http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3166348
http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3169091&p=37
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Previews: PixelJunk Eden We play through the first four stylish gardens of the third PixelJunk PSN title. One of my coworkers offered this bizarre-yet-accurate description of PixelJunk Eden: "Um... it's kinda like Bionic Commando and Ninja Five-O meets Peggle... with co-op." Judging by the previous two downloadable games to carry the PixelJunk name, the idea that Eden fuses interesting gameplay elements from a variety of sources into a cohesive whole should come as no surprise. The simplistic objective is to collect spectra: strange, glowing objects up in the sky over an abstract garden. As a tiny speck, you're far too small to jump that high on your own, so the only method at your disposal is to play the part of a pollinator, growing the nearby plant life tall enough so that you can leap bravely from their stems and leaves and acquire the mystical spectra. There are a total of five spectra to be found per level, and each one you collect in turn grows the hub world's garden, allowing you to access new higher-level vistas. Typical of the PixelJunk series, a few minutes of watching the game is all it takes to get its concept. Describing it in words, though, might be a little more difficult. The process goes something like this: Every part of your body seems perennially coated with some kind of magic glue that allows you to stick to any plant's surface, enabling some pretty spectacular leaps of faith. Once you've landed safely, a gossamer silk thread extends from your body to the leap's point of origin. With some simple, right thumbstick maneuvers, the anchoring thread lets you swing around as though you have some kind of tiny, solar-powered jetpack maintaining your momentum. Should your body or silk thread come in contact with any of the pollen pods floating about randomly in the garden's atmosphere, the pods will burst and create clouds of pollen -- any pollen which comes in contact with your body or the thread is then "collected." Also floating randomly in the sky are hollow circles, representing a kind of seed that has yet to germinate. Should any of these circles be close by, collected pollen will automatically fly toward it and fill the circle. Once full, you can cause the seed to grow into a plant by launching your little body straight into it. Then, as the plant grows, you can use it as a ladder to the heavens, so you can collect more pollen and grow more plants and eventually make your way to the spectra. The consistently pleasing color palettes, which drastically change as you collect each spectra, make the sheer joy of leaping around the gardens of Eden ever more delightful. A time limit, which you can reset by collecting crystals floating in the environment or by collecting a spectra, floating "islands," from which you can leap but not extend a thread, and enemies in the later levels that will try to send you plummeting from the sky by either hitting you directly or cutting your thread, complicate your sometimes lengthy task. Add in up to two cooperative players and the complexity increases, as anyone flying off the screen for more than a few seconds will cause seeds to lose 25% of their pollination. We've only unlocked the first four gardens so far -- or, rather, collected enough spectra to grow the plants necessary to reach the fourth garden -- but each location has provided new interpretations for the word "plant" and a different, thoroughly amazing music track to listen to. (I can only hope Sony releases a soundtrack on PSN as they did for their addictive tower defense game, PixelJunk Monsters.) That Eden will be the first game released with Trophies (read: achievements) after the 2.4 XMB update is something I consider a minor motivation. The game has been such a delight to play so far that I'd probably obsess over acquiring every spectra regardless. |
http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3169091&p=37
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| Reviews Eden's lush presentation betrays its simplicity and carves an interesting niche in the spectrum of interactive art. > Reviewer's Blog > Review Crew Profile  It's tough to ignore the recent PixelJunk legacy, strange as it is. First, we got PixelJunk Racers, an overly simplistic stock car racing game (that I felt was more frustrating than fun). Then along came PixelJunk Monsters, which cleverly introduced tower-defense games to a console crowd (and which I loved). Now we have PixelJunk Eden -- a game whose lush presentation betrays its simplicity and carves an interesting niche in the spectrum of interactive art. The concept of gathering seeds to grow psychedelic gardens might seem like a tough sell, but the execution is aces. You launch your miniscule Grimp (named for his two primary functions -- jumping and gripping) around the 2D environments by choosing a trajectory with the analog stick and double-tapping X. If you press X only once, the Grimp instead shoots out a line of silk, which is then used to swing within a circular radius of the launching point (you can reel it in with the triggers). Holding X midflight causes you to fly through any plants you would otherwise land on by not touching anything. This probably sounds complex and a little nonsensical -- believe me, it's hard to articulate with words alone -- but after an hour of gardening, you'll be navigating levels with the best of them. The point of the massive levels is to find and collect Spectra -- five for each of the game's 10 gardens. You accomplish this by smacking enemies, gathering up the pollen that bursts out of them, and maneuvering your way to seedpods that fill up as you grab the pollen. Touching a pod causes it to sprout a leaf or flower of sorts, which you can use to ascend higher in the garden. Your swinging silk acts as a sonar system that points the way to the nearest Spectra, and the acrobatics required to grab some of the later ones indulge my platforming proclivities like little else. While navigating gardens in single-player is methodical and relaxing (outside of the nagging tension of having to collect time pellets to extend your ever-shrinking Oscillation bar), Eden really shines when played with one or two other players of a similar skill level (it supports three players total -- offline only). It's perhaps less challenging, sure -- but it feels great to efficiently tear through a garden with some savvy friends; you can even grab and fling the other players' Grimps around if you're good. The camera is weirdly unpredictable at times, following a falling player offscreen and foiling level progress instead of staying where the action is -- but not condemningly so. Multiplayer serves another important role: It disguises an otherwise irksome unlocking structure. You can't just go into a level and grab all five Spectra off the bat, even if you're good; instead, you're kicked out to Eden (the hub garden) after grabbing the first, and you need to make another run for two, then another for three, and so on. It works fine for short sessions, but it feels needlessly roundabout at times. Considering the levels aren't randomly generated, replaying what you just played to progress is a bit obtuse. Still, Eden's heart lies as much in its audiovisual detail as it does in any structural or gameplay elements. Strikingly colorful and abstract, the mesmerizing backdrops complement the sparse game perfectly. Even when the levels start flipping gravity and tweaking the relationship between the enemies and environments, it's easy to appreciate the visuals acting as the motivating force behind the action. The music isn't quite as interesting and doesn't evolve much throughout the journey, but the beats are still an essential part of the experience (the louder, the better). Eden's tough to sum up in a single sentence; you have to play it in order to fully appreciate it. The game is uniquely engaging, and it's not even remotely similar to its predecessors...or any other games, really. The elegant pairing of a psychedelic aesthetic and smart, addictive platforming mechanics is a rare find indeed. If not for the aforementioned structural misgivings, Eden might be even more addicting than Monsters -- quite the feat on its own. |
