Review: Face-Plant Adventures

Indie games on XBLA are normally a dangerous territory, for every good one you get, about nine rotten eggs. Thankfully Face-Plant Adventures is one of the good ones, taking its influence from old school retro platformers, such as Rayman and Sonic.

2D platformers seem to be making a resurgence and this is one of the many that are coming through, but this one already has an accolade to its name, it was one of the finalists of the Dream, Build Play 2012 competition. So, if you’re looking for an industry standard certificate of approval, there you go, finalist in a competition. However if you want to know a true opinion of the game, continue reading.

Face-Plant Adventures is an exceedingly fun 2D platformer, which offers challenges to any gamer, with three different difficulty levels and plenty of extra items to collect once you’re done with the main missions. As it is an Indie title, it is relatively short with only 11 levels, however don’t let this deter you, as you would be missing out on an extremely enjoyable game. If you’re going for the medals this game can keep you coming back for hours, as the puzzles get increasingly more and more difficult, which increases the enjoyment factor because when you get one of the harder puzzles righ,t you feel a wave of satisfaction. With a range of checkpoints as well (at least on normal) you never have to back-track too far when you die, which you will, often.

As you progress you unlock different abilities, such as being able to slide down walls, glide and double jump. This means that each level is different and will challenge you in different ways. Perseverance is key to this little indie gem, as once you master all the different abilities on offer, it makes thinking your way round the puzzles an easier task.

My one real complaint is that the levels seemed to get smaller as you progressed, so the most expansive ones were at the beginning of the game, and this is where I found most of my enjoyment. This dampened my enthusiasm for the game ,as when a game goes on it’s meant to become harder, but the middle levels were the hardest.

This is a good 2D platformer, and for 80 Microsoft points, you can’t go wrong for a few hours of nostalgic entertainment. It is available for download now!

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