E3 2014 was one of the best E3's in recent memory. All anybody focussed on was the games and what consumers had been begging to hear about since last years simply abysmal show. It was also the first E3 to take advantage of digital distribution and the ability to gain instant access to something at the push of a button.
MS showed us first with the new Dead Rising 3 DLC, released during its announcement on stage at E3. Sony then released the Battlefield Hardline Beta & Destiny Alpha application on stage at E3, but they also released something else; a game to be precise. That game was Entwined, the first game from developer Pixelopus and released exclusively on Playstation platforms. So did Entwined live up to games such as Journey and Flower or was releasing it at E3 a chance to get a few quick sales in before the critics could get their hands on it?
Entwined at its core is a love story. During its opening cinematic you are introduced to the two characters, the orange fish and the blue bird, the two take a liking to each other and begin to perform various acrobatics together, setting up the premise of the game.
A love story is something we can all relate to as we have all loved someone, whether that be a love for family and friends, or a love for a partner, that's what makes Entwined so instantly accessible because we can all understand the story it is trying to tell us, even though there is no dialogue.
Over the games hour long story mode, you will play nine 'lifetimes' each with a distinct visual flair and difficulty increase. The goal is to collect as many floating orbs as possible and pass through the colour coordinated gates correctly in order to entwine your characters into a green dragon as you speed down a infinite forwards path. Though why they choose a dragon is never explained, nor does it make much sense, however it is rather beautiful to see two separate entities become one.
The characters control as if they are in a circular tube, each one taking up half the screen and being able to go from the top, round the side to the bottom or visa versa. Each character is controlled by a separate analog stick and both are in play simultaneously, much like last years Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.
Each level lasts a mere few minutes however there is an infinite 'challenge' mode where you play to survive as long as you can on three lives. There is no combat, but you lose a life by missing gates, or going through the wrong colour.
Entwined's gameplay is nothing overly innovative, though it is different to the majority of the market and requires a great deal of precision and hand eye coordination. The major flaws to the gameplay are that it is extremely underdeveloped and repetitive, as each level follows the same structure and only becomes slightly more difficult as they go on, plus the hit detection on gates is a bit off meaning you will often miss a gate, despite having gone through one, making the game frustrating and less fun to play.
The art style to Entwined is definitely its biggest attraction, reminiscent of titles from ThatGameCompany such as Journey, its minimalist style reflects the gameplay and only helps to further the argument that games are an art form. However, that being said, its not as visually appealing as ThatGameCompany's works and also suffers from major performance issues that ultimately break the flow of gameplay.
I played on the Playstation 4 hoping for that to be the best version of the game, however there were times that the game held at a standstill for several seconds, not dropping frames, but actively freezing for a short period of time before continuing as though nothing had happened. The longest instance of this I experienced was nearly 30 seconds. Now I'm no tech genius, but I'm pretty sure that the Playstation 4 is capable of rendering graphics of this quality extremely quickly and fluidly...so why is there such a performance issue? It is in dire need of patching as it actually makes the game extremely difficult to play in some parts as it'll just freeze on you for a short time and cause you to miss gates and orbs.
The music is also minimalist, though it does little to inspire and is extremely forgettable.
Entwined feels like a demo of a larger, more complex product; but the unfortunate reality is that it is a full completed game. Nearly £7 for what equates to an hour of the same gameplay over 9 levels that are only aestheticly different, not providing any substantial gameplay chances and 5 survival courses, all of which follow the same formula as the singleplayer levels.
The major performance issues are also worrying, seeing as it is yet to release on the Vita & Playstation 3 and the most powerful console out of all three has performance issues such as these doesn't spell good news for the other two versions. It is however Cross buy compatible so you only pay once for all three versions, this still doesn't justify it though.
Its a shame that Entwined ended up this way, it was a great way to announce and release the game however I get the feeling that this was rushed out to make that E3 release a possibility, after a few patches and some DLC (either free or very cheap) this may be worth a purchase, but in its current state I can barley recommend it.
Entwined – 4/10
+Accessible & Relatable Story
+Visually Pleasing
-Game-breaking Performance Issues
-Far Too Short
-Repetitive
