Donut County Review: Pit Falls
Donut County TEST: A first-class hole?Since the first episode of the wacky Katamari Damacy series, PlayStation players were used to enjoying at least once per generation a delicious, stupid Japanese UFO, savoring a smile on their lips. But as everything is lost in this world, the latest Sony console will not have had the chance to welcome the disturbed spirit of the awesome Keita Takahashi for the moment.
Unable to discover the very curious Wattam, it may be necessary to reckon with Donut County, an oddity as colorful and improbable as the productions of the famous Japanese game designer. Plot twist: this wacky fable comes to us this time from the United States, and casually, it changes everything.
I'm the puncher of L.A.
Donut County tells the story of a raccoon employed by a donut delivery franchise at home, as its title absolutely does not indicate. And if the flourishing business of these pastries full of fat quickly flourishes across the Atlantic, the business run by this gang of wild cats quickly turns quickly short as a mysterious hole engulfs absolutely everything in its path after each order.So we find BK the raccoon a thousand feet underground, surrounded by all his poor victims little able to philosophize about their fate. Donut County unfolds its story by turning the floor over to these lazy home delivery consumers, who, despite all of BK's bad faith, try to make him wear the hat, and possibly extort some excuse for his mischief. The player will therefore systematically alternate between a brief discussion by the fireside which would almost recall a certain "Intro to Felt Surrogacy" - the songs less, and some well-known corners of Los Angeles, including a certain observatory seen in The Fury of Living and obviously taken up by The Simpsons. Pop culture, when you hold us ...
Sad but Hole
Ben Esposito's game takes advantage of a parody and sassy writing, since giving voice to young Californians addicted to their smartphones and having long since left behind any form of punctuation. We no longer count the winks specific to this new form of communication, between well-felt LOL and corrections accompanied by an asterisk *. But the subject is fortunately not limited to an easy criticism of the grammatical oversights of the young generations, since the game designer himself describes his work as an advocacy against the gentrification underway in Los Angeles. Yes Yes. But before coming to gloss over societal considerations, you have to define what Donut County is, namely a game in which you play a hole hungry for destruction and expanding with each object swallowed. The game could well resemble a distorted reflection of Katamari Damacy from which it borrows many elements: rather than agglomerating objects endlessly by the hundreds, here you need to make everything disappear, not without a pinch of reflection.If the first levels unfold this very simple principle, you will then have the opportunity to discover a range of mechanics taking advantage of this almost bottomless chasm, since will gradually be added a catapult, or even the possibility of passing from the hole state to that of puddle. And the good twenty environments will not miss ideas not to fall into a certain form of monotony: with these few very simple elements, Donut County succeeds in renewing the fun, by proposing for example to use a carrot for to make couples of rabbits mate, or to pop popcorn after having swallowed a campfire and some ears of corn.
Black Hole Seum
On the other hand, you should not expect a great technicality or a particular challenge: as long as you understand what a level expects from you (and it is not always won the first time), you will just have to '' go there gradually by gradually widening the orifice with everything that falls under your hand to engulf without worry all the elements present on the screen. Only the last stage sequenced in several stages overcomes this yoke, ending in a boss end a chouïa too simple to oppose real resistance. It is all the more unfortunate that the concept then suggested a certain potential.Suffice to say that even with such a simple basic principle, the bursts of laughter will especially be to the credit of the variety of situations encountered. And from this point of view, Ben Esposito succeeds in never really getting tired, even if that will require content with a brief and pleasant adventure, since it will not take more than two or three hours at any what a player to see the end credits arrive, and his cohort of stupid thanks. Completionists and those who simply like to make the pleasure last will turn to the trophies to find a little grain to grind, especially since the gallery of objects to be harvested is systematically accompanied by a hilarious description, which has in plus the merit of making us think about the meaning of words and how we describe things.
Is it Esposito?
Of course, with such a brief embrace, hunger will quickly be felt, and the desire to go further unfortunately comes up against the brevity of the concept. Applying a simple principle without the will to want to dilute the sauce excessively, Donut County is victim of its status as a delicious candy that is too quickly swallowed up. But if he does not stop with the icing, the player, a bit curious about Esposito's declarations concerning the donut as one of the rare standards not yet entirely fallen into the purview of the standards industry, he hides behind this ephemeral game, a sympathetic social critic who has the good taste to remain particularly discreet, even if it means waiting until the last minutes to support his plea on the overconsumption of human beings and the place of animals in waste management.The others will not care completely, and will not however sulk their pleasure to try a regressive and deliciously enjoyable concept, especially when it is carried by the indie pop sometimes borrows from folk, sometimes leaning towards electro d 'Esposito. Classic at first glance but quite surprising thanks to its share of dissonances and experiments arriving without warning, the game takes more than ever the air of the series from which it borrows decidedly a lot, but always brilliantly.
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