Pong and Beyond

351st played so far

Genre: Strategy
Platform: PlayStation 3
Year of Release: 2008
Developer: Q-Games/Double Eleven
Publisher: Q-Games/SCEA/SCEE

For the first game of another fifty, we go back to another indie(-ish) title. Based on just what I remember coming across the name occasionally, I keep wanting to mistype it PixelHunt Monsters – it was originally typoed in the spreadsheet we use to keep track of the list (my fault!).

Looking at the game, it looks like a cartoony tower defense game – apparently one of the first console games in the genre. We’ve covered a few before – such as Starship Patrol and Plants vs Zombies – and enjoyed them, so this should be more fun, especially as this time, we can go co-op.

Our Thoughts

Now here’s a charming game. Slightly 3D and mostly cartoony, you guard cute animals in a house in a forest, turning trees into different towers that destroy the horde of enemies. It plays like most other tower defense games, with a pleasant look.

A lot of the game relies on speed, getting your character to towers in time to build them, purchasing new types of towers or upgrading them – this last thing being done by dancing around the tower for some time. It adds a lot more urgency to the game, with always too many things to do and too many paths to cover.

Luckily, there’s a lot of co-op play, which eases the process. While it probably increases the difficulty by increasing monster numbers (we didn’t test), dividing responsibilities makes it easier to keep up with the different attacks, building and upgrading towers. It’s fairly straightforward, staying out of each other’s way, and makes it easier to cover more ground – with different attack paths, being able to divide your attention between two, or between two halves of the screen, is a major advantage.

The game stays themed nicely – while using a lot of standard distinctions (flying vs ground, long range speedy shooters vs short range heavy hitters), they feel slightly different and nature-based enough to be different, as well as providing some interesting screen-filling weapons.

A truly satisfying co-op experience that feels worth going back to for us.

Final Thoughts

I think that the final sentence Jeroen wrote really does sum up this game. With the majority of games on this list being single-player the chance for us to enjoy a game together is sadly quite rare and I really got into this one. I have high hopes for the other PixelJunk game on this list now.