Now, we’re about nine months into the service, and right now Q-Games has it by the balls with three stellar releases in about two months. After Skip's initial run of Art Style games ran out, Q-Games put out the final Art Style game (right now) with Art Style: Digidrive, which is probably the most addictive game I've played in a while. It's a simple premise that involves directing traffic into four different directions, hoping to line up five or more of the same color so you can create fuel that can be ignited to push a ball away from a spike. I realize that's probably jibberish, but just trust me: it's awesome. It gets even crazier once you start lining up combos and multiplying your fuel supply by doing so. I enjoyed the single-player so much that I still haven't even tried the multiplayer. It just hasn't occurred to me because I’m having so much damn fun with the basic mode.
Earlier in January, Trajectile hit DSiWare. It is the first in what seems to be the spirtual successor to Art Style series. It's some weird mixture of Breakout and Peggle. You have three different types of "things" (Trajectiles?) that you can bounce off the walls and fire off at a mess of blocks on the top screen. One type bounces around, one is a bomb, and the other is a drill. Your goal is to hit a few highlighted blocks. There are power-ups you can snag along the way. Did I mention there's something 200 levels? And there's medals to collect? And it's awesome?
The final Q-Games title is actually the one I was least excited for. Starship Defense is a tower defense game. I've barely played tower defense games and I'm burnt out on them. However, Starship Defense is very much an Art Style tower defense game, with an awesome simplistic and mildly creepy aesthetic. There are 30 levels that slowly ramp up in difficulty. Once again, there's scores to shoot for, and a good deal of variety. Matt Blundon said so much in his review.
Outside of their DSiWare output, I played PixelJunk Eden, which was pretty fantastic. If I ever dove back into my PS3 hardcore, I'd probably pick up PixelJunk Shooter. Is it worth it, dear readers?
