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12/11/2018

👾 Review: Pixel Ripped 1989 "a feast for your ears, eyes and it seriously scratches your nostalgia gaming itch" 👾 #PSVR #IndieGame

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Pixel Ripped 1989 is a feast for your ears, eyes and it seriously scratches your nostalgia gaming itch like no other gaming experience I’ve had on PSVR.

So pixel ripped 1989 is a mash-up of retro gaming and VR and it is as unique as the day is long. The core gameplay of pixel ripped is a retro type platformer game, very similar to the old 8 bit Nintendo and Sega console games. The platformer game you play all the way through pixel ripped is very challenging. You play as Dot, who is a pixel that grows the more pixels you collect. Dot will transform from a single pixel to a 16-bit space ranger as you collect the pixels that are around the world and enemies you shoot will drop pixels to collect.

Playing pixel ripped you will definitely need to bring your A-game to conquer the platforming stages with Dot. The platforming core game is great but it is very challenging and definitely not a walkover.

The handheld gaming feels great while using the DualShock 4 in your hands and it really feels like you are holding a pixel ripped console as you play. 

The game has lots of retro Easter eggs in there to see, and if like me you were a retro gamer in childhood, the nods to all those games of our past is awesome and reminded me how much I use to love challenging platform games. 

In pixel ripped the music is brilliant as well. It’s perfect for the 80’s theme of the game and all original music which I found myself humming after I stopped gaming. I found the music really improved my gaming experience and would be worthy of putting on a cassette tape for your 80’s Walkman. 

Also the sounds of the teacher, your classmates and classroom background sounds were ideal, when the teacher shouted at me it brought back memories of my school days being told off for being naughty by a gross old woman shouting at me behave child! But what is so marvellous about pixel ripped is you are in the world retro 80’s school world and it all feels authentic from the school books to the massive classroom tv on wheels.

The game consists of 4 stages over the game worlds you play through in a linear way but as you do you are transported all over the place to amazing 8 & 16-bit gaming environments. Sometimes you are playing a handheld console, then in a flash of neon retro lights, you are playing arcade machine and then with a spin of pixels you are in transported within the gaming world! You break so many forth walls while playing pixel ripped it’s a really fun gaming experience and is so unique. I can’t think of anything like this game in the way it takes familiar aspects of retro and VR games and puts a whole you take on how we can experience these classic retro type games in VR. 

Even though you get taken all over the place and the platforming is broke up between handheld, arcade and VR the game still feels like one continuous story.

You sit as a student in the pixel Ripped classroom for part of the game and then later you come back to the same classroom. While you are in this world you are a little girl called Nicola. She can’t stop playing her handheld console in class and you have got to be creative with your choices on what you use to stop the teacher ruining Nicola’s school day. 

You play your handheld console sat at your school desk in a classroom or sat in the school playground. While you’re playing your game you can look around the classroom and see and interact with your classmates as well as your teacher. You will hear how angry the teacher is getting at her class not learning.

She will shout at you all, storm around and increasingly become more and more stressed, in the end losing the plot she will head towards you to make you pay attention to the class and you will lose a life. You have 3 lives in the game but there are checkpoints.

To stop the teacher interrupting your gaming session you have a peashooter which you can fire gob covered bits of paper at the teacher, your classmates and many things in the classroom that will distract or enrage the teacher.

The number of interactive distractions are very creative. By firing a spitball at the area or item you want to distract her amazing things will happen in the classroom.

My favourite distraction was when you fire the spitball at a funky 80’s poster and you’re transported for a short time to a retro games arcade and your handheld console turns into a full-sized arcade machine which you continue to game on. Another distraction is firing a spitball at the bin, it will trigger footballers to run into the classroom and annoy the teacher, it is very amusing.

You’re not always in the classroom, sometimes the game console will absorb the world around you and all of a sudden you are in the game world, in the console. When in the game world you’re still playing the retro platformer but now you’re sat in front of the game on a neon floor with the platforms towering over your head, in a similar way to Astrobot you have to look up, down and all around to see Dot as she jumps throughout the gaming world at your control. Another time you are playing in a school playground and the sky turns into a shooting gallery of 8bit enemies flying around you. You have to use your handheld as a gun, shooting down all sorts of crazy 8bit flying demons from the sky and stop them taking your classmates into the sky.

You have to fight end bosses every time you come to the end of the platform stages, these end bosses invade the your world through your handheld console or by just ripping the sky open! Seeing the giant 8bit boss riding a dragon is a sight to behold. All bosses need you to bring all your gaming skills. I found the end game boss fight was difficult to a point where it did feel like I’d never do it, but in the end I beat the game boss using all my retro platforming skills and I felt great to beat the game. 

The game took about 4 hours on my first play through, but I didn’t collect all the bonus game carts that are hidden throughout the game. Each level has 5 hidden carts to find so I will definitely be replaying pixel ripped to collect all of them.

There are a lot of trophies placed around the game to be won and after my first play through I only completed 22% of the game and only won 5 bronze trophies, so if you like winning trophies this game has you more than covered.

Summary

Overall I’d recommend pixel ripped 1989 to all gamers. It’s a fun game to gaming laymen’s but if you are like me, a retro 8bit gamer of the 80’s you’ll relive some great childhood memories and fall in love with pixel ripped. 

It is a very unique take on how platform games can be in VR and the PSVR platform suits this type of gaming very well. 

It’s a sit-down game but what you lack in body movements you make up for with head and eye movements. 

The price is a fair one for the gaming experience you get in pixel ripped and I’d say it’s one for every PSVR gamers collection.


If you are a retro gamer, stop everything and buy pixel Ripped today!



❄️ RATING: ICE COOL ❄️

Ratings Explained
ICE COOL (Great Game Recommended)
MELTING (Recommended with reservations, one to consider if you are a fan of the genre)
MELTED (Not A Recommended Purchase)


Review by Simon Budd

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