Area 86

Long time did not play games like Area 86 and must say. It has something that keeps me playing it! I had some visual glitches in the first versions, but now they are fixed! Recommend!

Area 86 is a simplistic console ported adventure/puzzle game in the form of a top down third person platformer. You control a small robot that can pick things up and throw them, as well as jump over obstacles and things. Gameplay consists of throwing various objects in the right places, negotiating each level so you can "Escape" and go on to the next one. It's very short and comes across as incomplete, with only 6 levels. On the upsides here, it's not the sloppiest console port as you get 4K resolution and a few graphics tweaks, controls can also be customised. It's also reasonably well polished. Unfortunately the biggest killer is just the console centric design of the game, as the primary interface really does come across as if you're expected to use a console peasant children's toy controller to play the game. It does not handle well on PC. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. The game features lazy low-polygon "retro" assets, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the 1990s. It's unclear why the developers weren't able to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets for the game, and also irrelevant... what matters is that this looks bad as a result of their decisions, a compromise PC gamers shouldn't have to put up with. Because this is a console game, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the inferior console gaming appliances that the game was designed for. These are unfortunate compromises and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was a second thought for the console-centric developers. The game is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for consoles forces upon a game. Once more, console peasants have made gaming worse for everyone. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. Area 86 has the laughable price of $10 USD (for a very short console game!), for which you could easily get any number of older AAA games, let alone the sheer number of free games available on Steam. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend.