[Game Review] Wattam

 

Wattam is a game that is particularly difficult to categorize.  For one, I'm not entirely sure it really classifies as much of a game, as it does an interactive early-childhood show.  Created by Katamari Demacy designer Keita Takahashi, Wattam has you switching between a myriad of anthropomorphized objects, fruit, trees, and shapes to complete minor objectives to then unlock even more anthropomorphized friends.  And that's the basic loop and goal of the game: unlock all of the friends and get to the end of the story (and, surprisingly, there is a story).

Wattam is an interesting idea, but outside of that and perhaps its stylistic charm, the idea is about all it has going for it.  Discovering friends through abstract goals is nothing new, and it plays like the old flash Grow games, but for toddlers.  It is probably obvious by how many times I've reference young children in this review that this game has little to no challenge.  Your objectives are clearly indicated, with little if any way of misunderstanding them.  Largely, your tasks have you going to one character or another and talking to them, or moving from one "biome" (as seen in the image above) to another.  Simple as these tasks can be, they do occasionally get really fucking weird.   At one point, you are to take control of a seed, plant yourself in the ground, then form a circle around the sprout with the other characters and dance around it until it grows into a tree.  Then, you play as the tree and eat the other characters and plop them out of your branches as fruit.  A host of new characters will appear, one of them being a disembodied mouth, that must eat several of the fruit people and turn them into poop.  A toilet will appear, and you will have to flush these poops and they will come out as gold poops.  This isn't an easter egg or some sort of side activity, either.  This is a main path objective that has to happen to progress.  Wattam is full of these bizarre little tasks, each requiring little effort outside of trying to get a grasp on the thread that pulls all of this together into something cohesive, an effort that will probably leave you realizing what you should have realized earlier if hadn't already: this is a game for kids. 

Wattam is about exploring everyday things and enjoying their presence, making associations, and telling a story about discovery and forgiveness.  It's admirable, worthy of some leniency from people like me who are pretty obviously not the intended audience.  But there are some things that are sort of puzzling about this little game.  For starters, the game chugs.  Framerate issues are continuous throughout, even in the early game when hardly anything is spawned into the world, and it only gets worse the farther you get into the game.  The controls feel like they are from the PS2 era, where the triggers act as camera rotation and the right stick, inexplicably, tries to switch control between characters.  There is, in all fairness, a shortcut to switching between characters by hitting right on the D-pad, a minor convenience considering the other choices in controls.  The style does a lot to cover up the apparent low quality graphics, but there is a definite feeling that this game may not be properly finished.  Wattam's apparent intended audience, again, warrants tolerance of some of these things, but they are notable and annoying regardless.  

I'm not sure I liked Wattam much.  It was charming in its own way, but hardly enjoyable.  It is a Nick Jr. show after a joint.  It is an interactive, colorful, somewhat confusing children's show.  I can get behind this in theory, but I do wish I hadn't spent $20 on the thing riding on Takahashi's name.  If anything is to blame, it is probably the marketing.  The game makes no hesitations in what it is.  And though I called it admirable before, I can't say I'd call it good. 

 

 

 

5.0

[Game Review] Gunpoint

 

 

Gunpoint, as the achievements for this game cheekily point out, is a silly name for a stealth puzzler.  In Gunpoint you play as Conway, a spy/hacker for hire that gets involved in a classic noir tale gone awry.  Turns out on the same night you got a pair of gravity defying trousers that let you leap two stories high onto buildings, a woman calls you in distress.  Her life is threatened, and she needs your help at a gun factory that no longer produces guns (it's an odd story).  Before she can relay the type of trouble she's in, she is shot and killed by another spy.  The unfortunate part is that the gun factory was right next door to where you got your special pants, and like an idiot you ran into the newly christened crime scene for all the security cameras to see.  Luckily, you have a shady friend, one Rooke, the co-owner of said gun factory and friend of the woman who was just brutally murdered, and she wants your services in clearing the camera footage to prevent the cops from arresting the wrong man, knowing full well they'd rather put someone behind bars rather than actually solve the case.  Wiping the footage - what turns out to be the tutorial - puts you in even more hot water, as now the chief of police, fearing corruption in his ranks, wants you to figure out who could have possibly destroyed all the evidence they had.  So, yeah, to sum it all up, you are a spy investigating the crime you committed, while tussling between two rival gun companies, the chief of police, would-be scapegoats, and a marriage falling apart.  In order to get through all the tangled wires of he-said she-said and fingers pointed at innocent parties, you'll need to sneak into a series of buildings, evade the guards and the security, hack into their computers and their networks to rewire doors, lights, alarms, and anything else you need to in order to get the information needed to further the case.  But rarely does any of that have you holding a gun, unless you buy the upgrade for it, that is. 

