Review: PixelJunk Shooter (PS3/PSN)
Game: PixelJunk Shooter
Publisher: Q-Games
Developer: Q-Games
Price: $9.99
Genre: Puzzle Shooter
Pro: Easy to get into, Looks great, nice physics, Co-op is pretty fun
Con: Kinda short, pretty easy, not really much replayability
Shooter marks the fourth release in the “PixelJunk” line of games for the PSN. Admittedly I never played the first two they released (I didn’t have a PS3 yet) so I jumped in at PJ Eden. Lemme tell you, that game was pretty fun, but pretty darn hard closer to the end. Shooter turns out to be quite the opposite.
Shooter has you in control of a small spacecraft that is making it’s way through the very treacherous and sometimes tricky underground caves and mines of a distant alien planet. The plot of the game really isn’t anything new to gamers. It’s about a Terra-forming corporation that has started taking resources from a planet for profit. However the more work they do, the more resources they mine, the crazier the planet becomes. The caves are filled with hazards aplenty. Things like magma pools/flows, alien enemies, guns, and giant heat lasers are all lying in wait to destroy your ship.
The controls are pretty simple to grasp. The left analog stick controls the ships direction that it is travelling, the right stick controls which direction it is facing, much like every other dual stick shooter. However it’s not as fast paced as a game like Geometry Wars is. Shooter is more methodical and makes you think about your movement more than your shooting. Firing your weapons is done by hitting either the R1 or R2 buttons. A simple tap of either button will fire a single shot, as fast as you can pull the trigger. If you hold down the button you will get a stronger missile to fire. The more of these you let loose, however, the faster your heat gauge will go up. If the gauge gets too high, you burst into flames and the only way to save your ship is to hope that you land in a nice cooling puddle of water. Missiles aren’t the only manner of weapon you have at your disposal, though. In later stages you find ways of equipping your ship with water and magma “suits.” As the name would suggest, you can shoot either water or magma as your primary weapon with each respective suit. These will help you in solving the many environmental puzzles within Shooter. Along the way you will find gems and scientists to pluck from the cave floors. This is done by simply tapping either the L1 or L2 buttons. Doing so will send out a grappling hook like tool that will pick up said person and place them safely in your ship. Later, you can use the hooks to do other tasks.
At first, your mission would appear to be picking up the scientist/colonists that are stranded around each stage. This is, in all actuality, NOT what the game really wants you to do. Sure you can pick them all up, save them from the many traps that the planet has set up, but you won’t be able to simply move on from area to area by doing just that. The only way to move from one stage to another is by collecting large gems that are hidden under piles of rock, in secret areas, or just stuck in random walls. Sure if you allow too many people to die, you will have to restart the stage; the game makes it easy to avoid doing that as well. For each enemy you kill you get a certain number of randomly placed stars. Collect 100 of these stars and the game just kinda… forgets that you let that colonist/scientist die. Like I said, it’s all about collecting resources, in my point of view.
The game looks very slick. Granted, it is very simplistic, much like the other PixelJunk games, but it still manages to portray the stylized feel of their previous titles. The fluids in the game are where Shooter probably shines the most. Everything flows the way you would think it would in real life, making it easier to pick your targets in the game in order to solve puzzles. The bosses are very large and for the most part fun to interact with, though as I said before this game really isn’t all that hard. Music doesn’t really play as much a part in this release as it did in Eden, but it’s still here, however muted it is. The sound design is pretty fun as well. Weapon fire, environmental noise, even the screams of the people you are trying to help all subtly add to the overall feeling of the game. Few things in this game make you feel as helpless as when you fire a rogue shot only to hear a scream off screen, and know that you just killed someone completely on accident that you were supposed to have rescued.
For the price, this game filled a need for a fun short game for me to play on my PS3. I would dare say though that it may actually be a game to wait on to see if they do a price drop or something of that nature. It’s rather on the short side, being only three main stages (Rock, Ice, and uh Industrial) each with around four or five sub stages. Co-Op seems like it could be either a lot of fun or hell in a spacecraft depending on your mood and the person you are playing it with. After going through and collecting all the gems and the “special characters,” there really isn’t much of a need to play through it again. However this is a game that could very easily be updated with new content, like extra stages or weapons. I had fun playing through it, and if you MUST have it, you probably won’t be disappointed at all. I just don’t think it would fall into my own “must buy of 2009″ list.
