At a glance...

Outland review

Last year we found ourselves immersed in Limbo, the environmental puzzle-platformer that allowed our imagination to run wild and got us to jump at shadows. Launching last week was Outland, from Housemarque (of Super Stardust HD fame), a game that could be considered Limbo's hyperactive cousin. We explored the ancient world to find out more...

The world of Outland, much like Limbo, is silhouetted against the background. But unlike the black and white platformer of last summer, Outland is very much about colour and striking visuals. The game's forests, crumbling cities, underworlds and beyond, are set amongst beautiful backgrounds, each with sweeping rich colour gradients replacing the shades of grey offered by Limbo. Enemies are equally as colourful, sporting either vibrant blues or reds. Eerily striking when fighting enemies on their own, it becomes an assault on your senses when they group together, particularly as the ancient contraptions expel large quantities of these coloured objects at you. In addition to the colours, the backgrounds are incredibility detailed and there are particle effects a plenty, the storm towards the beginning of the game that reveals the two sisters is particularly stunning.

Colour also plays an important theme in the mechanics of Outland, as the enemies are also colour-based, primarily red or blue once you get beyond the early stages. Platforms and obstacles in your path are equally coloured. Pretty early on you get the magical ability to change your form's colour between red (the light side?) and blue (the dark side?). Objects in the game that are coloured can only be interacted with if you are the same colour as them. For example, a blue platform becomes solid if your spirit is blue, but if your spirit is red then you phrase right through. Alternatively a platform will only move around if your colour matches, but will remain stationary if the colours oppose. This leads to some really clever platforming sequences that require split-second timing to jump from red platforms to blue ones and back again in quick succession.

This colour co-ordination becomes even more vital to your survival when you take into account the enemy design. You can only hurt enemies that oppose your colour and in a somewhat unfair advantage, if you are the same colour as them, they can hurt you but your hits just bounce off them. The game makes frequent use of these rules by sending monsters of both colours at you, requiring some hit and retreat techniques to avoid getting hurt. Even crazier are the boss sections, where colour plays a vital role, with bosses alternating between colours or firing a huge blast of one colour or another at you. It's not all about the colour, though, as there are some other cool mechanics in Outland. For example, one boss toys with gravity, sending showers of rock and rubble from one direction, forcing you to hide underneath platforms or to the side, hanging on the edges until the chaos subsides. Whilst these sequences are great, they are noticeable in their uniqueness and don't appear in the main sections of the game.

This colour-based world is set against the backdrop of ancient powers conflicting with one another and the tale of the fallen hero. Outland tells the tale of two sisters who combined their powers to create a world and then set out to destroy it. Each of the bosses have their own sad story of the corruption of power and being consumed by the power of darkness. These tales are woven by an ever present narrator who sets the tone at the beginning of the game with a man haunted by powerful visions of magic who ventures to an ancient land to find answers. Each boss sequence and power has a very short story and that does well to place it into the narrative of the game. Whilst each story is quite light on the details, the game ensures that everything fits within the same mythology without resulting in a convoluted and complicated plot.

We've already alluded to the fact that you can switch your spirit colour from red to blue, but these aren't your only abilities in the game. One of your first items is the sword and you get a number of techniques related to this throughout your progress, such as more powerful attack and then a downward ground pound. The more magical abilities, such as teleportation, come later. The good thing about Outland is it doesn't bestow all of these at once and gradually introduces them to you over the course of the game. Along with these abilities, the levels are designed with repeat trips in mind and as you traipse through the environment, you'll get hints at sections that will require an ability you haven't yet received. The teleportation power, acquired after the second boss fight, helps with this, allowing you jump between specific points in the world.

Other modes are also available such as co-op challenges and a 'time trial'-style arcade mode that gets you to complete sections in a certain amount of time. Dropped from enemies and smashable objects are coins that allow you to upgrade your abilities and health, etc. But the locations to perform an upgrade are far and few between. Despite the odd bug where the main character played the fall animation when attempting to ledge climb, the game was problem-free. I find it hard to believe I hadn't heard about this game until a week or so before launch and so I was shocked that this fantastic game had almost escaped my notice. I encourage everyone to download the trial from the Xbox Live Marketplace (or the PlayStation Store if PSN ever comes back!). It seems like this family of games has some pretty outstanding members with Limbo and now Outland. With members like these, this is certainly a family I want to get to know more.

Ratings

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