Robots in wonderland

by ERIK LEIJON

It was pointed out to me recently that there remain pockets of individuals who still exclusively PC game. To them I decree: we will find you and ­smoke you out, but until then, wrap your sore-ridden paws on a copy of Machinarium (PC/Amanita Design), the most beautiful looking game of 2009, with some of the most challenging series of conundrums to boot.

Not for the faint of heart, Machi­narium is an independent game with the type of visual design that could fill an art gallery. Each puzzle takes place on static screens, depicting a highly detailed 2D post-apocalyptic junkyard inhabited by dreary tin men. The main character is the runt of the robotic litter: the tiny rust bucket must complete each puzzle, often crossing paths with robo-bullies from his past. The levels work like a sort of video gaming pantomime, as the characters only communicate through gestures and thought bubbles. Although each mission entails finding out how to move from one screen to another, how that’s accomplished is never clear. It’s a point-and-click puzzle game, meaning there are buttons, items, characters and other background objects that can be interacted with, and every puzzle requires inputting the correct combination of mouse clicks in order to escape.

Each stage contains one rather vague clue (and more are given provided you can beat a quick 2D mini-game) and although there’s no time limit to figuring out each respective solution, the brain teasers are as frustrating as the game is beautiful. There’s a lot of trial-and-error involved, and the puzzles typically require some out of the box thinking. Oh, but what a sight to behold. The hand-drawn worlds blend steampunk with children’s book-style illustrations for a design unlike anything you’ve seen. A lot of the fun of Machinarium is visiting a level for the first time, gazing at all the detail and clicking intently on every square inch of the screen to see what can be interacted with. For a demo, visit machinairum.com.

Spin cycle

DJ Hero (Multi/Activision, FreeStyleGames) was very impressive in demo form, but the final result is less Grandmaster Flash and more Melle Mel. The building blocks are in place, as the turntable peripheral has plenty of neat knobs and switches. The fake record with three buttons is incredibly fun to spin, while the crossfader and sound effect buttons were well implemented.

The main issues surrounding DJ Hero’s less than scratchtastic start is how it treats DJ-ing no different from Guitar Hero guitar playing; the only goal for each song is to achieve a perfect score. It’s an impossible task since the crossfader is far too sensitive, but DJ-ing is more about music creation, splicing and personal touches, not perfectly recreating some poorly conceived Third Eye Blind-meets-Jackson 5 mash-up. They have the controller, now they just need a game to match.

I was all gung ho about fending off the zombie apocalypse for another holiday season with Left 4 Dead 2 (PC, X360/EA, Valve), but unsurprisingly, one year was not enough for the developers to accomplish anything but minute alterations. There are more speciality zombies and the melee weapons are fun for a few minutes, but grabbing pills and screaming “here they come!” with three friends remains just as exhilarating playing Left 4 Dead 1, a game you presumably already own and don’t have to pay for. The new team-battle mode, Scavenger, doesn’t match the fun of killing endless hordes of zombies. If you have money to burn and the desire to kill zombies in some cool new locales, L4D2 still brings the most hectic multiplayer FPS experience around.