The Impossible Game Review

It’s quite an intriguing title to be sure. The Impossible Game. Such a bold accusation against the skills of any hardcore gamer just begs us to prove our worth by defeating it. To be crowned the winner of an impossible game is quite a compelling sales pitch. A public declaration of how awesome we are. The jewel in the hardcore gamer’s crown. But that would only be so if the game lived up to the title. Sadly it doesn’t.

So you are an orange 2D block. Nothing special about you whatsoever. Except for being orange of course. Your controls consist of just one button: jump. With this key function you get to….jump over stuff. Usually it is triangles. Nasty, pointy black triangles. Sometimes you get even more vindictive black blocks, that try to stop you with their innate blockiness. That’s about it.

Each level consists solely of jumping. And as the title would suggest, it is certainly challenging. But not as you might imagine. It is does not challenge skill; it challenges memory. Since you move moderately fast, and the path of obstacles in front of you does not appear until you are quite close to them, you don’t get a lot of time to see exactly what you should do next. Sometimes, you are on a block suspended in mid-air, and the next block you must either fall or jump to is only just starting to materialise. So you die, and try again.

Basically, trial and error. You keep working your way through the level, dying a stupid number of times, until you have literally memorised the entire route. Then the only bit of skill involves a bit of timing as you go through your memorised level. The ‘impossible’ nature the title suggests then comes into play when you realise that the ultimate objective is to complete each level without a single fault. And the online stats show that a very small percentage of people have actually invested the innumerable hours of frustration required to complete these objectives.

But here is the crux of the matter. If you want a memory and timing test, then this is just what you need. But for actual fun as a game, or as a test of skill, then this title is redundant. In fact, it is arguable whether or not The Impossible Game is even a game. In fact, it could serve an excellent role as a form of punishment for wayward miscreants. Force them to play this for a couple of hours, and they will soon see the error of their ways.

Without even touching on the basic graphics, the music restriction, the fact that there are only 5 levels….all of that is superfluous to the core problem. This game is not fun. Nor is it impossible; it’s just damn annoying. Whatever you do, do not get sucked in by this ego assault. The Impossible Game is one of the most pointless attempts at a game the world has ever seen.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

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