Star Goose

Star Goose is a single-player vertically scrolling shooter where the player controls the character of Scouser-Gitt, a pilot who flies the eponymous Star Goose vessel. In the game's background story, Scouser-Gitt is an experienced, but disgraced fighter pilot who is recruited by a Tribal Elder to recover 48 crystals from the planet Nom by raiding the military's ammunition dumps. There are six crystals located on each of the game's eight levels, and the player must retrieve all of them to advance. To do so, they must either bypass or destroy the planet's defense systems, which include missile launchers, gun turrets, mines, and vessels piloted by enemy warriors.

Star Goose begins with a mother ship dropping off Scouser-Gitt directly above the surface of the area in a Star Goose ship. Each level wraps-around, and thus the player returns to the start of the level once they have traveled through it and will do so again unless all six crystals have been collected. The player begins with four lives and receives an extra life with every 100,000 points. When the player runs out of lives, they have the option to restart the game on the level they were playing previously.

Star Goose was developed by artist Steve Cain and programmer Graham Everett, who previously developed the platform game Black Lamp from Firebird Software. Cain also worked on the graphics for 1985's Frankie Goes to Hollywood from Denton Designs. Everett intended Star Goose to be a first-person perspective racing game through the same tunnels that were used in the finished product. Everett claimed that he was "inspired [...]

by the kind of car race, often seen in movies, where the cars race around a basin-like track with curved sides." Unsatisfied with the result, the concept was modified into a shoot 'em up.

Star Goose received mixed reviews for its Amiga release. Reviewing the game for Amiga Computing, Chris Holmes argued that the game was difficult and that once the player has learned to overcome this, "the game becomes a touch monotonous as the action does not vary." He rated the game at 66%, docking points for the sound in particular. Steve Jarratt of Commodore User complained that in the Amiga version "the gameplay fails to fulfil [sic] the promise of the graphics" and gave it a 4 out of 10.

The following month, the French gaming magazine Génération 4 rated it at 45%, criticizing its similarity to other games in the genre and calling it a "pale copy of Zaxxon", although praising its graphics. Conversely, Richard Silsby of Australian Commodore and Amiga Review, in the July 1989 issue, recommended the Amiga version due to its graphics and music. 75 out of 5 and called it "original", also highlighting its graphics.