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Mario Bobble Invaders Islands

by Craig Grannell (December 8th, 2010 at 12:00 pm)

Game: Pix’n Love Rush. Developer: Bulkypix. Price: 59p/€0,79/99¢. Buy the game

If classic 2D platform games were sweets, Pix’n Love Rush would be like shoving an entire bag of pick ’n’ mix into your face, somehow surviving a sugar-related head explosion, and then repeatedly shoving more bags in until inevitable but blissful death.

The game is Super Mario, Bubble Bobble, Doodle Jump, Manic Miner, Canabalt, Space Invaders and Rainbow Islands smashed into WarioWare mechanics with a hammer. And it’s utterly brilliant.

The main aim in Pix is to leap about platforms and not die, by cunningly avoiding boxes with a little ‘-’ sign on and evil bats. The second aim is to collect boxes with ‘+’ signs on, shoot evil bats and protect (i.e. don’t shoot) angels. By doing both, your score multiplier goes up and you get mucho points.

The thing is, as you get to grips in mastering your side-to-sidey platform game, the scene switches. You’re going vertically now. 30 seconds later, you’re going the other way, trying to avoid being crushed by an invisible ceiling. Now the screen’s still and you’re being bombed by crazy bats. And now it’s auto-scrolling, on a level with rapidly disappearing platforms and myriad bats ready to kill you to death. And all the while Pix’s visuals are pleasuring your eyes to absurd levels, riffing off practically every classic Nintendo console there ever was (and, er, Virtual Boy).

This is a VERY good game.

Downsides? Just the usual blah blah touchscreen blah a bit imprecise at times blah, but you shouldn’t care; even if you controlled Pix by guiding rampaging wildebeest around Sainsbury’s by frantically hitting them with a copy of the Daily Telegraph, it’d still be a fantastic game. It’s not only perhaps the best iOS platformer available, but one of the best platform games of recent years on any system. Now it’s got Game Center support, you’d be a total idiot not to buy it immediately and play it until your thumbs scream for mercy.

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