flOw review (PlayStation 3)

Occasionally in the world of video games you will come across something new and entirely experimentally original. Such moments that come to mind include Parappa The Rappa, Eye Toy and now I feel justified in adding flOw to that list. With major development houses, breaking gaming trends and bringing complete originality to a platform is a risky business when publishers are breathing down your neck to finish on schedule, on budget and hit a certain number of sales figures, but the independents can take steps and leaps that are unconventionally unique. With systems such as the Playstation Store allowing for downloadable games at next to no cost to the publishers, the modern consoles are able to offer such games as flOw to us content hungry consumers.

Starting as a thesis project demonstrating adaptable difficulty that reacts to your playing style, flOw is a difficult title to pigeon-hole, being a mixture of the classic snake, and what many expect from Will Wright’s upcoming ‘Spore’. With practically no introduction, the game begins and your small, simplistic aquatic creature is thrust into your control. Based entirely on how you tilt the Sixaxis controller, the game doesn’t use the analogue sticks, but gives you motion control of which direction to move. Still with me? Then let’s get onto the purpose of the game.

grOw

Happily swimming around in a mixture of calming sounds and ambient feelings, if you direct your pincer shaped ‘head’ into another creature, you will eat it, growing in size, and looking generally more impressive. Different creatures will grow or evolve you more and more depending on their size and what they are, but while none of this is truly explained to you in instructions or an introduction, the sense of discovery adds to the immersive feeling to the game; and that’s what seems to matter, the feeling of the game.

The tactile sensation of tilting the controller to move around is an organic representation of what is taking place on the screen, and what begins as a novelty becomes a very natural extension of the standard controller. Before long, you will forget about the method of controlling your creature and if you’ll pardon the pun, go with the flow.

To evolve and develop?

The actual purpose seems to be in the series of depths that you can traverse. Very much suited to your own style of play, I found that I would consume everything in the current area before continuing. While there seem to be no ‘brick walls’ that stop you going too far away, your creature tends towards a side of the screen as you get further out, psychologically pushing you back into the centre. To continue, if in fact that is what you are doing, eating a unique red creature will move you into the screen, and to a darker, deeper area with bigger creatures with more interesting features. Blue creatures bring you back, and while you cannot ‘die’, if your shiny parts are eaten by others, you will be sent back up a level, to regroup and gather strength. A nice touch is being able to see the next level's creatures blurred in the background of a level, to tease you into progressing to encounter them.

After about 10-15 levels, you come across a pod that once eaten gives you the ability to choose a new creature to start with and evolve, with different skills and different visuals. It comes as a welcome surprise to break the standard of what you have already experienced, and often gives a different audio scheme too. Unlocking each creature is the only point where your game will be saved, but depending on your playing style, you could simply eat all of the red creatures as quickly as possible to get down to the next creature, avoiding your enemies of the deep.

Launch games

As a title for our shiny (literally) new PS3s, you can naturally expect a beautifully smooth graphical engine, and crisp 1080p High Definition visuals. The plain shapes are enhanced with various glow and colouration effects, but ultimately remain quite simple. Arguably, anything more complex would take away from the intention of the game and atmosphere, created so effectively by the sound. An ambient muffled watery background soothes you into relaxation as much as the soft echoed one shot sounds of eating creatures and evolving extra segments. It really is a pleasant experience even to have it on in the background while typing a review.

That said, it is hard to look at flOw and not feel like there are aspects missing to turn it into a full fledged game rather than how I see it; an experience. While part of the beauty and pure artistry is that it doesn’t hold your hand the whole way, I can’t help but feel that it does lack direction, but it shows off the PS2’s Sixaxis in a more than appealing way, and gives the PS3 an edge of experimentation and originality that could sway the odd savvy gamer. Plus, at only £3.49 at the moment, it’ll give you something extra to use to persuade your girlfriend that the PS3 was £425 well spent.