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Saros delivers Returnal 2 in all but name

Housemarque's Returnal remains one of the best PS5 games. Built to kill, raised to die, and fine-tuned to annoy the shit out me while dragging me back in for yet another go at  2AM.  Not-a-sequel Saros ropes in my one of my favourite actors Rahul Kohli into the mix with proper shields, greater weapons freedom, Indian-styled visuals, and borrowing  Xenon 2: Megablast's palette and violence.  Saros is set on Carcosa, a shape-shifting, hostile alien planet. It changes on every death, where a total eclipse changes everything (very Pitch Black!). The video shows the first biome, hopefully the others shift up the palette more than Returnal did.  Along his journey he finds Nitya Chandran (Shunori Ramanthan), adding some depth to the Returnal-mayhem. The stunning environment Arjun explores is that of a lost ancient civilization fueled by the twisted enlightenment of the eclipse.  Saros lands in March 2026, check out the PlayStation blog post for more details on w...

Pix'N Love Rush (PSN) Review

In a reverse of the Angry Birds review, here we have a fun game that was a bit of a lottery to play on a touchscreen phone, but a delight to play with the firm controls of the PSP. Now, every twitch of your control movement is accurately carried out on-screen, something rather vital in this homage to classic 8-bit gaming.
It is impossible, for older gamers, not to notice tiny motes of DNA from other games; a little Bubble Bobble, some Bombjack, Joust and many others are all, in some way, in the genetic make-up of this simple but fun game. The aim is suitably 8-bit, collect the "+" coins, avoid the "-" ones and shoot any enemies on the screen.
There are three modes to play, classic, cursed (a leaping survival mode) and on/off with various sub-modes. In classic, there's a 5 minute mode for bite-sized travel gaming and the infinite mode for longer plays, all with the aim of maximising your score or beating the existing high score.
The design too is a delight, instead of hearts for lives, you have tiny blocks around the edge of a single heart to indicate your health, the combo meters fill up pixel-by-pixel and for every combo you get the level theme changes into a suitably retro landscape. Music is of the brilliant plink-plonk from the time and fits the pacing perfectly.
Pix'N Love Rush is everything a mini arcade game should be, fast and furious, challenging and with its own unique style. It has found its perfect home on the PSP (ok, and the Xperia Play) and shows perfectly how the past of gaming still applies today.
Available on PSN for £1.74 [Sanukgames]
8.5/10 Bright, breezy and brings back dozens of memories

Currently playing on my Vita/PS3/PS4/PS5


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