Important news is churning – much like smooth, creamy butter – out of Q-Games headquarters. Is this the big announcement of the special PixelJunk-branded cheese you’ve been waiting for? Not exactly, but we’re happy to announce that now YOU could be the proud owner of the FREE PixelJunk Shooter Loyalty Avatar Pack!

If you’re such a loyal fan of the PixelJunk games that you’ve purchased both PixelJunk Shooters 1 AND 2, you deserve a freebie – and a good dousing of water for good measure. Only own one of the Shooter games? Purchase the other one and you can secure some lovely Shooter avatars for free, too!

What magic is this? Well, we can’t divulge all the super-secret ingredients in this awesome recipe (a dash of bubbling hot magma and a smattering of PixelJunk love?), but we can direct you to PixelJunk Shooter 2’s category page on the PlayStation Store on PSN, where you will find this lovely little package waiting for you. Yay, free avatar pack GET!

Roses? Played out. Champagne? Too bubbly. Chocolate? A risky proposition. If you really want to make your significant other swoon this Valentine’s Day, grab a couple of controllers and play some games you can both enjoy. Sure, you could choose to pound your mate’s face in the Gladiator Duel in Sports Champions. But you know that’s a battle you can’t ultimately win — any victories now are always paid back with dish-washing duty later. Let’s make a pledge: This year, it’s about nest feathering, not neck-snapping.

Here are some cooperative-focused classics that should brighten up the boudoire tonight, plus some Trophy suggestions to keep things nice and friendly. We also want to hear from you — what games do you like to play with your main squeeze? Be sure to fill in the gaps in the comments.

PixelJunk Monsters
This is the quintessential couples game. PixelJunk Monsters’ two-player cooperative mode is legendary for transforming non-gamers into digital devotees in just a few minutes. If your significant other struggles with the tower defense basics, have him focus on upgrading emplacements and collecting gold while you focus on the strategy. A guaranteed good time for all.

Trophies to shoot for: “Construction Expert” (Build 10 towers in less than 30 seconds upon entering a stage), “Money Grubber” (Clear a stage without losing a single coin)

LittleBigPlanet 2
For starters, Sackboy is freakin’ adorable. Second, the platforming gameplay is second nature to many inexperienced gamers. If your mate has a creative bent, you might also consider building a custom level together — Create mode supports multiple simultaneous users. Or just pick one of over 3.6 million levels and play that — perhaps an enterprising user has already created a good Valentine’s Day-themed level?

Trophies to shoot for: “Complete Story Mode” (Complete the main path of the story mode), “Multiplier 5x” (Score a 5x multiplier in a Story level); “Community Spirit” (Publish a level to the community)

Dead Nation
The couple that slays together, stays together. This is a perfect Valentine’s Day choice for a mate who’s handy with an SMG and a melee attack, as you’ll need some tight teamwork to blast the countless hordes of the undead that infest the sprawling urban environments. Protip: If your significant other isn’t much of a gamer, go with the easiest “Brain Dead” setting to avoid heartbreak.

Trophies to shoot for: “Teamwork” (Complete a mission in co-op mode on any difficulty), “Double the Action” (Complete Campaign mode in co-op Mode)

PixelJunk Shooter
Despite its dual-stick shooting and retro stylings, PixelJunk Shooter is well tolerated by non-gaming significant others. Exploration is emphasized over action, and creative solutions are more important than a quick trigger finger. There are plenty of opportunities for teamwork, too, whether it’s winching your partner away from an erupting volcano or collaborating on hunting those all-important diamonds.

Trophies to shoot for: “Cave Cleaner” (Kill over 100 enemies)

The Beatles: Rock Band
Fab Four? More like Terrific Two. The Beatles: Rock Band is a good option for a non-gaming significant other. If playing the plastic axe or drums is too demanding (or embarrassing), offer up vocal duties. Who doesn’t know the words to a few Beatles songs? I wanna hold your haaaaaaand…

Trophies to shoot for: “Don’t Let Me Down” (Save a bandmate from failing), “Shake It Up, Baby!” (Use Beatlemania at least 5 times in a single song using either Bass or Guitar), “Let’s Get Some Levels” (Calibrate your system for the optimal experience)

Borderlands
An ideal choice for the hardcore shooter couple. Borderlands’ heavy co-op focus works nicely in splitscreen, and infighting will be rare as long as you agree to some ground rules on revives and sharing loot. In fact, the only risk here is that you’ll grind for loot and XP for so long that you won’t leave any time for romance.

