Take on the World with Scott Pilgrim

If you’re a younger gamer, you may have heard us older types wax nostalgic about the glories of the 8-bit days, the simple but very challenging gameplay, the charm of the stories and music. In fact, you may have gotten sick of us saying how wonderful all those older games are, and been appalled at the significant graphic differences on display between older games and their modern counterparts. What’s the big deal, you say? Welcome to the Xbox LIVE Arcade game Scott Pilgrim vs. The World .

Look familiar?

This game, which has quickly found favor among the hardcore set, is based on the Oni Press graphic novels written by Bryan Lee O’Malley. There’s also a movie that came out this summer based on the same set of graphic novels. Basically, the story is that of Scott Pilgrim who has fallen in love with Ramona Flowers. But in order to court her, he must defeat all seven of Ramona’s ex-boyfriends and their armies of hangers-on that include all sorts of odd types.

Side-scrolling brawling.

This is an old-school side-scrolling 2-D brawler along with a few cute puzzle touches, such as items you have to break and keys you must use to open doors to the next area. As you progress and beat up enemies, they give up coins which you can then use to visit various stores and purchase power-ups or health boosts. Interestingly, your level progression stats are persistent, even if you haven’t been able to clear a stage, or if you want to go back to a previous stage to rack up your stats for achievements.

The real joy here is in the up to four-player co-op battles which can get very frantic very quickly. Scott, Ramona, and their friends Stephen Stills and Kim Pine can all punch, kick, and use interactive objects in the playfield (such as baseball bats, rocks, and more) to lay waste to the surrounding baddies and find their way to success.

The graphics feel just right for a modern version of an old-style game and were created by noted artist Paul Robertson, and it’s all perfectly matched with the campy style of electronica game music composed by Anamanaguchi. If you like the beat-‘em-ups of yore, or if you just want to see what all those older gamers are always yammering about, download Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game and experience modern gaming the old-style way, and maybe you too, can find love with Ramona Flowers.

Comments

• Anonymous
  September 02, 2010
  This game is completely awesome, right down to the last pixel! Even the cheats bring back memories. I have only one big question-block, Why is this not online multi-player?????? X 1,000

• Anonymous
  September 08, 2010
  I would guess because they wanted it to really feel like an 8-bit game...

• Anonymous
  September 10, 2010
  The games great, but buggy. It seems to freeze up a lot, meaning you have to reset your console. Hope there's an update to fix this on it's way soon!