Pickle Wars an oddity of Platforming or Genius? You decide!

Dazed and Confused

       Pickle Wars is perhaps one of the most obscure platformers at least to me. I've never heard anyone talk about Pickle Wars except for my brother and friend. They are the only two people I know that have played it. Which makes this game all the more sweet in it's uniqueness and obscurity. Pickle Wars was made in 1994 by a company called Redwood Games a little know company founded by Karen Crowther, Redwood Games is known for making gender neutral kid friendly games that are pretty fun regardless. Their 4 biggest games are educational games with Pickle Wars being perhaps the least educational but still somewhat educational. Regardless this is perhaps my favorite platformer ever. Not only is the story great it's also quite funny how things pan out and besides Pickle Aliens trying to take over is fun in itself. 

Look it's Dave on the LED HD TV of the Future!

      The premise of Pickle Wars is this, You begin your adventure on the planet Arcadia, The planet is a peaceful one yet it is besieged by Pickles and their alien cohorts. You play as either Dave or Linda and alternate between the two through out the episodes. There are 3 episodes in total like most 90's platformers. The levels are filled with all sorts of traps, pitfalls, pickles, robots and monsters that seemingly pop out of areas you least expect. Also the one of the funniest features is the mail service which you lose points for accidentally blowing up. You get funny messages if you catch the mail that floats around as well as helpful hints and a few points. 

Yep that's the mail bot through rain, sleet, snow, or invasions by pickles

They are everywhere!

It's Linda and some soda pop

Now you may be wondering what exactly do you use to defeat the pickles and save the planet of Arcadia from utter annihilation. The Salad Shooter now those of you who lived in the 90's know exactly what i'm talking about now if you don't i'll give a brief description. A Salad Shooter is a miraculous device that in fact "quickly slices or shreds vegetables, fruits, cheese and more for sensational salads, perfect pizzas, terrific tacos, and delicious desserts." Also it destroys Pickle aliens and obliterates machinery with the said projectiles of destruction above. The objective of each level is to get all the salad shooters and thus continue to the next area. Quite simple also obtaining carrots for health, junk food for points all along the way to defeating the evil pickle invaders.

It looks innocent enough until it kills you

Now with the game generally explained, my review follows as this. At times the jumping can be difficult for getting around it's not the worst but it's not the best. Sometimes dodging the monsters that pop out of random holes can be hard as well although it's easy to determine which random hole they are going to appear out of. The games uniqueness and fun greatly out weigh it's flaws I've always enjoyed a nice romp through Arcadia knocking out pickles from time to time and as a platformer it has remained a timeless classic with perhaps one of the most outstanding stories for a platformer of it's day. I give Pickle wars a 8 out of 10. Like the title says oddity or genius? Give it a go and see what you think some might like it some might not but you'll never know until you try!