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Recent reviews by Flip 45

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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
5.1 hrs on record (4.0 hrs at review time)
A beautiful, calming and charming game. A great way to while away a few hours and see some sights along the way. Thoroughly recommend.
Posted November 26, 2017.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
11.4 hrs on record (10.5 hrs at review time)
This is how games should be. Developed with an obvious focus, executed to perfection and presented fabulously without the need for overstated marketing fanfare, unnecessary DLC, micro-transactions or 3rd party DRM systems. Not to mention that it is fantastically priced!

Grow Home just kind of came out. Developed by a team within Ubisoft, yet not saddled with the ubiquitous (and frequently pleasure-impairing) Uplay, or forced into an overblown and self-harming marketing campaign.

The core of the game can be experienced in just a few hours and can be polished off by the completionist in perhaps a solid 8-10. It is a game of exploration and discovery with some elements of character skill development. These skills mostly serve to make the exploration faster or easier.

You are a little robot dude who’s movement is quirky and endearing. In fact, this charm is largely derived from the procedural animation that, whilst janky at times, seems to somehow fit perfectly. His disembodied limbs jitter around but, almost all the time manage to do what you want them to. Getting around feels like an achievement, doubly rewarding a player with that exploratory urge. You climb, jump, jet-pack and glide around with glee with the occasional desperate grab for a ledge.

The charm doesn't end there though, you receive your objectives from - literally - on high: A mothership looms overhead, prompting you with chirpy robot noises and apparently controlled by a supercomputer with only loving emotions named “M.O.M.”.

Your overall objective is to grow the huge central plant upwards towards the spacecraft. This is done by growing buds of the plant into floating islands that seem to contain some kind of yellow nectar that makes the main trunk of the plant grow even higher. The buds you grow sprout further buds, meaning you can grow complex and intricately if you so desire. No two players will have the same plant (and hence game world) at the end, which adds some replayability, as the act of growing the plant can feel rewarding in itself.

Journeying upwards you will encounter flora & fauna, impressive floating islands and eventually touch the edge of space. The game presents all this is a very good-looking aesthetic. There’s no need for complex textures here; lighting, polygons and bold solid colours come together in a frequently stunning way to present both wide vistas and small details that make the world harmonious, believable and immersive. The game’s soundscape also enriches experience, mixing a soothing underlying tone with perfectly pitched sound effects. The whale-like pulsating voice you hear while you clamber up the main plant makes it genuinely feel alive and encourages you further in your objective to feed it.

Grow Home is by no means a jack-of-all-trades video game. It focuses on movement, world exploration and development. In those elements Grow Home easily surpasses similar attempts that many much larger, more expensive titles try to make. It is also in part an animation tech-demo, executing movement mechanics in a way not done before. It is therefore somewhat of a novelty, but one that is very rewarding and fun to play.

At its base price this is an absolutely pitched-perfect commercial offering; in a sale it would be a crime not to pick this up and give it a go. Extra points go to Reflections for no silly DRM or any of the other 2015 gaming tropes like DLC or micro-transactions. Well done!
Posted March 22, 2015.
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3 people found this review helpful
5.7 hrs on record (4.3 hrs at review time)
Probably the most fun local multiplayer I've had for ages,

This is accessible enough for people who have never used a controller before, and where being sly and cunning will almost always override pure skill.

Truly recoomended if you want to get a bit of PC gaming into the mix at a party where that might not otherwise the point. Not encountered a person who didn't have fun.. yet!
Posted September 13, 2014.
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Showing 1-3 of 3 entries