Tremendously charming. One of the best downloadable games available.
"Shooter" is best described as a dual-stick shooter, but it comes with a very different premise to your standard Geometry Wars clone. You control a subterranean vehicle on a mission to rescue scientists trapped on a distant planet during a mining expedition. Along the way you must manipulate the environment by interacting with deposits of lava, ice, water and a mysterious black liquid that has magnetic properties.
The physics involved with these different materials are incredibly well developed. Using your missiles to break rock around pools of lava will result in the dangerous substance slowly edging its way towards you, but if you can find some water to put in its path you'll create a steam cloud and cause the lava to turn to breakable rock. The possibilities within this incredibly organic ecosystem don't stop there either. Special "suits" grant your ship with new abilities to allow you even more detailed control of the environment. For example, one suit reverses the magnetism of your vehicle, allowing you to push your way through the strange black magnetised liquid that appears in later levels. It really is a marvel that this level of manipulation and detail has been possible in a downloadable game.
As your progress through the game's 3 episodes and 15 chapters it truly is a joy to behold. The story might be a little generic (man goes to new planet, depletes it's resources and becomes trapped in a natural disaster), but the wonderful cell-shaded graphics and terrific sci-fi inspired techno music will hold your attention through the 3 or 4 hours it takes to get to the end. It sounds sort, but perfectionists will find plenty of reasons to go back and play again. The game is filled to bursting with secret areas and hidden treasures. The Trophies are well designed to encourage replay value too and there's a local co-op mode to play through on top of the single player campaign.
Perhaps the most endearing parts of Shooter are the little touches that show true attention to detail, something many developers could learn to apply more often in their downloadable games. Accidentally killing the scientists you're supposed to rescue often results in some hilarious death animations, with lava burning them to a blackened crisp and water leaving floating corpses in its wake. There's a very Lemmings-like quality to the cartoon humour, though I'd always feel a little guilty after I'd laughed at the demise of someone I was supposed to rescue!
It can't be denied that at £6.29 on the UK PSN, PixelJunk Shooter represents great fun and terrific value-for-money. The game's major problem is that it can be frustrating at times because the tiniest contact with enemies or the environment is enough to kill you and the checkpoints can be just a little too far apart. There are a few issues with the storytelling too. You're required to do an awful lot of reading as everything is explained in text, so it can be a bit laborious to stay on top of what's supposed to be going on in the game's limited plot. It's also hugely frustrating that co-op is offline only.
On the other hand, the pure fun and wonderful charm is just a pleasure to experience. Q Games have hinted at DLC as well, so the relatively short campaign could get some extension in the future. If you have a PS3 and £6 to spare then you should definitely pick this up.