Soldner-X Himmelsturmer is a game exclusively for the Playstation Network. To me, it is a combination of Gradius and Ikaruga; the former because it is a horizontal side-scroller and the latter because of the game difficulty. You begin with four difficulties with the option of unlocking two more after hard (there are trophies for both.). Even on very easy, the game is rather difficult. That may turn new generation gamers off, but to those like me who grew up in the years of hard shmups (short for shoot-em-ups) and enjoyed those, you will definitely enjoy this one. Your ship has 4 main guns and rockets. The four guns are pulse, beam, bow shot, and flamethrower. The two starter ones, the pulse and beam, are rechargeable. You get the others via powerups. These are not rechargeable which is a shame because I love the bow weapon. The powerups range from faster speed to multishot to extra points. There are only four levels but there is a lot going on in each level. Each level has a miniboss (with level 4 having two) in addition to the main boss. Each level also has five hidden keys. If you collect all least 4 keys in each level, you unlock the fifth world. You have a health meter and how much it depletes with each hit depends on the difficulty (Very Easy can take the most hits, while Nightmare can take the least hits). There is a training mode for you to practice. This helps especially if you want to practice and not want your score recorded. Speaking of which, every time you begin single player (or co-op) and are signed in to PSN, you have the opportunity to upload your score to see where you are ranked globally, locally and where your latest score ranks as well. Overall, I like this game and you've been waiting for a shmup to play, pick this one up. It's $9.99 and that's a deal. So good luck and good shooting.
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