Arena shooters are two a penny on the Xbox Live Indie Games service, with only a small number really deserving your attention. JoyJoy is definitely in the ‘must play’ category, with its polished look, multitude of weaponry and challenging gameplay.

It may all get a little too hectic as the later levels utterly destroy you, but that doesn’t stop Joy Joy from feeling as revolutionary to dual-stick arena shooters as the classic Geometry Wars did.

GAMEPLAY

If you’ve played dual-stick blasters before, you’ll know what to expect here. The left stick moves your ambiguous-looking craft around the screen, while the right stick lets fly a variety of different lasers in whichever direction you point.

Similarly abstract enemies spawn around the playing field, honing in on your position. Collide with a baddie and lose a health point – run out of health and watch your ship explode into light. It’s game over, bud.

Starting with a single bog-standard laser, your ship can grab other weapons which can then be upgraded along the way. Each gun is completely different to every other, although the usefulness of each varies. For example, the Hunter’s bullets lock onto nearby enemies and make a beeline, while the Lancer fires off a small but powerful spread.

Besides your regular blasting, the left trigger can also be used to charge a weapon up. During this time, your guns cease firing and your ship will store power – the longer you hold, the bigger the effect. Again, each weapon has a different effect – the aforementioned Hunter simply fires off a shed-load of enemy-seeking missiles, while the Lancer powers out a spread of lasers through a whole 360 degree radius of your ship.

While the selection of blasters is very much appreciated, it becomes apparent after a short while that certain weapons are much more useful than others, and you eventually end up using only one or two of those on offer – suggesting that maybe the available weapons need balancing a little. Still, the majority of arena shooters only offer one or two types of weapon, so you can’t really complain.

As well as the regular story mode (which features very slick boss battles at the end of each world), there are challenges to complete which force you to survive for a set amount of time with specific weapons. These are great fun, although the XBLIG restriction on not allowing online leaderboards is a shame, as this mode would really have benefitted from a bit of online competition.

It’s worth noting that after trawling through a couple of worlds, JoyJoy becomes rather difficult. Whole screen’s worth of enemies will regularly spawn, and completely obliterate your ship if you don’t have a charge laser ready. Later enemies will throw a whole bunch of laser fire your way, and it all gets very bullet-hell.

Fortunately, there are modifiers which can be added to your craft to make the game easier, at the expense of points, so gamers of any skill level can play comfortably.

A two-player mode is also included in the package, and proves to be great fun for a short while. As with the likes of I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1, it’s a nice little distraction for when you and a friend are looking to casually blast bad guys together.

STYLE

JoyJoy’s general aesthetics are incredibly pleasing, with a mixture of polished, sharp visuals and incredible musical infusion helping the game achieve levels of brilliance that would otherwise have been elusive.

As mentioned previously, everything about JoyJoy’s graphical style is very abstract, yet beautifully so – both your own ship and the enemies are simply solid shapes with the slightest bit of detail, but rather than hindering the experience, it actually gives the whole thing a rather sinister atmosphere. In short, it looks simple yet stunning.

The soundtrack is just as beautiful, with fluid technobeats fading in and out as your ship takes damage. It’s this attention to detail which makes JoyJoy really stand out on the whole.

STORY

This is an arena shooter, so it comes as no surprise that JoyJoy features no story whatsoever. You’re here to blast hundreds and thousands of random enemy ships, not ponder the meaning of it all.

OTHER

Compared to the majority of shooters on Xbox Live Indie Games, JoyJoy really stands out from the crowd, providing one of the most smooth and visually stunning experiences you’ll find on the service. A new standard has been set, and future XBLIG blasters are bound to be compared to this ultimate looker.

This is only the first in a series of shooters from radiangames too, as the developer releases Crossfire later this month, which looks just as polished and playable as its predecessor, albeit with a slightly different spin.

JoyJoy costs a single dollar, so if you own an Xbox, there is simply no reason not to grab this powerful piece of indie gaming.