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We gamers are a fickle lot. If a franchise doesn’t regularly perform we banish it to bargain bins with ridicule. However, if a franchise does regularly perform the bar is raised and suddenly expectation bestows the developer and that’s exactly what Q Games are facing.

The Pixeljunk games got off to an auspicious start with Racers, charmed the hardcore with Monsters and then pleased the art crowd with the fabulous Eden. The ever-increasing quality of the games might have delayed the releases with almost a year and a half between the third and forth release but the awkwardly named Shooter doesn’t disappoint.

Shooter treats you like an adult and hardly gives you any guidance throughout

With that said, Pixeljunk Shooter fails to make a good first impression. It’s a twin stick shooter, a genre we’ve had in abundance recently and it’s an awkward controlling twin stick shooter at that. Twitchy controls make themselves known as you jerk around the first level and release a massive pool of water onto the lava that bubbled below.

Instantly you’re introduced to the different elements and you’ll start figure out how they work and react with each other. Then, over the course of the game, they’ll start introducing gas, ice and even magnetised acids. Ignore their unique quirks and reactions at your own peril, you’ll have to learn them on your own because Shooter treats you like an adult and hardly gives guidance.

But that provokes your inquisitive side. What happens when I fly into the water? Oh, the ship cools down. Well what happens when I fly into the lava? Oh, don’t do that again. You’ll probably be hours in the game before figuring out how to spin your ship or boost across the levels. The game does an excellent job of making you feel like you’re exploring long lost caves and uncovering nuances, when in actuality you are following the same linear levels everyone else is.

Then you’ll feel relaxed and at home. You’ve figured out how certain elements react and you’ll start to get comfortable and they’ll through you the lava suit or inverter suit. Suddenly you can fire lava, pull down rocks or even repel acids. That’s really how the whole game is refreshingly paced. You’ll be introduced to something, get comfortable with it and then the game will through you another cleverly conceived curve ball using previously encountered elements.

You’ll get comfortable then the game will throw you another cleverly conceived curve ball

What may be a little off putting is that the caves aren’t portrayed as vast rock corridors waiting to be explored; in fact they’re almost South Park-esque in their cartoon-ish simplicity. The same could be said about the typography and story details, it’s almost as if Eden didn’t happen. Akin to Monsters and Racers, Shooter is a return to those playful days at Q Games; maybe the serious artistic vibe that Eden encapsulated was too serious.

Ascetically, this isn’t Eden but the actual game isn’t too dissimilar as you explore intriguing new worlds. Large collect-a-thons will ensue with each stage having miners to rescue, hidden diamonds to mine and obligatory points for killing enemies. You’ll think that Shooter is just about exploring but after a few stages, you’ll realise that it’s more about collecting the diamonds than anything else. Some might find the lack of guidance annoying but it will add tenfold to the games replay value.

The problem is that you’ll have to replay Shooter if you want to get your moneys worth. The game is deceptively short with fifteen brief levels spilt across three worlds. It’s a bigger kick in the teeth when the post-credit sequence throws up the possibility of future DLC. Luckily the game does save some face with its manically paced 2-player co-op mode but that’s limited to local use only.

While it lasts, however, Pixeljunk Shooter is a brilliant experience. The lack of a forced tutorial will bring out your inquisitive side and the seemingly randomness of the elements, will allow you to experiment. While the game might not better previous PJ titles, Shooter is a game that reluctantly equals previous releases. Sure it might be on the short side but the pacing, cleverness and exploration encountered throughout the game equates to one hell of a ride.