Söldner-X: Himmelsstürmer

Söldner-X: Himmelsstürmer (SXH) is a 2007 PC game that is now making its way to the PS3 via the PSN, and it will include much stuff not found in the PC original.  The US should get the game sometime in October, with other regions following shortly after.  Uh-huh…

SXH is a fast and furious shoot ‘em up…now hang on a minute, I’m not having this.  A furious shmup?  Furious?  What the heck has a shmup got to be furious about?  Oh, these aliens they come over here and steal our power-ups?  Is that it?

What?  Oh, the write-up.  Yeah, sorry.

SXH is a shoot ‘em up, set far into the future.  The basic premise is that Earth is under attack from an infection that consumes life and technology.  Using the usual brew of state-of-the-art audio and visual elements and the typical shmup gameplay, Earth’s battle is fought out by an anti-hero Mercenary/Bounty Hunter, who pilots a prototype star fighter.

So, right, what you do is shoot stuff, kill the viral infection, save the world, earn mega-bucks, and get the girl.  Well, there’s no mention of a girl, but what girl wouldn’t want a rich do-gooder like this Mercenary bloke?

If you’re familiar with SXH then this list of new stuff it does will make more sense to you.  To us it just reads like a list of things a shmup should do.

New stuff

• Visual improvements including y-scrolling, new background animations, newly added effects and more
• Contains new enemies, including newly crafted standard foes and larger sub boss battles
• Additional boss battle and berserker mode background music (seven brand new tracks in total!)
• New sound effects added for an enhanced gaming experience
• Rebalanced game play with an easier default difficulty
• Rebalanced high score system, including new victory screens
• DUALSHOCK®3 and optional SIXAXIS™ support
• Trophies support

Now, moving on we have ‘key’ features.  Despite initial trepidation that this would involve puzzle-style combination locks that could only be opened with the correct ‘key’, we’re pleased to report that what it actually means is nothing.  That’s right, replace ‘key’ with ” in the following list and we get Features.  Peasy.
Further features

• 12 stages of beautiful parallax graphics and animations, staged across 4 fantastic world/space settings
• High definition graphics in up to 1080p
  Beautiful weather effects (such as rain, fog and lightning)
• Classic design, yet state-of-the-art shooter technology
• Unique upgrade weapon system with five standard weapon types
• Never before seen tactical elements such as chaining, effectiveness system, ‘berserker’ mode and more
• Plenty of hidden bonus features
• More than 20 extras (with both positive and negative effects!)
• Addictive collection quests
• Over-the-top boss fights
• Features a superb soundtrack and sound effects
• Up to fix modes of difficulty
• Easy to learn, yet tough to master
• Online high score ranking

Much as I like to use my near-humourous humour to poke fun at most everything, I do think the PSN and the variety of games therein are pretty much the best of the big-3.

So, here’s to SXH continuing the trend.