I Heart Shift is not your typical indie title, in fact it’s one of those games I would ordinarily give a negative score to. At least that’s what my first impression of the game was.
It’s simple graphics and annoying midi level music are a testament to badly executed indie games everywhere…at first that is. This game is total marmite for the brain. You play for a while and think to yourself ‘holy hells this is awful’ then you turn it off vowing never to play again only to come back 10 minutes later for more of the same. It’s soul destroyingly addictive.
The concept is simple enough, move your little blocky guy to a selection of coloured blocks and aim with the right stick before the corresponding block hits the word shoot in order to destroy the block of that colour and pattern. Sounds easy doesn’t it, but it’s a little tricky to begin with. There is also the added factor of the entire screen changing colour to confuse you and with each section of blocks you destroy the game speeds up and the annoying music gets another section of bleeps and blips to accompany it.
That’s not all though, for if you miss or have no way of destroying the remainder of the blocks your weapon hits the border and all the blocks become what the designer would have like to have been sentient in the style of I Maed A Gam3 W1th Z0mb1es!!!1 but it fails to impress in this respect. In fact it fails in almost every aspect but I just can’t stop playing the damned thing.
I really don’t understand what is so unlikabley likable about this game. It’s so annoying but at the same time so compelling that I can’t justify giving it a low score. I could say don’t bother getting this game but you may just miss out on something. I couldn’t exactly tell you what because honestly I don’t know. I actually thought of deleting the game from my hard drive but i feel compelled to try and beat all my high scores once more.
This is a game that could do with a lot more effort in graphics and sound design not to mention the fact that the AI of the sentient blocks in the shooting section of the game leaves a lot to be desired. The blocks just randomly flit around before settling in a corner waiting to be destroyed. Oh, and this is the perplexing part for me, when you beat a level there is no victory music, no well done screen, in fact all that happens is your block guy blows up and you are taken to the level select screen and get to choose where to go next. There is no way to progress as everything is open from the very start.
I recommend you play the demo if you feel like downloading it just to give yourself a glimpse of what you are getting into and if like me you find yourself addicted then by all means download and play to your hearts discontent, but if not then please avoid it like the plague!!!
VideogameUK verdict: 3/10
Download I Heart Shift to your Xbox 360 here.
