Canabalt Review (PS3, PSP, PSVita)

      I would probably give Canabalt a higher score if I wasn't playing Bit.Trip Presents Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien (review pending) at the moment. Canabalt is really cool and fun, but I feel like Runner 2 is better in most ways, with a few exceptions.

     Canabalt is an infinite runner. I think it is one of the first. You play as a guy in a business suit running on rooftops. You jump from rooftop to rooftop as you automatically run faster and faster. The only control you have is when you jump and how high/long you jump. Holding the button down makes the leap longer and higher, while tapping it quickly produces a quick hop.

     You're running because the city is under attack. There are giant robots in the background running amok, and sci-fi aircraft are flying by at high speed as well. As you are propelled forward, you must time your jumps to make it to the next rooftop (or crane, or billboard). Missing means instant death. You go until you die, the goal being to make it a longer distance. The game measure how far you get in each run in meters. It keeps track of how long your best run ever was and how long your most recent run was. When you die, the game very specifically tells you what happened ("You ran 329 meters before somehow hitting the edge of a crane"). Basically, there is a message for any and all of the strange ways you will die in the game. A very nice touch. 

     There are a lot of interesting obstacles that pop up as you go. There are buildings that collapse as you run across them. There are tall buildings that require you to jump through a window and run through a floor of the building and jump out of the other side (I find this especially difficult). There are bombs that drop out of the sky and land in front of you that you need to jump over. There are also giant objects that sheer buildings right in half right before you go to jump on them. I can't figure out if they are giant missiles or giant robot arms or what. It happens really fast and you either die or run away from it and it is far behind you. There are also boxes, chairs, and other small obstacles that you can run through but slow you down if you do. I've found that hitting them to slow down on purpose if you get going really fast is a necessity.

     That's the whole game. It's sublimely simple and very addictive. Once you start playing, you want to give it “one more go...” over and over until you've played a lot longer than you thought you would. Breaking your record is thrilling, as is the many times you will just barely make it through an obstacle or over a tight jump. You'll run along a long building as it collapses and just barely jump up to the next one as it sinks below the bottom of the screen, or slow yourself down too much by hitting boxes and then barely be able to make that next long jump, or go on a long run only to have a building ripped out from under you by a falling obstacle...but then you miraculously make it and keep going! You will also die a million times, but that just spurs you on to keep going. Quitting can be difficult. I had to use caution when writing this review that I didn't just play and play without writing.

     The graphics are really great pixel art done in just a few shades of grey. The animation is really great. Your character parachute rolls really smoothly after long falls and flails his limbs wildly during long jumps. The whole screen shakes as huge ships fly by just overhead at high speeds. The way bombs drop in and then explode if touched is really great looking, and when buildings collapse or are suddenly chopped up by falling stuff, it looks and feels really awesome.

     A big part of that feel comes from the sound design. Despite the pixelated graphics, the sounds (shattering glass, rapid footsteps, bombs falling from the sky, buildings being torn apart, grunts of exertion) are designed to sound realistic. This is an interesting choice that adds a lot to the game.

     So do the backgrounds and various graphical touches. There always something crazy to look at in the background, be it a giant robot, a million varieties of smashed buildings and structures, or... what is that floating in the sky? Birds sometimes fly off of rooftops as you run by and debris falls off buildings as they collapse. And what made those massive claw marks in that billboard? Great attention to detail.

     There are three music tracks you can pick from the main screen before starting your run. They are all appropriately epic and/or fast paced and/or exciting, or at least they start slow and build up to epic. All three are worth listening too. I would rotate them as I played.

     The main problem with this game, if you want to say it is a problem, is that there isn't really a reason to keep playing it for any period of time. Once I played for a few days, I didn't feel the need to fire it up again. I can tell that I will probably play it randomly from time to time over the years when I see it there on my hard drive, but I won't be seeking it out on any regular basis. And that's fine, really. There should be some games like that. This game is simple and fun, but not super deep. I can't really knock it for that. But comparing it to Bit.Trip Runner 2, which I invariably must, it comes up a little short, as Runner 2 has so much that you want to do and unlock, not to mention how beautiful it sounds and how great and varied it's gameplay is, but more on that in its own review in the future. Runner 2 also throws you back into the action almost instantly when you mess up, while Canabalt has you sit through an auto-save screen that's a few seconds longer than it should be (and shouldn't trigger if you don't beat a record, as there are no other stats being tracked). There is also some slowdown when playing on PSP, usually at the start of a level where it won't mess you up.

     One thing Canabalt has that Runner 2 doesn't that I really like is procedurally generated levels. Every time you play, things will be different, and you will run into new situations that surprise and challenge you even after you've played for several hours. Runner 2 features stellar pre-made levels, but it would be really cool if it had some randomly generated content or a random mode t0o, as the emergent situations that pop up in Canabalt are really awesome and I can tell that awesome situations would come up in Runner 2 as well.

     I feel like it's hard to rate Canabalt on my scale as for me it's a game you play every once in a great while for a few obsessive sessions. I guess it's a Great Game, tier 3. I want to say that it should have more content or trophies or something, but its lack of all that in favor of pure, focused gameplay is an asset as well. It's a different type of game in that way.  Oh, and in case you are wonder or want to compare yourself to me, my longest run (so far) is 12,177 Meters. Beat that! Actually, I have no idea if that would be considered good or not.

