Friday 29 October 2010

Flower HD Review

Flower HD Review


Flower HD, if you see it, if you're reading this review then i'm hoping that you'll watch the trailer i'll add at the end, you'll think "What the hell is this?" I 99% guarantee it. It's what I did at first. You'll be sat there thinking "How can this be a game?" (Let alone a GOOD one) Well here's what I think;

Flower... it's innovative, it's conceptual, it's interesting to say the least...

It's based on the concept of a flower on a window sill slowly dying in a dirty, grimy city devoid of freshness and consumed by noise and blandness (something i can certainly relate to after living on a main road in London last year). The game is the flower's dreams of filling the world with flowers. And the dreams follow the journey of the flower to the city bringing the colours and beauty with it. Before the final level in which you recolour the city.

Gameplay wise you take the role of a petal, it's your job to bloom other flowers in order to refill the dream world with flowers and recolour all the grass, once you bloom all the connected flowers in an area this will allow you to access the next areas or give you the means to access them in the form of windmills which give you extra propulsion. You move using the six-axis motion control of the PS3 controller to determine your direction and the X button to propel yourself forwards.

Graphically Flower HD is extremely pleasing, it uses strong vibrant colours for the flowers you bloom while for each flower you bloom a petal of that colour joins your Flow a sort of tail behind your original petal that can grow to huge proportions. The evolution of the levels from grey to full colour as you're playing through them brings a real sense of completion with the game, you feel that every step you're going you're getting somewhere.

Flower HD is surprisingly addictive for a game that you would feel would get repetitive after the first 2 levels, each level has a unique way to be completed, from blooming flowers around a stone circle to move rocks, to breaking pylons to open your way through. It also has it's main aim, it's incredibly relaxing, it does wear on you and you can just casually meander your way through levels at your own pace, need to stop? press select and it'll play music and show a slideshow from the game. It allows you to play the game at your own pace which is a refreshing alternative to high pressure, pace dictated games like COD or Fifa.

There are a few negatives to Flower HD, firstly and unfortunately for you Xbox players... it's a PSN exclusive, sorry. Probably because it's motion controlled with the six-axis, so it won't be appearing on marketplace.

The only other real negative with it for me is length, it's only 6 levels long, plus the credits level that's interactive that makes 7 levels. I finished it in a few hours while on and off it, not really paying attention. However it does have good replayability and there are 3 "secret" flowers to bloom in each level which allow you to complete the game 100%.

8/10 - An involving and innovative game with a very interesting concept, that gives a break from standard games that saturate the gaming market, main criticism is the length. This game won't appeal to a lot of people, but if you're looking for something a bit different from the norm it's definitely worth a try.

Flower HD is available for £6.29 or $10

Trailer - V

No comments:

Post a Comment