Initial impressions of Blitz Arcade’s XBLA (Xbox LIVE Arcade) title, Encleverent Experiment, will undoubtedly cause a fair few raised eyebrows in the gaming scene, as a quick gloss over the game’s offerings suggest a semi-practical brainteaser, aimed primarily at children, and clearly secured amongst the rich and friendly residents, of the casual games market, presently dominated by Nintendo. The game is comprised of a series of straightforward mini-games, each of which is designed to test, and train the different regions of your brain, all the while assuring you that fun is occurring, by relentlessly tossing un-lockable mascots (to accompany you during games) and contestants at you. Multiplayer gameplay is a major focus, allowing four players to contend online, or via one console, and greatly extends the lasting appeal of the game’s central elements.
Thinking back to Nintendo’s popular Brain Training series, gives a basic idea of what is to come. Although, a more child-like, bordering on tasteless visual approach is on show here, and some vaguely pleasing additional content, thickens the experience to some extent. The majority of features are quite obviously intended to charm a young audience, whilst a changeable difficulty setting guarantees enough of a challenge, to allow for an older demographic to take part.
In many ‘gamers’ eyes, the casual market is seen as a bubbling cesspit of family friendly drivel, cheap knock-offs, and shamelessly crude celebrity endorsements, ensuring crippling self-belittlement, to all who consume the rotten fruit it bears. If you’re nodding victoriously at this point, then I fear you’ll reap little enjoyment out of Encleverment Experiment. Even when putting this somewhat tired view aside, it’s difficult not to question Blitz Arcade’s choice of platform. If experience is anything to go by, then I believe they may have seriously misjudged their decision. Casual titles have almost exclusively been tremendous failures (sales wise) on the Xbox 360, and I’m speaking of titles that commanded much larger budgets, development teams, production time, and marketing campaigns, than this modest, flash-based creation. And quite honestly, I’m speaking of games that are plainly superior.
However, if you can shake away the dusty memories of primary school educational software, then there’s enjoyment to be had, if only for the compulsive side of you, who desperately wants to improve one’s examination scores. There are 16 mini-games in total, each challenge varying reasonably from the rest, but essentially testing either maths skills, reactions, memory or logic. Games all have a time limit, encouraging you to answer as quickly as possible, whether your task is memorising sounds, objects and colours in an untidy bedroom, or simply answering basic maths puzzles.
Plenty of prettiments have been strewn across the interface, including a bog-standard cartoon professor who narrates, and explains your task with an acceptable quality of voice-acting and dialogue. Small but effective edits to the gameplay ensure longevity, with different game modes based around examining certain areas of the brain. A game show mode pits you against one of a series of computer controlled characters, announcing a victor at the end of a set number of rounds, almost always securing you tasty un-lockable tat if you win. I was thankful for this game show mode, as the addition of a rival cranked up the tension, and injected some much needed excitement into the single player experience. The whole game is far more enjoyable when played with others, of course, but it’s almost guaranteed that you won’t always have someone to compete against.
The difficult task for a game such as this, is supplying incentive to play at all. When a the mission is to provide, or re-kindle, a primary school education, there is a desperate need for bonuses galore, as kids aren’t keen on learning, and the rest of us have already been through the ordeal. As touched upon earlier, Blitz Arcade have attempted to combat the issue, and provided a plentiful sack of goodies to uncover, and made a mess of every corner of every screen, with an assortment of sights and sounds. Unfortunately, they just haven’t made enough of an effort. I was quite aware during every mini-game, that I was essentially re-taking my primary school exams. Though I was initially curious concerning my brains strengths and weaknesses, the mini-games on offer were nowhere near enjoyable enough, to get me to undertake the hundreds of tests necessary to build up an accurate picture. Furthermore, the countless un-lockable contestants and mascots fell short of my expectations, characters turning out to be voiceless illustrations, and mascots disappointingly being little more than skins for the same short animation loop.
Astro Grizzly, an astronaut bear mascot of misguided ambition, enlightened me for a short while with his uncanny ability to be a bear in a space suit. Though, having quickly come to the decision that he was my favourite of all the mascots, I no longer felt the need to acquire any more, due primarily to the apparent lack of effort in their design and execution. There just isn’t a point to them. I fail to see the appeal. Children may find them to be more charismatic, but I doubt their attention will be held for much time.
Taking a step back and looking at Encleverment Experiment as a whole, does nothing but fill my mind with puzzlement. The user base Blitz Arcade is after just does not exist on this console. Besides, this type of structure has been executed with much greater precision multiple times before. Encleverment Experiment was surely not intended to reinvigorate the genre in any way, so why attempt to push it upon such a cynical crowd? There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the mechanics of this game, but all in all, it’s just rather bland and uninviting. And frankly, the 800 Microsoft Points price tag is pretty absurd. Next outing, may I suggest a gentle platform-adventurer, ‘The Agreeable Escapades of Astro Grizzly: Bear in a Space Suit’.
VideogameUK verdict: 4/10
