The kind of original content the VR marketplace is lucky to have. A love letter to gaming itself. Feels like the future intimately raving about the past - and there's something glorious about that.
Behold! Pluto is still a planet!
The VR space is often thought poorer for being predominated by premium short experiences, of which Pixel Ripped can probably be counted. A necessity of both increased complexity of production and the reduced manpower of small teams brave enough to even enter the space. With an achievement for completion in a single sitting, it's something this small team (which used to be but two) is well aware of. In fact, back in the heady pre-VR days of 2015, they thought brevity a boon - that the headsets would be too uncomfortable for anything more. A far cry from the Skyrim VR and playing whole films in Beat Saber reality of today. All this said, in my mind, short runtimes, far from a perforce limiting factor, can have the potential for true Portal-like focus given to the exploration of an idea.
Pixel Ripped 1989, as you can read up on, is very lucky to exist, but perhaps moreso lucky to be in the hands of developers so motivated to see it through. Thanks to all their sacrifices, it executes its game within a game setup with aplomb and style. With impressive visual effects and tricks competitive with the very best of the VR space, it has come dramatically far since its Kickstarter days.
Perhaps my very favourite thing about it is its framing. Pitching you as a seven-year-old girl so utterly enraptured by video games that her world is invaded and augmented by their sights and sounds, her time gaming isn't a matter of being bored in class, but saving the world. It perfectly captures a Matilda-like rebuffing of toxic authority alongside a complete celebration of gaming's ability to capture and free imaginations beyond say the stilted blackboard screechings of the classroom. Behind true nostalgia lie memories, meaning and relationships that either temporally collide or resonate with media. Pixel Ripped doesn't go the way of shamelessly referencing like some Ready Player One as I feared. It assays to capture the entire experience with heart and meaning.
Back to the Tutor
How I've responded to it here may betray its true comic intentions. It's a lighthearted, joke-heavy experience at its heart. After all, the primary gameplay loop for two of the four levels is to distract the most clueless teacher in existence with spitballs whilst you save the world on your 8-bit handheld. Manage a shot into the bin, for instance, and a footballer will slide in on his knees as commentators cry 'goal!'; the teacher tottering off to the doorway after him making exclamations about his physique. So much of the humour hits - spoken, 8-bit subtitled and slapstick alike.
If I have one critique to spitball at Pixel Ripped, it's that there's no variation in these distraction techniques - right down to identical cries of the children and rantings of the teacher. It hardly breaks some artifice of reality given how you need not even hide your 8-bit antics under your desk from your blind teacher, but some variety might have helped assuage inherent feelings of repetitiveness - especially when revisiting the same level environment. It's unfortunate that their effect, so pronounced and joyous on first trigger, has to be diluted to indifference on the tenth.
Handling the handheld whilst juggling the virtual-real world comes very naturally and you need only get yourself comfy. The Mega-man like game starring Dot that makes up the mechanical bulk of the experience is certainly fun, full of secrets and no pushover. I won't accept anyone pronouncing the end level, in particular, easy. If no longer liking dragons is a line you're not willing to cross, I would recommend against proceeding with this one. With just run, jump and shoot buttons, platforming and shooting are fast and frantic. It successfully pastiches many platforming staples from jet ski segments to Sonic without feeling overtly like a poor imitation. Speaking of that former example in particular, Vive control imprecision can make for some problematic moments here and there. For the most part, I'm happy they decided to go the route of a challenging difficulty over an 8-bit platformer in presentation only. Far and away the very best implementation comes in moments of augmented reality wherein the 8-bit action jumps into Nicola's environment. Having an office window emulate the screen of a handheld is just one of several genius ideas these sections have in store. Imagination can't explain everything away neatly bowed, but it's too darn fun to complain about.
The Vive controller is more hideous than I ever imagined
1989 doesn't have perfect presentation by any means. Characters and outside sections, for example, can look positively archaic. Its trump card was never raw fidelity, though, I feel, but the unbridled creativity at its core. Transitions from the 2D world to 3D, the augmented reality sections, etc, these are all the impressive visuals I needed. It's the authenticity of the world too with its perfectly executed Pixel Ripped theme song, TV segments, etc. It's a world both so utterly absurd and believable, unbelievably.
When all is said and done, I'm naturally left wanting more. With teasing in-game and out, I really hope we see further refinements in a Pixel 1979 soon enough. It's quite a thing to demand when we're lucky enough that 1989 became (virtual) reality itself, I know. Simply put, this is the kind of original content the virtual reality marketplace is lucky to have and probably not that we expected. Something that also happens to be a heartfelt love letter to the medium itself. It feels like the future intimately raving about the past - and there's something glorious about that.
