PixelJunk Monsters Comments by Kristan Reed

Sounds a bit like desktop tower defence!

http://www.kongregate.com/games/preecep/...

How did you manage to get through this review without saying "Tower Defense"?

YOU ARE CONFUSING US!

Well, I could lie and pretend I've ever played that, but I haven't. Maybe you lot can explain the inspiration.

I wish XBLA had such games as well. This and Everyday Shooter. Any Little Big Planet would be great on the 360 as well because then I had no argument anymore to think over wether to get a PS3 or not. I probably won't, but those 3 games really interest me.

Maybe you lot can explain the inspiration.

Well the game mechanics sound identical. The only real diference being that you have a character on the field rather than a mouse pointer.

Plus desktop tower defence is free of course :)

Aren't tower defense games themselves derived from levels in one of the Warcrafts?

It was a Warcraft mod wasn't it? Anyway I think I'll get this.

Got it last night and love it. Things seem to be getting alot better for PSN recently

There is a demo of this on the japanese PSN store (its all in english).

It's quite good!

Is the co-op online?

Was playing this last night.

Freaking LOVELY.

Really really nice - can't wait to play it again. Highly addictive and beautiful 'to boot'.

It's good fun, challenging, cheap, and it also works on the psp. Buy it.

I'm having lag-issues using PJM remote-play. XMB, PSone games, Pixeljunk Monsters, etc. are running laggy/sluggish. I have tried all connections settings (type 1-5) and the problem persists on all settings.

I'm sitting aprox. 2-3 meters from the router and the wifi connection is strong (90%-100%) but still it's running quite bad and PJM remote-play is unuseable for me.

Anybody else got this problem or have a solution ?

TIA!

(sorry for reposting this)

Yes it is essentially Tower Defence but I've not played any variation where you control some sort of avatar in and RTS stylee. I downloaded this on the urging of a few people despite my protestations that I'd had my fill of TD game and I'm glad I did. I'm really enjoying it. And at 3 and half quid you can't really go wrong. On the strength of this I may grab their Racers game too.

Can you download this to PSP or is it just remote play?

I ask because I agree the lag makes non-rpg titles unplayable - I agree some is unavoidable but it could be a lot better than it currently is.

i would buy this but the little guy walks around so sloooooooooooooooowly....

that aside, it's not too shabby a game!

"lag is an unavoidable side-effect of the remote play feature "

Not like this. I had it running earlier (a few months ago) where is was fast and usable (fast PS3 XMB navigation, etc) ... maybe a later firmware screwed it up or something else conflicts with it.


"Can you download this to PSP or is it just remote play? "

Only remote-play. A PSP version would be really nice :)

" would buy this but the little guy walks around so sloooooooooooooooowly..."

Well...

You get a "run potion" after beating easy levels ;)

Yes it is essentially Tower Defence but I've not played any variation where you control some sort of avatar in and RTS stylee.
I hope you are kidding, I don't understand how somebody can be this stupid.

Yep. I could be wrong about this, but...

Tower defense started as a bit of a gimmick map for star craft, then pretty much exploded in WarCraft 3, thanks to its excellent modding tools. There were lots of Tower Defense maps, with lots of different Tower-Trees for upgrading etc. and even some which also used Heros (though the heros never replaced the cursor). It got especially nerdy-fun in Co-op where everyone would gather after every failed attempt at the rock-hard levels, trying to figure out the best strategies... "You tech up on the slow-towers, I'll tech up on the DPS towers" etc.

Since then there have been a number of flash based versions, some casual versions, and indie versions too. Notably, Immortal Defense (reminiscent of Dune meets Geometry Wars in a 5th spatial dimension, and probably one of the best indie tower defense games out there, sadly not making it into the IGF this year) uses the cursor as an extra way to shoot, and its "charge" attack can be used in conjunction with a few of the towers (to gravitate mines toward it etc.), but the cursor cannot be "hurt"

So yeah, there's some real history behind this mechanic. It's a very enjoyable one.

I don't own a PS3 but the PSN games are a hundred times better than the what Xbox Arcade 'service' offers.*

*Until Rez HD on Live that is...

-1 Kudos Eurogamer, from the review, it really does sound like tower defence with a slightly more clumbersome interface. Considering TD has been everywhere on the internet for so long someone should have read the review before release and pointed it out.

Live Arcade does some great titles (Worms, Uno & Puzzle Quest to name a few), in terms of a bit of originality the PSN seems to have edge - at least for my personal tastes. One area where Sony have done well with the PS3 - ignoring the fiasco that is the Euro PSN (where's Pain eh? eh? EH?)

@ Beano

I always use Type 4 for remote play and have no issues at all even with fairly fast paced PS1 Games, you can always try custom and lower the bit rate manually. Also could there be anyone else in your house using your wireless network and stealing your bandwidth?

Ive really had no problems with remote play at all, since release except getting it working over the internet from work, my damn router keeps blocking external access and i havent figured how to configure it correct yet. Bit of a labourious process when i can only test if ive got it right by driving to work. lol

This (and Patapon) are both part of this week's 1UP show.

Just played the demo, lovely little game, enjoyed it a lot more then DTD, very very cute too.

canyou play co-op off line, I Might get this and play it with my girlfriend, I think she is ready to get in to RTS games...maybe (she did like pikmin afterall, but she thinks C&C is the dullest crap in the world - how wrong she is!)

Everyday shooter not arriving has really pissed me off though, its my birthday on sunday, and that was going to be my present to myself.....booo hoooooo!

It's offline co-op only.

Of course there are some biggies on the horizon, but XBLA could do with more original IPs like this one, and possibly put in a little tighter quality control, because even though I'm an avid 360 'supporter', it's arcade offerings are getting a lil tiresome as of late. There's only sooo many remakes and re-re-releases I can take before I go mental. Bring on the bloody Rez.

C'mon guys - there are LOADS of tower defense type games, published LONG before Desktop Tower Defense... E.g. Curator Defense, just to name one... (Like Bezzy said)

This game (I'm talking about PixelJunk Monsters) would get a severe score cut from me for being so derivative...

Lookie, lookie what I have found:

http://www.towerdefence.net/

Have you played it?

Seems like there's a lot of hostility towards this game purely because it's based around an existing formula. Surely that criticsm could be levelled at most PSN and Live games, though?

At least this isn't a straight port and actually adds a few relatively novel elements.

Besdies, if you've actually played it, you'd realise this is a fun game and deserveing of the 8/10 Eurogamer gave it.

What a cool little game. I downloaded the demo from the Japan store and thought it was worth the AU$8.45. Guess what? It was. Awesome PSN game.

I love my tower defence games, so this is welcome. Especially the co-op mode, which sounds good but I haven't tried due to a controller shortage in my house :P