Review: Pixeline and the Jungle Treasure
Score:
64%
Let’s make one thing clear from the very start of this review. This is not a Super Mario Bros clone. I know you have a character running around collecting coins from a scrolling landscape, I know you have lots of jumps that require timing and accuracy, and I know that you have to jump on the head of the enemy beasts to defeat them. That still doesn’t make Pixeline a Mario clone. Honestly.
Buy Link | Download / Information Link
Neither do the three hearts representing your life system, the huge levels to navigate through, or the awkwardness of the MacGuffin in the plot that has you exploring the wilds of the world to find a treasure map, draw any comparison to the famous Nintendo franchise.
Because Pixeline is a girl and Mario is a boy.
In jest there is some truth, and Pixeline is going to feel familiar to a lot of the game-playing public, because it does, errr, pay homage to the Italian Plumber at many points in the game. And that’s fine, there are rarely any new ideas in the gaming world, and there’s enough difference here to keep the lawyers away (and of course if they did descend, the PR boost is going to be worth the short term pain that comes with “okay we’ll withdraw it from sale”).
The game is therefore very easy to pick up and ‘get’ but at the same time it means a direct comparison is going to form in the minds of those playing; and in the mind of a reviewer. And the thought that comes to mind is that this game is slow.
Not in terms of programming ability, it’s not stuttering. Technically, everything moves at the speed that it was designed to do so. It’s just that when you put it next to the kinetic speed of the console based platformers out there, this seems more like a gentle stroll in a forest rather than a race against time to find the treasure. And the loading times between menu screens and the actual game need to be a lot faster to stop people mentally switching off before they’ve even started the game.
And when you lose a life you go back to the level select screen to reload the level, with another wait. I know the British are meant to like queuing and waiting, but this is just too much for me. After one or two deaths I’m ready to just exit the game and go to something with a bit more pace.
Controls on the touchscreen Symbian^3 devices are pretty simple, with move left and right on the correct side of the screen. Touch lower on the right hand side for jump, and handily (because some times you need to be super accurate) you have a diagonal jump up-left and up-right above the left and right buttons on the screen. There’s not much you can do when lacking physical feedback, and the target area for your fingers is large enough that i never had any control problems while playing the game.
You're going to be seeing this screen a lot!
There are a lot of levels to the game as well. Split over varying terrain (starting with forest and desert) with a variety of platforms, drops to your death, water, terrain, creatures, coins (silver and gold) all with nice clear graphics, you’re not going to run out of things to do if you decide to play this game for any length of time.
For me though, the game is fundamentally too slow, in execution, in playing, and in getting the mobile gamer to the action. And that’s a hard flaw to overcome without starting from scratch.
-- Ewan Spence, Jan 2011.
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at