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 drawback; some did handle to finish the extent by successfully taking part in it backwards, however these individuals crashed over again on stage 5. There was a whisper of a repair, however the review-cleaver was out, prepared to cut up one more damaged recreation expertise from EpiXR Video games.
However, lo, there was a repair, not rather more than every 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 slightly massive, evident reply to that query, this isn’t a recreation in regards to the Stone Age in any respect. It actually appears like a slightly 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 principally regurgitates its ranges over and over, so Aery – Stone Age represented the promise of one thing new.
What we obtained 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 obtained. 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 fashionable metropolis.
Besides, once more, we carry caveats. Whereas the story claims that’s what it’s doing, it’s solely form of doing that. As a result of the devs clearly wish 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 – do this adversity factor once more.
Anybody who has performed a couple of Aery recreation will know what’s occurring 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 enjoyable flight sim mechanics, or a must hate-play all of them.
So, we get the identical waterfall valley that we now have performed at the least twice earlier than; an ice-covered plain that we’ve performed many extra occasions than that; and a closing 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 fortress and farmlands, each of that are endlessly acquainted. We’re maybe being unkind to this final stage: by knitting collectively outdated ranges into one expertise, it’s ballsy sufficient to at the least attempt one thing new. Even when it’s only a completely different means of giving us the identical outdated, usual.
Complaining about Aery is like screaming on the solar for setting. The sequence has all the time executed this, and presumably all the time 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 sum of money 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’re low stakes and are cozy. It’s very straightforward 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 prepared 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 not possible 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 gratifying.
Then there’s the spider stage, which matches the opposite means. It’s so darkish that we couldn’t see various metres in entrance of our faces. Once more, that’s an issue in a recreation 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 drawback 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 one in every of two paths: both all the feathers are within the stage from the beginning and you must acquire all of them, or the feathers seem one after the opposite, triggered by you amassing them. This latter one makes Aery’s collectibles a path to comply with, slightly than a large hidden object recreation. Aery – Stone Age opts for this method.
But it surely will get this method fallacious. As a result of the feathers are sometimes not chained collectively. Acquire a feather and the following one may seem midway throughout the extent, slightly than subsequent in sequence. It’d 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 amassing one thing.
Aery – Stone Age is a poor instance of a deteriorating recreation sequence. Whereas it might need dodged the bullet of a game-breaking bug (oh, it nonetheless had them, however they have been swiftly mounted every week after launch), it will get mown down by copy-paste ranges, poor collectible placement, and an entire 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.
