It seems the retro nostalgia bubble has no breaking point. Any and every video gaming platform is rich with games harking back to the ‘good ol’ days’. Super Icon Ltd’s Life Of Pixel has ensured that PlayStation Mobile is no different.
Of course, you don’t need to be sporting a PlayStation Mobile-enabled phone to enjoy this vicious little platformer’s charms – any old PlayStation Vita will do.
The premise is simple, navigate a little green pixel, called Pixel, through eight themed worlds, each comprising eight levels of increasingly challenging 2D platforming; no bosses, no story, no mussing and no fussing. Each level is seeded with several gems that must be collected to open the exit door and special gems that form a pan-level collectible. There are 64 throughout 64 levels; I will never know the joy of collecting them all due to their devilishly clever and baffling placement. If one detail of that description piqued your interest it was surely that you’ll be spending a few hours of single-button double-jumping hijinks as a small, square pixel of brightest green.
Said titular Pixel has found its calling in life, to jump its way through the history of video gaming. Rather than dipping the imaginary toes of their lead character straight into what is commonly referred to as the 8-bit era, Super Icon Ltd have set the digital readout on the dash of their flux capacitor-charged pixel to a slightly earlier date. World 1 (by the usual parlance of 2D platformers) of Life Of Pixel kicks off on this journey through gaming time and space with 1977’s second generation console, the Atari 2600. What this really means is that the levels are all single screen and have a visual filter that approximates the look of Atari 2600 games and each level is styled after a particular game from that machine.
It should be said that the mechanics of playing as Pixel do not change between worlds, though the graphical filters do. The environments too change from single screen to multi-screen and side scrolling, with all the problems and benefits these respective consoles’ technical improvements afforded. Speaking of consoles, Pixel gets his hands on several from the Atari 2600 into the heart of the 8-bit era, often known as the third generation of consoles. The final world sees Pixel entering the NES, and is the culmination of a trip that has encompassed such golden oldies as the ZX81, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, BBC Model B and the Gameboy – each with their own distinct interpretation of the particular video gaming hardware’s aesthetic.
One area I would have faulted the game for is the audio. The same, perfectly decent and perfectly suited track played throughout all 64 levels of Pixel’s adventure. It will come as no surprise that, after countless deaths and 64 discrete triumphs that track was no longer one to which I could attach the adjective “perfectly”. To Super Icon’s credit, they have not been reticent in improving the game and an upcoming update will replace the music with world- and console-specific chip tunes.
The only other area of potential frustration has also been adjusted in the Ver. 1.1 update. By the latter levels the instant kills lavished upon Pixel by enemies and obstacles alike have long since honed the player into a trial and error method by which the layout of the levels are learned. There are no two ways about Life Of Pixel, especially once the multi-screen levels of the ZX Spectrum provide screen-to-screen leaps into the unknown, complete with agony-inducing enemies hidden just off-screen. And it’s that particular area which Super Icon have seen fit to adjust in the future update. Personally I thought the “luck based” deaths to be in-keeping with the game’s retro aspirations and stylings, but I do understand the desire to reach for something a little more conducive to player enjoyment.
The style of platforming, too, is much more in-keeping with game design of the time. Super Mario Bros. was certainly the first time I played a 2D platformer that boasted level design robust enough to invite (some would say require) that jolly plumber to run through the level rather than picking his way carefully and slowly from platform to platform. Life Of Pixel is much more of the latter – and, though I recognise that it is very much out of step with the modern platforming standards of, say, Super Meat Boy, Rayman Origins or that much-modernised jolly plumber, I appreciate Life Of Pixel for that.
Thankfully, though Pixel does reach some pretty lofty heights when it comes to inducing controller-threatening behaviour, Super Icon Ltd saw fit to bring one essential modern concession to their game. The oddly-entertaining sad face that Pixel pulls upon his untimely demise (at the hand of whichever enemy or obstacle I chose to blame for my own shortcomings) triggered the Pavlovian response of a single button press to pretty instantaneously launch Pixel right out of the relative safety of frying pan death back into the fiery gauntlet (albeit back at the beginning of the level).
And that’s the long and the short of it. Each level is timed for posterity (and embarrassment) on the level select screen, and Super Icon Ltd are providing more levels to send Pixel onwards into the Sega Master System, though only for those intrepid few who collect all 64 ‘special’ gems – a fitting reward. I cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed Life Of Pixel, both as a nostalgia trip and as a challenging, and ultimately satisfying, platformer for the PlayStation Vita.
