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Friday, January 25, 2013

Robota: Lost beta (PC, 2012)


Robota is an exploration game. Like in Jetpac you're marooned in an alien world and must collect fuel to get the hell out of there. Apart from a few words at the beggining and at the ending, though, nothing else is spoken. What is left then, is a Dear Esther sort of game where, though, a certain number of things made it, imo, a superior experience. While the game is, neither technologically nor artistically as beautiful as DE, it is much more stylized. There's a visual filter that simulates the view from inside your helmet that gives a superb sense of otherworldliness that is taken to incredible heights by the absolutely perfect soundtrack.
The fact that you have the possibility to wander freely around the planet might make it less photogenic than DE's tunnel-vision, but the gift of freedom, pacing and finding small details yourself, instead of being taken there by a corridor is much more satisfying. Apart from this, the fact that there is an objective in finding the 4 cans of fuel (even if it's "stupid" from a logical standpoint), does give the minimal challenge to make this a "proper" game.

The game is still in beta stage, but can be tried out here: http://www.indiedb.com/games/robota-lost

1 comment:

  1. Hey bro, how do you chat nowadays?? Since no MSN after all. May have some thoughts to exchange....... maybe some on Moyes...... ! I mostly use my phone for IM now, various stuff you can tweet me @BaiHuJ

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