Xbox 360
The PixelJunk series continues to be one of the best arguments for owning a High definition TV; at the full 1080 rows of pixels, the crispness of the image in PixelJunk Shooter beggars belief. The backgrounds are made up of pastels for the most part, saving the bolder colours for the things you need to notice.
The sound and music of the game has the typically clinical feel of the PixelJunk series. All the audio is precise and deliberate; you admire it and get into it a bit, but you will never feel moved by it on its own. It really is designed to complement the precision of the graphics, a function it performs well.
As pretty as it looks and sounds though, it is the gameplay which makes Shooter stand out. The controls are essentially those of a twin-stick shooter; move with the left stick, aim with the right. You have to shoot with R1 and use your grapple by pushing L1. This is presumably so you don’t accidentally shoot survivors, who you have to rescue to progress. Or rather, they have to be accounted for before you can progress, but only so many can die before you get a “Game Over” screen. It is the interaction between the key substances of the game which make Shooter truly unique; water, ice, lava, igneous rock, gas and an oily substance. As you progress, there are suits for your ship and items that make your interactions with these substances even more interesting.
The story goes that you’re going down to a planet where lots of miners and scientists have been doing their business when earthquakes start. You’ll find out why, but along the way you have to find treasure in the form of large diamonds, grabbed in the same way as survivors. Why do you have to find the treasure? You need a certain number of diamonds to enter the last level in each of the three areas. It’s these that end with some cracking old-school boss fights. Don’t panic! They’re not as ridiculously unfair as old shooters were.
The puzzling can be quite ingenious, but nothing about the game will ever tax you. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. The replayability in Shooter comes from the trophies and leaderboards mainly. Whether it’s finding all the treasure and secret areas, saving all the survivors, or getting the extra 1000 points you need to beat a friend’s score, they’re all enjoyable reasons to go back into a level you’ve already gotten through.
Multiplayer in the game is handled in much the same way as in other games in the series. That is, you play with a friend sitting next to you sharing the same screen. This works really well, and it occurs to you when playing: If you asked Q-Games why there’s no online co-op, it’s because they want it to be as responsive and sociable as possible to play co-op. The other nice thing about the co-op play, which is 2 player only, is that you’re deeds are persistent between the single- and 2-player games.
The value of the package comes down to how many friends you have on your friends list, since PixelJunk Shooter can be completed quite quickly, with all the trophies had not long after. So the only reason to go back into the game is if a friend is taunting you for your position on the leaderboard. Given that Gravity Crash is also a shooter from this perspective with a level editor and the means to share levels, it has to be recommended before PixelJunk Shooter.