Gaming Ring takes on the third PixelJunk title. Welcome to Eden.

Can Video Games be art?  I don’t know, but i do know of a lot of games that argue so.  One of those games is PixelJunk Eden.  The third release to garner the flourished title, PixelJunk, takes a turn from their hearty, strategic gameplay in PixelJunk Monsters to create a game focused on a much more creative experience.  One that is tasty for both ears and eyes, but how about for your hands and mind?

Aesthetically, PixelJunk Eden is beautiful.  And apparently, a very simplistic art design using flowers, plants and pollen, makes for a bright and pleasing appearance.  Think of LocoRoco, turn it to a higher resolution, add the plants, and you have PixelJunk Eden.  As cliche as it sounds, it really doesn’t end there, the music is just as simple and appealing.  It is very ambient to the design and throughout it is pretty faithful in the artful marriage.  You’ll find yourself playing a level or Garden for half an hour without noticing you’ve been listening to the same song throughout the entire time.  However, it may sound like i’m just saying it isn’t annoying, but i enjoyed the music as much as i do the visuals.

Though it’s a bit hard to say the same for the gameplay.  The goal is simple, collect.  Hit your “enemies” and the pollen will fly around, and you basically collect as much as you can or at least enough to open new ways to ascend the Garden.  The game progresses vertically, throughout the Gardens are seeds that grow into plants that help you advance.  The end comes when you collect a number of Spectras, symbols that help you get to new Gardens (levels).

Around the Gardens you play as a Grimp, a little creature.  Movement is based on aiming and jumping.  You can’t move manually with your d-pad or analog stick.  You must aim using the Left Analog Stick and jump by pressing any of the face buttons.  Moving precisely is a bit tough, and it is unfortunate considering the twitch situations they put you through during later parts of the game.  Though you’re not limited to that, you can also swing around.  Chances are it isn’t anything that you’re imagining, you can’t swing from plant to plant, you have to land and repel every time you swing.  It misses something that is somewhat important to swinging, the ability to constantly swing from object to object, but the Gardens aren’t really built with that action in mind.  It’s just a shame that you have to stop every time you need to swing, it makes the game feel slower than it is.  Which especially sucks because of the Synchronization Timer, a countdown timer that constantly needs to be babysat to play.  Once the timer runs out, you lose.  You can collect Crystals to keep the timer going, but its still an annoying concept considering the difficulty of movement.

For a PS3 game, it excels in the feature list.  Trophies, Custom Soundtrack, PSP Remote Play, Online Leaderboards and video capturing with direct to YouTube uploading.  YouTube uploading is pretty impressive.  Many people are uploading Trophy tutorials, Garden speed runs and other cool things.  It’s definitely something games that incorporate video capturing (Halo 3, Skate) should add to their own repertoire.

While I tried my best to explain the game, i believe you really need to play to understand.  The visuals itself is charming enough to get through most of the game though weirdly enough, there isn’t much beyond that, but it is definitely worth trying out.

Gameplay – 3
Graphics – 4
Sound – 4
Value – 4
Tilt -3

 

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 17th, 2008 at 8:14 pm and is filed under PS3, Reviews, Top Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.