That’s right folks, WGM has just hit the benchmark of 100 reviews!

Since this is such a special occasion, I thought that I would review something from another special occasion, Pico Day 2007.

Pico is the mascot character of Newgrounds and has been around since the beginning of the web-game industry.  The original Pico game, Pico’s School, was a revolutionary piece of independent work that not only aided in catapulting Newgrounds to the top of the independent flash scene, but also inspired an entire generation of up-and-coming game developers, including myself.

April 30th is Pico day.  While it’s not the TRUE anniversary of the original game (mostly due to the fact nobody can recall the exact date) is IS the birthday of Pico’s creator, Tom Fulp. This year marked the 2nd annual celebration of Pico day.

Newgrounds put up $15k in prize money and a bunch of other great giveaways for members of the community who submitted pico-themed flash movies and games.  While a ton of great content was submitted on that day, only one could be the best game in the show: Pico’s Surprise Party.

Pico’s surprise party is an incredibly fun game that really captures the spirit of the original pico game.  It’s short, it’s numerous, and it’s damn fun! The story starts out with Pico’s friends luring him out of class so that they can spring a surprise party for him on his birthday.  Just like in the original Pico game, a group of social outcasts, this time the nerds, decides to unleash their fury on the popular kids.  The nerds show up at the party before Pico and proceed to slaughter all the guests.  When Pico shows up, he’s pissed…..
The graphics in this game are fantastic.  The stylized characters and backgrounds really make this game feel animated and really help illustrate the contrast between child-friendly cartoon visuals, and rated-R blood and violence, a theme that was also at the core of the original Pico.

The sound effects are all pretty decent, although there’s not a lot of variety.  But who needs variety in a game where all you do is shoot the crap out of people?  Okay… so maybe some variety in the music would have been nice.  The one techno loop that plays over and over gets old pretty fast, and doesn’t actually stop during cut scenes or boss fights.

The way this game plays is the real draw.  It starts out like a typical run and gun game, but once you start playing you realize there is so much more to it.  Pico can not only run and jump, but can also do a delayed back flip in the air, and a commando roll for dodging projectiles.  These maneuvers are critical to avoiding enemy attacks.  When you are clear to attack, the game also has auto-targeting, allowing you to keep your focus on evading attacks rather than lining up your shots.  Every enemy feels like a miniature fire-fight, and that makes things a lot more fun than you typically get from a run and gun game.

The game is pretty short, but the challenge of it stretches the playtime out to an enjoyable 20-30 minutes.  You will probably die a lot, but you can continue as much as you need to to get through the game and enjoy everything it has to offer.

This is possibly the perfect tribute game to the legendary Pico franchise, and even if it weren’t a pico-related game, it would still be a ton of fun!

[ Play Pico's Surprise Party ]