I finally had a chance to do some exploration on the PlayStation Network downloads and in my quest to find new SHMUP action I purchased a promising looking title named Söldner-X.

Don’t let the slick graphics fool you. Play control is bland and the pick system for power-ups leaves much to be desired. Half the time if I did see a power-up mixed in among the dense and similarly colored background imagery I was never quite sure if I had actually picked it up as the collision seems to be the core of your ship and there is this delayed fade out on the icon that kept me constantly double checking to see if I needed to fly back to grab it.

It had all the feeling of the worst of crappy 90’s shareware. Yeah that bad.

The combat was pretty uninspired as well and I really felt like I had been scammed for my $10.

I’m going to have to say for my money, the best new SHMUP downloadables I have purchased of late have been Geometry Wars 2 on Xbox Live and Star Soldier R on WiiWare.