HOT PXL
- August 22, 2006 16:20 PM PST
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You're a skateboarder in a pixelated world that fused 2D gaming and artistic, underground culture...
Weird. That's one way to describe Hot PXL, Atari's quirky PSP title that fuses retro gameplay with grungy urban charm. Like its peers Wario Ware and Brain Age, Hot PXL is less a game than an experience, falling neatly into a category that, by definition, defies categories. In fact, it almost defies description.
"Super extendo robot puncha!"
Post Modern Gaming?
The basic principle is absurdly simple. Hot PXL's main menu consists of a selection of mini-game themes: "Cyberdude" consists of technology-themed challenges, "Awareness" focuses on perceptual challenges, and "Underground" leverages urban street culture (well...sort of). There are 10 chapters in all, and supposedly as many as 200 mini-games in the final product. Atari is also promising to have fresh mini-games available for download, possibly even as soon as the game ships this February.
No matter the theme, the central goal behind each mini game is roughly the same: figure out what the &#$@ us going on before time runs out! Since most of the games are under eight seconds in duration, you'll have to think fast to correctly decipher and perform the required action in time. Sometimes "winning" will involve guiding a pink dot through a simple maze, or scrubbing paint off your hands, or spotting a piece of graffiti in a crowded scene, or ... well, almost anything, really.
Hot PXL has some truly original artwork
The mini games are staggering in quantity and scope, and in terms of gameplay, are quite literally child's play; this is part of Atari's scheme to reel in gamers of all ages and social groups. Several games even cash in on Atari's mass market appeal by serving up lightning-quick revisions of classic Atari games like Battlezone and Defender.
Dead PXL?
The concept is intriguing, to be sure. And judging by our hands-on experience, Hot PXL showed plenty of promise. The interface was clean and crisp, the pace was brisk, and the games were fun. More importantly, the humor quotient was sky high, with grungy, tongue-in-cheek video clips playing in between rounds.
We were impressed. Hot PXL may be just what the PSP needed: a game that truly takes advantage of the portability and accessibility of handheld gaming, but without simply offering a retread of a PlayStation 2 game. Nintendogs defined the DS; will Hot PXL pull off a similar feat for the PSP? Time will tell. Hot PXL launches in February of 2007.
