PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate Review

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Reviewed on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita
→ July 1, 2014Q-Games' PixelJunk series has flown largely under the radar, but to the hardcore PlayStation gamer, the PixelJunk franchise's seven core games have filled in many a gap in the release schedule over the years. Now in the hands of developer Double Eleven, PixelJunk Shooter and PixelJunk Shooter 2 have been fused together into PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita alike, creating one coherent, enjoyable, and affordable package. Both Shooters were originally released on PlayStation 3 (the original in 2009, its sequel in 2011), but Ultimate adds some new flair to make both feel like more than tired ports.
Ultimate looks sharper and more colorful than its PS3 counterparts, and comes packing a newer, nicer, and easier-to-read HUD, and even a brand-new version of your trusty ship, the Yellow Dart. It also seamlessly blends the two games' campaigns into one, making Shooter feel consistent and contiguous. If you never delved into Shooter 1 and 2, you probably won't be able to tell the difference between them.
Thankfully, Ultimate retains both Shooters' core gameplay of navigating your trusty ship through 2D environments to rescue stranded scientists from underground experiments gone awry. Using the analog sticks on your DualShock 4 or Vita, you can carefully control your craft, using the right trigger to shoot at enemies and obstacles, and the left trigger to send a hook out for the missing technicians to hold onto. Shooters' control scheme is easy to understand and master, belying the deep strategy and skill necessary to get through its latter, more difficult levels.

Beware the lava.

The beauty of Shooter is how it forces you to synthesize elements with each other to get through stages in one piece. For instance, fiery lava is a common substance; even getting near the lava sends your health meter steadily racing. But if you see water nearby, you can shoot a barrier that will nullify and harden the lava, allowing you to blast through it to get to the other side in one piece.
When you throw in ice, stone, gas, sludge, light, and other substances with each other, a major part of Shooters' charm comes to the forefront: figuring out how things interact with each other, and how you can manipulate everything to your benefit while avoiding killing the scientists you're charged to recover. If gas touches lava, for instance, it will detonate, possibly melting nearby ice to let you through or sending a scientist to his or her untimely death. Sludge can be sneakily pushed into containers to create enough weight to open a door. Light can keep enemies at bay and allow you to see your next objective. When your ship is given the ability to change its strengths and weaknesses -- such as being weak to water and impervious to lava -- the entire system is turned on its head even more.
In these respects, Shooter Ultimate is puzzle-based, but it’s not one of those games that will confound you with a tough one and hold up the action. Instead, it throws some minor puzzle-solving together with battling to create an experience that bursts with moments of rewarding action, even if situations can be occasionally punitive. It's sometimes frustrating to navigate all of the obstacles around you, especially when enemies randomly appear when you backtrack, or when you have to worry about so many elements and substances around you and how they might affect your ship or the surviving scientists. Still, the feeling of triumph I felt after getting through some more difficult sections later in the campaign was tangible, and kept me moving forward.

Some more light would be good.

Each of Shooter Ultimate's six worlds are split into five stages each, and each of those five stages are split into five separate parts, giving the campaign some length. Even if you rush through it, it's hard to imagine it taking less than eight or 10 hours; if you're a completionist, you could easily double that number. Each world is capped off by consistently clever boss fights that are all distinct from one another, and each and every sub-level is chock full not only of scientists to save, but precious gems to identify and collect and secret passages to uncover and explore. For such a seemingly tiny game, there sure is a lot to do.
For those seeking online play, Shooter Ultimate retains PixelJunk Shooter 2's online mode. This League Battle mode is a nice idea, though it's somewhat difficult to find a game, especially since most of the connected community at any given time seems to be Trophy boosting and not actually playing. That said, PixelJunk Shooter is inherently a single-player experience, so playing against someone else isn’t the best way to do it. Shooter Ultimate's best played by yourself, even if attaining that precious Platinum Trophy will require some online interactivity. Better yet, dedicated cloud-saving means you can jump in between Vita and PS4 in mere seconds, though the experience is decidedly better on PlayStation 4, as the Vita version does feel slower and more sluggish on occasion, stifled, perhaps, by the hardware.



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