PSP Gets Planetarium Software

Here’s another of these crazy Japanese “games”, which will probably never see the light of the day in the US or Europe, but are nonetheless fun to look at. Today, our visitor is called Homestar: 21st Century Navigator. Supervised by famed planetarium creator Takayuki Ohira (who created the legendary Mega Star series of planetariums), Homestar lets you view five million stars on the go. You can view these with different perspectives and zoom in to a single planet, and the software also features filters to focus on stars of a certain brightness order. Natural phenomenon like eclipses, nebulae, and aurora effects are also included. And if you want to know a bit more about the things you’re looking at, Homestar provides you with an extensive library of background information, including descriptions of every stellar body, history of constellations, and more.

But it’s not all just education: In the “Fantasy Theater mode”, you get to view the most famous planets and stars in a guided tour encompassing 15 chapters, while voiced narration tells you about the mysteries of space. Cheesy New Age music included. Actually, we don’t know about the last bit, but it’d be cool.

Homestar: 21st Century Navigator will be released in Japan on October 19, for a budget price of 3,280 yen (US$ 28). The publisher is Sega, and perhaps there’s a slim chance that Western audiences might get to see the game eventually, too. We’ll keep you posted.

Via IGN

Here’s another of these crazy Japanese “games”, which will probably never see the light of the day in the US or Europe, but are nonetheless fun to look at. Today, our visitor is called Homestar: 21st Century Navigator. Supervised by famed planetarium creator Takayuki Ohira (who created the legendary Mega Star series of planetariums), Homestar lets you view five million stars on the go. You can view these with different perspectives and zoom in to a single planet, and the software also features filters to focus on stars of a certain brightness order. Natural phenomenon like eclipses, nebulae, and aurora effects are also included. And if you want to know a bit more about the things you’re looking at, Homestar provides you with an extensive library of background information, including descriptions of every stellar body, history of constellations, and more.

But it’s not all just education: In the “Fantasy Theater mode”, you get to view the most famous planets and stars in a guided tour encompassing 15 chapters, while voiced narration tells you about the mysteries of space. Cheesy New Age music included. Actually, we don’t know about the last bit, but it’d be cool.

Homestar: 21st Century Navigator will be released in Japan on October 19, for a budget price of 3,280 yen (US$ 28). The publisher is Sega, and perhaps there’s a slim chance that Western audiences might get to see the game eventually, too. We’ll keep you posted.

Via IGN