Coming late to the PS3 scene, I wasn’t able to participate in the excitement of some releases that would have otherwise been day one purchases for me, one in particular being PixelJunk Shooter. Luckily, the PlayStation Store included the whole PixelJunk series in its “Spring Fever” sale on the first weekend of May, when I coincidentally had a sudden breakout of unemployment calling for a mix of vacation and celebration, leading me to purchase the whole series.

From the first five minutes of playing Shooter, I found myself especially drawn in by the art style and music. I plowed through the game, bobbing my head up and down while a rhythm of satisfaction came from destroying cavern walls with missiles and a personal mission that my subterranean ship would never leave any survivors stranded in those underground areas.

I became an instant Q-Games Fan.

What happened when I finished the game though? It was quite short, honestly. But what’s left a longer presence is the background music from the game.

One day, I happened to leave the game on during breakfast for background music, which gained notice from my music-loving (non-gaming) boyfriend. He’s never heard of High Frequency Bandwidth, but he has heard of The Orb. I told him one of the members from The Orb is in HFB, and that they provided the soundtrack to the game. At that moment, our worlds collided and I listened to him talk about how large of an influence The Orb is in ambient electronic music, with me following up with how awesome Shooter is.

I even learned about the avant-garde live performance they did for television, where the band members dressed up in space suits and played chess while a video of their song was playing in the background.

With the recent announcement of PixelJunk Shooter 2 and word that HFB is scoring it, I am hoping Dylan Cuthbert delivers the “jam-packed full of crazy fun” game he promises. This time I can finally purchase it on day one.

He’s even made a level of Shooter available as a demo on PSN for those who missed out, so if you missed it too this is definitely a good time to catch up.