Review of the game Bound

The summer of 2016 turned out to be extremely generous for unusual video games, which can be attributed to modern art rather than to the traditional gaming industry. Remember at least a magnificent ABZÛ or gloomy adventure INSIDE. On August 16, the Bound exclusive game for the PlayStation 4 console comes on sale. I could not stay away from this event, as I always liked experimental art house projects. I already managed to get acquainted with the novelty, therefore I hasten to share with you my impressions.

Game Bound was developed in the walls of a small Polish studio Plastic, founded in 1997 by the programmer and active demoscene actor Mikhail Stanishevsky. Demoscene is a kind of cyberculture that originated in the late 70's. In those years, especially talented hackers created amazing visual "demonstrations", or "demos", with the help of computer code alone. At the same time, out of a very weak iron, literally all juices were squeezed out, which shocked even those who were experts in computer graphics. In fact, the demoscene is an amazing symbiosis of art and programming. It was on this fertile soil that the Plastic studio was formed.

With the Japanese company Sony, Plastic has a very friendly relationship. The Japanese support the beginnings of the Poles and do not interfere in the production process, allowing them to create what they want, and quietly explore the iron of the new consoles of the PlayStation family. So in the end, a very strange 7-minute demo of Linger In Shadows appeared on the PlayStation 3 console. Then the Poles introduced their first Datura video game, in which players traveled through the dark world and interacted with objects through the PlayStation Move game controllers. Each new project of the Poles was amazing with its creativity and did not look like anything else. In their small experiments there was something inexplicably attractive. There was something that made them come back to them again and again.

A new game of the studio called Bound begins with the fact that a certain young woman comes to the seaside, where there is a house in which she once grew up. Slowly strolling along the beach, she plunges into the childish memories that flood her. And at this very moment the player is transferred to an abstract fantasy world, in which the girl appears before us in the image of a fragile ballerina in a mask of red glass. With the help of elegant dance movements, she overcomes the obstacles that arise on her way. At the same time, the flow of visual images, music and sounds does not stop for a second, turning what is happening on the screen into a spectacular spectacle for the most pretentious aesthetes.

Bound is the story of how fragile family happiness can be. The game raises very difficult and important questions, which can only be understood by an adult who has already taken place. The game process is divided into chapters, at the end of which we are shown scenes from the childhood of the main character. So, the fragment behind the fragment in front of us is a general picture, from which it becomes clear - what ultimately led the girl to the old house in which she grew up with her parents and older brother. Despite the fact that at first the game may seem to you senseless and even abstract, it contains a very important message. So do not rush to judge a book by its cover. In the case of Bound, everything is much deeper than it might seem.

As for the gameplay, then we have a very unusual 3D platformer. The main character is a cross between a ballerina, a modern dancer and a rhythmic gymnast. The natural continuation of her hands are bright red ribbons, extending at those moments when the girl starts dancing, and providing her with a kind of protective cocoon from the enemies. Opponents of the protagonist are aggressive plants, live fire, black swarming paper airplanes and gigantic sizes of creatures. Of course, every object in the game is associated with the child's memories of the girl, so there is nothing to be surprised at.

It is impossible without admiration to look at how the main character moves. Even if you do not touch the gamepad, it shows us amazing stretch marks and so graceful dance moves that you simply marvel at it. And if you move around the level - get ready for a real dance feast. Especially for the creation of the game Bound, the developers sought out and hired a talented dancer Maria Udod, who gave the heroine her movements through the technology of Motion Capture. In this difficult case, developers from Plastic helped the Santa Monica studio specialists, who, in addition to the series of brutal action games God of War, are famous for their active support of various experimental projects like Bound.

Visually the game looks very cool, and the picture is displayed on the screen in honest 1080p with a frame rate of 60 fps. Surrealistic bright landscapes, against which a weightless ballerina flutters, will be permanently seated in your memory. Jumps in incredible from the physical point of view, sweeping slides along the satiny ribbons, the sea consisting of the animated white cubes, each object in the game lives its own life, actively interacting with the main character. Artists from Plastic used in the game everything that the demoscene taught them in the course of many years, and by bringing the story component into the game, they filled the abstract images with an important meaning. The only thing that made me shudder in the game was the quality of the main character's drawing in the insets between the levels. Over the animation of faces, the Poles still have to work and work. It immediately becomes clear why the ballerina in the game wears a mask.

The game is short enough and it can be literally in three or four hours. Nevertheless, the story of Bound has at least two endings, which can push you to re-pass. In addition, there are many secrets hidden inside the game, only the most attentive players will be able to find them. You can go through game levels in any order, flipping through the pages of the diary of the main character, the general essence of this does not change. After the game is over, you will get a fast pass mode, in which you can measure dexterity with other players using the high score tables. Each level hides a lot of "shortcuts", thanks to which you can significantly speed up the passage and set a new record. The creators of the game assure that you can pass Bound as many as 120 different ways.

Developers built in the game a photo mode with which anyone can suspend the game process at any second, select the angle, graphic filter, and then publish the resulting image in social networks. But that's not all! The game was originally developed with the built-in support for the virtual reality headset PlayStation VR. As soon as the new Sony gadget goes on sale on October 13 this year, a free update will be released for the game, allowing players to re-enter the fantastic Bound world, but this time with the help of the VR helmet.

Bound reminded me at once several other works with which she is united by separate elements. In memory, immediately surfaced action PN03, created by the father of Resident Evil Shinji Mikami for the console Nintendo Game Cube. In this game, the main heroine shot aggressively-tuned robots, while continuing to dance. I also remembered the amazing beauty of the puzzle Kula World for the very first PlayStation. In many respects due to the fact that some laws of physics were violated in this puzzle. The same can be observed in Bound. And I also had involuntary associations with the movie "Mirror Mask", the puzzle game Monument Valley and the recent game Unravel. No. Bound does not in any way try to be like these works. Just in our time, whatever you do, and before you have already tried to create something like that.

Pros:

• An amazing grace is the main character, from which it is simply impossible to tear off her eyes.
• A fantastic abstract world that lives by its own rules.
• The game demonstrates the totality of achievements of demoscene and modern technologies.
• Beautiful ambient music and atmospheric sound effects.
• Planned support for the virtual reality set PlayStation VR.

Minuses:

• Too very simple graphics and animation in the insets between the levels.
• Short duration.

The Bound game is a very touching story about parents and children, about family and mutual understanding. All this is decorated in the best traditions of the European demoscene, when the deepest meaning is placed inside a spectacular visual shell, to find and extract it from which the player is to be drawn. It's very nice to see the professional growth of the Polish studio Plastic, which started with small demonstrations and experiments, and to the output of Sony PlayStation 4 reached the development of full-fledged video games. To connoisseurs of art house and unusual games to pass by Bound is strictly not recommended. I put the game 8.5 points out of 10 .

The article is based on materials https://hi-news.ru/games/obzor-igry-bound.html.