My Friend Pedro

Excellent action leads the way with My Friend Pedro, though there is little reason to return after its short campaign.

My Friend Pedro is a stylish and inventive arcade shooter that provides plenty of joy but isn't as groundbreaking as it initially seems.

In the end, My Friend Pedro's two halves of the banana reveal the perilous balancing act of game design. The first half is a stellar example of how to build an action game, of how to engender a sense of creativity through the player's toolset, and how to bake seamless flow into complex and challenging environments. The second half isn't quite the opposite of that, but it tries much too hard to be clever, with humour that's less goofy and more edgy, and level design that's too exacting in its structure.

Breezy fun that also rewards combo-chasing mastery. Barrel through the story once for a laugh, then replay the best levels until you are John Wick on a skateboard.

My Friend Pedro gives you the tools necessary to become an action hero

My Friend Pedro is a fun little bloody romp that gets tripped up too many times by its frustrating controls

With no pretence at character or plot, this stylish shooter rewards the most acrobatic sequences of killings in the best-choreographed ballet of havoc

My Friend Pedro does let you realise the fantasy of conducting a bullet symphony while hanging upside down from a zipline, but like most fantasies, it doesn’t survive past the initial rush of blood to the head.

My Friend Pedro is a crazy, violent, and sometimes downright weird score-attack title. It's designed to be played and replayed in perpetuity, with the aim simply to master its wild action, wide variety of weapons and maneuvers, and over-the-top physics. As long as you're aware of what you're buying into here, you'll have a (double-barreled) blast with its gleefully unashamed anarchy.

There's absolutely fun to be had here, with some sequences that truly do feel great to play, and collectable gameplay modifiers that let you go totally bananas.