POSTED 20/6/11


CHILD OF EDEN

Ubisoft
Xbox 360/Kinect

Wow! Look at the colou... ZZAP! Bummer. WHOA! Look at THOSE colou... SIZZLE! Ooh, prett... BOMF! Aww, c’mon!

That nutshells our virgin assault on Child of Eden, successor to fully-trippy Rez from Japanese madman (meant in the nicest possible way), Tetsuya Mizuguchi. This dude came up with a USB enhancement for Rez called the ‘trance vibrator’, which essentially functioned as the latter of the two words in its name. Luckily it came in a washable bag...

There’s no pleasure device included here, other than the game itself. Back story? One Lumi is the first human sprog popped outside Earth. Leap forward centuries and boffins are recreating her within Eden, their happenin’ new name for teh internetz. All’s going swimmingly, until some mangy virus starts breaking stuff.

Enter you, let loose to zot the snot out of said virus. This Eden has no apples, snakes or temptation; it’s a psychedelic, on-rails universe that likely resembles Jeff Minter’s brain. Colours abound in a collision of wireframes, solid things, flutterbugs, nasty pink bits, swirly thingummies and... wow!

Mindless blasting will suffice, so 10/10 for style, but minus several million for good thinking, as score zooms from selecting groups of bleurghness and bzzting them simultaneously. Doing it in synch with the choons is even more pointacular.
 
Kinect’s the big draw – stand doing jazz hands to target virussy bits and exterminate them, right hand for normal baddies, left hand for those bastard pink bits. It works. However, want to actually progress and you’ll reach for a controller, which mercifully is supported (otherwise we wouldn’t mention it). You see, after the easy first two levels, difficulty wooshes skywards for the final three.

Truly beautiful, Child of Eden is an experience that’s simultaneously emotional, frustrating and soothing. Enjoy this trip... and it is a trip.

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