PS3 Owners: Soldner X-2 Brings the Good Stuff

One of the things that we seem to miss out on with this site is coverage of some of those random indie games. It’s not that we dislike them, it’s just that none of us are the kinds of people who really seem to seek them out and report on them. That’s why I love Bytejacker, a video game show on Revision3 that covers this topic terribly well, and gives regular folks like me the chance to see something I might have otherwise missed.

While watching this week’s episode, I caught sight of a game that I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t heard of before. It’s a straight up classic style shoot-em-up in the vein of the old R-Type games, and it’s only $12.99 on the PSN right now. It’s called Soldner X-2, and the only word I have to describe the way this game looks is “epic”.

Really, I’ll stop talking about it. Just watch the trailer.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ06n20AFbE[/youtube]

Has anyone heard of this game, and doesn’t it look awesome?

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I write about samurai girls and space marines. Writer for Smooth Few Films. Rooster Teeth Freelancer. Author of Red vs. Blue, The Ultimate Fan Guide, out NOW!

5 thoughts on “PS3 Owners: Soldner X-2 Brings the Good Stuff”

  1. I have R-Type on SNES and I find it horribly difficult. I bought it thinking you were at the bottom of the screen, moving side to side shooting like Arcade games. I don’t really like moving up and down from the side view… But this game still looks gorgeous!

  2. The first Soldner X was a lot of fun, but it’s really hard in the tradition of 8 & 16 bit “bullet hell” shooters. Yeah, you have a health bar, but with the amount of bullets on screen coupled with nasty environmental hazards made it extremely difficult. They actually patched it shortly after release to include a “Beginner” difficulty setting because even the “Very Easy” setting was just too intense for most people.

    Still, it was a fun game and Soldner X-2 looks like it addresses some of the issues the first game had, especially the scrolling speed. Soldner X scrolled very slowly and gave the game a bit of a sluggish feel (well, except for later levels where the horizonal and vertical scrolling speed varies while you’re navigating through an obstacle laden environment; like I said, not a friendly game), but Solder X-2 looks like it scrolls a lot faster to give it a better sense of speed.

    Don’t know if they’ve tweaked the difficulty as well, but I’ll definitely be getting this one at some point. Classic, side scrolling 2d shooters just aren’t well represented on the HD systems (unless you like the R-Type games, since you can get the older PSone versions on PSN and the up-res version on XBL).

  4. The Genesis had a ton of great shooters. I was never really into the genre back then, but I’m kind of sad to see that it’s mostly disappeared. I keep meaning to import a bunch of Japanese shooters for my Saturn, but some of them are quite pricey (hello, Radiant Silvergun). In the meantime, I’ll have to make due with the Soldner X games and Ikaruga.

    I’m still not any good at shooters, but I do “get them” now. Playing these games is a very zen-like experience. They’re kind of like trying to see the picture in those Magic Eye books where you have to let your eyes go out of focus to see the picture, only in this case you have to let your mind be still and allow your hand/eye coordination to take over. When you’re in the zone playing a 2d shooter, it’s like an out of body experience in which you’re only subconsciously aware of what you’re doing.

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