PixlBit

If you can get the reference in the title, you win a tasty RAM chip.  Anyway, here’s my latest batch of reviews I’ve written over at GamerDad.com.  Please click on the links and read as many as you can, and maybe even post a ‘like’ or comment or two.  I’d appreciate it.  OK let’s begin!

Best Forklift Operator (Switch)

My real life full time job is at a major hardware store big box chain.  And if you’ve been inside one of those stores, you may have seen employees driving forklifts around.  Since I’ve been blind in my left eye since birth, I don’t drive the forklifts in the store, but I am part of the safety team so I’m pretty familiar with how they work.  So when the opportunity arose for me to review a game where you drive a forklift (yeah they’ll make a game out of anything these days), I thought it might be interesting.  And of course, forklifts play a part in other video games, too, whether it be your part time job in Shenmue or as a boss in the AtomisWave arcade game DemolishFist.  

Home Sheep Home: Farmageddon Party Edition (Switch)

I’m a big fan of stop motion and clay animation.  I even took a class on it once back in my college years so I have a lot of respect for the folks who do that stuff for a living.  One of my favorite stop motion animation studios is Aardman.  They’ve done stuff like Creature Comforts and the Chevron car commercials, but probably their most famous work is the Wallace and Gromit series.  One of the side characters in Wallace and Gromit was a sheep named Shaun.  He was so popular that he got his own spinoff TV show and movies about his adventures on the farm with his barnyard friends.  Heck, even the youngest sheep on that show got his own preschool spinoff show called Timmy Time!  So yeah, a spinoff of a spinoff.  Anyway, now Shaun the Sheep and his fleecy friends are in their own video game: a 2-D action puzzle platformer on all current consoles and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

Toodee and Topdee (PS4)

Toodee and Topdee literally combines the action of a 2D platformer with the puzzles of a top down style game.  The story goes that an all-knowing being created some vastly different worlds.  One is 2-D and another is a top down world, for instance.  This god-like being created all this with just words, and used a semicolon to unite them all.  But the assistant to this god, named Toodoo, he got worried that his master would get rid of him after finishing all his work, since he wouldn’t need an assistant anymore. So he stole the semicolon that provided order to everything.  Now all the worlds are mixing up and combining.  So now Toodee, who lives in the 2-D platform world, and Topdee, who lives in the top down viewed world, must work together to get the magic semicolon back.

Raiden III x MIKADO MANIAX (PS4)

The Raiden series is a super popular group of 2-D vertically scrolling shooters.  I’ve seen them in arcades and ported to nearly every home console since then.  Just like NIS did earlier this year with Raiden IV, now you can play the third one with some new features and additions.  Still not sure what the MIKADO in the titles mean, but you can play it on all current consoles and PC (reviewed on PS4 here).

Pretty Princess: Magical Garden Island (Switch)

Believe it or not, this game is actually a sequel (or spinoff) to one I reviewed a couple of years ago!  In the first game, you play as a girl who gets whisked away to a world inhabited by rabbit people.  You get transformed into a princess and the rabbits need your princess magic to help rebuild and decorate their castle.  The game was pretty much a rip-off of the indoor decorating aspects of Animal Crossing, and the sequel rips off pretty much everything else from that title.  In the sequel, you and your princess friends decide they want to try some Princess Cake.  Your rabbit butler knows an island where you can get the ingredients.  So now you set off for that island, where you’ll farm, fish, and gather materials to build shops and farms so you can make more things to restore the island to its former glory.  The game even uses the same ‘rolling log’ viewpoint that Animal Crossing does!

Tiny Dragon Story (Switch)

An evil wizard has stolen all of Tiny Dragon’s treasures, so it’s up to you to help get them back in this retro inspired 2-D platformer on Switch.  The black and white graphics remind me of games I would’ve played on the Apple ][+ I had as a kid.

Agriculture (PS4)

Agriculture is a fast action puzzle game where you must plant, water, harvest, and ship crops in a given amount of time.  It’s like the harvesting part of Harvest Moon with an extra dose of caffeine.

And that’s all for now!  Thank for reading and posting ‘likes’ and comments on my reviews!  I really appreciate it!  Later!  --Cary