Contrast (PS4) Review

The PS4 Launched on November 29th (in the EU) and one of it's launch titles is a free indie title (if you have a Playstation Plus subscription) so obviously to make my PS+ purchase worth the money I downloaded a little game called Contrast.

Compulsion Games present to us a very interesting new mechanic and form a game around it. We follow a young looking girl called Dawn alongside a much younger girl, Didi. At first we are introduced to Didi, a child, living with her mother and is on a quest to find her father. Johnny, her father, is a man of many secrets and in turn, tends to ruin the relationship with his family and without spoiling to much, it's all a very interesting story and told through some very interesting and thought provoking narrative techniques but the climax and it's resolution is left seriously wanting.

With the story aside, we move onto the Gameplay. Contrast blends puzzle solving with 3D Platforming and while the two seem to mix together extremely well, proven by Contrasts predecessor Portal, the controls seem to indicate otherwise. The main mechanic of the game is that Dawn can merge herself into objects as a shadow and then move herself throughout the shadows projected onto walls and object but occasionally I can easily walk through walls, fall through floors, dash down a pit or even get my camera stuck somewhere. And while these are minor problems, when I said occasionally, it's actually way too often.

Aside from the actual gameplay issues, there are also technical issues; horrific loading times and even worse framerate drops. From the beginning of the game, it runs smoothly as opposed to later in the game it can easily drop somewhere below 10 frames a second and this left me disorientated and unable to play most of the time.

While this game is not long, has an extremely simple to understand story and easy to grasp controls while maintaining complex and thought provoking puzzle structures it does fall flat due to bad voice acting, no story closure and some bad technical issues. If you have Playstation Plus then get this game but by no means should you pay full price until the game is more stable.