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PixelJunk (1-4b) SideScroller |OT|

C

conman

Member
mrklaw said:
oh god. I was ambling along playing Dark Souls, thinking this 'crush' of games wasn't going to affect me
Click to expand...
So true. I didn't think this year's glut of games would be such a big deal, but now that we're in the midst of it, I'm having a hard time pulling myself away from Dark Souls (which I had originally intended to pass on). Knowing that Uncharted 3, Arkham City, Skyrim, and AC Revelations are vying for my time. And I'd totally forgotten about Sidescroller...

Ugh. (and, of course, that's "ugh" in a good way)
 
L

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
Himself said:
My biggest complaint is the amount of shots it takes to kill the enemies. Takes too damn many and it slows down the game.
Click to expand...
This is not the case at all if you use laser shots against tougher enemies. It's easy to know which enemies are tougher - even if they are the same size, they glow in a different way.


TTP said:
By the way, this is the most visually advanced retro-looking game I have ever seen. Two little details impressed me more than anything:

1) The distortion around the edges of the faked tube display (easily noticeable during the credits if you fire close to the edges - you see the distorted bullets trajectory)

2) If you look close enough, you can see the horizontal scanlines ffs!
Click to expand...
Most advanced for sure, and most meticulously rendered too. All effects just look right, they even added the pixel afterglow when objects move around (like motion trails), tone mapping to simulate the warmth of a slightly burned out crt, scan lines are not just 50% opacity white lines mask baked into the picture but properly blended so that they are more visible on bright areas and less on darker ones etc.
 
D

Draft

Member
WOW @ the final stage. Love the music.

What a cool game. Everything about it is cool. The way it looks, the music, the enemies, the weapons. Dripping cool. Feels like a very polished product from a skilled team confident in their abilities.
 
L

Lion Heart

Banned
I can't beat 3-2, not even with continues let alone with a high score. That part with the wheel just destroys me everytime. I have yet to post an actual high score as well, always getting to the end and dying, which resets my score. Still I was enjoying it a lot before 3-2.
 
H

HiVision

Member
Lion Heart said:
I can't beat 3-2, not even with continues let alone with a high score. That part with the wheel just destroys me everytime. I have yet to post an actual high score as well, always getting to the end and dying, which resets my score. Still I was enjoying it a lot before 3-2.
Click to expand...

Go into the wheel and sit near the top of it, ride it down and you'll be fine. (Use the bomb weapons to take out the enemies if you can, or a fully powered up cannon)
 
L

Lion Heart

Banned
Thats the sad part, I know how to do it (and played it exactly how you suggested). I either die or just miss the wheel as the screen starts to move. Anyway I'll get back to it eventually, I want to see that last level. Plus I always planned on going back and getting high scores.

I should add that I'm not a fan of shmups and suck at them, I bought this because it has Pixeljunk in front of it :p. Can't believe I enjoy it as much as I do.
 
B

Barryman

Member
MrPliskin said:
Garnett Lee is in this game?! NICE!
Click to expand...

Damn it, I came to this thread hoping nobody had posted this yet. Just saw that, so awesome.

And as far as the music goes, I NEED the remix of World Ghetto (apparently entitled "Ghetto World") to be uploaded to Youtube or iTunes RIGHT NOW.
 
Agent X

Agent X

Member
I grabbed PixelJunk SideScroller while it was on sale a few days ago. It's just what the doctor ordered to scratch that shoot-em-up itch.

I just completed all of the levels on the Normal skill level, and I'm currently sitting at #89 on the scoreboard for Normal. I'm not finished, though--I'll continue to hone my skills and extend my combos so I can climb even higher up the scoreboard. On top of that, I've also got two harder skill levels to conquer, and (after reading kassatsu's comments) some new and interesting visual effects to unlock, so I'll be chipping away at it for a long time. This is a lot of game for not a lot of money, and I'm very happy with it.

HiVision, congratulations to you and your team on yet another fine PSN game!
 
Clear

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Another winner from Pixeljunk.

Great stuff all round, HFB with another set of great remixes (great call on the credits tune) and I dearly love the retro touches with the gfx - really takes me back :D
 
H

HiVision

Member
Thanks everyone! I still get the odd crazy person tweeting me about the whole IGN thing but *everyone else* loves it!
 
C

ChryZ

Member
Hard done, Brutal next. Love the game more and more.

HiVision, any chance for a survival mode in a future patch? Sorta like one ship, no 1UPs, go through all sectors, increase difficulty after each round and try to survive as long as possible?

I'd also love to see a mode in which you have to play through all sectors in one go.
 
H

HiVision

Member
ChryZ said:
Hard done, Brutal next. Love the game more and more.

HiVision, any chance for a survival mode in a future patch? Sorta like one ship, no 1UPs, go through all sectors, increase difficulty after each round and try to survive as long as possible?

I'd also love to see a mode in which you have to play through all sectors in one go.
Click to expand...

That's what I wanted to make originally.. you know, totally old school, but we (probably fortunately) decided against it :)

I'm not sure we'll be adding anything via patches unfortunately because we want to get our heads down and get to work on our next games and we find the patches and feature additions drag us away from that.
 
C

ChryZ

Member
HiVision said:
That's what I wanted to make originally.. you know, totally old school, but we (probably fortunately) decided against it :)

I'm not sure we'll be adding anything via patches unfortunately because we want to get our heads down and get to work on our next games and we find the patches and feature additions drag us away from that.
Click to expand...
Fair enough, I guess. Thanks for the very swift response and mad props to the whole q-games crew.
 
