Doc Clock seems to play the role of the world?s worst inventor. Early in the game he turns his cat into a cactus and decides that the easiest way for him to fix this is to travel back in time and stop himself from doing it. While most of us scream at the computer that this simple act would probably destroy the time space continuum he goes to work on a time machine. Needless to say the machine fails and he is launched off to wander around time.
It should be pointed out that this game is targeted at children and I fall well out of the demographic it was aimed for; that said, the game seems to think that it is entirely funnier than it really is. It isn’t that most of the jokes are for a younger group, it is just that the banter between the Clock and his backpack is almost always annoying. Within the first minutes of the tutorial the crazy doctor and sane backpack shtick had managed to get old. While every now and then there were some good snippets back and forth, most of them ended up falling flat.
Not helping its cause is that the game is designed around its physics, this combined with the puzzle/platform ideals finds a way mingle like oil and water rather than peanut butter and jelly. At the core of the problems is that the physics aren’t very reliable. While the physics pretty much destroy any chance of being a good platforming game the Clock adds in a slow movement speed that usually involves death. Most of the puzzles in the game seemingly revolve around using random items strewn about to make something work, which sadly largely depends on the good will of the game and the before mentioned physics.
Built a rewind mechanic that lets the players go back to a couple of moments before Clock arbitrarily decided to die. While this strange power is never explained, the implementation ends up feeling more like sloppy design then anything else. Often when something randomly doesn’t work, or the car that is being driven suddenly falls apart, or a part of a puzzle that is needed goes bouncing forever out of reach the game, simply falls back on letting the player use the rewind button. In some games this is an interesting alternative to death, but in this one it simply feels like a way to avoid fixing anything that was broken.
Before long the game simply boils down to an unmemorable experience. There are so many things that could have been done to fix this game that it is slightly odd that none were addressed. Granted, the game was geared to be played by a child so they might have a more enjoyable time than I did.
Not As Good As: Max and The Magic Marker
Also Try: Saving your money
Wait For It: Maybe a sequel that fixes everything?
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