Game Reviews

Pix'n Love Rush

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Pix'n Love Rush

The infatuation the iPhone has with the past is a little perverse. Here's a smartphone that epitomises the 21st century attached to a library, but it's crammed with remakes from the 20th.

Most such adaptations are content with taking their source material from just one release. Pix'n Love Rush, however, casts aside such limitations. In fact, it doesn't know when to stop.

Play for long enough and you're bound to see a personal favourite popping up, albeit briefly, in some form or other: Pix'n Love Rush is a veritable compendium of classics, from its signature quick-fire play all the way through to its dot matrix design.

There's a feeling, however, that far too much has been packed into Pix'n Love Rush's package to make each element worthwhile.

Like the once-a-year Christmas day feast, too much of a good thing can actually make you a little bit sick.

On the plus side

It's interesting, therefore, that in terms of your role in proceedings, the options are incredibly limited.

Though the levels themselves flit about from one second to the next, your goals are especially succinct: pick up plus coins to make a chain, dodge minuses that break them, shoot down enemies, and avoid firing upon friends.

All this is handled via a series of buttons at the bottom of the screen, with the game's star – a somewhat nondescript but nevertheless endearing blob with a tail – able to move left and right around the 2D stages, jump, and fire bullets in a vertical fashion.

It's a simple enough setup, but Pix'n Love Rush makes no attempt to maintain the status quo. Instead, the levels themselves alter every ten seconds or so.

Many of the stages – which pop up at random - resemble the kind of side-scrolling Mario-esque efforts anyone who spent their youth clutching a Game Boy will recognise immediately.

Steep ascent

Others, however, take a far firmer grip. Of particular note are the levels where coins of both varieties scroll towards you, and avoiding those of a negative persuasion is as tricky as picking out the positive ones.

Likewise, tackling ascents populated with feeble, falling ledges – all while shooting down the bat like adversaries that litter the path ahead - is hardly child's play, although anyone who grew up slotting pennies and pounds into the machines at their local arcade probably wouldn't have it any other way.

The problem lies with those who aren't so adept at the particular brand of pacey platform play Pix'n Love Rush offers.

Given the relative difficulty of each setup, it can become a touch frustrating for the rug to repeatedly be pulled from underneath you, with a new stage appearing on screen just as you get comfortable with the previous one.

Those who find Pix'n Love Rush in any way challenging will more than likely be pulling their hair out as play flips from one level to the next. It is, in truth, a festival of fun for the accomplished, but a torture chamber for newcomers at times.

Bothered by the bug

This version of Pix'n Love Rush also comes with a fairly major bug for those playing on older hardware.

Tested on a first-generation iPod touch for this review, more often than not, Pix'n Love Rush simply refused to start, crashing before the title screen.

It's a hiccup that the game's OpenFeint support seems to instigate and, no doubt, will be addressed in future versions. For the time being, however, it's a big enough bug to prevent many from even having a go at Pix'n Love Rush's hectic handbook of all things 2D.

Either way, it's Pix'n Love Rush's ensemble of stages that is both its strength and weakness.

There are plenty who will lap up its lottery of platform based play from beginning to end, but by pumping its contents with such pace, many a beginner will sadly be left behind in the process.

Pix'n Love Rush

Part Mario, part Space Invaders, part every 2D game you can think of, Pix'n Love Rush's complex set-up will likely charm just as many players as it bamboozles
Score
Keith Andrew
Keith Andrew
With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font. He's also Pocket Gamer's resident football gaming expert and, thanks to his work on PG.biz, monitors the market share of all mobile OSes on a daily basis.