Review | Machinarium
Format: PC | Genre: Adventure | Publisher: Amanita Design | Developer: Amanita Design | Release date: 16/10/09 | RRP: $20
By Lewis Denby
When I finished Machinarium, I actually applauded.
I don’t think it’s just me being easily impressed, either, because that’s never happened before. I’ve applauded after films, once at a book, and obviously at concerts and theatre performances. But after a game? This is the first time.
Machinarium is the first full-length project from Amanita Design. You might have played their work before, in the guise of the excellent Samorost web games. You’ve possibly even seen the educational release they crafted for the BBC, or their promotional material for abstract ambient group The Polyphonic Spree. In the relevant circles, they’ve established an enviable reputation for their distinctive art style and playful, experimental game mechanics.
In other words, you expect a level of quality from Amanita Design. But in attempting to transform these inspired ideas from half-hour freebies into a full-length, commercial release, you might not expect this level of quality.
Yet Machinarium delivers, effortlessly, on almost every count. It’s a stylish, polished, fascinating point-and-click adventure that takes Amanita’s previous work and reshuffles, refines and expands beyond belief. It’s comfortably my favourite adventure game of the year. That might sound like I’m damning it with faint praise, but in a year where Telltale have released an abundance of excellent titles, with indie greats such as Time Gentlemen, Please sitting neatly alongside, it starts to sound like a bigger claim. It’s deserved.
//I mean, just look at it
In a game that does so many things so absolutely right, it might sound crude to tackle its looks first. With Machinarium, you make an exception.
The screenshots conveyed that much. Exquisite, hand-drawn, sketchy backgrounds with impossibly charming metallic characters layered over the top have been circling the net for a long time now, and the various trailers and videos have gone some way to explaining how it all works in motion. Yet nothing prepares you for the utterly absorbing nature of the game proper. It’s beyond belief.
If I were feeling particularly enthusiastic, I’d go out on a limb and call Machinarium the most beautiful game in the world. It might not have the polygonal splendour of major modern releases, but Amanita’s glorious universe is proof that some games simply don’t need it. Its visual flair may well be a product of its own technical limitations, but each screen is impossibly lavish, with the sort of attention to detail that is just lost in most high-powered 3D games. Whether it’s vast, open cityscapes, or the individual cracks on a cellar wall, every inch of Machinarium oozes the sort of absolute beauty that sends shivers up and down your spine.
And the animation… oh, the animation. The fluidity with which each and every character moves is nothing short of astonishing. Again, it’s all in the attention to detail. Each new robot exudes a tangible personality, conveyed effortlessly through the sort of incidental movement that so few artists would think to include. It’s seamless, instantaneous and staggeringly natural throughout. Only a handful of minor glitches – and I do mean both ‘handful’ and ‘minor’ – let it down, and to criticise it for those fleeting moments would be the most implausible nonsense.
Then, as if its tremendous, stylised visuals weren’t enough, Amanita only went and gave Machinarium the best soundtrack I’ve ever heard in a game.
[Continues...]
Actually, you can get back up. Interact with the character at the window, have them help you “refuel” and you’re good to go.
Actually, you can get back up. Interact with the character at the window, have them help you “refuel” and you’re good to go.
Needless to say, the rest of your review is spot on and this game is stunning. Just play it.
Well you’ve sold me. Great review Lewis. Looks brilliant, once I get some spare cash I’ll definitely look into it.
It sounds great but… I hate when reviews force you to click through a ton of pages for a review that isn’t even brutally long. Frustrating for me to read and it’s just to increase your hit counts.
Just for reference: Page-hits don’t actually mean much – unique visitors are what advertisers tend to go by. The reason we do multi-page reviews is simply to avoid mega-stretches of white space down the right hand side. We’re a bit OCD like that. :-)
It’s oh so tempting to buy this now, with a penchant to ‘arty’ games, the visuals alone have me sold. Once Lucidity and Axel and Pixel are done with then this will likely jump to the top of my list.
Haven’t I been saying that this is 2009’s World of Goo? I think I have been proven right :D
If it is even half as pleasurable as Samorost is then this game should win every prize going. Except maybe Best Mac Game… Why isn’t there a Mac version!?!??!?!
There is, I believe.
Oh yes! Laptop gaming, here I come!
In revealing the existence of a Mac version, Denby makes another dream come true!
Quality review, and also a heartfelt appraisal of the game. I’ve just got to a part where, through a myriad of spoiler-laden reasons, the little robot did a groovy dance. It was wonderful.
I really like it, but it could be faster, u take sooooooo long simply to push a button ou move from on side to other. I’m not talking about the puzzles, it’s about the animations.
[...] But even this doesn’t justify the omission of a plot – one only has to look as far as Machinarium to see that a gripping story can be carried off with aplomb despite the absence of speech. The [...]
This game totally RULEZ!!! 10/10
[...] (9/10) resolution-magazine.co.uk [...]
Hello,
those of you who enjoyed Machinarium soundtrack might be interested in hearing that Machinarium 14 song soundtrack will be released in February by Minority
Records (www.minorityrecords.com) in an edition of 555 hand-numbered LPs, 405 copies on black and 150 on clear yellow copies. Minor changes have been made in the track list: in comparsion to the official OST, there is new song “By the Wall” included, and the samba song (Prague radio) was left out.
Each copy is signed by the author himself and contains three art reproductions by Adolf Lachman and coupon with a code to download both FLAC and MP3 versions of the songs, including the bonus EP.
You can pre-order your copy now at Minority Records website (http://www.minorityrecords.com) and your copy will ship on February 20th.