Joseph Luster
February 26, 2008 
The shadow of Xbox Live Arcade has been a dark and dreary place for the struggling Playstation Network to roam. It’s tough to get a leg up against a competitor that has years and years of doing the same thing, but better, under their belt. Still, despite lacking features and a means of connecting to your friends that remains as awkward as can be, PSN has been slowly coming into its own via brilliantly original titles unique to the platform.
Everyday Shooter is most definitely one of those games. If you haven’t read the story of its genesis from the mind of lone developer Jonathan Mak to the state it’s in now, it’s a fascinating scenario that should inspire other up-and-comers in the field. Taking a tried and true formula for downloadable success, the dual-analog shooter, Mak added in his own music to create a Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Rez, E4)-like platter of highly stylized art and colorful destruction that creates a full melody from various autonomous notes.
It all begins simply enough, thrusting the player’s tiny dot of a ship into a glowing, pulsing zone through which enemies zoom like city traffic. A guitar riff jams in the background, gradually accompanied by more and more notes as you shoot at the wandering vessels, making them pop like individual strings. The hook comes when you discover each stage’s method of chaining. The first, for example, is achieved by blowing up mines and blasting the resulting explosion so that enemies wander into it and continue the chain.
You might as well forget this when the song ends, because the next stage revolves around a completely different mechanic with all new obstacles and enemies, and figuring out the way to chain in this stage and in those that follow will yield more and more precious points. This method of switching up the goal from stage to stage – or, more accurately, song to song – goes a long way to separate Everyday Shooter from, well, your everyday shooter. It also makes the whole experience seem more organic, with each return to the game playing out with a slightly different melody of bombs and bullets.
Everyday Shooter is a game that begs for your attention, and one that quickly addicts and drives the player to attempt to score higher and unlock bonus content. If this title is a sign of what just one musically inclined programmer can accomplish, then the sky really is the limit for original downloadable titles in the future.
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: Queasy Games
System: Playstation 3
Available: Now
