The Xbox Indie platform lends itself well to the platforming genre (demonstrated by the number of titles released in the past year alone), but don’t let the wild flood of similar titles scare you away, because Antipole deserves a bit of your time.
I’ve played my fair share of platformers in my day, and often I find myself turned away from the genre due to the punishing difficulty. What I found most refreshing about Antipole was how well balanced the difficulty was. Throughout my gravity-warping adventure, a wave of irritation never washed over me as the platforming elements, enemies and variety of environments proved to be an ideal combination.
The physics are the selling point of the game, and the game executes its system very well. Seemingly impossible jumps across pits donning spikes on both the ceiling and floor are made possible by the well-tuned engine, which allows you to nearly float across the screen with the precision of a laser-seeking missile. I only ran across a handful of opportunities where I thought I died from a cheap death, and those were from typically when I couldn’t see a spike or enemy off-screen.
You play as an unnamed character with a red zoot suit from the roaring 20′s, who runs like Michael Jackson in Moonwalker on the Genesis. The long top hat and slick shoes compliments your only weapon, a rather weak blaster that looks like a modified Tommy gun. Fortunately, you also wield an anti-gravity device, which causes yourself and certain enemies to reverse the current field of gravity if they are within range. Select enemies are impervious to your efforts, and you’ll even stumble across a boss who has an anti-gravity device of his own.
Your objective is pretty simple – make it through the stage in the fastest time possible. At the end of each level you are presented with a screen that displays your stats including target time, actual time, and record time, for those who enjoy the challenge of a speed run. There are also three green coins hidden in perplexing areas of the level as well and reward those clever enough to find them with secret unlockable levels. Be wary of the environment though, because despite the absence of the de facto standard of instant death from spikes, they still do damage. Life refills are scattered throughout the levels, and frequently enemies will drop them as well. The initial time of your gravity manipulation lasts about two seconds, although as you progress you’ll also come across tanks which allow you to flip gravity for a greater length of time. It isn’t until the later half of the game where one-hit deaths from acid baths appear.
The environments offer enough variety to keep you interested,while still keeping with the decor of the somewhat simple world. The ambiance is that of a futuristic science facility, marked with electrically charged spikes, rogue robots, and moving platforms. I was afraid that after I saw the first two levels appear strikingly similar to one another that the rest would be as well, but developer Saturnine Games took liberty with a large stretch of the available color palate and splattered it upon the backgrounds.
In Antipole, I found a well balanced platformer. During my experience I was eased into the difficulty curve like a child learning to ride a bicycle with training wheels. The smooth transition into two wheels as the difficulty gradually ramps up is what I believe most gamers will find appealing. My time with this title was well spent, and I don’t doubt that others will share my feelings towards it as well. For those of you looking for a more forgiving Megaman type game, I think you’ve come to the right place.
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Visit the Xbox Live Marketplace to add a free demo of Antipole to your Xbox 360 download queue.
Antipole was provided for review by Saturnine Games LLC. It is available for 240 MS points ($3)
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