This gaming experience took me to my preferred platform, the Xbox 360, for some unique and stunning visuals in Child of Eden. I remember reading a preliminary review of this game in an issue of Game Stop’s Game Informer magazine. There were few pictures to do the game’s effects any justice but I fell in love with the idea.
A musical first person shooter, developed by Q? Entertainment and published by Ubisoft, featuring very up-tempo songs by the Genki Rockets, Child of Eden is definitely one of the most innovative games I’ve seen in quite some time. Here is your premise: set in the future, when humans have conquered that final frontier – outer space – and most of them live in space stations hovering around Earth, the first child is born off of Earth’s surface. She is called Lumi. Set even further into the future, after Lumi’s death, all of her knowledge and memories are stored as archives in what we call the internet but what will be called in the future ‘Eden’. A deadly virus is sweeping through Eden and you must go inside to try and save all of Lumi’s data before it is corrupted.
Now, Child of Eden is meant to be played using the 360’s motion sensor, Kinect, but you also have the option of using a regular wireless controller. Because I don’t own a Kinect, and I also prefer a hands-on approach to the hands-free version, I used my wireless. I got the sense I was playing Galaga’s crystal meth-addicted cousin. This game is so fast and has so many awesome effects, it comes very close to giving you sensory overload.
The controls are fairly simple: to shoot lasers, press A; to shoot tracers, press X. Anything blue or purple, shoot with a tracer; anything red or orange, shoot with a laser. To collect floating blue health orbs and floating striped Euphoria, you can target and shoot them with either. You can either push A or X rapidly to fire shots individually, or hold them down to auto-target and then release to hit multiple enemies at once. To activate Euphoria, press B. I recommend saving as many of these until the end as possible as many of the bosses fight back with tracers of their own, and you can sometimes be overwhelmed. Euphoria eliminates these so you can concentrate on your target.
Achievements? Pretty standard. Beat each level, collect all the items in each level. Most are locked or ‘secret’ until you actually get them, but I’m willing to bet with only 29 they’re you’re run-of-the-mill ‘find the extras’ and ‘use each difficulty’. Which, by the way, you start out on Normal, and can’t move up to Hard without earning it along the way. Extras include an art gallery and special effects that you can add to the visuals and sounds of each level during gameplay. There’s also a freeplay mode that let’s you get acquainted with the game without being attacked by enemies, and a challenge mode that isn’t really up to snuff after playing the real story mode.
Outstanding graphics, including the well-filmed opening, and catchy tunes aside, I wouldn’t peg the replay value too high. I beat it in 3 days, and although each level only takes about 10 or 15 minutes to get through, you have to do each one multiple times in order to earn enough points to move on to the next one. Since I already played each archive about 4 times over the course of the game, I don’t really feel the need to start over and do it all again. My recommendation? Rent it first, buy it later if you really need too.
All in all, Child of Eden is a truly awesome gaming experience. If you have a 360, you really need to check it out, and especially if you have the Kinect. I hope to try it out on one someday. I’m sure it’s a totally different experience. And if the music gets stuck in your head like it did with me, there are songs by the Genki Rockets on iTunes. My favorite was Heavenly Star.
Thanks to Q?, Ubisoft, and composer Mizuguchi Tetsuya for a great game. And thank you for reading the first post on my new blog! I hope you enjoyed it!
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