Deluxe Accommodations
PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe brings the addiction to the PSP without skipping a beat. It does however, offer even more content to tear through.
Published: November 10, 2009
It's crazy how a change in platform can make you completely reconsider where a game should have begun in the first place. I love PixelJunk Monsters. I love its awesome expansion. When combined, both games are still, to this day, the best tower defense game I've ever played -- and possibly will ever play -- or at least I thought. See, the move to the PSP, subtly tweaked to incorporate some new enemies (the ones that are airborne until you pop their balloons are a really nice touch) and to better use the towers that have always been there is such a tightly, concentrated package of awesome that you should probably just stop reading and go download it.
If you've picked up a PSP go, this should be on your system without any doubt; it's literally the perfect game to bust out whenever you have a few free moments -- like, say, commuting to the office on the train, cursing like a crazy person when just one enemy slipped past and got to the base, ruining your perfect rainbow-worthy run and garnering more than a few concerned glances. Sure, the $20 asking price might seem a little high considering PJM on the PS3 has gone on sale now a couple times, and even with the expansion isn't all that expansive, but Q-Games are a smart lot. They thought ahead. They added more.
It's hard to describe just how hopelessly addictive the PixelJunk Monsters experience is (though that shouldn't stop you from reading our original review, as it explains all the basic mechanics and perfectly captures the kind of madness that dozens of ours of play time can cause). There's something magical about it, something that keeps you restarting over and over and over again, even after almost an hour of methodically setting, upgrading and managing all your different towers. The move to the PSP hasn't diminished those addictive properties one iota, and the simple visual style along with Otograph's soundtrack is still phenomenally charming, and it's not unreasonable to say that this is actually the best version of the game that has ever existed.
PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe just feels at home on the PSP, and the addition of a new, ultra-hard options on top of both the original and expansion's islands means you've got what may well end up being over 100 hours of gameplay waiting for you. Ah, but that's before you consider the game's two biggest additions: online multiplayer and the new challenges, which remix the old maps you may have rainbowed already on the PS3, but adds additional criteria that will test the resolve of even the most season players and completely breaks down the old trial-and-error gameplay of the original games, forcing a new strategy for passing old levels.
To help wrap up all the medals you can earn in Challenge Mode (as well as unlockables), a Tiki Hut has been included that lets you peer at your total collection or take on new challenges. It, combined with the online play (there's no voice chat, but you can at least trade simple emotes to help collaborate when not playing locally, which is definitely the most strategic way to tackle things) breathes a ridiculous amount of life into a game that was already good enough to pick up after all this time. I really couldn't believe how quickly I got sucked into the game all over again.
There's really no point in gushing anymore, since another thousand words is just going to boil down to this: go buy this game. It's a tiny little download, ensuring that even non-go owners will have room on their Memory Sticks to grab it, and there's honestly more gameplay per byte packed into this game than any game I've played since... Tetris. And it's just as universally simple and subversively addictive as Comrade Pajitnov's little block stacker. Seriously, download this game. Now.
If you've picked up a PSP go, this should be on your system without any doubt; it's literally the perfect game to bust out whenever you have a few free moments -- like, say, commuting to the office on the train, cursing like a crazy person when just one enemy slipped past and got to the base, ruining your perfect rainbow-worthy run and garnering more than a few concerned glances. Sure, the $20 asking price might seem a little high considering PJM on the PS3 has gone on sale now a couple times, and even with the expansion isn't all that expansive, but Q-Games are a smart lot. They thought ahead. They added more.
It's hard to describe just how hopelessly addictive the PixelJunk Monsters experience is (though that shouldn't stop you from reading our original review, as it explains all the basic mechanics and perfectly captures the kind of madness that dozens of ours of play time can cause). There's something magical about it, something that keeps you restarting over and over and over again, even after almost an hour of methodically setting, upgrading and managing all your different towers. The move to the PSP hasn't diminished those addictive properties one iota, and the simple visual style along with Otograph's soundtrack is still phenomenally charming, and it's not unreasonable to say that this is actually the best version of the game that has ever existed.
PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe just feels at home on the PSP, and the addition of a new, ultra-hard options on top of both the original and expansion's islands means you've got what may well end up being over 100 hours of gameplay waiting for you. Ah, but that's before you consider the game's two biggest additions: online multiplayer and the new challenges, which remix the old maps you may have rainbowed already on the PS3, but adds additional criteria that will test the resolve of even the most season players and completely breaks down the old trial-and-error gameplay of the original games, forcing a new strategy for passing old levels.
To help wrap up all the medals you can earn in Challenge Mode (as well as unlockables), a Tiki Hut has been included that lets you peer at your total collection or take on new challenges. It, combined with the online play (there's no voice chat, but you can at least trade simple emotes to help collaborate when not playing locally, which is definitely the most strategic way to tackle things) breathes a ridiculous amount of life into a game that was already good enough to pick up after all this time. I really couldn't believe how quickly I got sucked into the game all over again.
There's really no point in gushing anymore, since another thousand words is just going to boil down to this: go buy this game. It's a tiny little download, ensuring that even non-go owners will have room on their Memory Sticks to grab it, and there's honestly more gameplay per byte packed into this game than any game I've played since... Tetris. And it's just as universally simple and subversively addictive as Comrade Pajitnov's little block stacker. Seriously, download this game. Now.
