For months I wondered if I’d love to play the game I adored to watch. That answer is yes, an ever so joyous and resounding yes. PixelJunk Eden comes hot on the heels of Q Games other PixelJunk titles, the flawed but enjoyable PixelJunk Racers, and the niche but heavily appreciated PixelJunk Monsters. As anyone who watches it will usually confess, Eden is almost completely different from anything else you’ve seen. This is evident right from the get go, as the playable title screen is actually a hub world/practice area for the main game.
As is the general consensus, merely watching Eden isn’t enough to satisfy the curiosity of finding out just what the hell is going on. You may literally have to play the game to grasp the concept (as I did), but, once you do, everything becomes remarkably clear and engaging. Your character is an insect looking creature called a Grimp. Grimps live in gardens and their all consuming goal is to obtain Spectra to make their gardens evolve into more extravagant areas of fantastic color and size.
Finding each level’s Spectra is conducted via rather unusual means. Life as a Grimp grants you two main abilities; jumping and a variety of tricks using your silk. You’re of course going to have to jump all over the place and, though a Grimp’s jump has a fantastic range, which itself can be elongated by mashing the X button, most flowers will be too high or far away to make it in one swoop. This is where the silk comes in. After climbing any part of a flower you’re free to press the jump button once (double tapping results in a normal jump), which extends a tethered line of silk. From here you can wind up in a centrifugal motion until you gain enough momentum to fling yourself over greater flowers (platforms!).
But what if those flowers don’t yet exist? Easy, the circle you create by looping around with your silk also collects anything that happens to be within its range. Pollen, thankfully, is all over the place and can be collected in massive quantities. Once enough is gained new flowers will spawn, and the process can be repeated it any direction until you locate your Spectra. And, though it may be out of eyeshot, Spectra are far from hidden. Again via spinning around on your silk, you’ll occasionally see a radar blip that leads the way toward your Spectra of choice. Actually obtaining a Spectra triggers a radical change in the levels aesthetic, leaving behind one gorgeous daydream as it transitions into yet another radical escape from reality.
There is also a time limit governing this process. Other little bits floating by the pollen can be collected to keep the time up, but running low on time didn’t seem like it would cause significant issues provided you’re locating Spectra in a timely fashion. Although, I admit that is sometimes difficult when the surrounding atmosphere is so enchanting.
As if that wasn’t enough, Eden can also be played with two of your friends for three player co-op. The same basic rule set applies, but with a few added tweaks for the increase in party members. The screen is never shared, so should a player fall off and go off screen, he will be revived on the back of another players grimp, (provided that player can sit still for two or three seconds and allow it to take place).
My demo of Eden was also punctuated with an exercise in building one’s vocabulary. Deb Mars, our guide and a senior producer on Eden, made it clear that their intention with the presentation was a complete symbiosis between the visual and audio production. These two senses are meant to work in tandem with one another, reflexively adjusting to suit each other’s needs as your Grimp progresses and changes his environment. Sadly, Sony’s gaming lounge was way too loud for me to grasp any of the score, but, judging strictly from the marriage between gameplay and art direction, I’d have no trouble believing in their ability to nail the music too.
Eden also has a surprising number of intangibles up its sleeve. First off, an option directly in the game will link directly to your YouTube account and instantly upload video of your ethereal adventure. The game also takes the time to assemble a multitude of online rankings for all of your competition needs (though the entire multiplayer is offline). I personally think Deb sold her game a little short when she said twenty hours of play, because I can easily see myself getting lost in the endless world of Eden. I realize many will look at It as just another PSN title, but those who can appreciate its art design and wildly imaginative concept will surely have no difficulty playing (and perfecting) through it over and over.
Hell, honestly, this was probably my game of the show. It’s presence at other gaming events will probably rob it of the title in favor of something more avant-garde (like Mirror’s Edge), but for someone playing Eden for the first time, it was a marvelous experience. Unlike my love of Mega Man 9 (which was sourced in nostalgia) Eden’s charm is brand new and viscerally exciting. For anyone who wants a game to take them places they’ve never been and see things they’ve never seen, you can’t really do any better. It doesn’t have the budget of Killzone 2, the visual prowess of Resident Evil 5, or the kinetic hook of Mirror’s Edge, but, really, It doesn’t need any of those splendid diversions. Its pure focus on art design and gameplay reigned supreme over everything else I saw (and likely at a sub$20 price to boot). I can’t wait to own this game.
