Space Tripper is the freshman effort of the independent development studio, Pom Pom.  Based in the UK, this small company is made up of a couple industry veterans who were tired of bloated multimillion dollar games that forgot about fun. Going the opposite direction, these guys have made a simple side-scroller, in the vein of R-Type or Defender, which focuses on unmitigated shooting, shooting, and more shooting. There is no story; you just fly around, taking out the alien machines and creatures in classic style. Every three or four levels you fight a “boss,” designed around the theme of the last few levels. these include a mechanical spider, a giant tank, and a Chinese-dragon style death worm. 

Sticking with simplicity, your ship has two fire modes: the stronger straight shot, and the weaker spread shot. You can collect power ups along the way and can upgrade each of these modes about ten times. The directions suggest balancing the upgrades between the two modes, but I found better success just quickly maxing out the straight shot. 

The graphics are really eyecatching. Rather than the layered (parallax) 2D graphics in older shooters, Space Tripper uses a true 3D engine so there is a real sense of depth. In truth, the 3D doesn’t really affect the gameplay, there are times you fly your craft closer or farther away, but it is done automatically. The 3D serves only the appearance, but to that end, it does an excellent job. Also, because the game is rendered in realtime, you can scale you resolution up as high as 1024x768 and it looks sweet. 

The sounds in the game are generally good, but there are a few which are a little boring. The enemies early on die with a puny “plunk” sound. This is nitpicking, though. There is no soundtrack to the game, which shows you the budget they were working on. This doesn’t hurt the game overall, but it would have been nice to have something. I do think that *no* music is better than bad music.

Space Trippers is about 13 levels long, which if you play using the “continue” game options, can be pretty short, but I defy anyone to finish all 13 in one game! Even on the easy setting, you better rediscover those 80’s reflexes, or you will never make it past level three.

Besides being a little short, I would have enjoyed the levels being a bit bigger, and perhaps some more use of the 3D opportunities. Besides falling off the edge of “the world” the 3D was mainly for looks. However, these compact levels are full of frantic action, so to that extent, PomPom has succeeded glowingly in creating what they set out to do.

Currently Space Tripper is only available online (a box version is in the works), and at the very reasonable price of $12.00 US. That alone should cinch the deal for anyone hankering for a good side-scrolling shooter. PomPom has already upgraded the game once, with some new features, so you can count on a good level of support. This type of independent publishing can only help in offering us all more variety in types of games available, and with a lower cost.

Install: Easy
Basic install. You should be up in running in minutes, and it only takes up about 15 megs!

Gameplay: 7
Repetitive, but that's the point. Very responsive and fun. I would've liked to see more weapons, with better balance

Graphics: 8
Great looking 3d graphics. Would've enjoyed seeing more variety, but what was there was nice.

Sound: 6
No soundtrack. Basic space sounds.

Difficulty: 9
Wow. Very hard to finish, but they added a continue feature, so you'll at least have a chance.

Concept: 7
Nothing breakthrough, but it's a nice return to the side-scroller at a budget price.

Multiplayer: None

Overall: 7.5
A fun mindless game. Scores higher for the reasonable price. If you like twitch games, Space Tripper is definitely worth checking out.