New game is bizarre ballet of bullets and brazen bananas
By Brittany Vincent // Shacknews.com (TNS)
Platform: Nintendo Switch and PC
Genre: Action
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Developer: DeadToast Entertainment
Rating: T, for teen
You’ve just woken up in a butcher’s freezer with no recollection of who you are or how you got there. You’re terrified, angry, and alone—except for some banana. But it’s not a regular banana, no, not at all. This banana has a name. It’s Pedro. And he’s your ticket out of this nightmare. The only way out is with guns and a whole lot of crazy. Welcome to My Friend Pedro, a game all about pistol-whipping enemies, slowing down time and listening to your psychotic, fruity friend.
A Bloody Ballet
As you work your way out of the butchery, you’ve got to arm yourself. You wrestle a pistol away from a guard and it’s off on a mission to fight your way through the area and figure out who you are and why it is you’re letting a floating banana give you orders.
From the very beginning you’ve got your banana buddy and pistol, and two additional skills to help you move things along. You can slow down time to avoid bullets and spin to evade. Both can be used in tandem with each other to make for some extremely fluid gameplay.
Your unnamed shooter is more than a little acrobatic and can pull off some seriously impressive parkour moves and more. You can aim with the right stick, pull the trigger, and hit your mark with little effort. There’s so much more to the game than that, though. You’ll sprint through each level with the greatest of ease, dodging, rolling, and zipping through enemies who can’t touch you as you twist through the air slipping through a hale of gunfire like some kind of invincible flying dolphin.
Pistol-whipped
When you get your second pistol, though, that’s where things really get crazy. You’ll also get automatic Sequential Manual Gearboxes, a shotgun, sniper rifle and plenty of other destructive weapons as well throughout the game, in addition to an ability to aim with one weapon and use the other to target one enemy. The more weapons you amass, however, the more difficult the game becomes. Some enemies can be downed with a few well-timed shots as you fly through the air like you’re on a trapeze, and others can one-shot you if you’re not careful.
Goin’ Bananas
My Friend Pedro is an amalgam of fantastic bullet play, thumping electronic bass beats throughout each level, and hilariously weird characters. I’m still not sure how the folks at Deadtoast Entertainment came up with this gloriously addictive fever dream, but I’m an absolute fan of whatever creative process that allowed them to craft a dangerously stylish, addictive, and exciting shooter that offers something new and unique for your Switch (or PC) library.
