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The year is almost over and as much as we all wish we could turn back the clock, we cannot. Thankfully, My Friend Pedro offers us a chance to at least slow down time for a brief moment and enjoy the crazier things in life.
Slowing down time is the pillar upon which My Friend Pedro is built. The gameplay is centred around manipulating time to enact violence in the most enchanting way possible. With each encounter, the opportunity presents itself to not simply fight, but to create moving art that is painted with bullets.
Where most games are concerned with the pure strategy of how mechanics interact, My Friend Pedro forces players to consider how the mechanics will look when executed. In other words, making a shot look badass is just as important as hitting the target. Style is rewarded with success too, offering players bonus points and multipliers to attain the illustrious S-ranking for a level. For these same reasons, the replayability of the game is endless, offering players the chance to beat their high score all while out-finessing their past selves.
Lots of games let people shoot enemies and perform daring physical stunts. My Friend Pedro does this and more because slowing down those sequences makes them twice as satisfying to live out. Watching your character do a 360 degree flip, dual-wielding pistols, and headshotting goons in slow motion is an experience unseen in any other game.
Another aspect of utilising slow motion is that the mechanic inherently immerses the player into the action. Sure, The Matrix brought bullet time to popular attention and captured audiences imagination, but My Friend Pedro gives people the opportunity to create that magic for themselves. In the game, they do not have to watch someone else’s idea of what would be cool. Instead, they get to imagine and craft the magic for themselves.
What makes slo-mo so special is that multiplayer games will never be able to replicate this concept. Online gaming requires a single constant; time must be the same for all players. Games that focus on the single-player experience do not share this limitation, opening up a realm of gameplay opportunity that still feels largely unexplored. Fortunately, My Friend Pedro is here to fill the gap in the meantime, offering an exceptionally fun and cool experience that only single players can enjoy.
Few elements of video games are exclusively reserved for single-player titles. Yet one well guarded secret will always remain untouched by multiplayer games: the ability to slow down time. My Friend Pedro takes advantage of this fact, delivering one of the most unique and polished examples of a slow motion mechanic seen in gaming. For 2019 and beyond, My Friend Pedro is a game to remember and for those yet to enjoy it, stop being a silly banana and go play it already!
