Every now and then I come across a breath of fresh air, and no I am not refering to the amount of time I spend indoors, but rather in regards to video games, Bastion to be exact, is this fresh air. Another Indie game which I have been meaning to play for a while now, but never could find the time, and now that I have lots of free time, i played it, and played it alot. Finished it once, then i finished it twice. I could not get enough of this game. I am beginning to find indie games are better quality then those behemoth gaming companies. Bastion is just plain amazing.
The story line is simple, and this narrative style is one of my favourite things about this game. You are The Kid, who has awaken to find that the world around has fallen apart as you slept. You are still around because you happened to have a strange object in your vicinity, a piece of the Bastion. The Bastion being a floating island of refuge, but it has also fell apart. And it is your goal to get back all the cores to slowly rebuild the Bastion. The feature is story telling in this game, its rarely where you get your own narrator, and its from this narrator where you learn more about The Kid, and the ruined world.
This ruined world is wonderfully coloured, the bits that remain of course, ruined bridges, houses, shops, and various scenery. It builds as you get closer to it, and a fair amount of the world is destructible. It is easy to fall off of the floating floor, but it only did a small amount of damage to your health. The game is somewhat difficult, you will die, or be taken down to near death requiring you to do something drastic. Combat needs more thought to it, you need to prioritise your targets, small enemies attack in swarms, where as big enemies have small enemies running around them. You also need to take into consideration of the space around you, as the game world is constantly changing, enemies blow holes in the floor, or your attacks destroy terrain.
You get a choice in what weapons you can use, the first few you encounter is a pistol, hammer, and sword, but you do unlock further weapons such as the bow. You can take upto two weapons, and one special move, which is an ability that gives you another ability that uses tonics to use. You can go on to upgrade said weapons to increase damage output, speed, or a special attack for that weapon. There are also minigames out there based on weapons which unlock further weapon upgrades or special items. There is also a leveling system where you unlock more slots for tonics, meaning you can use your special move more.
The world is expansive and it's beautiful appearance makes it worth exploring, levels do differ, posing new challenges. You are thrown into action straight away, and it doesn't get boring. The narrator keeps you company in your lonesome travels through the shattered world. I really enjoyed this game, and i recommend it to pretty much everyone, it can be found on steam. I've bought a large amount of indie games from steam, and as such will probably spend the next few weeks playing them. I wonder what the Baconing will be like.
