WeView: PixelJunk Eden

Ok, here’s the thing. Normally when I look for games to put in the WeView poll I go for games released in the last couple of years. Oh sure, there are exceptions, but in general it’ll be a game from the last two years or so.

You’re now probably asking exactly how PixelJunk Eden made the cut, and it’s largely due to my stupidity. You see, Eden got a Windows version back in February of this year. If you combine this with the fact I’d confused PixelJunk Eden and Child of Eden you can see how this all came about.

Anyway, it’s the 2008 Q-Games title in the spotlight this week, and it’s a deserving spotlight indeed. The PixelJunk series has been somewhat of a favourite of various staff over the years at TSA, and it’s got a solid following from our community as well. Eden, the third entry in the PixelJunk series, was no exception to this, coming in at 9/10 in our review, as well as sitting at a comfortable 80 on Metacritic.

[drop2]So, what did we have to say about the game way back in the heady days of 2008? Well, we began by praising it for its simplicity, comparing it to titles like Bugaboo the Flea.

When Bugaboo was released in 1983 that simplicity was forced on it by constraints of the hardware, so for Eden to recapture that feeling 25 years later on a console that is almost infinitely more powerful is quite an achievement.

We also found a lot to like in the game’s music, praising the way it builds “throughout each Garden [to add] a sense of tension,” and how it links nicely with the gameplay mechanic of the Oscillator, which acts as a life gauge. The two combined to create “a gentle pressure [that] is omnipresent as you gracefully swing from branch to branch looking for pollen.”

In fact, the game’s swinging mechanics were highlighted more than once in the review. We also enjoyed the way the “combination of spinning, swinging and movement can create a hypnotic mindset as you seek out the trickier paths upwards,” and found that it allowed “the game’s physics to shine.”

If all of that hasn’t set out our feelings on the game, here’s a longer extract from the concluding remarks of the review:

As with previous Pixeljunk games, we’d be lying if we said this was for everyone, but there’s a playable demo up on the US Store now (and one for Europe tomorrow, too) so you’ve no excuses for not trying the game. For the rest of us, the hopeless addicts to anything 2D, it’s a remarkable title and yet another shining example of the excellent quality we’ve come to expect from the PSN Store when developers put their mind to it. Almost as good as Bugaboo the Flea, then.

So that’s pretty much all we had to say about the game, and it’s time to throw open the doors to you, the community. Did you fall for the game as hard as we did, or did you perhaps find it overly simplistic? Was the music just the right thing to complement the gameplay, or was it not quite your cup of tea?

Whether your opinion is positive, negative, or somewhere in between, you can share it by dropping a comment below. All we ask is that you including a rating on the Buy It, Plus It, Avoid It scale. As Eden is a digital game this is a little different from our normal scale, with Plus It meaning it’s only worth picking up the game discounted or for free via PlayStation Plus. And remember, if you want to be included in Monday’s verdict article you need to have your comment in by Sunday afternoon.