Wandering by means of Bionic Bay’s darkish alien world is unsettling and awe-inspiring. There are huge constructions with no clear objective and autonomous factories stuffed with whirring noticed blades and devastating lasers. It’s grim and unforgiving, with little mild and harsh shadows that give every thing a sinister tone. But then you definately step on a bomb and your character bounces off of partitions like a pinball, and also you understand it’s a sport of contrasts.
Bionic Bay is a curious mix of two very completely different genres. On the one hand, it’s an atmospheric side-scrolling journey within the mould of Inside and Limbo, stuffed with disturbingly beautiful environments to discover. At the identical time, it’s a hard-as-nails platformer like Super Meat Boy, with elaborate physics that can have you ever dying repeatedly whereas looking for the perfect route by means of lethal obstacles. Somehow, the disparate vibes come collectively surprisingly nicely.
What first drew me to Bionic Bay was that darkish world. It’s mysterious to the purpose that I nonetheless don’t truly know what it’s you’re doing or why. But that thriller is a big a part of the enchantment. As you make your approach by means of its ranges, you’re topic to some unbelievable and intimidating environments, and it’s largely as much as you to determine what story the world is making an attempt to inform. There are fiery factories, inexperienced areas the place natural life merges with expertise and structure in disturbing methods, and dank sewers lit up by dripping bioluminescent goo. All of those areas make you’re feeling minuscule as compared. It’s the sort of sport the place virtually each second makes for an important screenshot.
In order to see all of it, although, it’s a must to cope with a really robust sport. While there’s some comparatively easy platforming at first, you’re quickly introduced with seemingly insurmountable duties, like a sequence of spinning noticed blades that require exacting jumps to get by means of. But it’s not as exact as it could appear. One of the extra distinctive components of Bionic Bay is its physics; the little man you management may be very sturdy and might survive being bounced round, so you may generally flop your approach by means of trickier areas.
Bionic Bay can also be one thing of a puzzle sport. You have entry to a number of powers, like the power to swap locations with an inanimate object or decelerate time (although you may solely actively be utilizing one). Combine these instruments with the floppy physics and there are a whole lot of inventive methods to get by means of the sport.
Key to that is that Bionic Bay encourages experimentation. You will die loads, however as a result of the sport has such a forgiving checkpoint system, there’s not often a lot punishment for failure. Being in a position to shortly retry a bounce retains the sport from being too irritating whereas additionally making it simpler to discover a route that really works. And when you have a wild thought about, say, using on the again of a rocket to keep away from killer laser beams, there’s no hurt in making an attempt.
The sport isn’t simple. I’ve discovered myself caught on a number of events. And whereas I want the sport targeted somewhat extra on exploration, the bizarre and unforgiving world can also be what helped me persevere by means of the trickier challenges. I simply needed to see what was subsequent.
If you’re a fan of sci-fi works like Blame! or Dune, with their spectacular sense of scale, Bionic Bay gives one thing very related. You simply should work onerous to see all of it.
Bionic Bay is out now on the PS5 and PC.
