I learned about Pixel Ripped on the
VRFocus.com website, where a video was posted showing the
enthusiastic and charming Ana Ribeiro talking about her game. Here
was someone who had grown up in the same era I did—the dawn of
video games in the 80's—and her passion for video games was very
evident in the video and the interviews I read. I was immediately
interested in Pixel Ripped 1989, and pre-ordered it on the Sony PS4.
I'm a very big fan of PSVR and was extremely excited to experience
what Ana had imagined and brought to life. Monday night, July 30, I
waited for midnight to arrive so I could jump in to the game that had
already been pre-downloaded to my PS4, where it would instantly
unlock at the 12 o'clock hour. Just the experience of being one of
the “first” people to jump into the game reminded me of my
childhood days in the 80's, waiting outside a store before it opened
so I could grab one of the first copies and race home to be one of
the first people to play it! At midnight, my PS4 headset was on, my
earphones were in (so I didn't wake up my family!), and I was diving
into nostalgic memories of the 80's, beginning with a 2D
monochromatic introduction reminiscent of the Nintendo Gameboy—the
handheld gaming system I spent countless hours playing and loads of
hard earned cash on during my early high school years.
As I gazed down at my 2D hands holding
a 2D controller, I rotated them around to see how paper-thin I was in
an environment that felt like a black and white grade-school play,
with flat 2D images positioned on a stage around me. I learned about
the evil Cyblin Lord and my character, Dot, who needed to help a
talented young 9-year old girl save the world. After my briefing with
the strange, cloaked-figure ended, my character (me!) began to slowly
lift up into the air, and as I looked all around, I saw my 2D self
smiling back in a mirror to my right, moving in sync with my
real-life movements. If there's something that I wish more developers
were doing, it's exactly this—character immersion where you get to
be somebody else! Ana and the other Pixel Ripped developers totally
got this right, throughout the game, because I got to BE someone
else, full-body avatar included. There's nothing that ruins my
immersion in a VR game more than seeing my disembodied, floating
hands, and there was none of that in Pixel Ripped.
The immersion continued, as I found
myself in a classroom, seeing the world through the eyes of a 9-year
old. The desk before me felt large and the room around me even
bigger, but the towering adult teacher—perhaps a little exaggerated
in size for effect—really conveyed the world from a child's
perspective. Memories of my 7th grade English teacher, who
was an ex-nun ex-PE coach and a real terror—rushed through my mind
as the elderly teacher yelled at the class in the game. In Pixel
Ripped, when I got in trouble for playing my handheld video game
during class, the teacher slammed her hands down on my desk and
leaned over to yell at me. That mean, angry teacher was just asking to
get hit with my spitballs when she turned her back. And that I did,
because my handy spitball cannon was ready and loaded. At first, I
thought that my own puff of air was causing the spitballs to shoot
out, but after a couple shots, I was disappointed to realize it was
on a timer—this would have been an added bonus for immersion (like
blowing smoke from a cigar in the London Heist game from VR Worlds),
but was still fun despite the missed opportunity. The best use of the
spitballs, though, didn't seem to be pegging the teacher in the back
of her head, but firing at different objects in the classroom to
cause a distraction. Shoot the TV with the boring educational program
she was making us watch, and the channel suddenly changed to PSVR
Frank, the Youtube aficionado of all things PSVR. Or shoot the trash
bin and a basketball jock would rush in the room and run around.
There were many other distractions available, and they were all
perfect for gaining some gaming time on the handheld, which was how
to advance in the Pixel Ripped game itself—you needed to complete
the levels on the handheld to get closer to the final boss fight with
the Cyblin Lord. It wasn't long before the Cyblin Lord and his
minions began to leak into reality...
I know people are out there reviewing
this game and have mentioned that it's short, some saying only 2
hours long, but I played for 3 hours and still haven't finished,
though I made it to the last stage and fought the Cyblin Lord some, I
had to get to bed because of work Tuesday...I hadn't intended to stay
up until 3am! I spent a lot of time trying things out and will
definitely put in more hours because there are all kinds of hidden
surprises throughout the game, including hidden game cartridges you
can collect. One of the things about Pixel Ripped that makes it so
fun is discovery—it doesn't hold your hand and tell you what to do
at every step, but things are generally intuitive enough that you
figure it out as you go. I'm still wondering about some of the things
that happened in the game, such as one of the teacher distractions
that turns my handheld into a kind of AR device and the teacher looks
like a dragon when viewed through it. I can't wait to go try out a
few ideas to figure out what else I can do in the game. There are all
kinds of little Easter Eggs throughout the game with homages to the
80's generation, even a special and strangely familiar “code” you
have to input through your controller for an in-game bonus. The
designers behind this game remember the 80's well, because back then,
developers often hid all kinds of special bonuses throughout their
games, and in those days before the internet, it was more rewarding
searching for the secrets yourself and sharing the stories with
friends, rather than watching a Youtube walk-through suck all the
magic out of the game.
Describing Pixel Ripped is like trying
to explain a digital dream—it really is all over the place, but in
a good way. Apparently, Ana herself said that her idea for this game
was based on an actual dream she had, so I'd say she did a fantastic
job of converting her dream into such an enjoyable and nostalgic
abstraction. The gameplay throughout Pixel Ripped is quite varied,
and though a portion of it involves playing a fun little platformer
on the handheld, this bleeds over into reality at different points,
where you even have your little digital avatar, Dot, jumping on
schoolbooks and staplers in reality. But then, it isn't even reality,
it's technically virtual-reality outside the digital game world. This
is not only a game-within-a-game, but an artistic blend of
contrasting art styles and dimensions. There's the 2D pixel game
world, the 3D virtual world, and even moments of our own real world
shown on TV in the virtual classroom...and all this is in VR!
Something else I think bears mentioning
is the mechanic of my little avatar, Dot, degenerating into fallen
pixels when damaged was a fun way to encourage pixel collection,
which would reform and strengthen her for the challenges ahead. This
reminded me of the classic Ghosts'n Goblins, a game I played in the
80's on my NES like a fanatic until I'd solved it (yes, even the
second run-through!) I remember the avatar, Sir Arthur the Knight,
losing his armor when hit, and when I saw him make a cameo appearance
in Pixel Ripped, I realized I wasn't imagining the reference.
Thankfully, you won't need the insane patience and determination of
an 80's teen to solve Pixel Ripped, but that's not to say that it
isn't challenging. There are plenty of areas, especially the boss
fight at the end, which will test your dexterity and resolve like the 80's games
I remember. Every element of this game—right down to the retro 8
and 16-bit music and sound effects some of us fondly remember from
the 80's and early 90's—feels pulled right out of the past. I lost
track of time playing Pixel Ripped, and found myself smiling and even
cheering several times. I'm really hoping this is just the beginning
of my favorite nostalgic videogame trip to the 80's. Hopefully we
will see more from Ana and the Pixel Ripped team again in the future!
In the meantime, I'd like to thank Ana and the team for their work on
this game; Pixel Ripped 1989 really makes me smile!
UPDATE (No spoilers): I just solved Pixel Ripped 1989 this afternoon, and that boss fight was epic! Patience and determination, plus some old 80's strategy and observation will win the day against the Cyblin Lord! I earned "The Adventure Begins" (Complete the Game) trophy, and I'm so excited for a sequel now! In the meantime, I'm going to play this again a few times to discover a lot of the secrets I missed, and to collect all the game cartridges I missed!
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