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While Ralph the character you play in Astro Miner may be ugly this little game is anything but. From the first moment the main menu opens up on your screen you know that you have real quality on the screen.

The game is simple at heart a standard side scrolling shoot em up. The controls are simplicity itself with the cursors being used for controlling Ralph, space to make him jump and alt to make him fire which ever weapon he is carrying at the time, though this player sincerely wished that she could had fired diagonally at times. The gameplay as well is intuitive to anyone who has ever picked up a shooter of this type before. Run around collecting objects and powerups while doing your best not to get slapped silly by the various monsters that will accost you in your journeys.

The graphics and sound are delicious in the extreme. Our hero Ralph is pretty damn ugly but the world which he inhabits is simply stunning. The backgrounds are beautifully rendered with a depth and clarity you would expect of a much larger download. The sound is fabulous. Yes the event noises are you standard shooter fair, pops, bangs, whistles and all the other standard "Oh look I've shot him in the face" effects abound though as with the graphics beautifully done. The music however is something special, while test playing this game this humble gamer found herself with the volume turned so far up at some moments that the cans I wore were in danger of pulverizing my skull to dust. It's that good.

However there is very little in Astro Miner to make it stand out from the crowd. Yes the soundtrack and visuals are gorgeous but we've heard and seen equally good examples many times before. Yes the gameplay is well thought out and easy to pick up for those random half hour gaming blasts when the boss isn't looking. But for sheer creativity and innovation the developers seem to have lost their muses.

The best example of this is in the enemy list, rather than develop anything truly original the player will encounter rehashes of creatures any scifi fan will recognize instantly. The best example being the ground worms from the Tremor series of movies which make their first appearance early in this game.

That said there is one twist which while not truly original does add an enjoyable and somewhat unusual twist. Ralphs suit only holds so much air so as you travel, pounding monsters and generally jumping about like a Gummi Bear on speed you have to collect fresh oxygen. It's a small thing but it does add a very welcome extra layer of complexity to such a simple but enjoyable game.

So pluses:

Simple game, great gameplay visuals and soundtrack.

Minuses:

Not all that original or innovative.

A great pick up and play game for those afternoons when you have an hour.
Score 4/5

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