Trophies to shoot for: “Group LF Header” (Rescue a groupmate from death in a co-op game), “There’s No ‘I’ In “Team” (Complete 15 missions in co-op), “United We Stand” (Defeat the Rakk Hive, the Vault Boss, Sledge, Krom, or Flynt in a co-op game)

Dead Space: Extraction
Some couples like their Valentine’s Day hot. Others prefer the cold vacuum of outer space, and that’s where this suspenseful sci-fi shooter fits in. Armed with a pair of PlayStation Move motion controllers, you and your main squeeze will nip and tuck the loathsome Necromorph with surgical precision. You’ll find this co-op gem lurking on your Dead Space 2: Limited Edition Blu-ray Disc; it’s also available separately on PSN.

Trophies to shoot for: “Twice The Firepower” (Play cooperatively with a second player), “A Star is Born” (Complete any level with a 5 star rating)

Scott Pilgrim vs the World: The Game
Deceptively tough despite the ultra-cute graphics, this 2D PSN beat-em-up is one where having a co-op partner or three will pay off in spades. You’ll want to exploit the tag-team attacks and revives as much as possible. And if the going gets tough, go ahead and steal a life — we won’t tell.

Trophies to shoot for: “The Power Of Friendship” (In a multiplayer game, reanimate another player at least 25 times), “Armed And Dangerous” (Defeat at least 200 enemies using interactive objects)

Time Crisis: Razing Storm
Gaming scholars have long known that lightgun-style shooters are an ideal choice for casual-gaming partners, and Time Crisis: Razing Storm is a natural if you’re packing two PlayStation Moves. The Arcade mode is packed with humongous action set pieces, screen-filling boss battles, and loads of secrets. Don’t overlook the Time Crisis 4 and DeadStorm Pirates bonus games, either.

Trophies to shoot for: “Arcade Master” (Clear Arcade Mode Ranking Play), “Synchronized Shooting” (Reach a Teamwork Level of 100% in DeadStorm Pirates), “Sharpshooter” (Obtain a ‘Nice Combination!’ rating 100 times in DeadStorm Pirates)

Continuing to come strong with the sports content, EA is bringing a boatload of football and basketball items to the PlayStation Home community this Thursday, January 21. From NFL jerseys that sport (pun intended) the names of some of the league’s best players – from Romo to Manning to Bush – to NBA jerseys emblazoned with the logos of your favorite teams, we have something for every sports fanatic this week (that is, unless you are a fan of curling or solo synchronized swimming.) Head to the EA SPORTS Complex or the PlayStation Home Mall come this Thursday and stock up on these hot items before Super Bowl fever lays you out or you get benched for throwing elbows on the court.

In other news, we’ll be releasing what is easily one of the coolest personal spaces ever to launch in PlayStation Home – the Paris Clock Tower. This unique apartment, overlooking the bustling Parisian streets, is a marvel of urban living, unrivaled in terms of luxury and highly-customizable so as to suit various tastes. Choose from a variety of furniture and clothing options, bundled together at an absolutely killer deal, and put your personal touch on the Clock Tower personal space. But first, check out the screens for a peek at what this awesome new space has to offer.

This week’s PlayStation Home publish is heavy on sweet new reward items, with White Knight Chronicles and PixelJunk Shooter rewards now unlocking in PlayStation Home after in-game performance milestones are reached, and a free Star Ocean t-shirt unlocking for users that visit the PlayStation Home Theater and watch the special video contained therein. Check the pics below for a taste of what’s in store for you this week.

Finally, those of you who grabbed the Waterfall Terrace will be thrilled to find that a ton of new furniture items are being released to complement this wildly-popular personal space. You can grab these Waterfall Terrace-themed items (and many more) in the Furniture and Estates stores in the PlayStation Home Mall. For a list of all the new content (and, in the case of virtual items, their locations), be sure to check the Latest Updates tab when in-world. You can access this tab by pressing Start to open your Menu Pad > Community > Latest Updates.

