VVVVVV
There's no gaming experience quite like that of a good 2D platformer. Unfortunately, mainstream offerings of this particular genre these days seem to be squarely focused on the Metroid-Vania trend of fussy micromanaged exploration. And while I love a good romp through Dracula's castle as much as the next guy, sometimes you just have to look beyond the familiar and seek out something new. And since the big boys still platform like it's somewhere between 1994 and 1997, it's up to bedroom coders to show us the way. Thus, fresh from toying with time in Braid and having my masculinity questioned by Super Meat Boy, I come across the mysterious VVVVVV, a 2D adventure about a crew lost in space and Captain Veridian's quest to rescue them.
http://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac66/Maet32/Miscellany/VVVVVV3.png
Rather befitting a space based platformer, the central mechanic off VVVVVV (and indeed its only mechanic if you disqualify moving left and right) is the ability to alter the direction of gravity at the press of a button in lieu of the more traditional jumping oriented abilities. If you comes across a bit of spiky floor, pass it by walking along the roof instead. And in situations where the distances between ground and ceiling are rather expansive, your character falls or rises until they either meet a surface or succumb to an obstacle. VVVVVV takes a unique approach to platforming by making its world as functional upside down as right side up. Thus, simply wrapping your head around its single idea takes a fair bit of getting used to, and it becomes even trickier as you encounter its distinct sets of challenges the further along you go.
VVVVVV is difficult, make no mistake about it. But the difficulty stems largely from movement mechanics that are not quite as finely tuned as say, Super Meat Boy. Precision platformers live or die but how razor sharply the game registers and responds to the player's movements, and Captain Viridian simply isn't as precise as often requires. There's no sense of gravity or weight to the character, and he feels terribly floaty at times (which I suppose is appropriate for a game which takes place in presumably low gravity environments). Contrast this with Meat Boy for example, and Captain Viridian's deficiency becomes terribly apparent. The very instant you tell Meat Boy to stop running, he comes to a dead stop. Give Captain Viridian the same instructions, and he'll coast on a few more steps past the cliff's edge and into spike traps or lethal obstacles. VVVVVV's loose gameplay has a great deal in common with tipsy Sack Boy from Little Big Planet, which for me was a deal breaker that no amount of charming artistic design could repair.
http://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac66/Maet32/Miscellany/VVVVVV2.png
Thankfully, VVVVVV is smart enough to recognize its difficulty which would be punishing even for those who cut their teeth on old school masochistic platformers such as myself. Checkpoints marked by tiny glass domes enshrining a "C" are liberally sprinkled throughout the game world, which means that any death causes a loss of no more than a few seconds between where you died and where you respawn (and yes, respawn is instantaneous). However because the placement and frequency of checkpoints can seem illogical, either being too scarce in tricky spots or too liberal in cakewalks, the amount of frustration one experiences could fluctuate wildly.
Yet while there's no real issue with dotting checkpoints around VVVVVV's open world, how the lay of the land is conveyed does cause an issue or two. Chief among which is that it's not a side-scroller in the vain of the 2D Castlevania's and Donkey Kong's; only one tile of this 2D grid based open world is shown to the player at a time. This means, for example, that when you reach the right most end of the screen, the camera doesn't follow the player's movements, but rather the adjacent tile is shown and you end up on the left end of the screen. Although this can be especially disorienting when you're falling through areas and entering scenes on diagonals, a particular section toys with this idea rather well enabling the player to recognize that such a presentation was indeed deliberate, conscious, and ultimately ingenious.
http://satoshimatrix.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/screen-shot-2011-01-16-at-2-19-36-am.png?w=450&h=337
Don't expect to be able to wrap around your head around the story and aesthetics, however: something separates Captain Viridian from his shipmates, so you spend the game scouring the overworld recovering them one by one. Text logs and monitors pop up every now and then talking about space, time, and other popular science fiction malarkey, but it's entirely extraneous. As for the art, solids and crosshatches account for the various landscapes which change colour from one tile to the next, giving the impression that you're travelling through a rainbow ribbon of space. The bright and cheerful colours make the environment a joy to traverse, as do the strong chip tune melodies and rhythms which flicker either inspiring exploration or establishing ambiance. Even failure is made charming by Captain Viridian's interpretively emphatic "Oh no!," his flipped smile, and the most delightful little soundbyte; it's just all so very fanciful and cheery.
"Clever" would be the best word to sum up VVVVVV. It's a simple open world 2D platformer that explores every aspect of its primary gameplay mechanic and constantly tests both its players and the limits of its application. In fact it's so brilliant that it even crams in the dreaded escort mission and somehow twists it into a mind-bending blast, something no proper console game I can think of has ever done. It's colourful, enthusiastic, peppy, and leaves me with a smile even as I grit my teeth in frustration. Surely that's quite the accomplishment, and surely that's worth $5.
VVVVVV is available for download through Steam for $5. In case you're wondering, VVVVVV is an acronym of the names of you and the five other crew members of your ship. Yes, you are supposed to pronounce the title as you would pronounce the letter "V" six times quickly.
For this review and others like it, please visit Confederate Wing.
