Hands-on: Flip's Twisted World
Frozen North Production and Majesco's upcoming Wii platformer Flip's Twisted World is obviously going to draw direct comparisons to Nintendo's Super Mario Galaxy. And it's for good reason, as Majesco's game does a lot of what that game does, albeit to a lesser extent. Think of it as drinking a Diet Coke. Sure, it tastes fine, but most of the time, you're just going to wish you were drinking that regular Coke.
Flip's Twisted World is a 3D platformer that places its emphasis on twisting around the world you're traversing in real time. It's an effective approach, as the majority of the time, it's quite fun to twist and turn your surroundings, but the more time we spent trying to augment the slant of the floor we were one, the more ineffective the Wiimote's accelerometers were. Luckily, we were never pressed to immediately twist the world around, thanks to Flip's arsenal of spells.
Despite all of the platforming, there is still a healthy bit of combat to be had in Flip's Twisted World. A selection wheel provides a range of different spells to employ, all of which Flip pulls out of his giant tome (also a weapon). There was the ability to shock enemies around us, as well as our personal favorite, the freeze spell. By freezing enemies into a block of ice, we could take our sweet time to flip the world around and send that particular goon to an immediate death.
As easy as it was to dispatch enemies, the platforming did not show as much promise. Flip himself lacks a double jump, making it tough to bounce between floating platforms. Also, we were plunged toward doom far too often when trying to twist the world through a lack of responsiveness from the Wiimote. While holding the Wiimote a certain way, and thinking we had the world set to twist just right, it would jerk the wrong way at the last second. And we know it wasn't us, because we drank that pot of coffee after this appointment.
Something else this game lacked was any kind of sense of exploration. Even though we could twist the world to our whim, there was still a linear track to follow along. We'd twist the world, but it would only be to get to the next area we're supposed to go, and not just because we could. A mechanic like this should push a player to be as inventive as possible, and encourage a "find your own way" kind of attitude, which this game is clearly missing.
Flip's Twisted World was much of a surprise, but we couldn't help but feel like this is going to be a poor man's Super Mario Galaxy. With only five different worlds to traverse in the final product, we doubt there will be enough content here to satisfy for any length of time. Should one need a fix post-Super Mario Galaxy and pre-Super Mario Galaxy 2, this may be a nice diversion, but one that wouldn't last as long as just playing through Super Mario Galaxy again would.
