It’s rare that I actually play Minis on my Playstation. But Velocity from Futurlab is pick up and play heaven! Sometimes simplicity is all you need.

Velocity is a scrolling shooter available on PSN. My job on  the PlayStation store means I tend to overlook Mini’s and don’t give them a look in (shameful I know). However the art style and premise of this game had me intrigued.

So I downloaded it to my Vita during my lunch-break, before I knew it, my lunch-break was over. No I didn’t fall asleep. This game simply had me hooked. As I mentioned the game is a scrolling shooter, as generic as this sounds it has a pretty nifty and great to use game mechanic. Your ship has the ability to warp at the simple press of a button, you merely have to direct the curser to where you want to warp, then BAM like magic your ship is there.

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The reason why this mechanic works is that the main focus of the game isn’t to shoot everything that moves, but to collect and rescue civilians trapped in capsules. Collecting as much of these as you can greatly improves your end of level score. Also unlike most shooters of this kind you can control the speed at which the screen scrolls, which can lead to your downfall at times if you try to rush through a level!

The game looks and sounds great, the 8-bit art style is a treat to look at and seeing it on the PS Vita is a thing of beauty.

There is barely a story in the game (as with most minis), you play as Lieutenant Kai Tana who is tasked with saving civilians from pesky aliens using the “Quarp Jet”. And that’s pretty much it 😀 (Kai Tana is a hottie btw)

Overall this a genuinely fun, exciting and pretty tough game towards the end. The end of each level also awards you with a Bronze, Silver or Gold rating. So if you’re a perfectionist like me then you have plenty to come back to in order to get that gold.

The game is compatible on the PS3, PSP and Vita (one download for all) so you have no excuse to not check it out if you own a Sony console!

8/10