Developer: Dennaton Games
Platform: PC, PSN
Genre: Action
Age Rating: 18+
Hotline Miami is a top-down action game developed by Dennaton Games, originally developed for PC then later ported to PS3 and PS Vita. It is described as a surreal and extremely violent game with a resulting target audience of 18+. With mature gameplay and a distinct 80's feel, the game is perhaps more geared towards the post-core gamer. This makes the use of nostalgic pixel art an appropriate direction.
Scott Pilgrim Vs The World: The Game
Developer: Ubisoft Montral.
Platform: PSN, XBLA
Genre: Beat 'Em Up
Age Rating: 12+
Scott Pilgrim The Game is a side scrolling beat 'em up based on the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels series by Bryan Lee O'Malley. Up to four players can play at one time as one of the graphic novel's characters and each has their own individual move sets.
The series itself, including the comics and film, is themed around "old school" video gaming and pays homage to several "vintage" games by means of parodying the likes of Mortal Kombat and Sonic The Hedgehog. As a result of this theme, Scott Pilgrim The Game is another example of pixel art used in homage to early video games, appealing to the nostalgic gamer.
Developer: Polytron Corporation (2012)
Platform: PC, XBLA, PSN
Genre: Puzzle Platformer
Age Rating: 3+
The indie game Fez is a puzzle platformer and 2D game set in a 3D world. The core mechanic involves shifting the 2D player-character around a series of 3D perspectives and all art, 2D and 3D, utilises pixel art.
In spite of these changes in perspective, the pixel art work still fits visually. This art style seems to work well as textures for blocks of geometric shapes and the developers would not have likely achieved the same smoothly transitioning effect had a different art style been applied.
To conclude, pixel art is often used in games that aim to evoke a feeling of nostalgia for the retro games of the 8-bit era and as result is often used to appeal to the post-core gamer. It may also be used to add to gameplay and with an basic, relatively easy to learn style may also be used in indie development teams that lack artists (much like in the 8-bit era.)
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