Fun shoot-em-up in a world of clay

Taking a slightly more original slant on the side scrolling shoot-em-up genre, Platypus is set in a world of clay in the city of “Collosatropolis”.

The city has become a concrete – or clay – jungle and so governors have decided to invade neighboring Mungola for a bit of breathing space. It’s your job to defend Mungola from destruction by flying the F-27 Platypus.

The graphics are the first thing to strike you about Platypus. The clay models and graphics were actually hand-molded with real clay and captured digitally meaning the level of clay realism is very impressive. When you blast enemies away too, the sound and special effects are excellent. You can also go head to head against a friend in two-player mode.

However, this doesn’t detract from the fact that once you’ve got over all that, the gameplay is pretty bog standard. Platypus soon comes tedious although the possibility of collecting some cool powerups and enhance your ship makes things a bit more interesting. There are also very few options other than the volume and ability to rotate the screen but you can’t configure your own controls.

Platypus is definitely above average for graphics and sound but the gameplay may not hold your attention for quite as long.