Earthworm Jim HD Review (PS3)

      I was not planning on buying Earthworm Jim HD. It's a cool idea, but I'm not big on replaying games that I've already played a lot of, and I played a lot of Earthworm Jim back in my Sega Genesis days. But then I saw it on sale for $.99 and I thought I would quickly play through it one more time for the fun of it.

     Earthworm Jim is a classic platformer from back in the day. The characters and stuff were designed by Doug Tennapel, who also does a lot of art for my favorite band of all time, Five Iron Frenzy. He also does a lot of his own comics and stuff. It's pretty darn goofy. You play as an earthworm inside a suit of high-tech armor, and it just gets weirder from there. There's giant hamsters, an evil cat that rules a hellish planet, an evil crow that is after you, a bungie-jumping fight against a snot man, a chicken in a robot walker, and a dude who barfs fish at you, just to give you a small sampling of the game's weird inhabitants.

     All these characters and locales look amazing. Sprites age pretty gracefully in general, but all these sprites have been redone in high definition. They look terrific. In general, I like the look of old sprites a lot, but I would love to see more new games use these types of HD sprites. They look awesome and have smooth, beautiful animation.

     In case you've never played it before, EWJ is hard. I have no idea how I was able to beat it as a kid. Playing hard games like this is what has made me the gamer I am today. What torture this must have been for me as a kid. It's like my version of the Cruel Tutelage Master Pai Mei. While replaying this version (on the classic difficulty of course, although there are easier difficulties to pick from) I blazed through the first handful of levels, thinking to myself how easy they were and how stupid I must have been as a kid. But as I got into the later levels, I realized that I just had those early ones memorized from back in the day and that the difficulty ramps up steadily. The later levels get quite difficult.

     In fact, I had to use the level select feature to finish the game, which was disappointing. I hadn't really signed on for a hardcore re-living of my childhood before saving was common, so I was glad to get to see all the levels and characters in HD since you can choose to start at the beginning of any level you have reached in this version. I had almost forgotten about Professor Monkey for a Head, and his partner, Monkey Professor for a Head

     The trophies in this game are hardcore. There's one for beating the game on one life on original difficulty, and one for beating the game in under 50 minutes. Both are crazy hard, and I have no interest in trying to earn them. I wish there was one for beating the game without continuing or in one sitting without level select. That would be very challenging yet doable, and would re-create my experience on the Genesis.

     The controls are: move with the d-pad or analog stick, jump with cross, whip (as in pull the worm that is you out of your suit and use it as a whip on enemies or to swing from hooks) with circle, and shoot your gun with either R2 or square. You can use R1 to switch between the rare plasma shot and your regular rapid-fire gun (I don't think you could do this in the Genesis version, but I could be wrong). You can also hold cross to rotate your head and glide down slowly like a helicopter.

     Gameplay consists of running around going up and down as well as left and right through big levels, shooting and whipping enemies while finding ammo and health, and going through obstacles. There's a pretty big variety of obstacles and enemies. You will be dodging falling stalactites in one stage and then avoiding nigh-invincible muscle-bound cats in another. Then you'll be carried through a cage and have cells (or something) launched at you from all directions or drive a submarine through rocky caverns with a limited supply of air. There are pretty cool boss fights too. I love the fight with Bob the Killer Goldfish, and the fight with Evil the Cat. I won't spoil either here, but both are really clever. There's also a fight with a snowman, a transforming junk monster, and of course, the final encounter with the evil Queen Pulsating Bloated Festering Sweaty Pus-filled Malformed Slug for a Butt, whose caterpillar-butt is so big, it is part of the last level and a boss encounter unto itself.

     There are also some non-standard levels. Quite a few times you will race Psy-Crow through space on your trusty pocket rocket, collecting power-ups to go faster and dodging asteroids to stay ahead of him. Loosing means fighting him in a mini boss battle. There's also the aforementioned bungie-jump battle against the snot guy. And the classic level where you have to protect your friend Peter Puppy (or he will transform and viciously attack you). It's quite fun. You'll being doing a million different things in EWJ. Kind of reminds me of Jak 3 actually.

     Something has changed about the sounds or music or voices in this version. I can't place it now that I've played this version so much, but it was very noticeable when I first fired it up and played for awhile. I can see why they might have wanted to re-do some sounds since they were re-doing the graphics, but it's a little jarring and I think they should have left the sound alone. Although, like I said, after playing for awhile I no longer notice.

     There is also some new stuff, like multi-player co-op challenge levels, which I didn't try out. There's also online leaderboards for how fast levels are completed. There are also three new levels, which make me think it would have been cool if this team had just made a new game instead of an HD remake. These levels are pretty fun, and have interesting bosses. The final boss, however is insanely hard. I'm ashamed to say I didn't stick with it long enough to beat this final boss in the bonus levels. I'm going to say it's cause I didn't want to play this game for a long time like I said early and hope that you can forgive me. Also, you will recognize who this boss is. Tantalizing, huh?