See you in Home!

As all you PixelJunk fans are aware, music plays an important role in all of our games. For Shooter, we worked very closely with High Frequency Bandwidth and we really hope you enjoy the music as much as we do.

We’ve also added the ability to earn reward items in Home and have amped up our HOME PixelJunk area with a really cool new Shooter space. Be sure to check it out when it goes live next Thursday, December 17.

I might as well use this blog entry as an excuse to talk a little bit about the response PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe has been getting – it has been awesome! Metacritic currently ranks us in the top 10 of all-time best PSP games (at the time of writing), which is absolutely incredible for us! It seems most people are playing the game in offline 1p mode (which of course is engrossing to the extreme), but everyone should definitely try out the online play. It’s a lot of fun and there are lots of like-minded Monsters fans out there to “parlay” and boogie on down with. It’s also surprisingly fun to simply hang out in a one of the lobbies and watch the blow-by-blow tickertape commentaries of other people’s games.

Oh and I almost forgot the extra good news! To celebrate the launch of PixelJunk Shooter and the holidays, starting December 22nd, the PS Store will be offering a 3-in-1 combo deal of Racers, Monsters *and* Eden altogether for just 19.99! Even if you already own one of them it is a fantastic deal! As Deb Mars always says, we love spreading that PixelJunk love and here is a great reason to do so for your family and friends. Take the PixelJunk plunge and see what the fuss is all about!

And as always, send us comments!

We’ve been holding on to this video interview with SCEE‘s Jem Alexander and I until we were ready to announce PixelJunk Shooter‘s release date. With that out of the way, hit “play” below:

I was a bit tired during that interview, which is my excuse for the over-use of the adjective “cool” (the game *is* cool though! *Very* cool cool indeed)! Here’s the story behind that:

The time was 12am midnight and it was a warm early Autumn night and my heavily loaded car was waiting for me to drive it from Kyoto to Tokyo (estimated 8 hour drive).  This was the start of our journey to the Tokyo Game Show to set up our very own booth for the first time ever.  To cut costs wherever we could, I decided I would drive overnight, lugging the heavier stuff (big TVs, free give-aways, PS3s etc) and saving on train tickets too (by including a couple of Q-Gamers in the drive too).  The car was ram-packed full and weighed heavily down!  Luckily it is a Murano so fairly large and sturdy in the first place, but it’s a wonder the police didn’t pull us over during our trip.
 

 
In Japan the freeways aren’t “free” but recently there is this “ETC” deal which lets you drive on most of them for a single charge of ten bucks or so. Oh and some stretches of road are only 2 lanes (because of the mountainous nature of the country), so as you can imagine there were a few bottlenecks on the way, and one accident that had occurred only a few minutes before we passed it near Mt. Fuji just as it was getting light, that wasn’t the greatest thing to see in the wee hours!  We arrived in Tokyo safe and sound though!
 
Driving through Tokyo on the express way is an interesting experience. You are in Shibuya and below is the ubiquitous maze of tiny streets but you are oblivious to all that as the express way is up above it all in a world of its own, lined by tall buildings.  One minute you are in Shibuya, and the next Roppongi, then you are passing Tokyo Tower and driving over the rainbow bridge, the speed at which it all flies by makes Tokyo seem so small! (It isn’t of course, not by a long shot).
 

 
We arrived 10 minutes later in Makuhari Messe where TGS is always held, grabbed a quick Denny’s breakfast as it was the only place open at 7am and then drove to the conference center.  They allowed us to drive right into the hall and park the car next to our half-finished booth (we employed a company to set up the walls and large prints).  It took us the rest of the day to set everything up, including DIY anti-theft locks for the PS3 controllers! (The problem with Bluetooth controllers is that people can easily walk away with them, and we didn’t want that to happen!)  Once everything was finished it really looked great for such a small booth!  We then went and got some much needed sleep because by that point we were totally knackered!!
 

