It is very rare that I encounter a shareware shooter game I truly like and would play in my spare time. Most games I see them, try them out, get bored, find new game. This was not true with Platypus. The second I downloaded the demo I fell in love with its bouncy game play, and its REALLY funky music. I played the demo until my time ran out, this usually never happens with me. After a few days I bought it, played through the familiar first episode. It was great. Until I hit episode 2 that is...

Platypus is a typical side scrolling shooter, with many fun and interesting enemies to keep you occupied. Each enemy has a really nice feel, their motion has a very round and uplifting feel. Its almost like everything bounces/dances to the music. Whenever I think of Platypus I think of rubber toy space ships with little human legs jumping around to a soundtrack that seems like it came from the cartoon channel. It's great fun! In a way it was like letting my inner child take over whenever I loaded up the game, it felt good.

Now is probably a good time to mention the graphics. Although their quality is lacking, and there is almost nothing in the special effects department, they are very very good graphics. Everything in this shooter game was made in colored clay and photographed. And the result is very nice indeed, the way everything looks so different to the real world, but nothing seems out of place. The scenery in Platypus is also interesting. As you fly along you can see forests, hills, mountains and cityscapes stretch out for miles into the distance, where you can also see hordes of enemy ships, which you may have to encounter later on.

The soundtrack is wonderful, I've already mentioned the brilliant music, but I’m going to mention it again, because it's just so great! But you will have to hear it to really get a feel for just how great it is. The sound effects do feel a little rough but they are fitting with the playful graphics and music.

The games balance is the point where I find most fault. Episode one is fine, its just right for the newbie, a little challenging but still easily possible to complete before your time runs out. However once you reach episode two everything seems to suddenly jerk into a much harder mode, this is demonstrated by the screenshot below.

The green circles show where deadly mines are placed. Now, hitting these causes death. Also, shooting these will cause tiny black spiky things to fly out, which are so tiny you can barely notice they are there. This means you seem to die for almost no reason, which is very annoying. As episode two progresses there are other mine areas, where the bags that the mines are tied to are also deadly, as well as there just being a hell of a lot more of the things. Just to give an example, on reaching episode two I had two credits, and two lives, by the end of the first mine area I had dropped down to zero credits and just four lives. And this was on EASY mode. Now I play this kind of shooter game a lot, and if I find this challenging I’m sure most people will find it near impossible. The game's difficulty after the first episode seems to go a little off the rails, with long periods of shear ease, only to be spoiled by a sudden near impossible obstacle. And this goes on and on until the end. It can be very frustrating.

There are only two other little things I didn't like about Platypus. One of which being that on the map it looks like you are going to get five episodes in the full version, but you only get four. The other being that the final boss is crap. In general the bosses are fun and interesting, especially the second boss, which is HUGE. For the final boss, I wanted to face something HUGE, but I just got a little space ship. It was still a hard battle, but only because I was starved of decent weaponry. All I wanted was a HUGE final boss, is that too much to ask?

Despite it's minor bad points, this is still a great game, certainly worth the money!

Score: 8/10
You can find Platypus at www.retro64.com