      Earthworm Jim is a total classic, and it holds up well. If you've never played it, this is a fine version to play, although the old sprites are awesome too if you can find a Genesis or SNES laying around. This version has level select if you're feeling cheap, but also has super-hardcore trophies if you're feeling tough. For me, it was purely a novelty to re-play all the levels in HD. I enjoyed running through it quickly to see everything again and to see the new sprites, but I didn't stay long. I'm going to give this version great game, tier 2. Just know going in that this isn't a modern game at all, and play either to have fun and see the sights using level select, or try for those tough trophies if you're feeling really old school.

Closure vs. Where is My Heart?

      I want to write a brief comparison of the gameplay in Closure to that of Where is My Heart? If you don't know about the games' mechanics, this post will make no sense. Go read my reviews, or better yet, just go play them first! I think they are both excellent games, and although their story themes are quite different, the way they play is similar and complimentary. Both heavily involve perspective and reality.

     In Where is My Heart?, the level layout exists. You perceive it through the panels given to you in any given level. The arrangement of the panels does not affect the layout. You perception does not affect reality. You are kind of battling your own mind just to understand the layout of the levels.

     In Closure, the level has a layout, but it is manipulated by your perception. Only what you can see is reality. The layout of the level bends to your perception of it. Reality changes to match what you are seeing.

If Where is My Heart? Followed Closure's rules, you could rearrange the panels to change the layout of the level. If Closure followed Where is My Heart's? rules, you could walk around in the dark and run into objects you couldn't see, and the light would just be manipulated to help you see the level. Both would be totally different games if they switched rules like this. It would be very interesting to see. I'd would love it if the creators of both of these games got together and messed with the rules of each others' games, or made a new game (or games) exploring these ideas even further.

     I was going to throw in comparisons to Quantum Conundrum and The Unfinished Swan too, but I think keeping it to just these two favorites of mine makes it a more streamlined and interesting post. I just thought it was really neat how these two games both deal with perception and reality in regards to their gameplay. I played them relatively close together, and when I realized that they were almost opposites gameplay-wise it made me appreciate both of these great games even more.  

Closure Spoiler Post Contains Spoilers!

 WARNING: The following post contains a massive amount of spoilers for Closure, an amazing game whose excellent story can't be more highly recommended. You will probably enjoy the game a lot less if you read this explanation of what I think is going on in the game. This post is intended to provoke thought about the game's story and give my interpretation to people who have already completed it. Please read at your own discretion. Don't ruin it for yourself, it so worth experiencing first hand!

     In the first level, the factory worker falls while adjusting a light. He has an accident at work and lands in a shaft. He travels through the factory, but he may, in fact, already be dead from his fall at this point. My first impression was that he was working tirelessly and monotonously in the factory throughout the different levels. But once I got deeper into the game and its themes, and read some other peoples' opinions online, I started to think he was dead the whole time after his fall. He travels through the factory and relives his tedious life of working (note the clocks everywhere). Reminds me of a co-worker of mine who dropped dead almost immediately after retiring. We spend so much of our time in life at work... RIP Robin. His body is then taken out by helicopter. I guess you could also think that maybe he's still alive and being medevaced, but I think if he's dead it's a better explanation of why you travel through the factory, and why you end up right back where you started. Also, note the appearance of the spirits you will see throughout the game in the furnace flames at the top of the factory in the last level. They are observers of death, and they feed off it.

     In the game's second part, you play as a young woman who has just been in a horrific car crash. She has been critically injured in the crash, and her spirit wanders through the woods to the hospital where her body is on life support. You see her body in distress on the microscopic level, her heart being shocked in an attempt to re-start it, and finally, her lying on what will be her death bed, a heart monitor barely registering life beside her. This was the most affecting part of the game for me. That last level where you see her cells and heart, and then her lying in the hospital bed was shocking and disturbing. My favorite part of the game. I know I saw the female spirit watching somewhere in these levels. Can't remember exactly where...

     Thirdly, we have the section where you play as the little girl, following her cat into the night and the bizarre carnival. The lights in her house flick on as the adults realize their little girl is missing, but she is already far out into the night. If Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes is to be believed, evil night carnivals are symbolic of growing up and the nightmares adults face. The end of childhood. The beloved pet is always just out of sight, disappearing the second it is glimpsed. After seeing much of the freakish circus, the little girl finally catches up with her cat, only to see it vanish for good before her eyes as a hideous spider-demon-like clown looks on in the background. Her story has a bit of a good ending. She returns safe and sound to her bed. But she's had her first experience with death and loss in the death of her pet. Just a foretaste of the many deaths we all experience throughout our life times. Also, someone has used the toilet since she left.

     Finally, the spider demon faces a handful of levels as himself. Who is he, and what is he doing? There aren't any clear answers to this. We know from official descriptions that he is called the spider-demon, although the game never tells us this. The trophies give us some hints. The trophy for completing the tutorial is “The River.” He has crossed the river Styx, into the realm of the dead. Completing the game earns you the trophy “Welcome to Purgatory.” My interpretation is that he is in purgatory, trying to get out. The moths he gathers in order to access the final level and ending are symbolic of death and the dead, if the short film Bunny with the anthropomorphic bunny with a dead spouse is to be believed. The spirits that have been watching throughout the game watch as the spider-demon completes the most complex final levels, more active and animated as he draws nearer to completing his enigmatic goal. Finally, he reaches them, and offers them the three experiences with death he has gathered from the human world, a worker's accident, a young girl's terrible car crash (possibly a suicide? This just randomly popped into my head), and a young girl's first experience with death, the loss of her pet cat. Having done this, he sheds his body, and his moth spirit, along with the other moth spirits he has collected. He ascends higher and higher, past the bodies of spider demons who have tried to leave purgatory before him, until he finally literally reaches what everyone is seeking in their experiences with death: Closure.

