Originally, PixelJunk Shooter and Shooter 2 were made by our friends at Q-Games. As Q-Games are a very tech savvy developer (like us), Shooter was born from gameplay experimentations, using a very clever fluid simulation technology they had written. As the gameplay evolved, so did the story. Four years after Shooter’s first launch, we met the guys at Q-Games and — as fans — started talking about what this edition would be.
We ended up doing a number of cool new things in Shooter Ultimate, and with it launching today it’s a good time to give you an idea of what to expect!
Exploration, Action, and Strategy
Ultimate unites PixelJunk Shooter and Shooter 2 into one continuous experience, with a host of enhancements. Take all those things as a given and let’s go a little deeper…
What drives all that is a massive physics engine that features a powerful fluid dynamics system. While making your way through the campaign you’ll quickly notice that the interplay between states of matter (solids, liquids, and gasses) is key to getting by.
The beginning starts off easy: blast some rock, unleash a flood of water — and rescue the stranded scientists.
Scientists aside, surviving in Shooter Ultimate is all about managing your’s ships temperature. You can’t fly through magma since you’ll burn up, but unleash a flood of water and when it contacts, magma will cool and turn into solid rock — which you can blast your way through.
When I mentioned you couldn’t fly through magma, that’s not entirely true. Later on you can equip your ship with an inverter suit that allows you to fly through magma, but water will now burn your ship up — just to keep it fresh.
Online Battles
Online is where you undertake ship VS. ship battles that are more akin to a game of hide-n-seek than run-n-gun. Particularly as you can customise a loadout of upgrades on your ship that will completely change your tactics.
The upgrades list includes better weapons — but the power ups, disruptors, and hazards really make the battles. The camouflage power-up disguises you as a scientist so your opponent may pick you up and take you back to their base, allowing you to steal their scientists. Disruptors can reverse an opponent’s controls, make them stick to walls, and more.
The folks at Q-Games developed online battles by playing it over and over. They started with just shooting at each other and over time developed capture the flag style mechanics along the way. The upgrades were thought up as they were playing, to allow players to develop their own battle strategies.
Great news about versus battles is that they support cross play. So while on your PS4 you can play against someone sitting next to you, or online on a PS Vita!
So there you go, folks! If you’re a fan of the originals we hope you enjoy what we’ve done with PixelJunk Shooter. And if you’re new to the game, invite a friend over, plop down on the couch, and prepare for some great times.
One of my favorite couple of Q-Games in one combo, remastered for PS4, and PS+ free, and cross-buy, and cross-save, and cross-play with Vita.
Brilliant
Only complain I have, is that even though both me/wife playing on PS4 together, only my PSN account was getting the trophies. I have played other games on PS4 now where both players earn the trophies (like Angry Birds Star Wars and Sportsfriends from memory). Why not for this PJ Shooter game? You guys got so many other things absolutely right. Just stopped shy of perfection.
Great game but they need to fix the multiplayer everyone backs out of the game disconnects.They should put penalties on the people who back out.
like someone above has said, online players exiting before they lose is a real pain, I happen to be quite good at this game (finally found one ha)!………….so when it pairs me up with someone who has a major advantage with weaponry I accept then proceed to nail them, and of course they quit……..happens to me now 9 out of 10 games and is really spoiling the online play for me ….I played for over an hour last night lost 1 game….won (or was winning ) every other game I played and progressed once ..because the cheating scumbags all quit…..please patch :(