Line Rider 2: Unbound
Drawing lines on your PC
Tags: Line Rider Categories: PC Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Oct 17th, 2008
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Line Rider (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Other | No | ||
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The Line Rider series started out on the PC as an interesting little physics experiment – drop a sledder from the top of a hill, and task the player with creating a safe path for him to follow to reach the bottom of the hill, drawing in the missing pieces in the layout of the level for the falling sled to slide on and bounce off of. As Gary’s Mod taught us, playing with physics can be fun in and of itself, so it stands to reason that this should be a solid formula for entertainment. As it happens, the game garnered a cult following, and fast forward to today and the game is receiving a sequel on multiple platforms, including the PC.
The game comes with a bevy of nifty features, including the ability to create, decorate and share your own custom levels online, and a collection of puzzles designed by one of the game’s expert players. Suffice it to say, this gives the game an immense amount of replay value. However, in the end it still all comes down to whether you like the base gameplay.
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As for the gameplay, I can see why the series has such a fervent following – this is a unique style of platform-puzzler with a very open-ended approach to puzzle-solving. However, there are a lot of issues that guarantee this game will remain extremely niche. First and foremost, the game is a lot more complex than its premise would seem to imply. Just to give you an idea, simply drawing a straight line between two points can have dozens of results depending on not only the line type you use but how you draw it – left-to-right, right-to-left, reversed left-to-right or reversed right-to-left. The game explains this distinction somewhat poorly, and it’s up to the player to figure out how they differ, lest they be forced to wonder why their sledder keeps falling through some lines or bouncing off others in odd directions.
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As if that wasn’t enough, the game’s physics are extremely unforgiving. The sled is extremely touchy and the slightest fall or bump in its path could cause it to overturn. What’s more, once you start getting to some of the longer or more complex levels, chaos theory starts to come into play (yes, that thing Jeff Goldblum was babbling on about in Jurassic Park). Basically, this means that the slightest change early on in the level can wildly affect the outcome later on. Because of this, going back to edit a section of track to change your rider’s speed or the height of a jump may completely screw up his path later on in unpredictable ways, although thankfully you can take back any single change with an undo command (an option not present in the DS version).
On a purely aesthetic level, the game looks decent but simplistic, and while the game does make good use of digitized video between levels, it features characters that are excessively childish and cartoony, which is in stark contrast to a high difficulty level that’s certain to scare away most players young enough to have any interest in gags the Loony Toons made old hat a half a century ago.
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In the end, Line Rider 2: Unbound has its good qualities, but it won’t appeal to everyone. If you enjoy physics puzzles and don’t think you mind the sort of trial-and-error gameplay present here then it’s definitely worth a look, but others may not have the patience for it.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Interesting concept + Plenty of content |
7.3 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Steep learning curve - Extremely detail-oriented gameplay that many won’t have the patience for - Childish presentation ill befitting a game this complex |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Line Rider 2: Unbound is unlikely to attract anyone new to the franchise, but fans of the series’ physics-based trial-and-error gameplay will love all the new stuff that’s been added to the sequel. | |
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Tags: Line Rider
Posted by Jake McNeill on Oct 17th, 2008 and is filed under PC Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