     I've heard some people say that he may be helping the three people to closure with their experiences with death. That is certainly a possibility, and the more I think about it, it makes a lot of sense. My gut impression is that he isn't up to anything so friendly. The music in the scenes where he takes on the other characters' personas is so full of horror and malice, it really shocked me the first time I saw it. And the way the pillars crush the masks of the people as he offers them to the spirits in the end is pretty rough, not like he's gently leading them to closure or anything like that. These two things make me think he is using and abusing these people for his own journey to closure. I could be wrong though, and I love that there are multiple explanations and theories that make sense. I don't quite get any meaning out of the tombstones with roman numerals on them, other than the association of stone markers with death. Just another clue as to what is going on, I guess.

      In case your curious, this guy on GameFAQs has tried every combination of putting the masks on the different pillars, and got the same ending each time. Here is his post: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/643242-closure/63100720

     My thoughts and interpretations of what is one of the very best stories in gaming. Please let me know on twitter and the comments if you agree or disagree, I'd love to talk more about this game!

The Unfinished Swan Review (PS3)

      If you've been following along, I've been doing a series of reviews of on puzzle platformers. I started with Quantum Conundrum, then did Where is My Heart?, then Closure (the first game I've given a perfect score on this site). The last entry is The Unfinished Swan. Look out next week for my comparison of all four games, and my Closure spoiler post.

     But this week, it's all about The Unfinished Swan. It's that game you may have heard about where you play in a totally white space that you unveil by throwing paint. That's actually just a small part of what goes on in the game.

     And because, for me anyway, doing new and surprising things (some of which you've never done anything like before) is what The Unfinished Swan is all about, I'm not going to talk too much about what its levels are like. I'm not even going to discuss the game's second concept, which is readily shown to the public. If you haven't seen it, I'd recommend not looking at it. Seeing the stuff The Unfinished Swan has you doing for the first time without knowing beforehand is really where the game's magic is. Each new idea that it drops you into is like a playground. Getting to run around and play with the new mechanics it gives you and discovering them by doing rather than hearing about it or watching a video is a magical experience I would not deprive you of.

     You play as Monroe, a boy whose story is told to you through storybook style cutscenes at the beginning of each level. His mother, who recently passed away, was an artist who never quite finished her paintings. A painting of an unfinished swan is the only painting he still has. When the swan goes missing one night, Monroe follows its footprints into a magical story book land. He pursues the swan, following its golden footprints and an occasional glimpse of the swan itself. The swan is huge and majestic, and each time you see it is a treat. It's also crazy looking, as the unfinished part of it is the middle of its neck; it's head is just kind of floating out there. It's heart-wrenching to see the huge bird in the distance, hear Monroe call out for it, and then to watch it fly off.

     You'll also be unveiling the story of the kingdom you have entered in pursuit of the swan. It's the tale of an egotistical king who creates his kingdom through painting and the trials and tribulations he faces in his kingdom and his personal life. You'll reveal these story parts by finding a letter in the environment. When you throw something at it, it reveals a story book picture and words that the narrator then reads to you.

The game has simple controls. Much like Quantum Conundrum, it is a first person puzzle platformer (of sorts). The left stick is move and the right is look. Cross is jump. R1, R2, L1, and L2 all do the same thing: throw something. In each level, this may be a different thing. In the main level shown to the public, it is ink balls. But you will be throwing a handful of other things as well throughout the game's levels.

     Since I'm not going to talk about that other stuff you'll be throwing and the cool stuff it does, I'll talk about throwing ink balls. The first level is all about this idea. You start in a totally white room with zero contrast. You can't see a thing. The screen looks exactly the same no matter where you look or how fast you look. You can't even tell if you are moving or looking around or not; the screen is always pure white. That starts to change when you throw an ink ball and it splats on the floor or a wall. You now have a point of reference. You can tell if you're moving or standing still. As you keep throwing, you define the space little by little until you can finally do some rudimentary navigation. Soon you're on your way, stumbling through the landscape you reveal little by little. You can throw ink one ball at a time and just get a glimpse of where you are. Alternately, you can mash on the throw button and splatter a whole wall or floor as you go, it's all up to you.

And it's not just blocky rooms you'll be splatting. You'll go through forests, bridges, statue gardens, and stairs. You'll be splatting trees, benches, wooden planks, and even animals. These levels do a great job of setting you up on spots where you can look back and see the trail you've blazed in ink behind you, be it a few little drops or a wash of the whole area. You'll soon realize that you are not really painting the area so that you can see it, but creating contrast between white and black. If you paint too much, the environment becomes invisible again as objects become black with a black background. You can only see when there is some white and some black.

