Remember when point-and-click adventure games were actually popular? These days, they’re often associated with children’s educational software and Web-based Flash games, which hardly push the boundaries of gaming brilliance. But the beautifully animated Machinarium shakes up the genre with an intensely engaging storyline and plenty of plot twists to keep you engrossed all the way through.
Machinarium’s stunningly drawn 2D backdrops have a rustic, old-world feel, and the neutral color palette sets the mood for the game’s storyline. You play a robot who’s thrown into a scrap yard and must travel back to his grungy city of nuts and bolts to defeat the evil Black Cap Brotherhood and rescue his robot girlfriend. Flashbacks at the start of every level give you more insight on his backstory too.
Lots of trial and error in Machinarium's gorgeous worlds have led our robot to new heights.
Your robot’s body is a tower of tin with many uses--he can swallow objects and inventory them for later use or combine them to create an even more useful tool. In each of the 35 levels, you’re faced with a series of puzzles and tricky brainteasers that require you to combine objects and then undergo a grueling process of trial and error. Only one possible sequence of actions will work, whether that’s figuring out the proper wire connection to open a door or fusing together a broom and a knob to create an apparatus that opens up steam valves. If you get stuck, turn to the hint feature (at the top right of your screen), which resembles a locked journal. It requires you to play a short, side-scrolling space shooter, and if you win, the journal unlocks to reveal the puzzle’s blueprints.
The ending doesn’t come through with the fanfare we expected for completing the game, but it’s certainly rewarding to know that you got through all of the puzzles. Strangely, the game contains absolutely no dialogue, except for the occasional grunts and squeaks. Instead, Machinarium features a relaxing, ambient soundtrack that complements the game marvelously.
Machinarium is for puzzle enthusiasts--it can be time-consuming and sometimes agitating if you’re not the kind of person who enjoys mind-benders. A lot of experimentation is needed to solve your way through each predicament, and the controls are a bit unstable: You can only click on items as they become available or are within arm’s reach, and sometimes the drag-and-drop inventory screen didn’t appear when we tried to mouse over it.
Beautiful aesthetics. Engaging storyline. Universal binary.
Buggy controls. Puzzles can get really challenging.
MacAttack
January 22, 2010 at 6:21am
I played the demo online and it was surprisingly easy to play, you can also download the demo so you can play it on your mac.
Also what's up with these ads in the comment?
