PixelJunk Shooter

This week we take a look at the Playstation 3 exclusive PixelJunk Shooter. Q-Games has had a magic touch so far with their PixelJunk series by taking old school game concepts, bringing them into the HD era and making hits out of them. Does PixelJunk Shooter continue this magic?

Story

The story is in the far future your ship comes to a planet to check on the settlers there only to find an SOS.  So you take one of your fighter ships down to find out what's happening and rescue the miners.

Along the way you find hidden scientists that help fill you in on what happened on the planet.

Controls

The controls are very simple.  One button to shoot, one for the grappling hook, one thumbstick for movement, and one thumbstick for aiming.  That's it.  As simple as they are they work perfectly.

Gameplay

The basics are you have to rescue the miners and scientists and fight off various enemy's.  In addition to that you have to manipulate the environment also to get at some of the miners and pick them up with the grappling hook.  It could be as simple as shooting through a wall or as complex as making lava drop onto an ice barrier to melt it out of the way.

This is where PixelJunk shooter shines.  Q-Games used real world physics for the water, lava, and a magnetic liquid.  So it all moves like it should.  Miners trapped in a rock cave under a lava pool?  Find a water source and turn all the lava into shoot-able rock.  The game blends Defender, puzzle games and a touch of exploration (each stage has hidden gems and a scientist) all together into a wonderful little game. The game has fifteen stages divided up between three episodes, each episode ending with a boss encounter.  A score and completion time is kept for each stage, so you can compare yours to your friends and try to one-up them.

In addition to the lasers you shoot, certain areas had special "suits" you could put on your ship that would alter the main weapon to shoot water or lava, depending on the suit.  Later level in addition to having the "hot and cold" theme also have a magnetic liquid that you can manipulate.  It's almost like a game and science experiment at the same time.

The game also has two player multiplayer, so you can team up with a friend and save the miners together.

Graphics and Sound

The art style is simple, clean and hand drawn style.  It looks great in HD, no pixelation at all.  It's very cool and funky.  And speaking of funky the soundtrack is well done too.  Done by the group High Frequency Bandwidth, it is a very atmospheric electronica and fits well.  The kind of soundtrack that complements with what's visually going on.  I'd hope find it on CD somewhere.

Overall

This game was a lot of fun.  I think the most fun was playing around with the elements in the game.  Dropping water over lava that didn't need it or letting an area fill with flammable gas and then shooting lava into it.  Seeing if there were different ways of getting though certain levels.  The game has an old school charm but very cool new ideas mixed in.  I had a lot of fun and I couldn't find any fault with it so it gets a 5 out of 5.  As a bonus, when you unlock certain trophies in the game you also unlock pieces of the miners space suit for your Sony Home avatar.  Once you unlock them in the game, then go to the PixelJunk space in Home and they appear in your inventory.  It's available now on the Playstation Network.

PixelJunk Shooter is rated E10+ for Everyone 10 or older  for Lyrics and Mild Fantasy Violence