Pico's School

The pinnacle of Flash 3

Reviewed by Shawn from afro-ninja.com

Ok, I have to write this review slightly from the 1999 perspective. If Pico’s School came out today it would be seen as a good game, but probably nothing all that special. You can find plenty of flash games now where you collect things and shoot stuff. Pico’s school however, was the first. Not only that, but it was made in Flash 3. Flash 3 did not support the use of variables- even if you’re not a programmer you should recognize that variables are the building block of any game, ever. Pico’s School was controversial, revolutionary, and a lot of fun.

So you’re Pico, a little red-headed school kid. And your school just got shot up by Goths. Lame. So of course the best course of action is to grab your AK and teach those emo Goths a lesson. The game is controlled through a point-and-click interface, with extra mouse interaction for the boss fights. There’s items to pick up and some small puzzle elements, but nothing unmanageable. The biggest difficulty is making it through the boss fights themselves. Back when this game was made it was a little graphics intensive for most computers, meaning the boss fights slowed down and made them much easier. Tom went back and fixed this by adding some delay in them but they’re still a challenge, especially the final boss.

Graphics are clean but simple. They’re also cartoony, which helps lighten up the game a bit and give some humor to the otherwise drab theme of a school shooting. The sound department checks out too, with all the sfx you would expect to hear and a kickin music track to back it up. I still get a little bit of a chill when picking up the rifle for the first time. One of the biggest draws of Pico is the overall interactivity of the environments. Plenty of small touches that are easy to look past on your way to complete the game. You can open and examine every locker, play with sinks in the bathroom, have multiple-choice interactions with other class-mates, and more.

Pico’s school is a true classic, and unless you’re truly offended by a little bit of mature content then you need to give this a play. Admittedly in some places it seems the violence/language was increased just to produce more of an ‘edgy’ feel, but you have to admit it fits with the theme. Now, if only we could get some more information on the legendary ‘Pico 2'...

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Graphics	Sound	Gameplay /Control	Presentation	Overall
7	8.5	9	8.5	8.6
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