     The ink blots look amazing and function really well. They splat in crazy patterns, and even realistically go through objects like the wooden backers on a bench or the rails of a fence; only partial splotches make it through to the other side. They make a satisfying “splat” sound effect too.

     As for the other mechanics you'll be using, all I'm going to say is that two of them are quite cool, and the third is downright awesome. You'll be playing around with all of them quite a bit just to see what you can do.

The wonder of the game's levels is not all about these mechanics either. Just walking through the grand levels with nothing else to do would have been pretty cool in itself. There's a lot of cool stuff to see. A lot of the levels are surprisingly large and have a huge sense of scale. In particular, the mind-boggling-ly huge labyrinth in one scene is dizzying when you see it sprawled out in front of you from on high. There are a few other really amazing sights to see as well as you travel through. The game's last level is particularly wondrous, and held my rapt attention all the way through to the end. There's also this really amazing thing in this one level that is really crazy. My lips are sealed though, just know there's a bunch of cool stuff in the game.

     Luckily, there are puzzles to solve as you go through. To get through a level, you always just need to get to the end of it. What you need to do to get there is not usually difficult at it all. The difficulty is usually just a few ticks up from walking from point A to point B. You have to use whatever mechanics the level is based on to get there, and while you won't instantly figure out what to do each time, it usually won't take more than a few minutes before you are through to the next area of the level.

     Some levels are mostly without music. Others have some appropriate tunes, such as a royal theme in the interior castle-like levels. Others just have ambient sound, such as frogs and crickets in the distance. In fact, when I went to bed after writing this, the real nighttime sounds around my house of frogs croaking and bugs chirping sounded almost exactly like what is in some levels of the game.

     There are “toys” you can unlock by finding balloons in the levels. Some of these are obvious, others more hidden away. There are all fun to track down. The harder ones are still fun because you can unlock a balloon radar that helps get you close to them if you are having trouble (although I recommend going without it until you get really stuck). The toys are fun, and usable even as you are playing through the campaign. The cheapest one that you can unlock almost immediately lets you freeze time for anything you've thrown. It's great fun to freeze time, throw a bunch of ink, (which will float in the air in front of you) then unfreeze and let it all go flying and splat at the same time. There's also a sniper mode and rapid fire to unlock, along with concept art and even a prototype level (which has some really cool stuff in it, make sure to play it).

     The downside is that the game is short. Really short. It'll only be a few hours before you are through, and then just a little more time until you grab all the balloons and miscellaneous trophies (one trophy has you go through one of the white levels while only using three ink balls! You'll probably need a guide to do it like I did. It's a very interesting, and disorienting, experience). It's so short, I'd say $15 is a bit too steep for it. I got it on a Playstation Plus sale for about $7. That's about the perfect price for it in my book. What's there is great, but it's short. I could have gone for a few more levels, or even double the amount of levels or more if they were able to keep the new mechanics coming. Of course, that's easier said than done, and since all these levels and mechanics are pulled off without a hitch, maybe it was wise to stop before something got put in the game that didn't work so well. As it is, the game is short, but the whole experience is sublime.

     Part of that sublime feeling comes from the low difficulty. I enjoyed the low difficulty as just walking through the levels, playing with the mechanics, and then using them to get out was a blast. In my last three reviews I've mentioned how those games were great puzzle platformers because they challenged you without frustrating you (or just bareley frustrating you before you get the answer). They each attained a great balance of challenge and accomplishment. The Unfinished Swan does not have that going on. It manages to work and be fun without a high difficulty. I still could have gone for maybe a handful of harder areas. I did enjoy it as it is though. It doesn't put limits on you. You are free to play around mostly without consequences. While the other puzzle platformers I reviewed (Quantum Conundrum, Where is My Heart?, and Closure) took gameplay mechanics and ingeniously iterated them into more and more new and difficult puzzles, The Unfinished Swan never works with its mechanics long enough to get a truly challenging situation going. Instead it takes you through an idea up to a moderate difficulty and then moves you onto something entirely new. That's good, because it constantly has you doing new and exciting things. It's also bad because there is no sense of accomplishment from doing something that truly stumped you for awhile. Don't get me wrong, the game isn't a total cakewalk. You'll have to puzzle out what to do in many situations throughout. You'll just never be happily stuck on a super challenging puzzle that you eventually solve in an epiphany of discovery like you often do in those three other games. The Unfinished Swan is a lot different than them; it's all about seeing new things instead of challenge and accomplishment. It's an unfair comparison in a way, as I feel that The Unfinished Swan wasn't shooting for hard puzzles, it's more about exploring in unique ways, traveling in unique ways, and seeing the world in unique ways. I probably shouldn't even call it a puzzle platformer. It's more like... an experiential exploration game. It wants you to play around, not be stuck. I hope that makes sense.

     The story isn't as good as it seems like it's going to be. It's interesting. It's good. It's not as touching as it thinks it is though. Something's a little off with it.

     Bottom line is I highly recommend The Unfinished Swan. Its whole point is to show you new and amazing stuff, and it is a royal success. Some of this stuff is unlike anything you've ever played before, and it's all worth seeing. I'm wrestling with whether to give it tier 2 or tier 3 in the great game category. For comparison's sake, it's definitely not as good as Where is My Heart?, which is tier 2. I probably enjoyed it slightly more than Quantum Conundrum, which is tier 3. Hmmm. I could go either way. I'll say great game, tier 2.

