I like this new Atari. It’s like they’re trying. I can’t say that for the last 19 Atari’s since Warner Communications sold them off, but this variant is taking some old ideas and implementing them into a new groove. They have released some good stuff in the past two years. At least they’re not just republishing old material. A lot of companies tend to do that without thought.
Anyway, the new Atari has continued its ongoing remakes of the past by playing with old themes to create new content. Their latest venture is for the PSVR2 and is called Pixel Ripped 1978 from developer ARVORE Immersive Experiences. This game features some old-school classics pushed into a VR environment and snuggled in well to a unique adventure that is more hit than miss.
So, get those red, yellow, orange, and black color schemes out, and let’s go back in time for this one.
Unique Story
While there is nothing earth-shattering about Pixel Ripped 1978’s story, it’s still a fun trip down memory lane. You play as protagonist Dot, who finds herself chasing a multi-video game evil antagonist named Cyblin Lord. He is hell-bent on traversing multiple decades and ruining/rearranging the timeline they exist within. His goal is to change history with every successful action he takes. The game also introduces Dot’s programmer named Bug, who works for Atari creating and trying out new games, including her masterpiece Pixel Ripped. When she finds out that her evil creation decided to ruin a lot of games and mess with timelines, she works with Dot to undo what has been done.
I know what you’re thinking, this sounds like the beginning of a bad 80s movie, and you wouldn’t be wrong. Almost all 80s films were terrible by today’s standards, but something about them always entertained me. If you need a terrible movie to compare this to then look no further than TRON. Back in the 80s, it was confusing as it was innovative. Nowadays, it may not hold up well, but it holds its entertainment value amid all the awful graphics it sports. It’s good enough to have another sequel in development. Anyway, that’s essentially where the narrative of Pixel Ripped 1978 lies, as it is everything awful about an 80s adventure, but entertaining with its simplicity and majesty. It’s a cute adventure entertaining as much as it harkens back to a more exciting video game world where creators were Gods, and the machines/companies they worked within bowed down to them. Okay, may be a little dramatic and inaccurate, but it sounded good.
I enjoyed the story in Pixel Ripped 1978. Jumping around through decades to chase an evil video game entity is pure 1980s entertainment. ARVORE Immersive Experiences did a spectacular job of creating a game that matched the beauty of that time where video games were more imagination than full-blown epic adventures. And that was good enough. For those of us who grew up in the 70s/80s during the heyday of Atari, it was neat having moments that reminded you of those decades and the excitement of video games that came with them. Everything from art to putting in a 2600 console to play during Bug’s office hours threw back to some of the most remarkable moments in the video game industry and added to the overall narrative. It was so much fun to travel back in time, even if it was whacky most of the time. Okay, the 80s were whacky. I mean, do you know about the fashion standards in the late 70s to mid-80s. Ugh. Never again. Maybe the neon. Whatever.
Ultimately, this was a story that was flushed out well and handled with care. It sets the tone for the gameplay and puts the player in the mood to have a cool 70s/80s adventure. You couldn’t ask for much more.
More hits than misses in VR
The gameplay design in Pixel Ripped 1978 leans more on nostalgia than it does creativity – some of the time. Now, that might sound like the beginning of a negative comment, but it isn’t. Well, not completely. The best parts of the game lie in its ability to mix old with new. For example, there is a moment in the game where you go back in time and end up in Bug’s living room playing Breakout. Everything about the room screams early video game period, so the environment puts you there and makes you feel like you’re in someone’s horribly designed 70s/80s living room. It’s ugly but at the same time beautiful. I can’t believe I survived those color schemes.
Anyway, once the game gets to the actual interactive part, and more importantly, to the story where it’s Dot against Cyblin, the gameplay changes significantly. It puts you in a neat 3D world of Breakout where you must control the game as it typically is while throwing objects at Cyblin in hopes of bringing him down and preventing him from interfering in Bug’s childhood timeline. The gameplay here is a juggling act of sorts, where you must take care in keeping up with the Breakout ball and always hit it (otherwise, you will lose) while taking any object you can find on Bug’s table and throwing it at Cyblin’s shield to knock it down so that you can do some damage. You must do all of this and eventually bring down Cyblin to progress. That’s a lovely mixture of old and new, and added complication to make the gameplay interesting. This stage is wonderful in VR and designed with great care.
These types of stages happen often in the game, which shows how much thought and effort went into the game’s design. One of the better spaces that ARVORE created for this game was Bug’s office, which allows you to play different Atari games and even clean out bugs (literally) from an early prototype. This stage has you play the game, stun bugs within the game, smack the monitor, and then smack the bugs that fly out of the game. It’s a clever and cool way of doing things. In addition, you would also have to answer phone calls from various people in the office, including Nolan Bushnell, and put up with coworkers, especially those of the tightly knit short type. ARVORE didn’t seem to waste a VR moment in these types of levels, and those moments made the experience worthwhile. I have seen a lot of wasted VR experiences since the tech took off, but this isn’t one of those games.
Now, there are in-between moments that could be improved. Dot will occasionally travel within the game world to solve some mystery that can’t be solved in the 2D version. During these moments, the entire game looks like a more detailed version of Minecraft but without all the fulfilling gameplay design. You’re playing as Dot in a 3D world and put on a restrictive, linear path to whatever goal you’re trying to accomplish. While it does seem like you can explore, you’re only meant to go from point A to point B. In addition to this, the game features a lot of wash, rinse, and repeat moments when taking down enemies. Shooting slow-moving enemies that repeat often isn’t too much fun. The gameplay is uninspired during these moments as they feel like a means to an end to get to the next point in the story. The good folks at ARVORE did their best to mix in nostalgia to make these moments better, pulling in the likes of Crystal Castle’s Bear hero and such, but you can feel the blandness behind those famous faces. You won’t spend a lot of time in these worlds, but they are present and part of the journey.
When you’re not in a Minecraft-like world, the game is kicking on all cylinders with its creative VR juices. The PSVR2 experience you get out of this game is entertaining and engaging. The folks at ARVORE seemed to understand the hardware well and used it to pull the gamer into the experience. For example, when you get hit on the head, you feel it in your headset. When you drink down a potion, you feel it in your headset. When you’re firing your hand guns like Samus from Metroid, you feel the feedback and the accuracy that comes with it. When all of this happens and the beautifully fun music is blaring through the PSVR2 earbuds, it’s breathtaking. As VR experiences go, this is probably one of the nicer ones on the market. Even though the experience is short, it does its best to keep you hooked and engaged. You want that in your VR experience and the game delivers.
Ultimately, the majority of what you do within the VR experience of Pixel Ripped 1978 is simple, which fits the mold of what the game is trying to be. It uses a heavy amount of nostalgia but at the same time uses it with a purpose. The game is well-designed and while I wish there was more of it, as I would love to have a VR arcade experience with all the old Atari games, it is enough for what the narrative has laid down. I suspect that many reviewers will not appreciate what this game is and what it’s trying to do, and that is okay, but this reviewer had a helluva good time more than not.
On that sweet note, let’s wrap up this review.
Conclusion
Pixel Ripped 1978 from ARVORE Immersive Experiences and Atari is a good VR experience that is led by a competent narrative and nostalgia. How VR is used within the game is entertaining and engaging, if not outright clever. While not all of the game is gold, it still manages to turn old game schemes and concepts into something new and engaging within a virtual reality environment.
