After last issue's review of the official arcade conversion of Pang, along comes Demonware's 'interpretation' of the harpoon-and-bubble romp, this time set in the cold depths of outer space rather than the world's top tourist stops.
You've Got the Power
You play an astronaut who is trapped in a group of galaxies far away from Earth. You must travel between 100 of these galaxies collecting tokesn to buy a section of a huge space ship capable of getting you back home.
This would be a doddle if it was just a matter of hopping to a new world and picking up your token, but things are never that easy, are they? In order to escape the current galaxy, you must use a powerful harpoon to clear the zone of asteroids, thus making it safe to transport to the next area. Occasionally, you may uncover an additional power-up to help you in your task, from double-shot weapons, via time freezers to double-barreled laser guns.
Despite these helpful items, completing the later levels is extremely difficult. At times the gameplay seems to throw up an annoying quirk, such as the frustrating habit the asteroids have of flying straight down narrow gaps at high speeds, making them almost impossible to dodge. Couple this with the difficulty encountered when making the player climb and walk off ladders and you have got a hefty task ahead of you, in fact completing anything after level 80 requires near superhuman timing not to mention extreme patience!
If you have a friend who is into the idea of travelling through space armed only with a harpoon, then you can compete against each other on the same screen. If one player dies, then the other continues playing in an attempt to reach the end of the level and claim all the bonus for themselves.
If you are a hardened shoot-em-up fan, then you may find Ooops Up enjoyable for a while, and once you get into the gameplay there are 100 levels to tackle before the game is completed.