Pixel Hell Review

As Dante passed through the Fifth Circle of Hell (reserved for the wrathful) he noticed the suffering souls of the enraged sinners writhing across the river Styx.

He condemned one such lost soul. "In weeping and in grieving, accursed spirit, may you long remain."

Though Pixel Hell has its moments of initial amusement, its rage-inducing bugs and general lucky dip unfairness means you’ll soon, like Dante, be condemning it to the pit of lost apps.

The premise of Pixel Hell is hellishly simple. The 8-bit world as we know it has for some unknown reason exploded, killing everyone.

Cue a long admittance list for the titular Pixel Hell, a fiery pit into which the deceased pixelated denizens must now fall. To save them from an eternity of retro-bution ("retribution") you have to give them a tap, sending them up to Pixel Heaven.

You only have three lives, and it doesn’t take long before the pixel people start falling in earnest, with hysterical tapping and the occasional random bonus box or multiple tap necessitating a boss encounter to break up the action.

The game itself looks pretty, with retro stylings and 8-bit beepy tunes. And it can be exhilaratingly frantic at times, as the longer you leave a soul before you save it the more points you can earn.

But breaking up the simple tap mechanic are two often infuriating distractions. The first is the random bonus box, which can give you a huge points haul by providing you with a whole bunch of arbitrary fruit to tap will-nilly without fear of losing a life.

And then there are the negative impact bonuses. These throw out a random obstacle, such as several people falling at once, which almost always ends up costing you a precious life.

The games asks you to take risks by tapping these bonus boxes, but the fickle nature and unavoidable danger of a baddie bonus renders the whole thing pointless, as any player looking for top scores will almost certainly be looking to avoid them in favour of survival.

A boss fight is something that should break up the action. In Pixel Hell the boss encounters (involving, among others, falling gorillas and aeroplanes) do that to a tee. The problem is that they do it by breaking up solid gameplay with bouts of fury.

Though the premise of most bosses is to simply tap them a few more times than you would the regular-sized peeps, taps often go unregistered. This means that, especially later in the game, boss fights end up being exercises of acute tolerance as you try to resist throwing your iPhone at a wall.

Once you do lose, and lose you shall, there’s not a lot to keep you coming back for more - just a simple highscore mechanic and some pointless unlockable skins to adorn the unfortunate pixel folk.

Those looking for a quick (free) time waster may as well give Pixel Hell a gander. Just be sure to control your temper.