Remember those gorgeous chunky pixel art games from the Megadrive and Amiga? No? Well perhaps you�"re familiar with the more recent incarnations of Metal Slug and its colourful hand drawn 2d artwork? Noitu Love 2 is very reminiscent of that style. It�"s a 2d side scroller with a crazy story that sees you kungfu fight your way through seven levels of robot bad guys. The game looks and sounds like the best of the old school side scrolling battlers. There is a huge amount of animation in every level and it�"s worth playing just to smile at all the artwork (if you�"re as much a fan of that style as I am).

The standard WASD keys let you move, crouch and jump. Adding a modern twist to an old genre, mouse gestures are used to control the main character and access a small number of different fighting moves. Rapid mouse clicking causes your character to literally fly about the screen from one enemy to the next. The mouse can also be used to create a stand-alone shield, which is useful to protect your back. The game play is very fast and there is a great deal of button mashing and mouse waving. It isn�"t physically possible to play for more than 10 minutes without incurring severe mouse fatigue.

No, dead again and I�"ve only just got to the third level boss!

Every character in the game is lovingly hand animated and the whole atmosphere is colourful, cute and fun. The bosses on each level are particularly impressive. Some of them completely fill the screen and they feature some very funny animations. The story doesn�"t make a whole lot of sense, but it fits the whacky theme of the overall game.

The tutorial is worth a mention as it puts you in a practice arena that I�"d guess is inspired by the virtual practice arena in Metal Gear Solid. A great little touch that cements the feeling that this game is built with love.

Sadly there is a downside. This game is retro in more than just style. It is very difficult indeed. In this age of Nintendo style “putting the player first” it can be quite a shock.

Agh, I can�"t keep it up, my wrist hurts too much and I�"ve run out of lives – CURSE YOU KONJAK!!

When the game starts you have six lives and once they are used up you�"ll need to start again right from the beginning. It is possible to exit the game after completing a level and then continue later where you left off. However, this isn�"t a save as we know it these days, don�"t be fooled. The game remembers how many lives you had and carries on, once they are used up the “save” is deleted and you start from the beginning. Remember when all games used to do this kind of thing? It certainly keeps the game challenging.

Ok. I�"ll have another go at making it to the end. This game won�"t defeat me! What the… my mouse has actually broken, maybe I was hitting it a bit hard. That�"s it. I�"m not playing any more!!

What makes the game really hard is that each level introduces new types of baddy and you need to learn how to deal with them all. The icing on the difficulty cake is the boss. Each level has a completely unique boss (all wonderfully animated) requiring fairly long sequences of patterns and moves to be learnt before you can beat it. Hang on a minute. There�"s oodles of unique content in every level. And this is a bad thing? Well, it wouldn�"t be if it weren�"t for the short number of lives and lack of a proper save ability. As it is you often get killed before you�"ve worked out what�"s going on. At the very least, successfully completing a level should unlock it so that you can skip it if you want.

Damn. I�"ve got a new mouse plugged in and this game just keeps niggling me. Ok, one last chance, lets start again. YES!! I�"ve done it. My wrist is swollen and my fingers won�"t move, but I�"m actually watching the end credits (which look great by the way). Real tears of joy are pouring down my cheeks (my family are a little concerned and puzzled by this). Like some kind of virtual Olympic sprinter I�"ve made it to the finish line, the relief is palpable.

What�"s this? I�"ve unlocked a new character. So I need to go through again using her? NO!!!

Graphics:
If you like pixel art (and you should) then you�"ll love this. Gorgeous. Worth the price just to watch the animations on each new boss.

Sound:
Fits the retro style perfectly, some great 16bit console era style music.

Game play:
New enemies and boss patterns to learn on every level keep it fresh to the end.

Value:
If you can take the pain and have the skills then it�"s actually quite short. Replay value comes from beating high scores and a certain level of masochism that was once a common gamer credential.

Concept:
Take a side scrolling beatemup, optimise it for the mouse and give it a proper home on the PC. Great idea, but it can�"t quite escape the all too common genre criticism “button mashing”.

Fun:
Some people will love it and a lot will hate it. If you like a challenge and remember the old punishing beatempups of old fondly, then there�"s a lot to enjoy.

Overall:
A colourful, vibrant and super tough game that is a joy to behold. Are we all too soft and spoiled to enjoy the challenge it poses? Get the demo and see if you�"re man enough to kick some robot ass.