McPixel 3

McPixel 3 (2022) is a bizarre point-and-click challenge where you "save" the city from unusual threats. You interact with different objects in a variety of wacky scenarios, from a rampaging T-rex to a medieval conquest, trying to prevent disaster (and often failing). It stands out for how these familiar gaming actions cascade into ever more absurd calamity, and how the game careers into ever weirder tongue-in-cheek situations.

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You play fated McPixel, who tries to save the city of McBurg from all manner of strange dangers, from a bomb threat to a monster on a ski slope to a crashing plane. It's your job to save those in peril by interacting with the world around you to find items and actions that can prevent disaster.

In each level, you must select different objects from your surroundings to help save the situation. However, the actions that seem logical on the surface often lead to catastrophic failure. On a crashing plane, if you select the parachute, you simply throw it out the window. This turns the usual point-and-click logic on its head to require outside-the-box thinking to circumvent the cantankerous game's best efforts to foil you.

As you progress, you learn to lean into ever more bizarre solutions, like urinating on a bomb to diffuse it or digging to the other side of the planet to escape a desert island. Regardless of whether you're successful, the game simply moves along to the next, even stranger situation, but you can always go back and try and find other endings to each one.

The result is a game where failure is inevitable and, rather than blocking progression, serves as a quick laugh before moving on. The crude, irreverent humour isn't for everyone, but it works well to create puzzles where experimenting with the absurd is key to victory.

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Our examiner, Joe Eaton, first checked McPixel 3 2 weeks ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 2 weeks ago.