Like a haemorrhoid-ridden sphincter, Hot Pixel tries far too hard. The game’s hip offbeat aesthetic is rammed down the player’s throat with such overbearing force you barely have time to retch; it just passes straight through you, leaving a feeling of mild bemusement and tired indifference. “Geek chic” is probably the best way to describe it, which isn’t a bad thing to aspire to, but everybody knows you can’t be cool if you are trying to be cool, and French developer zSlide proves this law is equally applicable to videogames.

Those familiar with Nintendo’s Wario Ware will know exactly what to expect. Hot Pixel’s single-player mode is divided into themed sections that each houses around 10-20 individual mini-games capped off by a boss encounter (which in actuality is just a slightly longer mini-game). These mini-games are simple creatures, ranging from brief 15-second Pong clones to memory tests, but are fired at the player with such rapidity that understanding the objective of each one before the timer runs out becomes a challenge in itself.

With over 200 eccentric challenges, Hot Pixel isn’t lacking content, and although some of them are as dreary as pressing X in order to tie your shoelace, there are a few that are refreshingly inventive. Our favourites include skinning a cute bear for no apparent reason and rotating the PSP’s analogue stick in order to reel a dead skater’s eyeball back into his skull. Such perverse glimmers of hilarity help prevent Hot Pixel from becoming nothing more an uninspired Wario Ware clone. Even so, without the use of a touch-screen, Hot Pixel’s mini-games lack the dynamic that made Wario Ware on the DS such a tactile and frantic experience – skinning a bear may be funny, but when it’s only a case of pressing right and left on the D-pad it feels a bit too simplistic.

As well as gleefully throwing miniature versions of Atari classics, such as Asteroids, at you, zSlide also takes immense pleasure in introducing players to cult French skater Jonathan Choquel. We’ve not heard of him either, but he is a constant throughout the game, with many mini-games featuring his pasty mug and inane grin. His presence does lend cohesion to proceedings but, like the rest of Hot Pixel’s aesthetic, his wacky cut-scenes get irritating fairly quickly.

It won’t take you that long to zip through the game on the default difficulty setting, but there are a few extras to unlock and zSlide has promised to make fresh content available for download. At just £20, Hot Pixel certainly won’t leave you feeling ripped off and if you can sift through its laboured attempts at coolness you should be able to salvage a fairly enjoyable experience.

Christopher Reynolds