Closure Review (PS3)

      From the moment you start Closure up until the final puzzle is solved, you won't see any color at all. Objects are white, and the background is black. Yet it is one of the best looking 2d games I've ever played. The 2d animation of the characters, while simple, is superb. The animation of the backgrounds and moving objects, of which there are many, is exquisite. The art design is perhaps the best of any game I've ever played. Everything is menacing, and there is always something bizarre, unnerving, or downright creepy lurking in the background of the game's dark levels. I can't tell you how many times I've found something creepy hidden in a forgotten corner of a level, or how many times I swear I saw something in the background as a flash of light briefly illuminates some section of the stage.

     Light and dark define Closure, both in terms of its visual design and gameplay. It's themes and visuals are so perfectly integrated with its gameplay elements that this story and theme could only be done this well through an interactive medium.

     In Closure, you play as a very creepy spider-like creature with a hole for a face. This creature will be taking on three personas and completing a set of levels as each persona. One set of levels has you playing as a worker inside a factory. The next has you playing as a young woman lost out in the woods. And in the last, you take on the form of a little girl who wanders out of her house in the middle of the night straight into a nightmarish carnival. If it's sounding creepy, be assured, Closure is the creepiest, scariest game I have ever played. It's narrative is intense, riveting, and genuinely upsetting.

     This narrative is played out without words or dialogue. Almost everything is told through the visuals and the music. The intense soundtrack colors almost every stage and every action with a feeling of dread, confusion, and mystery. The music in the factory levels is a constant pounding, just like the movement of the machinery all around you and the constant presence of the workers' time-clocks. This factory music is especially intense and unnerving. I just had this tight feeling in my chest the whole time I was in there. Being lost in the woods is accompanied by a mysterious march, long choral chants, and the ambient sounds of the creatures just out of sight in the woods and the fall of the rain. And the nightmarish carnival levels, I'm sure you can imagine what they might sound like. This music slows down and distorts in a wonderful way if you go underwater, which you do frequently. The music on the screen where the spider creature dons the mask of one of the characters and then transforms into them before heading into a level is also very intense and disturbing. The blaring dark horns on this screen were telling me that whatever this spider creature was doing inside these peoples lives, it was not happy or benevolent.

     The basic controls are cross to jump, square to grab an object or put it down, and triangle to go through a door. There are a few other controls that pop up in certain scenarios as you interact with different objects.

There are 24 stages for each of the three scenarios, and the goal in each level is the same: get to the exit door to leave the level and move on to the next. The puzzle gameplay all works around the game's main mechanic: the manipulation of light. In Closure, almost everything is in the dark. The level has a layout, but reality shifts along with the light. Objects only exist if they are illuminated. This includes walls and the floor, boxes and keys; everything. You can't walk forward unless the floor is illuminated. You can jump right through a wall or fall right through the floor if it is in the dark. Keys and boxes that you need to move on might be permanently lost if you remove a light source and they fall through the floor and into oblivion.

     There are several sources of light you can manipulate to help get you where you are going. There are mysterious orbs with a pulsating light source inside that you can pick up and carry. There are lamps that you can pivot to point in different directions. There are fixed sources of light that always light up certain areas of a level or spring to life as you get close to them.

     There are also a few devices that interact with the light orbs. There are posts that activate moving lifts when you put a light orb into them. They grab the orb and carry it along a set path. Other posts will light up certain areas of the level if you put an orb in them to power them. There are a few other variations on this concept of posts that power different effects in the environment. There are also quite a few great puzzles involving making sure certain plants in the level have light on them. These plants then transmit light to the exit door, allowing you to go through it. Other great puzzles include the use of mirrors, large sheets of glass, transporting keys across the level, hitting switches with rolling barrels and falling blocks, and the fact that light orbs float in water.

     I'll give a few basic examples without giving too much away, as this mechanic has many surprises in store for you that you should experience for yourself. One level features a door that needs to have three plants transmit light to it to open it. You have two light orbs and a movable lamp available to you. You have to position the two light orbs so that their light reaches two plants on the ground and also illuminates enough of the forest floor for you to jump between illuminated sections. You must also position the lamp so that it points to a plant on up in the trees. There is also a tree in the way, so you have to make sure that just enough of the tree is illuminated so that you can jump up on top of its middle section and then over. If too much of the trunk is lit up, the tree will still be in your way and you won't be able to pass. Once you have everything lined up, you then have to go through the level, making sure to jump over the handful of holes that are now in the forest floor where no light touches.

