Pico's Surprise Party

Just needs some control-tweaking

Reviewed by Shawn from afro-ninja.com

In celebration of Newgrounds’ Pico Day, I’m adding up another Pico-themed game to the review list. Pico’s Surprise Party is a shootem-up action game with hints of adventure elements. While the aiming component is off at times it provides an overall solid game.

It’s Pico’s birthday and Nene is handing out invitations to Pico’s surprise party. Giko, the unpopular class nerd, is the last to receive an invitation. Loathing Pico’s status, he decides celebrate in his own way. As Pico comes back home later that day, he finds that his entire house and all his friends have been shot up by Giko’s group of nerds and Goths. Wielding the classic dual uzis, Pico marches in to set things straight.

Ok, that was probably more storyline that you needed, but it’s a good setup. You control Pico with the arrow keys, and shoot with space. Pressing down causes Pico to roll, or backflip in the air. Both make you invincible. Pico will auto-lock onto enemies, so all you need to do is hold down space to blow them away. The enemies take quite a few bullets to put down though, so get used to dodging and rolling. Unfortunately the rolling system is a bit finicky. Sometimes it seems you can roll in the middle of shooting, other times you can’t. As expected, this usually leads to a chunk missing off your life bar. The good thing is that the game saves your progress after each room, so if you die you can restart at the entrance. The other problem is with the auto-aim. When there’s more than one enemy on the screen it’s hard to make it focus on the one you want, and if one of them dies it wont auto-refocus for you. More challenge, right?

The graphics have a somewhat sloppy sketch style to them, but most of the animations provided are fluid which makes up for it. There are also a few cutscenes in the game that provide a nice little break, and will give you a laugh as Pico acts like a badass. No qualms in the sound department.

Pico’s Surprise Party is a well rounded game, but could have used some polish in the controls area. You’ll go through a couple floors, collect a few items, beat a few bosses. Not too long, not too short (although the pizza man can be pretty annoying. Why am I fighting a pizza guy anyway?). While the Pico Day animations will pretty much always trump the games, that’s no excuse to pass over ones like this.

Click here to play Pico's Surprise Party






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