boost through it and resume shooting at long range; repeat until it does (2-3 flips should do it with a fully upgraded Gold Melter). Nemain (planet 3) A lot of people have problems with this planet because the weapon of choice is the hard-to-use Ice Splitter, which has the least firing angle and thus harder to protect yourself with. Persevere, use your boosts defensively, and upgrade your Ice Splitter to maximum 100% for the ending, because fighting two saucers at the same time is very painful. The trick here is not to get caught in the crossfire. The saucers can't shoot through each other, so try to keep one saucer behind the other one relative to your ship so you only have to dodge one wave of bullets at a time, then dash in and punish them when they stop firing. Taranis (planet 4) Heavy use of Gold Melter on this planet, with an occasional sprinkling of rock and ice asteroids. Stay on the move, always, and don't get to close to the very aggressive black space mines; instead pick them off at long range using the Ice Splitter if you can. Watch out for waves of cannons. Circle them carefully, and use your Boost and/or Bombs to get yourself out of sticky situations. You can also Boost straight through cannons to destroy them. The 2 space crabs at the end of this level can be dealt with pretty much the same way as you dealt with a single one in level 2 Coventina. Focus on killing one at a time and you'll be fine. Segomo (planet 5) This planet is actually a bit easier than Planet 3 Nemain, even though the Ice Splitter is still the preferred weapon. Target types switch a lot on this board, but the vast majority of the asteroids are ice, which makes using the Ice Splitter an absolute must. The space penguin boss is laughably easy compared to the double saucer attack in Nemain. Use the Rock Crusher to clear the rock asteroids that constantly drop into the playfield, then switch to the Gold Melter to activate the 5 red panels on the rocket launching pad to attack the Star Penguin. You'll also get the occasional token red buzzsaw saucers, but it's not even worth switching weapons to the Gold Melter to kill them since the asteroids are actually a greater threat. 3 activations of the launcher pads should destroy the Star Penguin with ease. --- Note about Arcade mode: After you complete the game once on normal difficulty, the game restarts on Hard mode, where enemies move a bit faster and the asteroids move move faster and have more wild spinning paths. After you complete the game on Hard, the game restarts on Elite mode, where enemies are now significantly faster and agressive, and the asteroids start moving very fast indeed. After you complete the game on Elite mode, the game restarts on Hardcore mode. Enemies and asteroids are now ludicrously fast and aggressive. I have no idea what happens if you beat Hardcore mode because I've never survived past the first couple of levels of Lave in this mode. Good luck to everyone, and enjoy the game!

01-23-2008, 08:06 PM	#5
Zotar Active Member Member since:Oct 2006	Excellent post Icemage! Thanks very much.

01-24-2008, 01:36 AM	#6
prowlah New Member Member since:Jan 2008	Excellent post, icemage. I'm curious if you know anything about how weapon (or ship/shield) powerups spawn? Some games I'm able to powerup my weapons very quickly (it just seems like powerups are everywhere), and other games it seems like it just isn't giving me very many. I can't find a pattern to this. My high score on arcade is 310,000,000, and I've been to the 3rd planet on hardcore. You're absolutely right, it's ridiculous how fast things are moving, the ice gets me everytime. It also seems to me like the hit box gets smaller and smaller as you progress through the levels, making the same things harder and harder to hit.

01-24-2008, 02:21 AM	#7
bilbravo Expert Member Member since:Oct 2007 Location:MD, USA Blu-ray collection:28	A friend of mine turned me on to this game, so I downloaded the demo. Will probably buy the full version, it's pretty addicting.

01-31-2008, 09:39 PM	#9
AlaskaDon Special Member Member since:Jan 2007 Location:Tennessee Blu-ray collection:-	After reading all the good things people here have posted about Super Stardust HD, I purchased it last night. What a mistake!! I couldn't put the controller down until 2am this morning. Now I'm hopelessly addicted Seriously though, I had a problem crop up with it while playing and was wondering if anybody else has had this happen. Since I moved my PS3 back to my living room a while ago, it's now connected directly to my plasma with an HDMI cable. No AVR and I'm just using the TV's built-in speakers. While I was playing Super Stardust, I lost all control of the volume using the TV's controls. The volume went really loud and I could only make very minor adjustments to it using the games options menu. I quit the game and started up a game of PixelJunk Monsters, but still had no control on the volume, making it look like the problem was maybe HDMI related as it was now present in more than one application. Finally I had to shut everything down and restart the PS3 and the TV. As this only happened once, I can't blame Super Stardust for sure, but it is the only time I've ever had this happen. Will play around with it some more later today when I get home from work. Anybody have any idea what's going on?

02-01-2008, 12:06 AM	#11
owa Blu-ray Knight Member since:Apr 2007 Blu-ray reviews: 96	Thanks for the tips, I need them. I love this game but have trouble breaking 5 mil while a friend of mine has around 15 mil. Sigh...lately I haven't even been able to get close to my own high score. The game is definitely addicting though.

02-05-2008, 06:11 AM	#13
prowlah New Member Member since:Jan 2008	Icemage I was able to pass hardcore, though it certainly wasn't pretty and involved dying quite a few times along with some very generous use of bombs towards the end. I'm kind of upset than I set a new high score (428 million!) and it doesn't seem to have updated the high scores list properly, it still shows my old high score at 342 million. Anyway, here's what comes after hardcore: I got so far as the last phase on the first planet on this one by just throwing bombs away in an effort to survive until I ran out of ships. It's completely insane.

02-05-2008, 06:43 AM	#14
Icemage Blu-ray Ninja Top contributor Member since:Jul 2007	^ yikes. I've gotten as far as the first phase of Segomo on Hardcore but I don't like using Bombs, and it's hard to let go of the habit.

Best PS3 Game Deals