Over the weekend I finished the main game on The Maw. For a download title that I managed to get for free I was mightily impressed with the quality of the game. Its a very short game but then most Arcade games are and I only played it to pass the time when I wasnt playing a full game.
The premise is pretty simple your alien friend Maw has to eat creatures of varying types in order to transform into a better version of himself in order to gain a special ability to complete the level. Each level requires a different skill so every level has good variety. Maw also eats smaller creatures that increase his size so you go from small at the beginning to huge at the end.
The killer feature of the game has to be Maws animation. For an alien blob that doesnt talk hes incredibly funny and he constantly entertained me throughout the levels. The game is not overly difficult so this was a welcome addition. You cannot die in the game and its pretty obvious what you need to do the majority of the time.
I chose not to pay for the bonus levels as I dont feel they are worth it. Over £3 for three levels when I didnt have to buy the game in the first place seems like a wasted expensive. The game doesnt warrant that and thats halfway to another decent XBLA game. I gave it an 8.5 as I was never bored, it looks pretty, and made a welcome change from sports and shooter games.
I have also literally just finished Too Human which is also a game thats surprised me. All reviews and screenshots make it look like a generic fantasy combat shooter that has insignificant RPG elements. For the most part thats correct but what they dont say is how interesting the melee combat is and this was enough to keep me playing. The way the attacks are mapped to the controller was pretty good once you got used to it. Using the right analogue to choose an attach direction is actually pretty fluid given the fact your character slides towards an opponent and then slides to the next. It makes combat incredibly fluid and actually rewards you for not standing back and shooting your way through.
The game does not skimp on enemies and my final game count was close to 4000 defeated. The layout of the game is clear one area of seemingly never ending enemies and then move onto the next and so on. Death is also mostly irrelevant as when you die you get resurrected in the same place and all damage dealt to enemies remains but your armour and weapons health decline until they are unusable (at which point you can switch out for another weapon anyway). The only downside is the 15-20 second animation you cannot skip through when you die. Having died many times thats a lot of time spent waiting!
The game does a good job of constant improvement for your character as it is always offering up new weapons for you and armour parts to equip. There is a levelling system but it doesnt have much effect in my opinion.
Ive no real idea of the story but its a decent take on Norse god mythology by bringing into the current day. The cut scenes are really only there as a respite from the action but I paid no real attention to them. I also gave this an 8.5 for its sheer satisfaction of slaying hundreds of enemies without ever feeling tiresome. I hear it was originally supposed to be a three part trilogy but with it not doing so well commercially I believe this has been scrapped which is a shame. A game thats bang up to date with current graphics and animation would be pretty good. I wouldnt pay full price it for but it would definitely be worth a look.
