Puppeteer

I managed to get this game for only five dollars and have to say that it was money well worth spending. It is a platform game that is done in a unique way as the story is presented as a puppet show. The game also uses a lot of humor as it unfolds and features quite a lot of levels and secrets to uncover too. It's a shame a game like this kind of flew under the radar as it was something different, yet everyone gets so stoked for series games like Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed that release essentially the same game every year with the only differences being a change in setting or a new scope on a sniper rifle. I have heard from quite a few that both series have been disappointing as of late, but they still will buy the latest installment. This one was not super great though, it was just a good game. The game play was at times frustrating, not so much because it was insanely difficult or anything, but rather the fact it was just hard at times to control the two characters on the screen at the same time meaning I most likely missed a few extras due to the fact I could not focus on the more exploratory character at all.

The story shows us that the Moon Bear has taken over the moon from the Goddess of the moon and he devours the souls of Earth's children to gain more power. One of these boys though is special as he has the ability to wield a magical pair of shears to fight back against the titanic foe. A titanic foe that has eaten your character's head! That is okay, a cat shows him that he can use a number of various objects to sustain him as the boy under the guidance of a witch must find the moon stones which were broken apart. Once joined again, the moon goddess will return! He is also joined by the daughter of the sun as they go through many sections of the moon in search of the moon stones which are guarded by the Moon Bear's generals!

The game play is a platform type and for the most part linear in nature. The unique aspect is that it is presented as a puppet show as you have a narrator and you hear people in the 'audience' as you play. Generally you go left or right and up or down, and the boss battles are usually rather epic. You use the shears to cut through enemies, find things and travel along certain paths at times. You also gain other abilities as you progress as you get a shield that helps you repel and reflect things, a bomb to help you blast through objects, a hook that lets you grab and pull and a wrestler's ability to have great strength and bonk people from above. The game play could be more varied as a couple of times it looked as if it might do a top down format, but these sadly only ended up being cut scenes. You control the main character in the game and you control the sun daughter too. You use her to uncover secrets and this generally earns you more heads. Which is another somewhat disappointing aspect of the game. You have all these unique heads and you'd think that they had different abilities, but they only do a quick animation sequence and other than finding bonus stages do nothing as far as helping further your progress.

So, all in all, a rather good game. Nowhere near perfect mind you, but I cannot complain as I only paid five dollars for the thing. It has a lot of levels in it and there are plenty of things to uncover as I do not think there was a single level in the game where I found all the heads! The comedy was pretty funny, but there were times when the characters kind of talked over each other and I missed some of the dialog. However, despite these minor flaws, I would rather play a game like this any day to the typical yearly released and over hyped games that others so drool for, but then complain when they are not any good.