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My Friend Pedro hands-on at PAX West 2018: This shizz is bananas

An appealing action-packed adventure about a boy and his little, yellow friend who tells him to kill people.

Blake Morse

September 7, 2018 5:11 PM

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There are many games out there that tell the timeless tale of two friends out on the adventure of a lifetime: Banjo Kazooie, Ratchet and Clank, Sonic and Tails... They’re all fine examples of thrilling and adorable adventures. While your possibly concussion-induced anthropomorphic banana companion in My Friend Pedro nails the adorable part, the adventure the two of you share is hardly adorable.

My Friend Pedro begins with the player’s character waking up in the back of a mafia-run butcher shop. Apparently, the meat packaged here is pretty fresh, but that’s mostly because it’s locally sourced, free-range human meat. Before you become the next t-bone steak at a tailgate party, your yellow buddy Pedro appears and wakes you up from your slumber and encourages you to make a violent, action-packed escapes. From there my hands-on time with My Friend Pedro was nothing short of an interactive John Woo film.

Players will be able to do things like leap through the air in slow motion while aiming at two targets, spin around like a crazed Michael Jackson to dodge bullets, and jump kick people in the head as they blaze through side-scrolling levels of murder room mayhem. At one point during the demo, I was even able to kick a frying pan into the air, go into slo-mo mode and shoot the frying in order to ricochet bullets into the enemies waiting on the platform above me. Then there was the boss fight involving a 2.5D motorcycle rampage through the streets of an unnamed city that culminated into a one-on-one shootout with a bomb-throwing butcher in a meat van.

While my hands-on time with My Friend Pedro was brief it left a lasting impression on me. The game is going to lend itself well to fans of speed runs and score attacks alike as some players will hunt down the quickest path to victory and others try to build the most over-the-top point-hemorrhaging combos. My Friend Pedro is set to launch on the Nintendo Switch and PC in 2019.

Blake Morse

Events Coordinator

Blake has been writing and making videos about pop-culture and games for over 10 years now. Although he'd probably prefer you thought of him as a musician and listened to his band, www.cartoonviolencemusic.com. If you see him on the street, buy him a taco or something. Follow him on twitter @ProfRobot