C

conman

Member
Finally got around to playing this. Squeezed it in between finishing Dark Souls and beginning Skyrim.

So glad I did. This is easily my favorite Pixeljunk game. And I love the idea of reusing/remixing some of the Shooter assets. I wish more studios would take that risk. Though I'm not sure they'd all be as successful as Q.

Sucks to see so few folks on the leaderboards (but as a shmup fan, that's nothing new). This is a game I'll be coming back to for a long time. Consoles could use more short-form games like this.
 
K

kassatsu

Banned
Frogfucious said:
The music for the "last stage" is amazing. Is there anywhere I can purchase the soundtrack?
Click to expand...
I ripped it for personal use, just buy a capture card and do it yourself until HFB releases them for sale :)
 
Agent X

Agent X

Member
Wow, I just tried Brutal for the first time today. Wow.

There's one notable change to the gameplay mechanics on Brutal (which kassatsu mentioned in this post earlier in the thread), which will greatly affect the way you approach enemies compared to other modes. No matter what method you previously used to plow through Normal and Hard, you will almost assuredly have to alter your play style if you don't want to become crispy toast in 30 seconds or less.

Just trying to survive stage 1-1 will probably reduce most hardened players to tears. I can't even imagine what insanity lies ahead.

On the bright side, I cracked the top ten (OK, the #10 spot) on the stage 1-1 scoreboard. :)
 
L

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
Just tried the new PJ theme which has elements of shooter + sidescroller + monsters + text adventures all recreated in a joking fashion, and it's great. Even the self-check screen is there when the theme initializes, and it's full of FAIL!

More importantly though, I've realized that you can get to see the Credits screen in Sidescroller when you select it from the options (it never showed up at the end of the normal game for me, which I think is by design), and the credits screen not only has another ridiculously good song playing, that you can't hear anywhere else in the game, but it's a mini game unto itself. You move left and right and shoot at the credits text, while score increases when you do so.
 
S

Shearie

Member
Just bought this game. Was debating between this and Infinity Blade II but ended up deciding to wait until IB2 goes on sale. I'm surprised I waited so long to buy this. I'm a big fan of both Pixeljunk and Shmups and even with a backlog of games right now, I've been dying to play this.
 
Agent X

Agent X

Member
Darn, the game suffered a hard lockup while fighting the last phase of the last boss on Brutal. I was denied my ultimate victory on this night!

I will try again tomorrow. I must try again tomorrow. I will achieve victory!
 
K

kassatsu

Banned
Agent X said:
Darn, the game suffered a hard lockup while fighting the last phase of the last boss on Brutal. I was denied my ultimate victory on this night!

I will try again tomorrow. I must try again tomorrow. I will achieve victory!
Click to expand...

Never had that happen here =\
 
A

Adam J.

Member
I've always admired shmups but have never had the skills to really get into the bullet-hell titles. Shooter is great because it pulls inspiration from the hardcore titles, yet is totally beatable on normal, if you stay vigilant.
 
D

duckroll

Member
So it's like 2 months late for Asia, and at a significantly higher price than it is on the US store? No thanks. Lol.
 
B

BradleyLove

Member
I've been really enjoying this. However, every time I play I just can't help but think I wish they'd kept the art style from PJ Shooter. The "retro CRT" graphics become a little boring after a while.
 
B

Budr

Member
Futureman said:
360?

Studio too small, or did Sony fund the game or something?
Click to expand...

Dylan spoke about this a bit on PixelJunk Radio a while back. As I remember it, the basic gist was that he felt porting results in inferior products; he's much happier tailoring the game to a specific platform and not diluting the experience in any way. Jack of all trades...
 
K

Ken Masters

Banned
Budr said:
Dylan spoke about this a bit on PixelJunk Radio a while back. As I remember it, the basic gist was that he felt porting results in inferior products; he's much happier tailoring the game to a specific platform and not diluting the experience in any way. Jack of all trades...
Click to expand...

Why do I think of Skyrim when reading that?
 
D

duckroll

Member
Damn. I found out I had 5 bucks of credit left on the US account, so I redeemed the $5.99 code I got from the Video offer, and picked this up from the US store idea. Fuck the overcharging Asia price.
 
H

HiVision

Member
So has anyone picked this up in the super cheap sale on PSN at the moment? It's one of my personal favourites so it would be great if more people can experience it. There is a demo in the works too, out on the 24th apparently? (I lose track of submissions to PSN as there is such a delay until things are released these days)
 
V

Vard

Member
Beat the game on Normal today. Completely underrated, and quite possibly my favorite PixelJunk game yet. The art design and soundtrack are just top-notch. Hope we get a sequel!
 
T

tusken77

Member
I picked up SideScroller in this week's PixelJunk sale. As someone who grew up on shoot em-ups on the Speccy and C64 throughout the 80s, I'm thoroughly enjoying this stylish love letter to the genre/era.

PJ Shooter has a sequel. What are the chances of a SideScroller 2?
 
K

KalBalboa

Banned
I love the PixelJunk games, but after trying three times to get into this I think it's frankly their worst next to 4 AM. I spent half an hour on one checkpoint in level 1-3 earlier.

The entire experience is just punitive. The checkpoints, the "Continue" option doing nothing but removing all your power ups and starting you in the heat of a level, typically screwing you over... why not just restart the level automatically instead of forcing me to quit and pick the level again? It feel almost like a slap across the face after Shooter 1 & 2, as if it's a retort for this who wanted them to be more typical shooting games. I hate to rag on a game, but man.
 
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