Welcome to Classic Game Room. Don your flannel shirt because I'm taking you back to 1994, where the storage capacity of a compact disc was required to contain this awesome game. It's Soul Star on the Sega CD.

Prepare yourself for a mind-blowing experience of unimaginable proportions.

You have hunted them for centuries. Evidence of their presence in the spaces between the stars. For eons you have followed, and they have always eluded you. Until now.

You know, I like to blow things up with spaceships if only I could face my most ancient enemy. In a battle for the soul of a star. Yes! That's exactly what I was asking for.

Phase one. Penetrate the Mercoid's first line of defense.

Sounds great. Which button shoots things? Okay, that one.

Let's go!

This spaceship action shooting game is more than just Space Harrier meets Star Fox, which was my first impression of the game. It's creative, it's ambitious, it's fun, and it's brilliant.

You know how most big-budget games these days are created by a team of people larger than what's assembled to make big-budget Hollywood movies? Well, Soul Star seems to have been made by six or seven people, many of which were doing double duty like programming, narration, and the guy that gets the coffee.

Has that homegrown feel. It's rough around the edges, but wildly ambitious for a 1994 home console release.

Soul Star is a must-have game on the Sega CD. And don't go searching for it on the Panasonic 3DO or PC back in the day. It's a Sega CD exclusive, which probably translates to enormous commercial failure, but Soul Star deserves more than that.

Soul Star is a tricky game to pick up and play, especially in 2012, when these big space games are made with this and a lot more fluid.

This is being played on the Sega Genesis with a Sega CD attachment, after all. The controls are a little bit clumsy, but it took me a while to just figure out what it is that I'm supposed to do.

Fortunately, the game gives you some nice descriptive voiceovers with graphics that tell you what to do. If you're listening, which I'm usually not.

Phase two. Activate any one of the three warp gates by disabling the orbs surrounding the...

The game starts off with a few levels that play like Star Fox or Galaxy Force or something. Pretty straightforward spaceship shooting action.

And then dumps you into this intergalactic terror dome where you're supposed to blow up a CPU that then unlocks three warp gates, which can only be activated after shooting two pylons that slide into position and then landing on an orange thing.

Which then launches you into a giant ball of fire.

Needless to say, it took me a few tries before I actually figured any of this out.

The Sega Genesis or the Mega Drive was not made to do this stuff. These guys pushed the system to its limits.

Which is why this is on the Sega CD and relegated to obscurity and cult classic status.

Soul Star also has good music, above-average voice dialogue for the era, and a scoring system, even though you don't see it until you blow up.

I also like that the ship moans in pain when it gets hit by things.

You've got spaceship shooting levels, you've got 3D open-world hovering helicopter levels, and then you've got slow, plodding MechWarrior-style levels.

That's right, kids, you're driving a Transformer.

Once you figure out how to read the game, it all starts to make sense. But it remains tricky. You always have to keep moving. If you stop for anything, you're dead.

Especially during these 3D-style levels, blow up anything that shoots at you.

And then concentrate on what it is you're supposed to destroy.

Whoa, look at that. I'm walking on a fan. That's pretty cool. I like the fans in the ground. And my walking-on-them ability.

Don't forget to collect power-ups through the game that restore your health and give you new weapons and missiles.

I'm playing with a six-button Genesis controller, which you'll pretty much have to do.

When you get into a pinch, you can hold down the RAM button, which brings out your robotic buddies that assist in shooting things.

I mean, how awesome is this game? Come on.

A huge Classic Game Room thank you to our friend Laurie from Finland for sending this to the show.

I've never heard of Soul Star before. But now I'm glad to have played this game and share it with all of you. It deserves more than obscurity. It deserves respect because it's awesome.

Phase one, fly across the surface of the Twingan Ocean and penetrate the Mirkoid defenses. Phase two, submerge your craft and neutralize the tractivine generators on the ocean floor.

Get the friggin' underwater space meatball out of my face.

I have tractor beams to destroy in Soul Star.

What a game. Good job, all seven people who made this.