Impressions: The Maw

So from now on any article that is a review will have the prefix title "impressions" because that's what the article will contain. I'm not really interested in doing a hard and fast review with a score and all that, primarily because a million other people do that and also because I would have to conform to some sort of format. I would prefer to do a more free form discussion as though I were speaking to a friend.

So a while ago I downloaded The Maw demo from Live Arcade. It had the first level which I found to be a pleasant diversion. This week's "Deal of the Week" was the full game for half price, so I grabbed it. In The Maw you play as a little alien guy in a yellow jumpsuit who escapes these other aliens when their ship crashes on a planet. The titular Maw is another alien whose body consists of purple ooze and a giant mouth. The gameplay revolves around guiding the Maw around by a leash beam and getting it to eat all the other animals in the level. Eating creatures makes Maw grow bigger which lets it eat even bigger creatures. There is a puzzle element that comes from eating special creatures. These creatures confer an ability to Maw like breathing fire or floating in the air, and are necessary to get past certain obstacles. So far there hasn't been anything I've gotten stuck on, it's all pretty much geared towards a younger audience. There have been a few satisfying head scratching moments though. So is the game any good? I would say it's amusing. The controls work and its got solid gameplay. I'm not screaming at for unfair deaths or glitches. In fact there aren't any deaths at all. Should you buy it? If you have kids this is probably a good game for them. It will exercise their young minds without being to hard, while providing some entertainment. As an adult I find it a good option if I want to kill some time without investing a lot of energy. I usually play it in a free half hour before I have to go do something else.

My biggest complaint with the game is that it's pretty short for a fifteen dollar game. There are less than ten levels and it takes about thirty minutes to finish a level. The production value is fairly high for a XBLA game but I still feel a little ripped off. The bullshit part is that there are three levels offered on the marketplace for 100MSP each so that's another $3.75 if you want all the levels. Why weren't these levels in the original release? The descriptions say they happen in between the normal levels and they are referred to as director's cut levels. So it would appear they were taken out on purpose just to squeeze me for another $3.75. Really $18.75 (the total for all of it) isn't a lot of money, but I expect more game for that, and offering cut levels for more money is just shady. It's the principle of the thing. It's like how the recently released Dragon Age Origins had an expansion pack released the SAME DAY. Why couldn't they have just put it in the full game? Because there are a bunch of dumb assholes out there who are willing to pay for it and the publishers know it. Smells like bullshit to me.