Pixel Ripped 1989 [VR]

[DANGERMAN]

This is a cool, but not overly long, VR game. It's one of those games where the full price is probably a bit much to ask for it, but so much work has gone in to it and it's available to such a small audience they aren't ripping people off. I got it in the sale that's on PSN at the minute, and I'd say a tenner is pretty good for a couple of hours

 

Pixel Ripped 1989 is a game within a game. You play as a young girl with a Game Boy style handheld, the game you play is a fairly simple, but pretty decent, action platformer, more Turrican than Metroid. You're sat in class while you play, so the 'game' is to finish the level without being spotted by the teacher. There's a spitball pen that you can use to activate distractions, buying you some time to concentrate on the level.

 

Eventually the game starts bleeding in to reality, so you have to use the not-Game Boy to affect the world. The headmaster level is probably the best example of this, it's a great level, but if you die you have to retry the whole thing, 1989 I guess. On the nostalgia front, despite it mimicking the green screen of the Game Boy most of the games referenced and the sounds and images cribbed aren't Nintendo focused. There's a few Sonic homages, some Ghouls & Ghosts, Battletoads (fittingly, the worst section of the game). It makes sense, the developers are Brazilian, what doesn't make as much sense is how UK centric it is, I would have bet my house this was developed over here.

 

It's cool, I enjoyed it quite a bit despite some frustrations during the boss fights. Some of them ask you to do quite a bit at once, and I found just darting about shooting while taking damage was as effective a strategy as any other