My Friend Pedro Review
Bullets are better with a pretend produce pal.
To anyone who ever thought it would be a great idea to throw Deadpool into a glorious over the top side-scrolling shoot fest, My Friend Pedro is a dream come true. A game that fits perfectly into the delightfully weird indie catalog of Devolver Digital, this is an, at times, brilliant ballet of brutal destruction. Or perhaps the product of a disturbed individual who needs therapy.
Possibly both.
The basic hook is you’re a very Deadpool-looking guy who can dual wield guns while jumping around, flipping off walls, killing everyone in sight in slow motion. Or even regular motion, but slow motion looks cooler. My Friend Pedro is a tongue-firmly-in-cheek side scroller that riffs on common action game and movie tropes within a universe that is completely bonkers.
It seems our unknown protagonist got himself into some trouble and wakes up in the cold room of a psycho cannibal butcher’s meat shop with only his trusty floating, talking banana friend, Pedro, by his side. Hey, we’ve all been there, right?
With Pedro’s help, our silent hero manages to blaze a trail of dead bodies out of the shop and into the city. His adventures will take him above, below, and in-between this urban sprawl. Level locations include such classics as building construction site, the sewers (infested with incel gamer dudebros to joyously mow down), a high-speed motorcycle chase on the motorway, and the internet, which is of course really just a series of tubes.
My Friend Pedro comes locked and loaded with 40 levels. There are plenty of creative elements spread throughout the game. Some have Pedro’s friend riding a skateboard while mowing down baddies, there’s a freefall firefight, and some wonderfully surreal sequences that enunciate just how insane our buddy and his banana really are.
Levels are consistently short, maybe 5-10 minutes long, but the pacing is vigorous. Pedro’s friend can wall jump, flip, swing from ropes and slide down ziplines, all while unleashing lead-infused fury. He can also kick, usually resulting in an instant kill for standard enemies, but also useful for tossing explosive containers at enemies. Kick a gas can between a couple of thugs, shoot the can, and enjoy duty-free carnage.
Better yet, My Friend Pedro is really big on antics that involve using metal plates to ricochet bullets to switches, objects, and bodies you can’t otherwise reach. More entertaining is the game’s use of cast iron skillets, which you can also kick into the air to use as an impromptu bullet bouncing surface. Near the end of the game, shooting takes a back seat to a frantic obstacle course of death traps.
Pressing the left stick button (on the Switch version) puts the game in slow motion and the left trigger lets you aim your left handed gun at a different target when dual wielding. Mix all these elements up with the running, flipping, skating, ziplining and general insanity, and you have the core of what makes the game so enjoyable.
There’s an undeniably entertaining and visceral quality to the entire game. That said, the semi-retro style graphics are a bit rough and the soundtrack as a whole feels underwhelming compared to the rest of the experience. There’s no voice work at all to emphasise just how unstable the lead character is, and while the score is pretty good, it doesn’t go far enough to truly suit the unstable atmosphere of the content.
It also would have been great to see some character evolution. The move set that you start with is pretty much static through the whole game. The only thing that changes is the limited number of weapons you’ll acquire. Starting with basic dual pistols with infinite ammo, you upgrade to an assault rifle, dual sub-machine guns, a shotgun, and a sniper rifle. It’s a noticeably small armoury for a game entirely dependent on creative gunplay.
It’s hard to complain too much about My Friend Pedro’s shortcomings, though. What’s here is incredibly fun and the inclusion of worldwide leaderboards for every level is perfect for competitive types. If there’s a sequel (and we really hope there will be), it will need to greatly expand on the bullet-time gimmick. For now, though, Pedro will definitely be your friend too.
[Reviewed on Switch]