We have looked forward to PixelJunk Shooter for a while even though we weren’t a fan of Q-Games’ previous works. PixelJunk Shooter not only did not disappoint, it is definitely one of the best original games on PSN, next to Fat Princess and Flower. This is a shooter that makes you think, as a matter of fact it is a puzzle-exploration game disguised as a dual-stick shooter. We took a while before we could settle with the tag-line of this article — Gradius meets Metroid; for a while it seemed Geometry Wars meets Castlevania felt more appropriate. But PixelJunk Shooter IS Gradius, not because its gameplay element is anything like Gradius, it is because it carries the soul of the Gradius series, and the spirit of Metroid, merging smart puzzle solving and exploration, and even thrown in some pretty intense boss fights.
What PixelJunk Shooter excels in, is its smart environmental puzzles using thermodynamical physics (That reminded me I almost failed Thermodynamics back in college). Lava melts ice, water hardens lava, lava ignites gases, which is left from immersing tar in water. The game’s goal is simple, you fly a rescue plane to pick up scientists survivors on a remote planet, using the environment to unlock areas you can’t reach, until you rescue everyone or get some of them killed before you can move on to the next map. The game equips you with some pretty smart abilities, none of them give you any additional firepower, but unique abilities to manipulate the environment. You can get a magma gun to melt ice, water cannon and a clamp to remove ice blocks, inverse polarity suit so you could immerse the ship in lava instead of water, or a magnetic field so you can influence how the fluid flows around you. The game is about heat management — when you are near lava without the inverse polarity ability, it increases the level of heat your ship can intake, or simply taking hit from enemy fire or firing your own missiles can lead your ship to overheat. To compensate, you can collect shields to absorb the heat, fly into the water to cool down, or simply wait for the ship to slowly cool down naturally.
PixelJunk Shooter is never difficult, but it challenges you just enough to make you feel smart about yourself. Though it doesn’t feature any online multiplayer, the game begs to be played locally with 2 players because not only does it make the game easier and more enjoyable (you respawn instead of restart unless you both perish), it gives you the opportunity to take on different abilities at the same time, interact with them to deal with the environment in different ways. The only complain I have about the game is that it is ultimately way too short — it features 3 worlds with its 3 unique and satisfying boss fights, and can be completed in a matter of hours. Not that the game isn’t worth it for 10 bucks, it IS a steal at that price tag; we would have preferred to pay 3 times or 4 times that to get a game at least twice as long. We fell in love with PixelJunk Shooter just like we did with Gradius 2 back in the days, and then it was simply over way too quickly. This delightfully wonderful game yearns to be played, and it demands for a sequel.
