Decided to try many of the PS3 game demos I have had on my system for a bit and PixelJunk SideScroller was one of the good ones I played. Think Gradius meets Space Invaders meets beautiful graphics.

I wasn't good enough in my first play through to beat the demo but I will go back and play it again because its just so much fun. The graphics and play controls are really great. You can switch between three weapons to start off. The machine gun is your typical arcade space ship weapon, fast bullets to kill bad guys. You can use a laser that takes time to recharge but can cut through ice, which is useful when you have to move through big blocks of ice. The other weapon you start with are bomb like things that come out of the side of your ship and hit other ships. When you ship switches weapons it changes shape.

I like that the tone of this game is very retro in that it puts a old school TV effect around the border of the game that makes it feel like an old arcade TV cabinet. When you start the game it even asks you to "insert coin." Its a good thing the PS3 doesn't have a coin slot and that start did the trick. If you have a PS3 and bandwidth to spare to nab the demo, I heartily recommend giving it a try. Go back in time on your PS3 and try your hand at PixelJunk Monsters while you are at it, the demo is very good as well.