     Another example is a level where the door needs two light orbs put in posts next to it in order to be used. You have two light orbs, but one is at the far end of the level. The middle of the level is covered in spikes that destroy orbs if you set them down. Since you are unable to carry both orbs at once, you have to use other light sources to light up your path in order to progress and get both orbs to the door. Those are just two of the most basic types of puzzle. The complexity ramps up very steadily until in the later levels of each scenario, you will have to think through every move in order to get all your light sources lined up the way you need to. Experimentation is necessary to see how your plans and ideas might work out. Once you figure out how everything will line up to create a path, you also need to platform correctly, and often within tight windows of opportunity as light sources move around. The platforming element is solid. It's challenging enough that you might mess up the execution of the platforming side of the levels a few times on your playthrough of the game, but the controls and feel of the jumping and moving is great, so it never feels overly frustrating. It's a joy to figure out each level's complex interaction of light sources. You have to work with what is given to you, experiment and plan, then execute what you want to do. Light up what you want lit up, and make sure what you need to be dark is dark. The more complex these levels get, the more satisfying they are to complete. Some of the solutions are truly mind-bending, showing just how deep this mechanic of manipulating light and reality goes. Completing some of the more complex puzzles really feels like having an epiphany, just like other games with mind-bending mechanics like Ikaruga, Where is My Heart?, and Quantum Conundrum. Other solutions make you feel like you've broken the system and figured something out you weren't supposed to, a great illusion that the best games of this type can sometimes pull off.

     I've said this in my last two reviews (Quantum Conundrum and Where is My Heart?), and it is the hallmark of a great puzzle-platformer game. In Closure, you are never stuck long enough to be frustrated, but never unstuck long enough to be bored or disengaged. It strikes a perfect balance of confounding you without frustrating you. The answer is always there, and puzzling it out is an addictive rush. On several occasions it had me saying, “Just one more try...” until it was suddenly much later than I wanted to stay up.

     I've been vague about the game's story and where it goes on purpose. This is one of the best stories in gaming, and I'm not going to spoil it. Each of the three scenarios (and the overarching story of the spider creature) go some amazing places that shocked and surprised me. Not a word is spoken, but I felt so much while playing this game. It speaks to you through it's powerful imagery and perfectly fitting music. Some of its story elements made me feel the same way a Bioshock or Metal Gear game would. You may have questions about what was going on when you're done, as the game purposefully doesn't explain everything to you. Some parts can be figured out. Others are left open to interpretation. I think I'm going to do a Closure spoiler post giving my interpretation of the game's events. As you've probably gathered, most of Closure is very dark theme wise. It isn't overly explicit or disgusting or anything like that, but very disturbing none the less. It's subject matter may hit close to home for some people. Well really, for everyone, as it deals with a pretty universal part of the human experience (which you may be able to guess if you read about the game here and elsewhere to much, but I won't outright say what it is).

     Getting to the game's final sections and true ending require you to go back through the levels and find moths that are hidden in some of the levels. They are often in out of the way areas that require a whole new solution to get to. It's fun to find them, and oh so worth it to see the final parts of the game's really great ending.

     Closure is the first game reviewed on Robotic Attack Squadron that is getting a perfect score (although Where is My Heart? came within a hair's breadth last week). That means, in my opinion, it is one of the best games ever made. It's the kind of masterpiece that comes along very rarely in gaming where you liked everything about it and you'd have to think long and hard if asked what it's flaws are. It takes it's rightful place as one of my favorite games of all time. No other game tells such a fascinating story with such a strong theme using only its imagery and sound like Closure does. Add to that it's wonderfully original and fully realized gameplay that matches its amazing theme perfectly, and we have our first reviewed Great Game, Tier 1.

Where is My Heart? Review

     It seems to me like I've been playing a lot of games in the puzzle platformer genre lately, or at least plenty of games in the “get from point A to point B” school of puzzling thought. I reviewed Quantum Conundrum last week, and the Unfinished Swan and Closure are coming up next. This week is Where is My Heart? You already know what I gave Quantum Conundrum (great game tier 3). While all of these games are great, two of the three others are going to get perfect or near perfect scores. Obviously, you'll know by process of elimination by the end of this review, but do you care to take a guess before you get to the end?

     Where is My Heart is a Playstation Mini, playable on PSP, PS3, and PSVita. It's a 2d puzzle platformer done in a wonderfully serene and beautiful 8-bit style. I think it's the color palette that really makes it stand out. There are lot of purples and yellows that are not quite pastel and a lot of browns and grays that almost are. You play as three monsters, a family consisting of mom, dad, and their young child. They are searching for a special tree that has flown away, and seem to be getting lost as they go. Each of the three are really beautiful sprites with great animation.

     In each level, you control all three monsters, and you must get them all to the exit in order to move on. You move with the d-pad, switch which monster you are controlling with triangle or circle, and jump with cross. Puzzles often involve stacking the monsters on each others' heads to reach certain areas, basic platforming, and getting to certain blocks that you can activate to have hearts fly out and fill in silhouetted blocks or clear out blocked off areas, allowing you to proceed. There are also some advanced things you'll be doing, which I'll talk about in a sec, but first we need to talk about what really sets this game apart.

     The game's gimmick (and I use that word without any negative connotation) is that each level is chopped into frames, and frames that are adjacent to one another do not necessarily depict areas that are adjacent or even near each other in reality. Adjacent frames are not necessarily even at the same zoom level. The frames themselves are often times not the same size. Some are large, some are tiny. It's as if the real level is in there somewhere, and there are several cameras on it. Some are at different zoom levels, and some are displayed on smaller or larger monitors. And the monitors are scrambled. It's hard to describe. An example would be a level that is just a straight walk from the entrance to the exit. There are four frames. When you walk forward, you will go through frame 1, then appear in frame 3, then 2, then 4. In other levels, these frames might be on top of each other, or across the screen from each other, and the level might have a lot of verticality (even though you might pop out in a frame at the bottom of the screen after you jump up a bunch of platforms). Once you understand the idea, it's quite an ingenious thing. You might think it's something that you'll be able to play right through, like your gamer brain can unscramble the images and allow you to play normally. You'll quickly see that isn't true, it's going to confound and surprise you the whole way through.

