McPixel Critic Reviews

I can't give more praise to McPixel than words allow, but by golly this is brilliant.

McPixel does perhaps the most audacious thing of all: embrace the idea that joy in gaming comes in equal measure from knowing what you're doing and having absolutely no clue. Betting big on the concept that games aren't simple tests of what you can already do, but tests to see how much you're willing to learn. And hey. It doesn't hurt that Sosowski packs every scene with video-game related in jokes, pop culture references, and intertextual nods to earlier characters, improbably crafting a world one twenty second scene at a time.

An alarmingly bonkers point-and-click puzzle title which is positively bursting with originality and insane conundrums, McPixel is short but most definitely sweet.

McPixel has two clear inspirations: first MacGyver, the 1980s television series in which a secret agent combines practical scientific knowledge with household supplies to survive life and death scenarios; and secondly, MacGruber, a Saturday Night Live skit in which a secret agent loses track of time and gets everyone killed. McPixel is the step further, a parody of a parody. But it's stranger, grosser, funnier and far more blasphemous.

It's like a pixel-based WarioWare on acid.

Heed the game's warning and play McPixel in short doses -- but do play it.

The game's nonsensical internal logic and humor is a lot of what makes McPixel so charming. The downside is that failing a puzzle means repeating it until you get it right.