Pixeljunk Eden review (PS3)

My girlfriend was terrified. Subsequently that frightened me as I knew I’d have no recourse from the addiction, already demonstrated by the Xbox 360. When Trophies were announced as an addition to the PS3 feature set, we envisioned the kind of achievement whoring that I ‘may’ enjoy for all of the rest of my games, and the sudden lack of free time I would have. The first product released with Trophies from the get go is Q-Games’ newcomer to the (relatively) simplistic 2D based PixelJunk series, Eden.

The ‘series’ benefits from a relatively short development cycle by being able to include the newest features available to developers, and Eden is no exception. Giving you a simplistically styled but endearing ‘garden’, and control of a ‘Grimp’, named after its ability to grip and jump the game throws you in the deep end from the title screen which doubles as your home garden. Actually it’s not the deep end, but as far as you’re concerned it seems that way. Gradually giving you pop up tips to help you play, the game coaxes you into its world, and if you give it a chance, you won’t be leaving for a while.

Difficulty curve

Actually the game benefits from a well paced series of challenges that is one of the most structured ramping up of difficulties on modern consoles. Sure, the controls may take a little getting used to, being unable to walk or move beyond jumping in a direction, or spinning around whatever you were attached to on a thread of silk and limited aerial control, but before long you’ll be swinging your way to your goals effortlessly, mimicking the greatest carnival tricks you’ve ever seen.

The goals in question are a set of five ‘Spectra’ in each of the ten levels to unlock, but that would be a gross simplification. You’ll enter a level and be faced with empty seeds to fill with pollen; a relatively simple task (at first), by touching any of the Pollen Prowlers floating around the level and collecting the pollen they release which automatically sends them to the nearest seed. When it’s full, you can leap into the seed and watch it blossom into a monochromatic flower or branch to help you progress further in the level. When you finally come across a Spectra you’ll be returned to your home garden and it will be used to grow an area, perhaps giving you branches to swing across to reach a new level.

Simple games

Of course it doesn’t end with that. Each time you return to a level you’ll be whisked out of it on collection of an additional Spectra, so that the fifth time you enter, you’ll need to grab all five to proceed. The first few begin rather straightforwardly, giving you obvious goals and routes to get there, only hampered by the need to collect crystals, another item floating around that basically increases an ever diminishing time meter. Later on the game surprises you with much more challenging tasks, a mind bending gravity based level and a whole load more tricks to overcome, which really should be experienced for yourself rather than be spoilt by an overzealous review.

But I want to tell you everything! The first time you’ll find mutated Pollen Prowlers, or when different enemies actually mess around with your branches with you on it are a surprise and welcome break from the simplicity meant to draw you into the game. The soundtrack however is very hit and miss, being an stylish electronic background to the ‘action’ that many would be happy to leave for a (lacking) custom soundtrack option. You would have thought that’d be there considering the rest of these new PS3 features that are included.

For… walkthrough videos?

So you can record up to 10 minutes of video direct from the game onto your PS3 hard drive in an acceptable, but by no means high quality format. If you are so inclined, you could just upload it direct to YouTube from the game, pausing for it to complete its file transfer. It’s a fun little feature, and will flood the service with PixelJunk Eden videos made by experimenters (mine was boring, so I deleted it after just checking that it worked).

Remote play on PSP makes a welcome appearance, and works very well, in no small part due to the simplicity of the controls and visuals. Then there is the ‘revolutionary’ trophy addition which will certainly sell a few more copies of the game for those hoping to ‘level up’ their PSN accounts. Thankfully, adding more value than just having to complete each level, the trophies vary between a completist’s dream, opening all of the seeds in each level to a rather crazy trapeze based three player achievement.

Did you say three players?

That’s right. In a clever design decision, up to three players can cooperate locally, adding your player instantly to the game by hitting the start button on an unused controller. There are benefits and disadvantages to using more players, but as long as you’re all of similar standards, you’ll have a blast. With plant growth rather than guns and ammo of course. If you’re mid flight and you touch another player, you’ll grip onto them and continue their trajectory, allowing for some generally pointless but dramatic and challenging aerial acrobatics that justify the trapeze trophy.

Then there’s a set of online leaderboards on each level, and overall score, coupled with the equivalent setting for multiple players. Even separate boards for two and three players to ensure everyone is on a level playing field, and it all adds up to a fresh and challenging piece of simplistic entertainment, well worth the (fairly translated) asking price of £4.99. The PixelJunk series has always been about simplistic gameplay principles trying to focus on the raw fun of the games in question, and with so much to offer PS3 owners who seem to be begging to show off the new things their machine can do, I am sure that Eden will attract plenty of players. Fortunately, there’s a great game underneath the gimmickery.