I might as well use this blog entry as an excuse to talk a little bit about the response last month’s release of PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe has been getting – it has been awesome!  Metacritic currently has us at 88 and we’re in the top 10 of all-time best PSP games, which is absolutely incredible for us!  It seems most people are playing the game in offline 1p mode (which of course is engrossing to the extreme), but everyone should definitely try out the online play. It’s a lot of fun and there are lots of like-minded Monsters fans out there to “parlay” and boogie on down with.  It’s also surprisingly fun to simply hang out in a one of the lobbies and watch the blow-by-blow tickertape commentaries of other people’s games. Remember you don’t need a PSPgo to play Monsters Deluxe, it works fine on any PSP!  That’s something we’ve had a lot of mails about.
 
Anyway, I’ll sign off here and write up another blog once Shooter is out!  Remember to post comments!

I am thoroughly impressed and excited by this game each and every time I see it, so definitely watch this vid from beginning to end.

In true PixelJunk fashion we have made the game co-op, so get a friend around, grab an extra controller and anyone can just dive right on in. We’ve tried to make co-op as de-stressed as possible, so even if your player’s ship gets hit by something or overheats and starts crashing towards the ground, you can pop out your extendible hook thing (no official name for this yet – “Grabber” perhaps?) and grab your friend (he’s a bit heavy tho, so watch out), then you can carry him to the nearest pool of water and dunk him in to restore his health. If you don’t manage to grab him in time, he’ll just re-spawn near you and you’ll be docked a life.

The game is an old-school shooter at heart (hence the name), it is the PixelJunk take on those old retro shooting games such as Defender, with a little bit of Choplifter and Thrust! thrown in for good measure. We have giant bosses for you to fight against, multiple weapons to pick up and try out, shields you can grab, all kinds of stuff to give people with an itchy trigger finger a lot of fun. However, at the same time we have added a puzzle element (that we tend to do with most of our games) so even those without an itchy trigger finger will be able to play the game and have a lot of fun. This puzzle element obviously revolves around the sandbox fluid simulation we have implemented, and it is incredible to watch in action.

As with PJ Monsters Deluxe I’m not sure what the release date will be, but we are working very hard on it so hopefully it won’t be too far off!

A couple of weeks ago we unveiled PixelJunk 1-4 in trailer form to the masses and had a HUGE response! I suppose we deserved it because we simultaneously launched our naming contest for the game as well. For those who missed it we decided to let you, the fans, have a go at naming our game for us. It all began to snowball as news sites picked up on the competition and our servers crashed a couple of times from the load!

In just one week we got over 100,000 visitors to http://pixeljunk.jp and 10,000 people offered up ideas for a name based on the trailer. Even though the trailer’s resolution left a lot to be desired, we got a ridiculous amount of praise… and the team’s ego has been inflated a bit, which is a good thing, because now we’ll have to work extra specially hard to live up to everyone’s expectations! :-)

Anyway, we are now proud to announce that the name of the game has been picked! It will be called PixelJunk Shooter. Andy, the artist behind the style of the game, has knocked up a stunning logo that emphasizes the liquid element really well, as you can see below!

The lucky winner, picked from a hat of about 8 other people who voted for the same name, is Mario Paquet from Canada! We chose the name because: 1) it’s simple, 2) it describes the main thing you do in the game, and 3) it makes a great logo!

The other runner-up names were:

• PixelJunk Depths – Thomas Ella
• PixelJunk Atlantis – Takuhiro Hara
• PixelJunk Caves – Chi Lo
• PixelJunk Blaster – Edward Stumpfel
• PixelJunk S.O.S! – Derrick Kross

Other people voted for these names of course, but the above runners-up were picked out of a hat for each name in turn, so congratulations! T-shirts will be winging their way to you.

The most popular name suggested by a long shot was PixelJunk Elements, but we decided that it didn’t capture the shooting side of the game well enough and at the worst people might think it was a game about the weather. “Depths” almost became the chosen name but our producer at Sony Santa Monica, Deborah Mars, sounded like she had a lisp when she said it, so we dropped that one early on. We needed to choose a name everyone can enunciate. ;-)

Thanks for the incredible response and vibe we got from everyone. We are going to make this game a smash hit! If you manage to get into E3 next week you’ll be able to play a newer demo than the one shown in the video which has a number of cool new things in it… including co-op play!