Outland (Xbox360, PSN)

[kingmobster]

No first play for this yet? I went into this a few hours after completing Portal 2 singleplayer and honestly didn't expect to be playing anything that could even come close to that, but I was really really wrong. This is brilliant.

It's a 2d, sidescrolling platformer which uses the Metroid rulebook pretty much straight off, but with an added layer of Ikaruga polarity-switching on top. Maybe not the most original of ideas, but it is really well executed.

Bonus points for not holding the player's hand too much. I die a lot There are several types of enemies which all require a different tactic to take out effectively. And for a pltformer they sure spam a lot of bullets at you Switching polarity while jumping across platforms and at the same time fighting enemies can be a little hard on the brain. Luckily, Housemarque have been nice and placed more save stations on the levels than I am used to from Metroid-like games.

I've faced down two bosses so far and they have both been well designed and use the polarityswitching mechanic to good effect.

The art is gorgeous as well Get!

[kingmobster]

Has nobody started playing this yet? You are completely wasting your time on other games

[SUMIRE]

I played the demo and thought it was great, I loved how well the character controlled. I will buy it sometime, but I have so many games I've got on the go at the moment :P

[rmoxon]

I bought it yeah.

Its absolubtley brilliant, possibley the best game I have downloaded on any console.

[EightRooks]

The reviews and general positive impressions mean I would happily buy it, and I was always interested, but I'm a PS3 owner, so it'll have to wait.

[Adam Stone]

Ah man, i feel very odd because this hasn't done anything for me yet. Not yet.

It is obviously very pretty, but there's something missing. It feels, i dont know... a little soulless at the moment. I've been playing for an hour, only an hour, and i've felt no connection with anything. Not the main hero, the environment, or the plot. It all seems a bit superficial to me at the moment. Very meh.

With that said, i do think im probably missing the point. Im going to restart my game and try again.

[fuse]

My biggest complaint is that it's a bit of a jack of all trades, with lots of borrowed ideas from all over the place rather than being too creative - it still manages to feel very unique though despite this. That aside, it's very good - controls very well, looks the business, and puts a decent range of skills to the test. Great value for 800 points, looking forwards to trying the co-op too.

[kingmobster]

I've played for something like nine hours now. It really picks up after the

->Open Spoiler<-

golem boss

. Right now I'm at the fourth boss, which I still haven't managed to beat. The earlier bosses are cakewalks compared to this one. Just like in Ikaruga, the polarity switching difficulty really ramps in later levels.

[jim g]

Now out on PS3 as well. There is a trial you download also if you want to check it out

I bought the 360 version, I have just played the PS3 trial and prefer it as the controls (for me) are much smoother with DS3

[Btang84]

Just tried and completed the demo. What a game this could turn out to be. Looks absolutely gorgeous as well. I'm always a sucker for games that have unique art styles. Will look into purchasing later for definite.

[Adam]

Has anyone played online coop on this without lag? Tried to start this last night but it's near unplayable

[EightRooks]

Bought it with some PSN credit after trading in LA Noire. Quite impressed, though I can see people's points about how the story, well, isn't. It's like someone ate a bunch of Joseph Campbell textbooks and spat out the odd phrase here and there - there's a hero! On a quest! And he's fighting... people! And stuff!

But it does look gorgeous, and the gameplay seems to cater nicely to both fudging it little by little and skilled showboating. A bit concerned it does drift into being patently unfair - I can see the second boss' patterns are pretty simple once you've got them down, but the random terrain placement can and will screw you and it isn't at all clear how to consistently avoid inertia sending you falling to your death. Still, even if it's not that fine-tuned it's still good enough to keep me coming back.

[Escape-To-88]

Only just got hold of this reminds me of Ico meets Ikaruga, loving the art style and the gameplay, fantastic stuff

[k0pp0]

Started playing recently and love it - the graphics are proper tasty like and the weighting for pegging it around and jumping is superb.

[SUMIRE]

This looks amazing on a big plasma and plays great! it is definitely in my top ten downloadable games on PS3 and XBOX, not that i've actually bothered to make a top ten though.