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Exit (PSP) Status: Stopped playing - Got frustrated I started playing this game on Thursday 19 January, 2012 // I stopped playing this game on: Thursday 19 January, 2012
Current opinion of this game
Mr. Exit, why do you look so fast and cool yet move so slooowly and imprecisely? Grrr...
January 19, 2012 10:52:01 PM
This game's premise is pretty neat - essentially you need to get to the exit of a building using various objects (and possibly controlling other characters you rescue) in order to solve what are essentially environmental puzzles. The game is quite stylized and the animation and audio are pretty neat as well. So why did I decide to call it quits after completing 30% of the game? (it has 100 missions, I did 30...or so). Cutting to the chase, I just couldn't stand dying over and over again due to issues with the controls. ESPECIALLY since the levels are on a time limit AND the character moves around terribly slowly, I already knew what I had to do to finish the level AND losing means starting over from scratch. None of these things are, in and of themselves, enough to merit my abandonment (in anger) of the game. I guess what I'm most angry about is that the game's design betrays itself. A game with puzzles, is about solving puzzles. In my opinion, anything that gets in the way of that, should probably be removed from the design. Having a time limit is fine, so long as the limit is about the time you have to solve the puzzle. In the case of this game, I felt I was being punished because the character moves sloooowly. Does everything sloooowly. To make matters worse, not only are things done sloooowly, but the controls are actually pretty imprecise. I was always fine-tuning and adjusting in order to get the character to face the right way, or get close enough to something so as to interact with it, and so on. In this case, navigating the game world ends up being an impediment to the game's main focus: solving these puzzles. I don't mean that the character should feel zippy and fast. Rather, that I should not feel like the character isn't helping me out, and rather seems to get in the way. If I wasn't playing on the train, I'm pretty sure I would have been yelling out loud TO FREAKING HURRY UP BECAUSE THE BUILDING IS ON FIRE! But no, Mr. X (I think that's his name), is all cool and suave (with his fedora and tie), and sloooowly walks around. Grrrr! Check out this video to see what I mean: http://youtu.be/LEHndyjOi4w I guess I my frustration might be aggravated because the game's art style, iconography, cut scenes, etc all imply speed and precision. The main character SHOULD have them, but he doesn't, and the controls don't let you live up to that expectation. It's a real shame, because other than that, the game is quite special.

Exit (PSP)