     This amazing concept is executed brilliantly throughout the game in many ways. There are frames that show the same thing, but in different sizes. You might walk out of a frame and into one that shows your character at a bigger size (you can really see the pixelated details of the sprites in these shots). Frames might also show the same thing in the same size. So if you move too quickly, that platform you think you need to jump to in the next frame might actually be the platform you are already on. You might jump forward only to land in a frame behind where you started. Some parts of the level seem to not appear in any frame. Some levels feature teleporting blocks or big leaps that take you to seemingly distant areas, until you discover that you are really right next to where you were and that there is a barrier between the two areas that is only seen in some tiny frame in the corner of the screen. Each level has the frames laid out in different ways and shapes as well. As a way of making you feel lost (as your characters are) this is ingenious. As a gameplay mechanic, this is also ingenious. You may think you understand how it works, but you need to experience it firsthand to understand what it feels like to play this game. And since there are so many implementations and variations of this idea in the game's levels, it's never going to wear out its welcome. It only gets more compelling as you go on.

     Each character can transform to an alternate form by finding certain blocks and standing all the monsters on the blocks on each others' heads in a certain order, which is dictated by colored silhouettes that appear over the blocks. Two of the monsters gain some cool abilities that could be featured in a normal platformer. I'll let you see for yourself what they are. Those abilities are great, but the one that interacts with the whole frame concept is the orange monster's alternate form, the Rainbow Spirit. While controlling the Rainbow Spirit, you can press L or R to rotate the frames. This, of course, does not change the layout of the reality of the level, only your perspective on the level. Simply rotating the screen may reveal frames that were partially offscreen, but is generally just a viewpoint change. The real magic is pressing L or R while jumping. This makes the Rainbow Spirit stay in place on the screen as the frames rotate around her. Meaning when you stop rotating, she will land in whatever frame is under her (unless she lands inside a solid object or outside of all the frames, which will kill her).

     This ability is a whole nother brain bending idea built on top of the first. To get somewhere in this form, you have to go to a place in the areas you can go to that will line up with the spot you want to get to in another frame when it comes around. I'll just stop explaining it now, because once again, even a video wouldn't do this concept justice, you have to actually experience it yourself. And once again, it is brilliantly executed.

     The levels are all very short, but have just the right amount of difficulty. Just like I said in the Quantum Conundrum review, you're never stuck for long enough to get frustrated, but you never get unstuck early enough that you are bored or just blazing through. The pacing is pretty much perfect.

     There is the additional gameplay element of scoring. Each level has a certain amount of hearts in it that you can collect. This is totally optional, as you only need to get to the exit to continue. Getting a heart increases your score for the level by 1. If you die (by falling off a cliff, or hitting spikes), the character you were playing respawns at the beginning of the level, but first their skeleton sprite produces a dark heart, which lowers your level score by 1. At the end of the level, the level score (rounded up to 0 if you were in the negative) gets added to your total, which is tracked on the pause menu. A lot of these hearts are in out of the way spots, and collecting all of them without dying is a challenge. Once I beat the game, I immediately played it again in the quest to get a perfect score. I had a blast going to every corner of every stage to collect hearts and forcing myself to start each level over if I had any deaths, and I highly recommend trying for a perfect score. The game is quite short (which I'm not saying is bad. In this case, the length is perfect), so playing again is totally feasible and just as much fun as the first time. Did I succeed in getting a perfect score though? That's where my one and only complaint about this game comes in. It is glitched so that you can only get a score of 171 out of 172 hearts. The designer, @bushghost, confirmed to me on twitter that one of the hearts is unreachable due to a design flaw or glitch (apparently it's off screen too, as I never even saw it). This may seem like a superficial flaw, but I was surprised at how much it affected my sense of satisfaction and completeness at the end of my perfect run. Not getting to see my long sought after 172 of 172 was very disappointing.

     But like I said, that is literally this game's only flaw. The game's subtle music and ambient nature sounds lend themselves perfectly to the pace of the puzzling and exploring. The games theme of being lost, emotional distress and depression, family, and nature are subtly shown to the player in the short screens that tell you the name of the level when you get to a new one. One of the characters is on this screen each time along with a quote from them. It's less about what is happening in a story (although there are a few events in the story, and those are great) and more about a mood that you get from these on-screen quotes, the graphical style, and the sounds of the game. It's hard to put into words what this mood is, but it's something we've all felt and everyone whose paying attention will recognize.

     To me, that one flaw in the scoring system is kind of a big deal. That's my personal feeling. If that doesn't bother you, then this is a close-to-perfect game. I would give it a perfect score if the scoring system was patched or if a new version comes out with this problem fixed. As is, I have to dock it ever so slightly and give it a score of great game, tier 2. It's really a tier 1 game though if a tiny fix was implemented, which means, in my opinion, it is approaching gaming perfection.