PixelJunk Shooter Hands-On

Sony is showing off a whole lot of games at E3 this year, and one of the more unusual offerings is PixelJunk Shooter, which was known simply as PixelJunk 1-4 before the winner of Q-Games' game-naming contest was announced. There's shooting in the game, so technically the title works, but this is as much a puzzle game as it is a shooter.

The version of PixelJunk Shooter on the E3 show floor appears to be slightly different from the one we saw at Sony's press event in Los Angeles a little over a month ago. The levels in which you rescue workers with your grappling hook while using water to solve puzzles involving molten lava are unchanged, but now you can play them cooperatively with a friend. Adding a second player to the mix definitely makes the game more interesting and, at times, easier. You share the same pool of lives, though, so before you shoot out any walls that are holding back lava flows, you need to make sure your friend isn't anywhere he shouldn't be. Co-op play also isn't split-screen, so if you're trying to pull in different directions, you'll just end up hitting an invisible wall.

Enemies in the game, or at least those in the demo, rarely pose much of a threat even though it often takes several rockets to kill them. That's because, other than bats that fly around, most of them are either slow-moving or rooted to spots on the floor/walls/ceiling. There are projectile attacks to watch out for, but most of these take the form of spewed lava that won't necessarily kill you on contact--especially if there's a pool of water nearby that you can fly into to cool off.

If you haven't done so already, you should definitely check out our previous coverage of PixelJunk Shooter from the aforementioned Sony press event. We look forward to bringing you more information on the game just as soon as we get to see more of it.