Once upon a time, Namco's Starblade (and its forerunner, Galaxian3: Project Dragoon) were the biggest attractions in arcades.
Showcasing what was, for the time, incredibly advanced 3D visuals, these on-rails shooters captived players with their dazzling graphics – but the march of technology rendered them obsolete relatively quickly, with texture-mapping arriving on the scene and giving games a new level of realism.
Nonetheless, there's something timeless about those untextured, unshaded polygon graphics – and Paul "OtaKing" Johnson has created a remarkable tribute to this bygone era with his latest breathtaking animation project.
VoidBurst Deluxe is an entirely fictional 1993 arcade title bt 'Vega', which is clearly inspired by the likes of Starblade – but the catch is that it doesn't exist outside of Johnson's incredible animated sequence. It's got everything; a cool launch sequence, an intimidating enemy fleet, mecha and the obligatory 'destroy the core' sequence which finally sees off your opponent's mothership. Even though he lacks the huge dedicated arcade cabinets of the early '90s, Johnson does a wonderful job of replicating the sense of scale Namco's original games produced.
If Johnson's name seems familiar, that might be because you've previously seen his amazing R-Type and Star Wars short movies. You can follow his work on YouTube and Twitter.