➤ Cowboys vs aliens 🎮

With Rosenberg's graphic novel first and Jon Favreau's film after, we have already had the opportunity to see ourselves tell an unlikely and exciting battle between cowboys from the far west and aliens from deep space. With Pixel Ranger for iPhone, MetroGames wanted to re-propose the same scenario in an arcade video game with such a retro taste that it cannot leave indifferent those who grew up in the Commodore 64 era. The goal of the Argentine developer was obviously to combine an exquisitely nostalgic aesthetic and a traditional type of game with a modern interface, able to take advantage of the touchscreen and motion sensors of mobile devices and tablets.

They come out of the pixelated walls!

Through the most predictable of the incipits, Pixel Ranger opens with the kidnapping of a young damsel by a spiteful UFO, but unfortunately for the gang of aliens, the girl's boyfriend is a freckled cowboy armed with lots of courage and, above all, a rifle. In the role of our hero the player is thus called to face a series of levels full of aliens to be killed and strange creatures to crush, all through a game structure that is heavily reminiscent of the old vertical shooters à la Space Invaders. The first moments of the game are anything but traumatic: by tilting the device you move the little cowboy to the right or left, while with a touch on the screen you shoot in the desired direction, trying to shoot down the aliens that meanwhile descend from above; we are almost under the illusion that the control system is so simple and intuitive, but the problems arise as soon as the aliens are joined by ground enemies. Thus, in addition to having to keep an eye on both the top and the bottom of the screen, the player is forced to jump the incoming creatures from the sides by pressing a specific point on the touchscreen. Now it is easy to imagine the result: having to tilt the device, touch the screen at the top and use other fingers to jump, play Pixel Ranger it requires considerable manual dexterity, and even after getting used to it you have to live with an input system that is not precise enough to escape unscathed from the most agitated situations.

And it is a real shame that the overall experience is compromised by unsuitable controls, as behind what is a simple mechanic there are several extremely interesting ideas. Above all, the economy behind the bullets at your disposal: if you destroy an enemy, this drops a certain number of pixels that the cowboy must collect and reuse to reload his weapon. However, the collected pixels also act as life energy, so that this curious dynamic is created whereby the player is pushed to kill enemies with a single shot, in order to gain more ammunition, but at the same time try not to get hit and measure your shots, in an attempt not to run out of energy. To make it even more complicated there is a very strict checkpoint system, which forces you to start each of the 12 chapters of the adventure all over again in case you were to die trying to complete it. There is no shortage of power-ups that, if they don't make the player's life easier, at least add some variety and humor thanks to wacky secret techniques and unlikely weapons ranging from rocket launchers to laser beams. Characteristic element of Pixel Ranger however, its aesthetic component remains made up of cuby characters and neon colors, even if it were not a hybrid between Zak McKracken and a game by Jeff Minter. As the number of enemies grows, the screen fills with explosions and pixels that rain at every moment, and ensures gamers a particularly pleasing visual experience, although the background music cannot be said to be as successful. Finally, an Endless mode offers an additional challenge to those who want to disconnect from the classic adventure, asking the player to survive as long as possible as waves of increasingly fierce and numerous opponents invade the screen.

Tested version: 1.1
Price: € 0,79
Link App Store

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Pixel Ranger it could have been a perfect marriage between a retro aesthetic and a modern game interface, but unfortunately a tangled system of controls and very strict checkpoints make it an unnecessarily difficult title, almost frustrating at various times. Yet the charisma that oozes from every pixel, the fast-paced action and fun power-ups might pique the curiosity of old-school arcade shooter fans.