Our knives have been sharpened for Aery – Stone Age. We had performed as much as stage 4, solely to seek out that it crashed on each try. Having checked on-line, everybody was having the identical downside; some did handle to finish the extent by successfully taking part in it backwards, however these individuals crashed once more on stage 5. There was a whisper of a repair, however the review-cleaver was out, prepared to cut up one more damaged sport expertise from EpiXR Video games.
However, lo, there has been a repair, not way more than per week after launch, and we’re again to reviewing Aery – Stone Age. That’s refreshingly fast for a publishing home that has remaining points to resolve in Aery – Calm Thoughts 4 and Journey Tanks. However the pervasive feeling stays: simply how a lot care was put into making Aery – Stone Age?
As a fairly massive, evident reply to that query, this isn’t a sport in regards to the Stone Age in any respect. It actually seems like a fairly thrilling prospect: hovering previous mammoths, sabre-toothed cats and the primary human encampments. We have been up for that, not least as a result of the Aery video games haven’t been there earlier than. It’s a sequence that mainly regurgitates its ranges over and over, so Aery – Stone Age represented the promise of one thing new.
What we bought as an alternative was eleven ranges with little or no to do with the Stone Age. One stage had the odd triceratops and pterodactyl staring open-mouthed as we flew previous, whereas one other had a Native American camp, however that’s as shut as issues bought. Both somebody wasn’t doing their historical past homework, or Aery – Stone Age is a tad deceptive. As a result of this isn’t in regards to the people of prehistory: it’s in regards to the evolution of man. We’re touring from the primordial soup to a really trendy metropolis.
Besides, once more, we deliver caveats. Whereas the story claims that’s what it’s doing, it’s solely sort of doing that. As a result of the devs clearly need to shoehorn in ranges from earlier video games that don’t match the temporary. So, we go to a darkish, horrific land filled with spiders as a result of, um, people are actually good at surviving in locations of adversity. We go to a fantasy metropolis inside a volcano as a result of people – er – try this adversity factor once more.
Anybody who has performed a couple of Aery sport will know what’s happening right here. Regardless of the wrapper, Aery video games are an excuse to chuck the identical ranges out time and again. And folks purchase them for causes: whether or not it’s the simple Gamerscore, the admittedly stress-free flight sim mechanics, or a have to hate-play all of them.
So, we get the identical waterfall valley that now we have performed at the very least twice earlier than; an ice-covered plain that we’ve performed many extra occasions than that; and a last stage that begins promisingly (a city-scape that we haven’t seen!) earlier than it reveals itself to be a collage, because it segues right into a citadel and farmlands, each of that are endlessly acquainted. We’re maybe being unkind to this final stage: by knitting collectively previous ranges into one expertise, it’s ballsy sufficient to at the very least attempt one thing new. Even when it’s only a completely different manner of giving us the identical previous, standard.
Complaining about Aery is like screaming on the solar for setting. The sequence has at all times carried out this, and presumably at all times will. They are going to launch each two-to-three months, providing a single new stage amongst older ones, and asking for an more and more massive amount of cash for the privilege. As video games, they’re creatively bankrupt, however there’s a tiny kernel of advantage inside them as a result of they are low stakes and are cozy. It’s very simple to push the criticism to the facet and glide about for 2 hours, rising with 1000G.
However what we are able to’t excuse is that the ruse is tried so shoddily. There are two ranges in Aery – Stone Age which are borderline unplayable. We’re keen to wager that Aery – Stone Age hasn’t been examined on Collection X, because it appears to be an issue that’s locked to the upper performing machine. These ranges are so bleached out by the lighting, that it’s nearly unattainable to see the place you’re going. It’s like taking part in conceal and search on the floor of a lightbulb, and it’s half as pleasing.
Then there’s the spider stage, which works the opposite manner. It’s so darkish that we couldn’t see quite a lot of metres in entrance of our faces. Once more, that’s an issue in a sport that’s about flying a parrot in direction of feather collectibles. In case you can’t see them, you’re not grabbing them. And that is all with out broaching the perennial Aery downside of pop-in.
What surprises most about Aery – Stone Age is that it doesn’t even get the fundamentals proper. The Aery video games usually select considered one of two paths: both all the feathers are within the stage from the beginning and it’s important to accumulate all of them, or the feathers seem one after the opposite, triggered by you gathering them. This latter one makes Aery’s collectibles a path to comply with, fairly than an enormous hidden object sport. Aery – Stone Age opts for this strategy.
Nevertheless it will get this strategy unsuitable. As a result of the feathers are sometimes not chained collectively. Acquire a feather and the subsequent one would possibly seem midway throughout the extent, fairly than subsequent in sequence. It would seem past the sport’s horizon, a sufferer of the ridiculous pop-in. What this implies is that you’ll usually be scouring the identical stage twenty-five occasions over, as a brand new wotsit is dropped in so that you can discover. Actually, we’d have most popular that all the feathers have been in from the beginning. At the least then we may have felt the satisfaction of gathering one thing.
Aery – Stone Age is a poor instance of a deteriorating sport sequence. Whereas it may need dodged the bullet of a game-breaking bug (oh, it nonetheless had them, however they have been rapidly fastened per week after launch), it will get mown down by copy-paste ranges, poor collectible placement, and a whole lack of something resembling the sodding Stone Age.
The Aery sequence has set a low bar for itself, and in aiming to perch on that bar, it screws the touchdown and ploughs headfirst into it. Squawk! – down it goes.
