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Maize Review

By  September 19, 2017  No comments

Maize comes hand in hand with Finish Line Games, an indie studio located in Toronto, Canada. Founded in 2013 by a veteran developer group, they just released Maize on our beloved Xbox. How did they do it? Let's analyze it.

Duration


The game lasts around 5 hours. With a total of 9 chapters, there are 75 collectibles, which are easy to find if you follow the environment carefully. Reading all the unknowns and very funny descriptions of some objects will give you, more minutes of play. History leads us through Maize, there is freedom but it is within a ¨bread¨. I think it's a correct duration, although the climax of the story towards the end becomes something more entertaining. It is important to emphasize that the game doesn't present any incentive of play it again.

Gameplay


It's simple and very clear in it's approach, easy to catch and play. All people accustomed to enjoy first-person games will be very comfortable playing Maize, you can run, crouch and examine some objects that you find as in any walking simulator, with the feature that you can collect objects and use them to solve puzzles. There is no interaction with the characters of the game, however, they will be present during the story in the in-game scenes, where you will know the life that is cooked under this abandoned farm.

The gameplay is based on collecting objects for the purpose of solving puzzles. The solutions to these puzzles are not obvious, and may be for some a headache, so it's important to read the indications that each object has to know what its purpose is. For example, to get electricity in the house you will need fuses, but not having to use a nail that you have previously unlatched from a board using a nail clippers. There is a lack of connection and consistency between the puzzles, which ends up becoming a trial and error using the available objects. Unfortunately, on some occasions I saw more time lost than solving the puzzles for not knowing what to do or which direction to take.

In Maize, you will move from one section to another with more challenges and scenes that tell you, what has happened to this strange installation where you are. Among the bizarre characters of the game, you find Vladi, a Russian robotic plush bear with a very bad temper and that will accompany in much of history. During the development of the game will help you in solve some puzzles, although it will not stop complaining and continually insulting you. Which ends in a repetition of humorous lines that end up becoming a bit tired toward the end of the story.

All objects that can be used in Maize have a yellow halo that makes it extremely easy to locate. Therefore, you will not see yourself going through rooms and rooms looking for thousands of objects until you find the right one, they are all very well marked and easy to find.

Sometimes to solve a puzzle, you will have to get all the objects needed to build something; for example, a mannequin passing through a security cord ... Everything in the game wastes acidic humor and some nostalgic for graphic adventure games. Never reaching a great complexity, you will not be forced to combine objects that you find, you can simply use them once.

Graphics & Design


Maize graphically is a game that offers a mixed experience, the design of some parts is very little care, making the whole look outdated and poorly polished. However, it has the benefits of the graphic engine Unreal, which is manifested sometimes to show a very good illumination, especially in exteriors. While you will occasionally suffer from lowering of frames in the exterior with many objects on the screen, this does not affect the gameplay at all, once more advanced they reach interior locations where everything is very fluid.

The atmosphere is oriented to offer a quite particular experience, and I think it's one of the attractions of the game, it's simply unique in style. A farm, a hidden installation ... The game has a lot of details in it's environment, and there are certain moments that feel very well taken care of; I speak of details like the smoke marks marked on the wall of a room by a barbecue where you can appreciate that the fire burst the sausages on the ceiling, as you can always see with much humor. Even so, and within the overall experience don't leave very good taste, due to the lack of polishing of some animations, textures and modeling.

With regard to sound, you have a passable section that perfectly matches the visual atmosphere of the game. The downside is that at times it feels too tedious to hear some repetitive melodies, especially in the underground sections

Conclusion


Maize is a different proposition that offers us a series of puzzles in chain under a history certainly bizarre. The main problem I see, is that precisely everything revolves around a story that doesn't offer a memorable narrative except strange situations and moments of humor very unoriginal, and that become something common and well advanced the game. Adding certain moments of disorientation by the lack of clues or some logic to solve some puzzles. On the other hand, he has good qualities, such as his original proposal, good humor, unusual characters ... All this made Maize a rather insubstantial experience with very good intentions, characters with a certain charisma and some lines of good humor.

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