Pets No More

Genre: Arcade / Sports (Pong)

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local)

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Review:

Pets No More is a Pong-style Arcade game where players play as dead zombified animals batting at a puck to try to get past the opponent’s defenses and score a goal. Why zombie pets? Yeah, I don’t even know.

The presentation here is decent, featuring colorful cartoony arenas and characters, with a puck that looks like a poker chip. The character designs being zombified animals are… not what I’d call appealing, but that may just be a matter of personal preference. This is backed by a forgettable but suitable energetic soundtrack and accompanied by a heavily-accented voice saying “ready” at the start of each round.

While the presentation may be something a niche audience might find enjoyable, I can’t say the same for the gameplay. In short, this game is an absolutely terrible take on Pong. The physics are wonky, character movement is abysmally slow, controls are terrible, and even worse than that, there’s actually a pretty nasty input delay for hitting the puck, something that is absolutely unforgivable in an Arcade-style game. For all this game’s simplicity, it is loaded with gameplay issues – at one point, I used a special move as the puck approached me, triggering a brief cutaway… and by the time it cut back to the gameplay, the puck had inexplicably moved to another spot entirely! Add to this an overall lack of options, and the game’s odd quirks like occasionally naming the wrong winner, and even the $5 price tag is too much to pay.

Overall, while the visuals in Pets No More might appeal to some players who just don’t care that the gameplay is garbage when it’s fun to compete in a simple game with other players, I cannot in good conscience recommend this game to anyone. The gameplay is broken in so many ways, and while it is technically playable, it just isn’t fun. And I mean, come on, they messed up Pong. How the heck do you even do that? Ugh.

tl;dr – Pets No More is a Pong-style Arcade game featuring zombie pets. While the presentation may hold appeal for some players, the gameplay here is absolutely broken, with terrible physics, poor controls, horrendous input lag, and multiple other issues that sap the fun out of a simple game. Even if you’re just looking for some simple, dumb multiplayer fun, this game is not worth your time or money.

Grade: F

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2021 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Worst Game

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