Incoming Game!

It has been a short while since my last post, so time to blow the dust off the internet and get down to business! BOOSH!

Pew Pew Pew

Ok, first up is an interesting game that has a little bit of a back story.  It starts with a little release back in 2002 of one of my favorite games of all time, REZ.  It was for Dreamcast (another reason I feel that the Dreamcast was probably one of the best consoles ever made for it's time) and the Playstation 2.  It was visually stunning, not for the epileptic, had thumping rave music mixed by several pretty bad ass DJ's, level progression was sweet, it was just all around a good game.  It only had one real minor problem, it was a little short for my tastes.  One or two more levels would have done me just fine.  The game wasn't widely released, it was mostly pumped out in Japan and only pushed out here in the states in spots.  It wasn't until about 2008 or so that it was put out on the Xbox 360 arcade with an HD version.  The plot was simple.  Your trapped/lost in the 1980s style internet (think of the movie "Hackers" meets the movie "Tron"), and it's trying to kill you.  So...GTFO.  That's basically it.  The boss battles were nicely staged and gimmicky, the levels were long, hidden levels were fun, just everything was awesome.  Even better, it was a sort of rhythm game that played according to how well you do.  And the game punishes you for doing better by increasing the difficulty.  Overall, lots of fun.  (As a fun gaming history side note, there was a time in Japan (only) where if you bought the PS2 version of REZ, you could also buy something called a "Trance Vibrator".  It was a little plastic USB rumble pack that would buzz and vibrate with the music of Rez.  It's suposed to help you feel the rhythm...but there's other uses that it was being put to as well.  So yeah, there's that.)

Ok, that's the back story.

Now for the Review (cue lightning and dramatic background music)!

GAME: Child of Eden
DEVELOPER: Q Entertainment
CONSOLE: Xbox 360, Playstation 3
RATING: 7 Tainted with Internets

The colors, man, the colors!

De-worming space, shooting one box at a time.

Visually, wow.  Just wow.  Lights, color, sound, everywhere.  Everything interacts.  The background, the foreground, from the cursor right in your face to the little floating gears and particles in the far distance.  Everything you do, save for moving the reticle about, has noise attached to it.  Shooting, hitting, targeting, locking, tracing, switching outputs, everything.  There's bright lights, dark darks, it's quite a lot to take in.  It takes a few play throughs to really figure out what to do and where to go.  Like the previous game Rez, it's still a rail shooter, but it's not as "rigid" as Rez was.  There was a good 110 degree arc in Rez that your camera could swivel in.  Not too far to any edge of the screen, so they locked your head in place saying "here is where you are going, here's where you will shoot stuff".  In Eden, it's a little more like a 180 degree.  The constant worry of "missing something behind me" always seems to creep up, not knowing if something I can't see will shoot me.

Even Moby Dick is digital these days.

Music is the driving force of both of these games.  And sadly for Eden, it's the one part that I have a little bit of an issue with.  In Rez, there was a small swath of D.J.'s that lent a hand to the development.  Each D.J. had a level that personified their music, accenting them in fitting imagery and progression, ending with a remix of the level BGM in a boss fight.  It was seamlessly done, sounded wonderful, and looked good.  For Eden, they use only the music of one composing group Genki Rockets, which is fine.  My problem lies in the fact that there is no real differentiation between the levels such of the likes of Rez.  All the levels sound pretty much the same.  It's a little "poppy" and grinds on you a little near the end.  Then again, I used to be a raver way back when I was in High-school.  If the bass doesn't rattle the sheet-rock, your not playing it loud enough.  Where Rez came with some heavy onts onts onts, Child of Eden was more...party soft.  A sort of "rounded edges" feel to the music selection.  I understand that they would sort of want this to display the evolution of how the internet used to be, and how the internet is "now" as a more sophisticated entity instead of fat middle-age guys in light up 80's tron pajamas, but they really should have used several composers along with Genki Rockets to greater diversify the level areas and give each sector it's own unique feel.  It's own stand alone groove to shoot computer viruses with.

What rail shooter is complete without a cylinder hallway?

Overall, however, the game is still well worth playing.  It's a visual experience that I feel really needs to be "experienced".  If for anything, they did a really good job matching what music they did have with the world they made around it and how the player interacts with it.  Some minor issues, the Kinect is a little slow to react and too particular with placement when playing such a high paced game.  Most of the game is played with your hand in front of you, which the Kinect can some times confuse with you not having hands.  Just minor Kinect issues that are more issues to deal with the hardware than the software.  So yeah, If you get a chance to pick up a copy, go for it.  It's a bit of a trip, but a trip well worth it.

Happy Surfing.

RATING: 7 Tainted with Internets