Download Games Roundup
Rock! 1112! Doodle! Wall! Machines!
1112 Episode 3
It wasn't that long ago when the prospect of an all-new point and click adventure series had a disproportionate allure. Call it nostalgia for a lost era, call it blind optimism, but there has always been something evocative about a game determined to mesh narrative with slightly too obscure puzzle logic.
On that basis, we should probably be all over 1112, but times have changed. For one thing, the indie/download scene is awash with newcomers - and some genuinely great ones at that.
Like the other two episodes of Agharta Studio's point and click brain strainer, the latest portion certainly gets off to an intriguing start - helped no end by its lavish static backdrops and intuitive interface.
With a medicated lead character happy to bumble around unaware of the crisis facing him, helping to fill in the blanks provides enough of a carrot to keep you clicking away in the hope of progress.
But this initial goodwill gradually sours the longer the game goes on. In the worst traditions of the past, progress mostly relies on painstaking object searching - a process that is made all the more tedious by the realisation that almost everything you can examine in the game is irrelevant.
A hardy few might be willing to put up with being the most thorough investigator in history, but the amount of tiresome legwork required to make anything happen in the game feels unnecessary.
That said, if you don't mind investing hours of your life into dull observational tasks, uncovering the mystery of Johnny Depp's stunt double occasionally feels worth the object hunt. Just don't say I didn't warn you.
5/10
Doodle Fit
- PSN Minis - £1.74
- Also available on Windows Phone 7, Android, iPhone/iPad (universal), PC and Mac.
It might have appeared on every format known to man, but somehow Gamelion's tetromino-troubling puzzler has managed to escape Eurogamer's increasingly bloodshot All Seeing Eye. Not anymore.
On the face of it, Doodle Fit doesn't sound like the most exciting solution to those commuter blues. To complete each of the 350 levels, you simply drag and drop a set of shapes into the given outline. Yay, shapes.
To make matters more challenging, you have to figure out a layout that encompasses the whole shape, so nothing can overlap, and no spaces must remain. Oh, and you can't rotate your shapes, either, so you get what you're given.
But as any experienced puzzlemeister will attest, there's a predictable trial and error fiendishness that gets under your skin. What looks fairly innocuous soon evolves into something to make you blissfully unaware that you've missed your stop, your dinner's on fire and your partner's left you for the neighbour's cat.
To paraphrase Alex Ferguson: videogaming. Bloody hell.
7/10