sciteach
Curve Studios ports over a title from Facepalm Games for the Playstation systems, so how does it look and play?
Not in the humor approach, but in the way in which you have to solve problems and proceed through the levels.
The Swapper is a side-scrolling puzzle-platform video game. The player controls a person stranded on a damaged space station trying to find a way off. To do so, they must explore the station and find orbs that are used to activate certain doors, allowing them to progress further into the game. A lot of times you have to backtrack to go through paths previously unable to be explored. This amounts to a certain but of frustration as it takes a bit to traverse some bigger levels. Especially if you're not quite sure about where to go.
The player acquires a hand-held cloning tool early in the game through which they solve puzzles to collect orbs. The tool offers two functions: the ability to create up to four simultaneous clones of the player character, and the ability to swap control to any of these clones as long as they are within line of sight. Once created, the clones will move with the player unless otherwise blocked by the environment; for example, if the player moves left, all the clones will also move left unless they run into a wall. This allows the player to complete complex steps to activate doors and switches as to acquire the orbs. Like the player, clones can also die falling from a large height or through other environmental hazards. Clones are reclaimed if they die or if they physically move into the same space as the player.
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| It's either a space station or a Rush concert. Either way, you win. |
The cloning functionality is limited by certain light sources. Blue lights will prevent clones from being created in the illuminated area, while red lights will block the control swapping ability; purple lights block both actions. Touching certain white lights, moving off the current stage, or touching another clone will otherwise destroy those clones
You learn a couple of tricks along the way. Like if you fall too far you'll die... so pop out a clone as you fall slow mo style, and then zap into the new clone which isn't moving as fast. Voila.
The story is great, the ambiance of the creepy space station is really well developed. It looks beautiful on the small screen of your Vita or on the PS4.
The price point is $20, which gets you a cross buy and cross save title across the 3 PS consoles. It is a quality game that plays well.
Verdict: 8/10
Beautiful graphics, haunting story, spot on controls, cross buy/cross save, clever puzzles. Add this game to your backlog of Sony titles, but be ready to find a Walkthrough guide for some of the trickier parts. Not much replay value, but still a fun game.
Let us know in the comments if you have played this game either on PC or here on a PS console. Tell us what you think!
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