GUEST REVIEW by SUPER BAD ADVICE
Blergh. The world’s in a bit of mess at the moment, innit?
You’ve got a nylon-coiffured tartrazine lardhippo in charge of the USA. A PM here who’s basically a broken speak & spell stuck in a diagnostic loop, shoved into an M&S old lady shop dummy. Catastrophic climate change that means we’ll probably all be underwater in a few years – assuming we haven’t died of sunburn first. People rioting over alternative sausage rolls.
And that’s only the stuff that’s annoyed/terrified me this month.
It’s all such a massive cluster of fetid mank, it’s a wonder we’re not all constantly blind drunk to blot out the sheer awfulness. So thank criminy for Pikuniku: the game we all need to play right now. Why? Because it comes packed to the membranes with misery-busting free booze! (Fun!)
Blergh. The world’s in a bit of mess at the moment, innit?
You’ve got a nylon-coiffured tartrazine lardhippo in charge of the USA. A PM here who’s basically a broken speak & spell stuck in a diagnostic loop, shoved into an M&S old lady shop dummy. Catastrophic climate change that means we’ll probably all be underwater in a few years – assuming we haven’t died of sunburn first. People rioting over alternative sausage rolls.
And that’s only the stuff that’s annoyed/terrified me this month.
It’s all such a massive cluster of fetid mank, it’s a wonder we’re not all constantly blind drunk to blot out the sheer awfulness. So thank criminy for Pikuniku: the game we all need to play right now. Why? Because it comes packed to the membranes with misery-busting free booze! (Fun!)
TIC TAC TACTICS
Essentially the adventures of a demented tic tac on legs that only seem about 40% within his control, Pikuniku sees you platforming your way around a colourful, cartoony world populated by blobby people being oppressed by a malignant cloud dude and his robot enforcers.
It’s your job (as a somewhat reluctant rebel) to rise up, free the people, and restore happiness and harmony via the likes of winning nightclub dance offs, beating a possessed toaster, kicking melons through a hoop and forcing a bloated, radioactive worm who drank some real bad stuff through an abandoned mine.
Despite the fact that all sounds like I just picked a load of random words out of a dictionary, it’s an entirely true portrayal of things because the following is also true: Pikuniku is completely and joyously unhinged. And I love it.
The biggest reason for my adoration is that as well as being fun to play, it’s funny. Not ‘oh, that’s a mildly amusing voice line’ funny – genuinely laugh out loud funny, like a little surreal sketch show. It’s packed with random gems to make you smile, such as tooting the horns on the little cars in 2-player mode – keep beeping them and they play ‘Take on me’ by A-Ha. Why? Who knows!
Essentially the adventures of a demented tic tac on legs that only seem about 40% within his control, Pikuniku sees you platforming your way around a colourful, cartoony world populated by blobby people being oppressed by a malignant cloud dude and his robot enforcers.
It’s your job (as a somewhat reluctant rebel) to rise up, free the people, and restore happiness and harmony via the likes of winning nightclub dance offs, beating a possessed toaster, kicking melons through a hoop and forcing a bloated, radioactive worm who drank some real bad stuff through an abandoned mine.
Despite the fact that all sounds like I just picked a load of random words out of a dictionary, it’s an entirely true portrayal of things because the following is also true: Pikuniku is completely and joyously unhinged. And I love it.
The biggest reason for my adoration is that as well as being fun to play, it’s funny. Not ‘oh, that’s a mildly amusing voice line’ funny – genuinely laugh out loud funny, like a little surreal sketch show. It’s packed with random gems to make you smile, such as tooting the horns on the little cars in 2-player mode – keep beeping them and they play ‘Take on me’ by A-Ha. Why? Who knows!
THROWAWAY THROWBACK
The whole thing is a massive throwback in style to the sort of oddball titles you’d get on the Speccy and C64 in the 8-bit era, only with a very modern ‘throwaway’ vibe of the sort you usually only see in Nintendo titles. Quite often a gameplay mechanic will appear for one task and then you’ll never see it again, but that variety and creativity only adds to the charm.
It’s only short (yet: gloriously cheap to match at just over a tenner), though you’ll want to replay it to make sure you see everything AND there’s also the separate 2-player co-op stages. These alone will last you ages, as for every few minutes of trying to finish the level you’ll spend another 10 booting each other about the place like loons.
But despite its smallness, it’s perfectly formed – it simultaneously leaves you wanting more, but also not wanting more in case they actually did more and spoiled it by not making it as marvellous. I genuinely cried laughing at some points, it’s so gloriously silly, AND it has solid gaming chops as the platforming in parts is no breeze either.
Look, I could write another 10 paragraphs and give away the gags, or wax lyrical about how it’ll just make you laugh and smile until I’ve run out of superlatives, but if you’re on this website (assuming you haven’t ended up here after googling ‘disturbing poo stories’) then I’m guessing you have a certain sense of humour. And if you do, just take my word for it and buy it. It’s an absolute 100% pure nugget of completely absurd lovely.
SCORE: ALL THE DANK PARTIES out of 10
The whole thing is a massive throwback in style to the sort of oddball titles you’d get on the Speccy and C64 in the 8-bit era, only with a very modern ‘throwaway’ vibe of the sort you usually only see in Nintendo titles. Quite often a gameplay mechanic will appear for one task and then you’ll never see it again, but that variety and creativity only adds to the charm.
It’s only short (yet: gloriously cheap to match at just over a tenner), though you’ll want to replay it to make sure you see everything AND there’s also the separate 2-player co-op stages. These alone will last you ages, as for every few minutes of trying to finish the level you’ll spend another 10 booting each other about the place like loons.
But despite its smallness, it’s perfectly formed – it simultaneously leaves you wanting more, but also not wanting more in case they actually did more and spoiled it by not making it as marvellous. I genuinely cried laughing at some points, it’s so gloriously silly, AND it has solid gaming chops as the platforming in parts is no breeze either.
Look, I could write another 10 paragraphs and give away the gags, or wax lyrical about how it’ll just make you laugh and smile until I’ve run out of superlatives, but if you’re on this website (assuming you haven’t ended up here after googling ‘disturbing poo stories’) then I’m guessing you have a certain sense of humour. And if you do, just take my word for it and buy it. It’s an absolute 100% pure nugget of completely absurd lovely.
SCORE: ALL THE DANK PARTIES out of 10
RSS Feed
