PixlBit

Hey dudes!  I’ve got some totally radical and gnarly game reviews I’ve written recently over at GamerDad.com.  And a majority of them happen to have an 80’s theme!  It would be righteous to the max if you could click on the links and read as many reviews as you can and maybe post a ‘like’ or comment or two.  I’d appreciate it.  Oh and for the record, I never talked like that as a kid in the 80’s  I think the only people who did were on television.

Pac-Man 99 (Switch)

And what could be more 80’s than Pac-Man?  Battle Royale games usually pit you against 100 or so other players as you fight to the death with the last one standing the victor.  Most of these kinds of games are shooters, and because of that, I never thought I’d play a Battle Royale style game.  But a couple of years ago, Nintendo released Tetris 99, which I still play from time to time.  Later they released a similar game called Super Mario Bros. 35, which I dabbled in a little bit, but not much (I’m not as big of a fan of the original Super Mario Bros. game as people think I am).  But boy they sure got me with their latest ‘99’ Battle Royale style game featuring a classic.  This time with Pac-Man 99, where you play the original Pac-Man game against 99 other players!  It’s available as a freebie to Nintendo Switch Online users.  It’s very fun and I’m pretty good at it, too.  I’m frequently in the top ten and one time I even made it to number two!

Narita Boy (PS4)

In the early 1980s, a famous computer programmer gets his memories erased by an evil computer program named HIM, and now that program threatens to take over the digital world.  Meanwhile, a gamer who enjoys playing on the computer late at night gets sucked into the PC, and is transformed into the hero Narita Boy.  Armed with the Techno-Sword, Narita Boy must defeat HIM and save the programmer’s memories.  With the storyline and graphics, this game was clearly inspired by the classic movie TRON.  The title screen even looks so much like the TRON movie poster, I’m surprised Disney didn’t sue!  Anyway, Narita Boy is a 2-D platformer hack and slash with some Metroid-like exploration elements.  I liked the 80’s style visuals and music, but the goals and objectives in the game were a bit unclear at times, and play control was too loosey goosey for my tastes.

What the Dub?! (PS4)

You wanna know what my all-time favorite TV show in the whole wide world is?  It’s Mystery Science Theater 3000.  Man I love that show!  The show is really more associated with the 90’s, but it did technically start in the late 80’s, so it still fits the theme of this blog.  In the show, a guy and two robot puppets are sent out in a space station by two mad scientists, and are forced to watch bad movies and make fun of them.  You might’ve seen this show and not even realized it, because most of it is just the old movie with a silhouette of theater seats and the characters at the bottom talking all throughout the movie.  It hasn’t been on TV in a long time, but you can still catch it in syndication and on Netflix.  Some of the show’s creators and stars have gone on to do similar works, like Rifftrax, which are great, too.  But MST3K is still my favorite.  Since I like video games a lot, I always thought it would be neat if they made an MST3K video game.  But until they do, What the Dub?! may be the closest thing to that.  It’s a party game where you watch clips of old movies, type in missing dialogue in your phone, and vote on the funniest submissions.  It plays exactly like a JackBox game, and really the only problem I had with it is that you HAVE to have four people to play it, which is a bit hard to arrange at my house.

Chaser Tracer (Mobile)

Aliens have created an artificial sun to destroy the Earth, and the only way to stop them is to decode their symbols by tracing over them before they do!  OK, dopey story out of the way, this is just a game where you quickly trace over different symbols before the computer can.  It has a nice 80’s neon theme at least.  Otherwise it’s just a mobile version of all those ‘trace the lines’ mini-games found on the DS.

Bite the Bullet (PS4)

In the far future, most humans have left Earth for other planets as food is scarce.  The people who still live on Earth have cybernetic implants installed that allow them to eat anything.  And I do mean ANYTHING.  Rocks, metal, zombies, you name it, just to survive in this war-torn Earth where food is hard to come by.  When trouble erupts, it’s up to Chewie and Chewella to run and gun and eat their way to victory.  Bite the Bullet is a 2-D run and gun game where you can eat any enemy to boost your stats.  The game has been out for a while, but has new DLC which adds, “new levels, enemies, double the frame rate for animation, and plenty of secrets.”  The announcement of this new DLC is why I’m reviewing the game now, but since I didn’t play it before, I haven’t noticed the difference.  I like that the female character Chewella is really buff and strong.  Game plays like Contra mixed with gross 80’s toys like Garbage Pail Kids and Madballs.  Two 80’s toys I never liked as a kid.  Anyway, the game is a bit too hard and chaotic for my tastes.

World Splitter (PS4)

You are an alien-deer-rabbit thing and your spacecraft has crash landed on a planet.  All of these little critters in your UFO escape, and one of them is chomping on a device like a dog chew toy.  This device splits the world into two dimensions, and now you must solve puzzles while switching between the two worlds as you collect all your little critters.  World Splitter is a 2-D action puzzle platformer with some pretty creative ideas.

Relicta (Switch)

A few centuries in the future and we’ve got terraforming biome bases on the moon.  Well, I’m assuming it’s the moon, they call it “Luna” in the game so it could be a moon on another fictional planet.  Anyway, in Relicta you play as a scientist on one of these bases, and she’s testing a new pair of gloves that have the power to manipulate gravity and magnetism on nearby objects.  When her daughter comes to visit and a freak accident puts her and other members of the crew in danger, it’s up to the scientist to use the special gloves to solve puzzles to save the day.  Relicta is a 3-D first person puzzler that’s kind of like Portal without all the great humor.  The learning curve is a bit too steep early on, and another thing I don’t like about this game is that they curse too much.  I know if you are out in space and in danger, you’re not going to say, “Oh golly gee willikers, I’m out of oxygen and that gosh darn asteroid is going to hit us.”  But these scientists swear like sailors and if they cut out all the bad words, this game probably could’ve gotten a T rating instead of an M.  I just don’t like it when people curse a lot.

Bungee Turtle (Mobile)

And last and definitely least, Bungee Turtle is a pretty generic 2-D platformer for mobile devices (reviewed on iPad here).  You can move left or right, double jump, throw rocks at enemies or hide in your shell.  But the big gimmick in this game is that at certain points, you can jump onto a track that’ll activate a bungee cord, and then you can move left and right and bob up and down on your line, collecting fruit and coins and avoiding enemies and obstacles. 

And that’s all for now.  Thanks again for reading and posting ‘likes’ and comments on my reviews.  I do really appreciate it.  In the comments section, tell me your favorite stuff from the 80’s.  Like games, music, TV shows, movies, food, etc.  Later!  --Cary