PixelJunk Eden

"an amazing new addition to the PixelJunk franchise"

I've got a secret to divulge, I'm in love, head over heels in love with the newest installment in Q-Games' PixelJunk series, PixelJunk Eden. Released last week via PSN, PixelJunk Eden is a unique and refreshing game that is part Mario, part Bionic Commando, part “what is this I don't even” and all parts awesome. It's the type of game that you can play in long drawn out sessions, alone or with up to three of your friends via co-op, or as a quick pick-up and play sort of deal.

In Eden, you control a grimp and your goal is the find as many Spectra as you can. Each garden has a certain amount of Spectra and each time you enter a garden you are asked to find more and more spectra, for example, when you first enter a garden you will only be asked to collect one spectra and then the game builds until you're having to collect all the Spectra in the garden in one go. When your going for all the Spectra is when the game is at it's best, it really engages the player in the exploratory side of the game and requires the player to think and be aware of how much time they have left. You'd think that having a time limit would hinder the exploration aspect of the game, but the guys a Q-Games made sure that there are plenty of “time pellets” to collect in each garden so you never feel like you can't go exploring without running out of time but still creates frantic moments where you are having to quickly scramble for near by time pellets.

The actual control mechanic is also really solid, it's nothing too complicated but it takes a while to get used to, particularly the jumping as you can often want to jump without being tethered to the surrounding flora by silk but end up swinging around and wasting clock time. Once you do get the hang of it, you kind of feel like Spiderman as you leap from flower to flower and then anchor yourself with silk in order to spin around to collect pollen. Jumping can be even more fun in co-op as you two players can turn themselves into trapeze artists and launch each other across the garden, it's an interesting mechanic that is well integrated into the game and unique to the co-op experience. There is a limited amount of combat in the game, enemies start out very easy (like hitting it at the right time to avoid it's shield) but become more difficult and require different tactics later on the game but you never feel in danger since they can't kill you, only knock you down and waste your time. I wished that the enemies provided more of a threat but at the same time combat clearly isn't the focus of Eden.

The game looks gorgeous with vivid colours and a candy-like abstract art style that is incredibly easy on the eyes. The art style keeps in line with the rest of the game by being simple yet still incredibly appealing, your not going to get a lot of detail but you are going to get very crisp, smooth looking graphics that look stunning in HD and really pop off the screen. The music on the other hand is something I could have done without. It sounds kind of mindless and gets on my nerves after about 10-15 minutes and you might find yourself muting the TV and playing music through your computer or MP3 player, something you wouldn't have to do had Q-Games made use of custom soundtracks, which was recently made possible with the 2.4 update for the PS3 [UPDATE: After completing the game 100% I discovered that custom soundtracks become unlocked, it is frustrating that they would make you unlock something that should be standard]

One of the 2.4 update's features that Eden does support is Sony's new trophy system for the PS3. The trophies are well implemented with a good mix of trophies that you are likely to get if you spend time with the game (such as collecting all the seeds in a garden) mixed in with others that reward for doing things that take some skill to complete. So far we've have only unlocked a couple of trophies but I'm not one for collecting meaningless points or trophies to improve my (already large) ego but for those who are into the achievements, the trophies in Eden should provide ample enough reason to continue playing the game and strive for every last one.

Another new feature, which I think is really boss is the ability to record a film clip of yourself playing the game and then upload in directly to YouTube. I've been playing around with it and have found it to be very cool, the quality of the video is decent and the ease of doing it is astounding. While I haven't tried it in co-op, I would imagine that it would be a great feature for when you have some friends over and catch one of those “oh **** moments” that you want to share with the rest of your friends and with this instead of regaling them with the tale, you can now just upload the clip and e-mail them the YouTube think. The only downside to uploading your video to YouTube is that while it's uploading you can't do anything other then watch it upload, which we will admit is a bit of a bummer but still understandable.

PixelJunk Eden is a great game that we concede is not for everyone but we think you owe to yourself if you own a PS3 to at least download the demo and give it a try and hopefully you'll be as madly in love with the game as we are.

note: please pay no attention to the score, the only reason it's there is because GameFAQs forces you to assign an arbitrary number to anything you review.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/11/08, Updated 08/28/08

Game Release: PixelJunk Eden (US, 07/31/08)