Gunpoint is a lovingly ridiculous romp, and a true testament to what a great narrative can bring to stellar gameplay.  The game even offers multiple endings, depending on whose side you think is the lesser evil (or the funniest).  The mechanics are relatively simple, usually giving you one main objective to hack into and a laptop with further story as a collectible for each level.  You're given a vertical slice of the building, with the ability to look at the various wiring networks and hack their connections as you see fit.  Most doors (until a rather pricey unlock is nabbed) require guards to open, but quickly you'll realize it's just as easy to wire a light switch or a camera to open the door.  Taking out guards is optional, but generally necessary outside of difficult play, as is with nearly every stealth game.  Multiple routes are possible for each level, depending on how you go about it.  Even on the final level, which can feel restrictive in its place on the difficulty curve, has multiple possible routes to work through.  You are scored by your sneakiness, your speed, and various other small modifiers and at the end of each level, these modifiers turn into cash you can spend on new gadgets that further the different types of play available to you.

With an added level designer in the mix, it is possible to play and replay and modify Gunpoint for a while, and the mechanics make this such a promising proposition you will probably do it.  Gunpoint is a fine example of the sort of charm and focused fun the indie market made their name on.  It's brisk, funny, and gives you the tools and the community to play as long as you like after the main narrative is over.  It's hard to ask for anything more.  

 

 

 

9.0

[Game Review] A Story About My Uncle

 

 

 

The nicest thing I can say about A Story About My Uncle is that I like the idea.  Building a first person platformer around a grappling hook works for most of the game's extremely brief runtime.  But to talk any longer on the game I turn into a nit-picky asshole.  

A Story About My Uncle follows an unnamed protagonist who is, you've guessed it, looking for his uncle.  The story is framed around a bedtime story the protagonist is telling his young daughter, who wants to hear something fantastic.  He tells his daughter about the last time he saw his uncle, an inventor and adventurer who would sometimes leave for extended periods of time, but had been gone longer than usual, and had not sent him the usual postcard he expected when his uncle was away.  The protagonist quickly finds a junk transporter (that is, literally - a teleporter for trash) his uncle was working on and is transported to a fantastical world of small floating islands, and odd frog people, and . . .  general whimsy?  A Story About My Uncle is anything but a story about his uncle.  It's hardly a story at all.  It's a mcguffin to get this kid in a fantastical world that looks like platformer levels.  I'm actually confused as to why they tried at all with a plot here, since I found it far too twee to really enhance the game in any way.  There isn't much of a conflict, virtually no resolution, and everything in between feels like they were meeting quotas for plot rather than having plot.  There just isn't a purpose for it here, a damning thing given the title of their game. 

 

It's obvious from the outset that these are new developers making their first game, and that what they really wanted was a significant sounding title to garner interest, and I can't really blame them.  A Story About My Uncle is an enticing title, one that brings to mind familial relationships and coming of age without the potential intensity of it being about a mother or father.  It's the uncle, usually depicted as weird, creepy, or the exciting counter to the father figure.  While it is disappointing that the game doesn't follow up on any of these potentialities, nor does it fill in the gap that anticipation would bring, it is obviously not the focus.  

 

The focus is the mechanics, the first person platformer mentioned before.  The grappling hook is a neat mechanic, one that creates a sense of flow especially through the fourth level.  I found myself experimenting with ways in which I could bypass parts of the level using my abilities, and this sort of platforming freedom is really fun.  But that's the most you get out of this game, unfortunately.  The level design is jagged, it feels.  There are five levels, with the first one being a glorified tutorial, the second one a semi-explorable village with mild platforming here and there, the third level your first true level, the fourth level playing with multiple routes and a new mechanic, and the fifth level your final challenge.  There's something dry and imbalanced about this sense of design and structure.  It feels smooth up to the fourth level, but then feels like it rockets to an ending that asks quite a bit more of you than it has before.  The final challenge has its moments, where you find yourself swinging quickly around difficult obstacles and the game holds your hand far less as to which is the correct route, but with it comes demanding control of physics and space, something you've only had to toy with here and there up to this point.  The sudden ramp in challenge is a mild criticism, but the dissonance between the childlike story and the sudden shift towards a more experienced gameplay feels disingenuous, or at best confused.  Who this game is designed for is a matter of debate, as the final level and the game's title would make me think an older audience, but the story within feels like anyone over the age of ten is going to roll their eyes.  

 

The crux of the issue, and a bulk of my review, can be summed up in one sentence: A Story About My Uncle feels like it is a source engine mod from the late 00s pushed as a full release.  It feels amateurish, in its design, in its writing, and in its inability to capitalize on its mechanics.  It's fine.  It presents an idea.  It is absolutely lowest common denominator for "okay", and if that's the worst criticism I have for you, I guess you've done alright for your first game, but it's hard not to wish this had become something better, a game with something to say or with more refined mechanics that really let this concept fly.  As it stands, it was a relatively fun mechanic wrapped in an unappealing package and a rough pace.

 

 

 

6.0