Original games are hard to find, however over on the Xbox LIVE Indie game service there are a ton of gems waiting to be found and none more so that the latest title from Mommy’s Best Games, Shoot 1Up.

Shoot 1Up is a very unique title indeed, after all it isn’t very often you get to control up to 30 space crafts while flying over backgrounds that include anything from whales to half naked ladies. At its heart Shoot 1Up is a basic space shooter, you fly from left to right, up and down all while the screen scrolls vertically and enemies of all shapes and sizes come at you from all angles. The aim of the game is to destroy the enemies and collect as many as the 1Up pick ups as you can along the way.

The main twist in Shoot 1Up comes in the form of the 1Ups – once you pick these up you will gain another ship and this will continue until you reach a maximum of thirty ships, all of which are controlled on the same screen at the same time. Once you have multiple ships you are able to combine these into one to make for an all-powerful ship, or you can split them up into groups, allowing you to take out enemies on both sides of the screen. You will need to change tactics depending on which part of the game you are in though so it is important to keep this in mind.

Once you manage to work your way through the levels (which doesn’t take very long, it has to be said), you will come up against a range of end of level bosses, including one that shoots at you from her nipples (which surely makes this game worth the 80Ms points alone). The boss fights are challenging and you will lose quite a few ships here, especially if you have upped the difficulty as far as it will go. Its all pretty classic gameplay though which anyone in their right mind should enjoy.

As well as having a fairly solid but short single player experience, the game also has the ability to allow you to play in co-op mode, which adds even more mayhem to the action considering that you will now have the ability to have up to 60 ships on the screen at once. This is something we could have done with on those pesky Space Invader tables on our childhood trip to Blackpool, but never mind, it’s here now and it’s crazy fun.

Shoot 1Up isn’t going to win any awards for its looks, because as you would expect for a low budget Indie game it’s not really a looker. The visuals do represent the game and the action well though and with everything running smoothly and not lagging you can hardly complain in this department, so this was just more of a warning really to say don’t expect miracles.

Pros

• Fast Paced Action
• Offers a Unique Twist on a Classic Genre
• Co-op Play Included

Cons

• Basic graphics
• Not a huge game

There isn’t much more to say about Shoot 1Up which we haven’t covered already, it’s a fast paced arcade action game, with passable visuals and a unique twist. Its action combined with its very reasonable price of 80 MS points make this a title well worth considering for those with some small change in their Xbox LIVE account.

Score: 8/10