During the week, I played the trial of, bought, and completed the game Clover on Xbox 360. It's a community game, so a small independant company made the game, and, well, it does show. The graphics are nicely coloured (watercolours) but the character designs look to me like they were doodled by a teenager on a lunchbreak, or during a particularly boring maths class. The music... well normally I really like piano music, but this was particularly bad.
I was torn between whether to buy the game or not, when I played the trial. I could see that there were some good points to the game, but wasn't sure whether they were strong enough to warrant a purchase. Also, I kept unlocking bonus artwork and sketches and frankly that put me off! In the end I gave in because it is only 400 Microsoft points (which is a little over £3, I think), along with a mixture of curiosity and nostalgia.
It's a game with a style of gameplay that I haven't seen in a commercial release for many years. It's a 2D platform adventure, like the old Dizzy games I used to play on C64. You have a little character, he goes round picking up items, and jumps around on platforms trying not to get killed, talking to people, and trading or using items in the correct context to progress. This was the most major factor in why I bought the game; simply because I had been starved of this genre, and to see what they had done with it.
The gameplay isn't as hard or demanding as the old Dizzy games; in general it is not easy to die, and if you do, you just get placed outside the jail with all your items.
The save function in the game... well, there is only auto-save. It automatically saves when you solve a puzzle. I asked the developer on the project and he said he built it that way deliberately because when he had a manual save implemented, people were trying to use objects, failing, and reloading, which he said broke up gameplay. However my observation is that it also means that if the player has spent a while running and jumping to get an item from a platform, then want to stop playing, they have to actually solve the puzzle before quitting if they want to keep that item.
The story in the game... is heavily inspired by events leading up the the war in Iraq in 2003, and it is pretty obvious... at the beginning I didn't mind at all, just demonstrating the power of spin in the media to work up a frenzy, but towards the end I felt that the veil was too thin. The metaphor too clean. The tale too simplified.
I was not satisfied with the end of the game. It was abrupt and felt like I got the "Bad Ending" where there is no multiple ending. All you get as a reward for finishing the game is a two page quote about manipulating the public, which you learn on the second page was spoken by a person unrelated to Iraq but known as one of history's "bad guys". It isn't anything shocking at this point as the sentiment has been repeated several times leading up to the end - it just felt preachy rather than thought provoking. And it's not like this game could not be accused of bias, or conveniently telling the story just to influence the player in a certain way. You don't even get a new piece of music and scrolling credits. (the credits can be read as optional overlays in the artwork)
Overall, I don't object to having played through this game and it was refreshing to see that this old genre of videogame can still survive. However, I feel a little bit cheated, like I intended to buy a game but ended up paying for a propaganda pamphlet from the UK Respect political party.
