Power Pete

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Power Pete is a computer game developed by Pangea Software and published by the Interplay Entertainment Corporation under the MacPlay brand name. It was released in 1995 and packaged with Mac OS 7 on new Macintosh Performa computers. It is a third-person shooter game with a single camera angle almost directly above the character. The player's character is an action figure named Power Pete who has to save the fuzzy bunnies of the doll department from the bad toys while progressing through the fifteen levels of the game. It has graphics similar to early SNES games. The game has a catchy background tune and sayings from the character. It is rated E for Everyone. It won Best Arcade Game of the Year for 1995 from MacWorld magazine and was a runner up in the MacUser magazine Best New Game award for 1995. Pangea regained the rights to it in 2001 and rereleased it in upgraded form as a shareware named Mighty Mike. The new version runs on Mac OS 9 and Classic compatible OS X operating systems, although it won't run on Intel-based Macs.

1 Story line
2 Levels
3 Game play
4 Health and scoring
5 Weapons
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Story line

The Toy Mart has closed for the evening. The employees have all gone home. Suddenly the toys come alive and start forming cities. There are racetracks in the bargain bin with toy robot spectators. The clown department has a massive cream pie fight in full swing. The fuzzy bunnies escape from their pen in the doll department, spreading throughout the store. Their friends call for them to come back, but to no avail. Power Pete, action figure extraordinaire and the hottest selling toy in the store sets out to gather them all up. Unfortunately for him, his record setting sales have made the other toys' sales plummet. He will have to fight his way through the store as almost every toy has it in for him.

[edit] Levels

The game is divided into five departments, each with three areas. The first department is Prehistoric Plaza where Power Pete is assaulted by lots of cavemen and a diverse array of dinosaur toys. The second department is Candy Cane Lane. Here Power Pete fights off gingerbread men, marzipan bears, animated mints, and other sugary treats. The third department is Fairy Tale Trail with depictions of classic villains like the Big Bad Wolf, the witch of Hansel and Gretel and the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk. The fourth department is the Magic Funhouse with evil clowns, jack-in-the-boxes, and carrot wielding rabbits popping out of hats. The final department is the Bargain Bin. Here Power Pete encounters cars, tops, psycho robots and general chaos.

The number of worlds a player can enjoy is dependent on the difficulty level. While only three worlds are available on easy, four are available on medium, and all five can be played on hard.

[edit] Game play

The player moves about each area shooting bad toys and rescuing fuzzy bunnies. Fuzzy bunnies are rescued by walking up to them. Once Power Pete rescues all the fuzzy bunnies the player can move on to the next area. The harder levels and departments have more powerful weapons and more resilient toys. When a bad toy is shot enough times with a powerful enough weapon, it explodes showering confetti and jawbreakers, which can be collected like coins in Super Mario Bros. Sometimes a power-up will appear where the destroyed toy used to be. This can be either ammo or a special power-up. Weapons and ammo aren't collected separately in the game, so having ammo means having the weapon. Special power-ups have temporary effects and include "fire in the hole" (many small explosion everywhere), invulnerability, an expanding ring of fire, an enemy freezer, or superspeed. The jawbreakers and power-ups created upon destruction of a toy disappear after a few seconds. There are power-ups spread throughout the different areas of each department that won't disappear until activated. Power-ups activate immediately when Power Pete walks over them. There is a fuzzy bunny radar screen that shows the position of nearby bunnies relative to the player, although the lay out of the game map makes it extremely difficult to reach some otherwise nearby bunnies. Unless the game is set to the easy difficulty setting there are doors or barriers marked with colored dots in each area. The player must collect correspondingly colored keys spread around each area to unlock them. Keys are picked up like other power-ups. Collected keys display in a special section of the status bar until they are used, at which point they disappear. The keys for each department look different in each department. They are, in order from first to last: hammers, tickets, bombs, keys or radio controls.

[edit] Health and scoring

Power Pete starts out with four health hearts per life. Each time Power Pete is hit by a bad toy, he loses a heart. The number of starting lives varies depending on the difficulty setting the player chose at the beginning of the game. Power Pete can replenish his health by eating food power-ups that are found through out the game, one heart per-power up. Food can't be picked up if Power Pete is already at full health. If the player collects 200 or more jawbreakers in an area Power Petes maximum health hearts per life will increase by one heart, up to a maximum of eight, at the beginning of the next area or department. Extra lives are gained by finding hidden "FREE DUDE!" Power Pete action figure power-ups and by reaching certain score thresholds. Points are awarded during gameplay for shooting bad toys. Upon completion of an area, points are awarded for jawbreakers and fuzzy bunnies collected in that area.

[edit] Weapons

Power Pete is known for its variety of weapons available to the player. Each has its own advantages and drawbacks.

Suction Cup Gun - A gun that shoots suction cup darts. The player's beginning weapon, it is very weak and has a low rate of fire.

Rock - The run of the mill rock, it is a step above the suction cup gun, but just barely.

Musket - A weapon available very early in the game, but it is very powerful and has a good rate of fire. It shoots a round projectile that looks like a black billiard ball.

Flamethrower - A powerful weapon, but it has a short range and consumes ammunition quickly.

Double-Barrelled Gumball Blaster - A gun that shoots two gumballs per shot. It is rather slow and weak.

Triple-Barrelled Gumball Blaster - A better version of the double-barrelled gumball blaster, it can fire a stream of gumballs if the player continues to shoot.

Toothpaste - A weak weapon, it cannot damage much but it has a tremendous rate of fire.

Heat Seeker - This gun can only fire one shot at a time and takes a long time to find it's target. It is considered the worst weapon in the game by many.

Pie - First available in the Magic Funhouse, it is a pie that explodes when it hits its target.

Exploding Birthday Cake - Many players favor this weapon. It totally destroys every enemy within the radius in which it lands.

Fairy Dust - First available in Fairy Tail Trail, it launches a stream of "magic" at the target.

Rubber Band Gun - The rubber band gun, as its name implies, shoots rubber bands. These rubber bands bounce around against solid objects until they hit an enemy. It comes in two version, one more powerful than the other.

Rocket Launcher - A extremely powerful weapon, it destroys everything in the direction the player fires it in. Unfortunately, the player has to wait for the first rocket to finish before launching another.