While also available on the Playstation 3, PC and Xbox360 video game consoles, Contrast has drawn great prominence from the new Playstation 4 crowd who have over the past few weeks been picking up their consoles and enjoying this title as part of the two games available free through the Playstation Plus program. While not set to be available through this program, with DRIVECLUB being delayed until 2014, Contrast has been given the role of showcasing what the console is capable of. The question is… does developer Compulsion Games live up to the expectations set upon them, or is Contrast just another game with an interesting idea but absolutely no substance? Read on to find out.
Storyline
Contrast follows the story of a young girl named Dorothy “Didi” Malenkaya, who has a not so imaginary friend named Dawn whom only she can interact with. She resides with her mother who aspires to be a cabaret star after her father left them prior to the events of the game. In a mischievous move, she decides to sneak out of her house with Dawn to see her mother perform. This leads to her meeting her father once again who has another “scheme” of opening a circus and attempting enlisting the talent of famous illusionist Vincenzo.
The storyline is meant to be short and sweet, only providing small references to events outside the immediate storyline as collectible / readable items. For a title that can easily be completed in a couple of hours maximum, the development of its four main human characters is suitable, and provided you don’t go into it expecting a masterpiece… it is alright for a downloadable title.
Design
The design of Contrast is where the game really shines and falls flat on its face at the same time. The dark, noir styled environments suiting the world perfectly, the excellent use of light and shadows to provide challenging puzzles and the two proper 3D character models included in the game (As the game is shown through the viewpoint of Dawn, all humans aside from Didi are presented as shadows) being well designed are some of the features that go so well with this title.
But the simple fact is that the game is buggy beyond the point I would have expected. Dawn frequently reverts to a default, unnatural pose as she constantly becomes trapped in items, walls and supposedly inaccessible areas, when bringing other objects into the “shadow realm”, they sometimes fling to a degree that they are defying proper physics and at one point during my playthrough a crate found itself lodged in an inaccessible part of the world that required a restart of the stage. I could understand if they happened once or twice, but they continually happened.
The game still passes in terms of design because the aesthetics matched the intended theme so well, but if they were to iron out the frequent visual glitches it would have been so much better. Their Steam page has mentioned that they are working on fixing some of the bugs, but it is unknown if these will be for the PC version only or extend to console versions.
Music / Voice Acting
The games soundtrack comprises of several slower jazz tracks and other tunes appropriate to the 1920’s setting, including menu theme “Kat’s Song” featuring vocals by Laura Ellis. These songs don’t intrude in the experience, and for the most part the developer seems to draw you in through the atmosphere rather than the musical backing.
The voice acting is also strong, and with Dawn being a silent protagonist the clear special mention must go to Teale Bishopric who has had voice acting roles in a handful of video games and short films in the past, and goes perfectly as Didi. The game also provides voice acting in French and subtitles in English, French, Spanish, German and Italian.
Gameplay
Contrast is a puzzle-platformer, with its primary quirk being that the playable character Dawn is able to enter walls through the form of a shadow. Interestingly enough, Nintendo recently tried to do something similar with their recent 3DS Legend of Zelda release where Link could transform into a wall painting. What makes Contrast different from this however is that as a shadow, she interacts not with the physical realm but the shadows cast upon by items in the real world.
The control mechanics are pretty simple, and Dawn can run, jump and do a forward attack using the circle button which allows her to smash items. However very few puzzles rely on using these, and instead when manifested in the physical world she is usually required to move items around to cast a shadow from a light source or carry items into the shadow realm to take them to a specific location. The shadow world takes place in a 2D environment where you must work your way past chasms, up ledges and more along those lines. Provided you don’t run into a frustrating glitch, it works pretty damn well overall.
Some of the ways they present these puzzles are quite enjoyable, especially in one scene in the game where Dawn puts on a crown and takes part in a three-chapter puppet theater as a Princess – with narration to go alongside it. While the game was short, they delivered the shadow-based gameplay in a number of creative ways. But creativity only goes so far, and unfortunately there was little challenge to have – and I think they could have provided a lot more challenge for those who are familiar with the puzzle genre as it is a rich idea with lots of potential. Even if they couldn’t impact the gameplay related to the storyline, I wouldn’t have minded them providing greater challenges when looking for the extra Luminaries not critical for completing the game.
Final Words on Contrast
In some way Contrast is similar to the very first Portal game. It provides a very interesting concept and while displaying some interesting gameplay mechanics is short and really required more to achieve its full potential. Will we see more from Conception Games in the form of Contrast? While I would be inclined to think more along the lines of DLC content, I hope they do… once they fix the glitches that litter the game that is.
Contrast was certainly an experience, that needs to be expanded upon to truly make a mark in the less focused upon Puzzle video game genre.
