It’s only 60p! I spent more than that on a Star Bar last week. To put Shoot 1-Up’s incredible value into perspective, consider the following comparison: 20 seconds of peanutty goodness, or 20 minutes of unadulterated shoot ‘em up bliss. It is technically possible to enjoy both at the same time, though caramel is known to have adverse effects on the XBox 360 thumbstick’s responsiveness.

It would be hard to turn your nose up to even a generic shoot-by-numbers title at 60 pennies, but at its heart Shoot 1UP has a genuinely unique play mechanic that makes it impossible to pass up. Each time you collect the eponymous 1-UP collectable, the game, forgoing the customary extra life, places the extra ship on the play field. As you play, you build up an armada of ships, all under your control, which can be dispersed or contracted with a pull of the appropriate trigger. Bigger bonuses are awarded to the player that risks losing ships by deploying them in a wider, more destructive (but also more vulnerable) formation.

Fear not, generic shooter fans, the game features plenty of other genre standards: complex bullet patterns to negotiate, large end-of-level nasties, and collectable point bonuses are all present and correct. Occasionally, there is a break in the action, and the game will ask you to choose your next direction. Here you can either continue up the screen in a standard vertically scrolling fashion, or you can switch to other, less conventional forms of movement. Very refreshing.

The visuals, while hand drawn and high definition, are delightfully anachronistic in nature, recalling Swiv, Xenon 2, Super Aleste, and other 16-bit marvels. Some sprites are not as well realised as others – the mines on level 3, for example – but they are mostly well drawn. More importantly, they all scoot about at a slick 60 frames per second, even when the screen is pulsating with enemies, projectiles and your 30-strong phalanx of ships.

Add four difficulty levels, a co-op mode, and a boss that fires bullets out of her fun-bags and Mommy’s Best Games could have been forgiven for placing this at the 240 Microsoft points price bracket. At 80 MSP, Shoot 1-Up an absolute steal and is an essential purchase for all XBox Live users and Star Bar fans.