There's no gaming experience quite like that of a good 2D platformer. Unfortunately, mainstream offerings of this particular genre these days seem to be squarely focused on the Metroid-Vania trend of fussy micromanaged exploration. And while I love a good romp through Dracula's castle as much as the next guy, sometimes you just have to look beyond the familiar and seek out something new. And since the big boys still platform like it's somewhere between 1994 and 1997, it's up to bedroom coders to show us the way. Thus, fresh from toying with time in Braid and having my masculinity questioned by Super Meat Boy, I come across the mysterious VVVVVV, a 2D adventure about a crew lost in space and Captain Veridian's quest to rescue them.
http://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac66/Maet32/Miscellany/VVVVVV3.png
Rather befitting a space based platformer, the central mechanic off VVVVVV (and indeed its only mechanic if you disqualify moving left and right) is the ability to alter the direction of gravity at the press of a button in lieu of the more traditional jumping oriented abilities. If you comes across a bit of spiky floor, pass it by walking along the roof instead. And in situations where the distances between ground and ceiling are rather expansive, your character falls or rises until they either meet a surface or succumb to an obstacle. VVVVVV takes a unique approach to platforming by making its world as functional upside down as right side up. Thus, simply wrapping your head around its single idea takes a fair bit of getting used to, and it becomes even trickier as you encounter its distinct sets of challenges the further along you go.
VVVVVV is difficult, make no mistake about it. But the difficulty stems largely from movement mechanics that are not quite as finely tuned as say, Super Meat Boy. Precision platformers live or die but how razor sharply the game registers and responds to the player's movements, and Captain Viridian simply isn't as precise as often requires. There's no sense of gravity or weight to the character, and he feels terribly floaty at times (which I suppose is appropriate for a game which takes place in presumably low gravity environments). Contrast this with Meat Boy for example, and Captain Viridian's deficiency becomes terribly apparent. The very instant you tell Meat Boy to stop running, he comes to a dead stop. Give Captain Viridian the same instructions, and he'll coast on a few more steps past the cliff's edge and into spike traps or lethal obstacles. VVVVVV's loose gameplay has a great deal in common with tipsy Sack Boy from Little Big Planet, which for me was a deal breaker that no amount of charming artistic design could repair.
http://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac66/Maet32/Miscellany/VVVVVV2.png
Thankfully, VVVVVV is smart enough to recognize its difficulty which would be punishing even for those who cut their teeth on old school masochistic platformers such as myself. Checkpoints marked by tiny glass domes enshrining a "C" are liberally sprinkled throughout the game world, which means that any death causes a loss of no more than a few seconds between where you died and where you respawn (and yes, respawn is instantaneous). However because the placement and frequency of checkpoints can seem illogical, either being too scarce in tricky spots or too liberal in cakewalks, the amount of frustration one experiences could fluctuate wildly.
Yet while there's no real issue with dotting checkpoints around VVVVVV's open world, how the lay of the land is conveyed does cause an issue or two. Chief among which is that it's not a side-scroller in the vain of the 2D Castlevania's and Donkey Kong's; only one tile of this 2D grid based open world is shown to the player at a time. This means, for example, that when you reach the right most end of the screen, the camera doesn't follow the player's movements, but rather the adjacent tile is shown and you end up on the left end of the screen. Although this can be especially disorienting when you're falling through areas and entering scenes on diagonals, a particular section toys with this idea rather well enabling the player to recognize that such a presentation was indeed deliberate, conscious, and ultimately ingenious.
http://satoshimatrix.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/screen-shot-2011-01-16-at-2-19-36-am.png?w=450&h=337
Don't expect to be able to wrap around your head around the story and aesthetics, however: something separates Captain Viridian from his shipmates, so you spend the game scouring the overworld recovering them one by one. Text logs and monitors pop up every now and then talking about space, time, and other popular science fiction malarkey, but it's entirely extraneous. As for the art, solids and crosshatches account for the various landscapes which change colour from one tile to the next, giving the impression that you're travelling through a rainbow ribbon of space. The bright and cheerful colours make the environment a joy to traverse, as do the strong chip tune melodies and rhythms which flicker either inspiring exploration or establishing ambiance. Even failure is made charming by Captain Viridian's interpretively emphatic "Oh no!," his flipped smile, and the most delightful little soundbyte; it's just all so very fanciful and cheery.
"Clever" would be the best word to sum up VVVVVV. It's a simple open world 2D platformer that explores every aspect of its primary gameplay mechanic and constantly tests both its players and the limits of its application. In fact it's so brilliant that it even crams in the dreaded escort mission and somehow twists it into a mind-bending blast, something no proper console game I can think of has ever done. It's colourful, enthusiastic, peppy, and leaves me with a smile even as I grit my teeth in frustration. Surely that's quite the accomplishment, and surely that's worth $5.
VVVVVV is available for download through Steam for $5. In case you're wondering, VVVVVV is an acronym of the names of you and the five other crew members of your ship. Yes, you are supposed to pronounce the title as you would pronounce the letter "V" six times quickly.
For this review and others like it, please visit Confederate Wing.
