I said it was one for another day, and I meant it.
In celebration of Labor Day, I wanted a game that felt like mindless work, so I went with one of the most celebrated shoot 'em ups (or "shmups") of all time, Super Star Soldier for the Turbo Grafx 16 (PC Engine outside of North America). As the most popular entry in the most popular shmup series in gaming history, Super Star Soldier pretty much sets up the formula by which all other great shmups apply: you fly around, pretty much never stop shooting, destroy waves of enemies, collect power-ups that turn your ordinary gun into varying degrees of screen-filling destruction festivals, memorize increasingly complex enemy movement patterns, and then face a big bad boss with obvious weak points. It sounds simple until you fall over in an epileptic fit. Despite the fact that the game routinely kicks my ass every time I play it, I still come back because its just so much fun. My only qualm, as always, is the music, which just seems far too upbeat and standard. It sounds like Street Fighter II, which worked in the fighter because it was so goofy, but just comes across as out of place in a galaxy-hopping shooter.
Enter MSTRKRFT, the club-banging dancefloor duo of James Keeler, formerly of Death From Above 1979, and Alex Puodziukas, formerly of girlsareshort (whom you may remember). Much like some other Alternate Soundtrack alumns, the boys of MSTRKRFT often appear in press photographs wearing gold hockey masks, like some sort of glamorous serial killers. MSTRKRFT's heart-pumping, hip-shaking beats have already earned them a spot on Hooksexup's list of the 50 sexiest music videos of all time, but when you take that raw sexual aggression and apply it to destroying alien starships, oh my, you have a good time in store.
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