UPDATE: Due to a technical error, the Impact Mode DLC was not included in this Super Stardust HD DLC sale bundle. Any users who purchased the sale bundle will be receiving a message within the next week or so with a voucher code for the Impact Mode DLC. We will also correct the error for next Tuesday’s Store publish. We apologize for the inconvenience!

It’s amazing that we’ve come this far since Super Stardust HD first came on the scene. Five years ago, the top-selling and award-winning PS3 game blasted you on a breathtaking tour through the galaxy full of epic sights and scenes. Everyone here at Housemarque has been honored to be a part of the journey in creating five years of action-packed entertainment on PSN. From Super Stardust HD to Super Stardust Portable to Super Stardust Delta on PS Vita, we’ve always pushed ourselves to deliver the best possible arcade experience.

To celebrate the game’s fifth anniversary, and to thank you all for your support, we’ve launched a spectacular offer – Super Stardust HD + all three DLC add-ons, including last year’s stellar new “Impact” game mode, in one cosmic bundle for only $7.99. This deal won’t last forever though – the offer will only be valid from August 8th to September 5th.

With each new DLC pack, we’ve aimed to dazzle by adding even more fun and innovative features to the core Super Stardust HD experience. Here are four features that we are most proud of implementing since the game’s launch in 2007:

1. Super Stardust HD is one of the first and only games to provide a 60 fps 1080p 3D experience, creating 120 unique frames per second in order to do so
2. The DLC expansions add numerous game modes and co-op play for up to four players.
3. Better yet, you can experience the co-op modes in true 3D SimulView where each player sees their own view of the action, provided you own the 3D Display
4. Last but not least, Super Stardust HD was the first ever game to feature Trophies!

We here at Housemarque hope that you take advantage of the special anniversary offer and join the thousands of people who have enjoyed our games over these last five years.

Super Stardust Delta should feel instantly familiar to anyone who’s experienced Super Stardust HD on PS3. But it’s important to note – Delta is not a port of that 2007 classic. It’s an entirely new game.

We sampled the traditional Arcade Mode, and got a feel for two new weapons, the Laser Melter and Ice Laser (names not final). Unlike SSHD’s singular, screen-clearing smart bomb, each primary weapon comes with its own secondary attack that you activate with a touch of the screen. The Laser Melter drops a black hole that sucks everything in – including your ship, if you’re not careful. The Ice Laser shoots out a huge swarm of missiles that home in on targets.

The only thing that’s really needed to make a good portable Super Stardust are two analogs (check) and a pretty display (check), Delta features an intuitively implemented use of the six axis gyros; you tilt the NGP to see what blast-able fodder is lurking just over the planet’s horizon. There’s also a devastating Shockwave attack that you activate with a quick, light shake of the device.

However, if all you wanna do is shoot like you’re used to, developer Housemarque is working on a “purist mode,” which will more closely mirror the controls in the PS3 version.

Super Stardust Delta looks awesome at this pre-alpha stage – possibly even better than Super Stardust HD. That 5” OLED screen certainly doesn’t hurt. The hardware handles the debris-filled landscape with ease, even when you start shattering asteroids into ever-smaller particles. Delta also features a vibrant color palette; this is especially obvious with the Laser Melter weapon, which pulses with an eye-searing glow.

The team promises online play (details TBD) as well as some new special play modes that make heavier use of the touch controls. But ultimately, that’s icing on the cake. This is the Super Stardust you know and love, and finally playable as it’s meant to be played on the go.

If there is one word to describe the game, that would be ‘intense’. Your goal in the game is to simply destroy the waves after waves of enemies we throw at you and try to not get killed. If you’re not constantly on the edge of your seat when trying to blow up everything in sight with dozens of asteroids coming at you all the while screen is filled with explosions and fireworks, you should probably apply for a job as an astronaut or something. :)

When we first got the idea from Sony about doing a PSP version of the game, we were thrilled. We think that Super Stardust is a perfect fit for a portable device, do a 10 minute session of Endless while riding on the bus into school. Pick up and play, it’s like it was designed to be portable from the start. Then it hit us, how are we going to get this thing running on the PSP. Even though the PSP is the most powerful for a hand-held console, it’s still a totally different animal from the processing power of the PS3. We’ve got more than ten thousand objects and hundreds of thousands particles flying around in the PS3 version and we probably use more than 10GHz of processing power from the machine.

What we learned from developing the PS3 version is that sphere level is actually quite a large playing space and requires thousands and thousands of objects rotating around before the game level doesn’t feel empty. It took a lot of trial and error to get that working on the PS3 version. The PSP version is played on a wrapping 2D field that is optimized for the PSP screen. There was a lot of tuning to make it not feel either crowded or too large so we could have the gameplay and levels stay as fast as before. After we found the optimum size, we felt that we had lost nothing of the old intensity in the conversion. In addition we actually do a few tricks to make it look like you’re still playing around a planet too. After a lot of work and because of the choices we made, we managed to get more than a thousand objects on the field with 60 frames per second. That’s a lot of things to shoot. We’ve also got the Super Stardust trademark particle effects working on the PSP, so the explosions look as pretty as ever.

Another change we faced was the controls. The PS3 version uses two analog sticks for control and shooting. How are we going to get that working on the PSP where there’s only one analog stick available? What we decided to go with is to map the shooting to the face buttons and let the game interpolate the shooting direction when needed. This took a lot of effort to get right, but the end result feels perfect. We were glad to find out that even for those that are completely new to PSP system, it didn’t take long to figure out the controls. We also made a new shooting mode to make full use of the buttons. If you tap a shooting direction, the shots will spray around. This also makes for another interesting gameplay choice. More weapon power on one focused point or less in a wide spray? The controls are also configurable, so if someone out there doesn’t like the choices we made, they can remap the controls for their own liking.

Some other new things we have for PSP version:

• A completely new mode: Impact. In impact mode you cannot shoot, just bomb and boost. The boost is a bit different in this mode in that when you boost through something, you receive more boost energy and your multiplier goes up at the same time (max 100x), so the key to high scores is to chain your boosts into as long as you can and to collect points with huge multipliers.
• A new final boss: One complaint on the PS3 version was that the final boss was way too easy. I should warn you that your first meeting with Professor Schaumunds’ new machine of destruction could leave a bit of something in you pants. ;)
• Even more intense gameplay. We still have a casual mode that is suitable for everyone, but one thing we found out about the PS3 version is that for the best players it takes hours and hours to complete the arcade game. For this version we have upped the difficulty curve too after a few of the first difficulty levels. This is a portable game, you shouldn’t have to play a day to get challenged in the game even if you are that good.

Our main goals were to keep the same high intensity gameplay from the PS3 version and do it at a consistent 60 frames per second. We feel that both goals were successfully completed, but I’ll leave the final judgement to you.

See you on the high score lists! (Yes we have online high scores too!)