This is one of the weirdest, yet most enjoyable full-price
games I’ve played on the Xbox 360 so far. Given that I own a LOT of games,
that’s saying something.
I was inspired to pick up this game from Youtube’s The
Completionist. I’d been aware of the game before now on the Xbox Live
marketplace, but even though I thought it looked interesting, it was priced at
a higher mark than I wanted to spend on a blind buy. Watching Jirard review the
game changed that as I had a much better idea of what I was getting myself
into, and when I could find a cheap-enough copy on Amazon (it’s not for sale in
any of the game shops I usually attend,) I bought it quickly before anybody
else did. Finding a physical copy of this game is not easy!
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| I actually had to click 'gameplay' to get an image off Google that wasn't fan-art, Cosplay girls, or various other people called Catherine including Zeta Jones. |
The gameplay is divided into two sections, the main one
being the Nightmare levels where you have to guide the lead character Vincent
through a set of block-shifting wall puzzles to beat the level. It sounds
simple, but the genius of this game kicks in when it starts adding variety to
the blocks. Regular blocks can be moved and stood on. It’s when the game starts
adding blocks that can’t be moved, or trapped blocks that will kill you if you
don’t get off them straight away, or ice blocks that you can’t stop on, that
things get really interesting. You have to plan your moves or you will box
yourself in – but as the floor is always collapsing from underneath you, you
can’t take too long about this or you will lose the level by falling off the
wall.
I say this a lot but there’s something satisfyingly
‘old-school’ about games like this. Puzzle-action games[1]
aren’t common in the triple-A market and you’d only buy a game like this if you
knew what you were looking for; as such they’ve had something of a decline in
popularity over the last decade. But it is a rare time with the Xbox 360 that
I’ve had a genuine sense of satisfaction from finishing a level, as it is down
to your skill as a player that you manage it. The game is hard, but not
insurmountably so and while you’re essentially doing the same thing all the way
through it, there’s always new mechanics to the blocks being introduced.
The other section of the game takes place in a bar, where
Vincent hangs out with his friends. This, along with cut-scenes that would give
Metal Gear Solid a run for its money in terms of length, is where the story
unfolds: Unsure of whether to commit to his long-term girlfriend Katherine,
Vincent accidentally cheats on her with a young sexy woman called Catherine.
This is a part of the cause of the nightmares, where everybody appears to each
other as sheep, and if they fall from the blocks they die in real life.
Vincent’s anguish over having cheated on his girlfriend, his deteriorating
mental state as he repeatedly gets drunk and loses sleep, and his gradual
realisation that some of the people he speaks to in the bar are also having the
strange dreams[2]
is played out remarkably well. How you speak to and respond to people in the
bar, and also text you keep getting from both girls, affects the ending of the
game, of which there are a total of nine.
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| Yes... an Arse monster. Funnily enough not the freakiest thing in the game... |
In all cases, the game does not outstay its welcome. Even
with the added block mechanics, solving wall puzzles does get old – but the
game ends before that happens. The conversations in the bar happen on a timed
basis, so you can’t talk to everyone because at some point, some of them will
leave, forcing you to continue with the game. The cut-scenes do an excellent
job of moving the story forward; the whole game is paced really well.
I’d more than recommend giving this one a go. I’ve got a lot more to unlock than anyone will manage on one play-through, but like most games, now that I’ve completed it I’m going to put it to bed until I feel like coming back to it.
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