Senin, 17 Februari 2014
Octodad: Dadliest Catch's premise is simple. You're a loving father with all the responsibilities of family life thrust upon you; shopping, cooking burgers for your two quarrelsome kids, making coffee and chopping firewood are all in a days work.
Unfortunately, you're also an octopus, and one whose greatest fear is that his normal family will discover his terrible secret. It's a secret that makes life rather difficult; performing tasks designed for those both more upright and more gifted in the opposable thumbs department is a challenge when you're a boneless cephalopod disguised in a suit…
As a player, you are charged with moving Octodad through his surroundings whilst causing minimal destruction, performing simple errands whilst hiding your secret from your family and avoiding your nemesis the Sushi Chef, who both knows what you are and deeply desires to turn you into budget mako rolls.
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Young Horses ramp up the difficulty of the challenges at just the right pace to keep you struggling. Just as I’d conquered - with the pride and joy of a toddler - basic motor controls (walking, picking up and moving inanimate objects) they threw me a challenge that involved climbing. Suddenly, the rapid “click and swipe” motion I’d conquered when it came to walking Octodad in a straight line was rendered useless as I was charged with mounting a large pile of supermarket boxes to get hold of a bottle of mango soda which, for some inexplicable reason, was attached to a rotating aeroplane on the ceiling. It’s the kind of off-the-wall ridiculousness which you come to expect quickly from Octodad: Dadliest catch, and it keeps the game treading a fine line between hilarious and frustrating.
In essence Octodad: Dadliest Catch is a ragdoll physics game, most reminiscent of something like Surgeon Simulator 2013. The puzzles all draw on the challenges of basic motor control and - in this case - mouse manipulation. Although some of the controls are interchangeable, if you so wish the entire game can be played just with your mouse.The middle mouse button toggles between arm control and leg control, the left mouse button lets you stick and detach your arm suckers in "arm" mode, and left and right mouse buttons are used to move left and right leg respectively whilst in "leg" mode. All the actual movements themselves are achieved by your mouse movements.
The simplicity of this adds an additional level of hilarity to the gameplay; on several occasions I forgot to detatch Octodad's arm sucker before I attempted to launch myself enthusiastically away from whatever it was I'd been doing, resulting in poor Octodad being flung backwards like a sad yellow elastic band. It’s both amusing and mildly frustrating as Octodad gets charged with more and more ridiculous tasks; at one point, you have to win your wife seven toys from an arcade that she doesn’t even seem to want, and which involves at one point trying to play wackamole with a flailing and flaccid arm.
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Although no one seems to notice or care about the sheer destruction you wreak whilst out of their direct view, the game also has a vision mechanic that works something like a stealth game. You can see - illustrated as lines of white dots - the gazes of other characters on you. Causing havoc with people looking results in complaints, laughter or suspicion from NPCs; the more havoc wreaked in plain view, the louder their approbation. In addition, the aquarium level has a more explicit stealth element; you are charged with avoiding any Marine Biologists who step in your path, lest they recognise you for what you really are. I found stealth one of the weaker parts of the game; other that a sense of pity towards your Octopus friends as NPCs titter and point at his flailing limbs, being caught knocking over objects or slapping passers by with a loose tentacle doesn't appear to have any real consequences. Stealth feels a little shoehorned into Dadliest Catch, an unnecessary addendum to the main physics and puzzle mechanics.
Octodad: Dadliest Catch is on the short side in terms of gameplay time; I got through it in around two and a half hours, and it could no doubt be done significantly quicker by someone more competent. But if anything, this is verging on the long side; the protracted fourth level at the aquarium feel disproportionate in length when compared to the previous levels, and as the game progresses some of the challenges do start to feel a little repetitive. It’s a minor complaint; as a whole, the central gag remains entertaining enough to support the gameplay, but at times towards the end I must admit the hilarity wasn’t quite as compelling and fresh as it was for the initial few challenges.
The game frequently falls short of perfect. The stealth elements don't quite gel with the game as well as the puzzle solving and rag doll aspects, and I personally had some issues with severe lag when playing the game at my PC's optimum resolution, despite the fact it should have been more than capable of handling it. Although the game has definitely received a hefty amount of polish since its first iteration, it also struggles from a couple of visual irritations. Most notably among these is a rather wayward camera, which swings between perspectives a little too enthusiastically on occasion, adding an unnecessary frustration factor to several puzzles as you find yourself changing angles halfway through performing a complicated manoeuvre.
That being said, it is not every day you see someone trying to break out of predetermined game genres and try and do something a little different, and Young Horses have made a game with not only a unique central mechanic, but that is genuinely funny and endearing. It's impossible not to laugh as you see Octodad sliding helplessly on an inconveniently placed banana skin towards a precarious pile of tins, or feel sorry for him as he blubbers miserably when forced to visit the aquarium. Plus, it’s a game where you get to play a sartorially competent octopus, and you certainly don’t come across that every day. For £11.99, Octodad: Dadliest Catch offers a short, good value and entertaining romp that should satisfy those looking for something a little different.
