As a child, I would occasionally ask my dad for his android tablet to play games on it. I didn't have a constant access to the internet then. So, when I had the chance to get connected, I would binge download a bunch of games on the tablet and test which ones were worth keeping. It was around this period that I discovered the mobile games by the developer MDickie (Mat Dickie). If this name seems familiar to you, then there is a chance that you are familiar with the game known as Wrestling Revolution. I remember spending a huge deal of time playing this game.
The name of the game speaks for itself; it is a wrestling video game. You can play as wrestlers in a casual exhibition match which could be a standard 1v1, tag team, or any other kind of match you may think of from wrestling, or you can start a wrestling career and progress in the game's wrestling world and all that. It is worth noting that some of the wrestlers in the game are bootlegs of actual wrestlers. For instance, the wrestler Randy Orton is known as Rory Awesome. Some of these names have given me a laugh at times.
This is not the character selection screen for Wrestling Revolution, but just imagine it is for now.
Right now, I do not really want to talk only about Wrestling Revolution, but about most of the developer's (MDickie) games, especially the games Hardtime, School Days, Back Wars and Super City, as these were the ones that I spent the longest amount of time playing.
While the name "MDickie" is not so popular, the games by this developer are most certainly bizarre. It is worth noting that the core mechanics of the games are all derived from Wrestling Revolution. So, if you learnt to play one of the games, you can pretty much handle the rest. Even though they share similar mechanics, the games offer different experiences. For instance, "Hardtime" is about surviving in prison while "School Days" is basically a school simulator.
These games have a fair amount of sandboxing. In most of the games, you can pretty much do what you want and there are not set goals for you to accomplish. This feature can allow you to have playthroughs that are completely distinct from each other.
The visuals and graphic style used in these games are frankly not the best at all. If you're a fan of graphics in video games, then these are some games whose graphics should not be looked forward to. The art style looks unpolished and crude. But I personally feel that they were intentionally designed this way because even with how goofy it looks, it gives the game its charm.
Now onto the main selling point of these games: the gameplay mechanics. The game may not look the best; but I've got to say, the gameplay is really fun to mess around with. It can even get hilarious at times. I cannot count the number of times that a certain NPC would charge at me and attack for no reason. There was another time in the game Super City where someone accidentally shot me with a freeze ray and left me frozen like that. The ice eventually melted, and my character was able to move again. That got me laughing for a bit.
There was even one time where the teacher of a class I was in School Days wanted to collect my class seat during class for no reason. Like, you're not supposed to do that.
However, there are a few things negative things that I've noted about these games.
First is that the games can get repetitive after a while of playing. Initially, the games can be interesting to explore. But after a while, it becomes the same old thing all over again and again and can get boring. Like in the case of Super City where the primary objective is to take over districts in the city, Once you have control over all the districts, there isn't much left to do. You could wait until there is a new conflict within an area which could lead to another fight, but that rarely happens at times, or you may have to start a new game.
Another thing is that the controls are tricky to get a hang of, especially when starting out. None of the games really give much of a tutorial on how the controls or mechanics work, and you may have to spend a lot of time experimenting and finding out what can be done in the game. Although, there are times where certain NPCs provide information on what to do, or could even shed some light on how the game's mechanics work. But those usually happen at random periods within the game, leaving you to experiment most of the time.
At times, the controls combined with the 2D layout makes it a bit difficult to do stuff. I can't count the number of times where I meant to hit one person but I accidentally hit a different person, or tried to pick a certain item from the ground but it steals an item from someone instead. Dealing with this can be a bit annoying.
These games that were created by MDickie may not be the best or the most defined looking video games out there, but they really are something. In fact, I feel like it was the developer's intention for the game to work like this. Pretty much all of its quirks and pretty odd gameplay experiences add to the overall charm of the game. Also, they can be another set of reminders that a video game does not need to look good for it to be fun.
As always, thank you all for reading and see you next time :D
All images used were taken by me.
