Section: Mac Software, Games, Reviews
Genre: Action
Format: Download
Developer: Frozenbyte
Mac Publisher: Frozenbyte
System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.6.4 or later, Intel processor, 1GB RAM, OpenGL 2.0 compatible video card with 256MB share or dedicated RAM, 600MB hard disk space, keyboard, dual button mouse with
Review Computer: 3.2GHz Intel Core i3 iMac, 4GB RAM, 512MB Radeon HD5670 graphics card
Network Feature: No
Processor Compatibility: Intel only
Price: $19.99
ESRB Rating: E 10+
Availability: Out now
In my decades of gaming, I’ve played a lot of games that have required me to run from left to right. Pitfall, Jungle Hunt, Mario, Sonic…running from left to right is as important to gaming as turning left is to racing. You’d think this would get boring after a while, but as long as we’ve got companies such as Frozenbyte making games as incredible as Trine, the right hand side of your monitor will never need to worry about us abandoning our quest to reach it.
Trine is set in a sort of medieval fantasy world, and you know exactly what that means; evil has taken over the land, and only our heroes can restore it to its former glory. But there’s a bit of a twist here; the three heroes—knight, wizard and thief, of course—are bound together by a curse. Only one can be active at a time, with the others…inside of the active character, I guess. But each has particular skills that require you to switch often. The thief has ranged arrow attacks and can use a grappling hook of sorts to swing across traps. The wizard can create items (boxes, bridges and such) with magic that can be used for climbing, blocking, and smashing enemies. The knight is just a tough guy who can block attacks with his shield and is most effective at close range combat.
These skills are important not just to combat and travel, but to acquiring the numerous treasures and potions, as well. Often, you’ll need a combination of heroes to reach certain objects. For instance, the wizard can set hanging boxes in motion, and the thief can use their momentum to swing up to an otherwise unreachable area.
A lot of this, therefore, is very hard, requiring precise timing. Fail, and you’re likely to fall on a bed of spikes (unless you’ve covered them up with one of the wizard’s bridges, of course). If they’re too difficult to reach, you can just skip them, but the potions lead to leveling up, and the treasures give you new skills and equipment. It’s not wise to skip too many of them.
Your enemies consist almost solely of skeletons, and that’s perfectly fine. Give a skeleton a sword, and you’re almost guaranteed a 5 out of 5 rating from me. At first, the skeletons rely solely on numbers. As you progress, though, they’ll acquire fire, shields, and actual tactics. You’ll also square off against the occasional mini-boss, but still, if variety in your combat is important, Trine doesn’t deliver.
In it’s defense, though, it doesn’t try. The point of the game is to use the physics engine to solve your way through puzzles, over chasms, under water, and through a Donkey Kong finale that’s both intensely frustrating and awesomely rewarding.
And yet, as well as the action and the puzzles come together, they’re not the best thing about Trine. Rather, it’s the design. The graphics are certainly not the most realistic I’ve seen, but they’re completely fantastic. Each level uses color and depth to create a world that in no way feels 2D. You can’t run into these forests, caves and dungeons, but it was always feels as if you could. So even when the action and enemies started to feel redundant, the level design kept things going.
In fact, I’ll close the review with this. At one point during my testing, I was playing Trine with my six-year-old sitting on my lap. After a while, she asked me, “Why are there so many skeletons?”
“Because skeletons are the best part of the game,” I explained.
“No,” she countered, and stretched her arms out towards the iMac as if indicating her kingdom, “the backgrounds are!”
And if your backgrounds are impressive enough to hold the attention of a six-year-old girl despite the lack of ponies, unicorns and any sort of baby animal, then you’ve got something special happening there.
Appletell Rating:
Buy Trine
Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »
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