IGN's review of LIT seems to like it, and even highly recommends purchasing it. However Mr. Harris still gives it a 7.1/10.0. For reference, this classifies it as a little less desirable than Imagine Party Babyz by their standards. His reasons for penalizing the game are interesting:
But the puzzles require way too much trial-and-error out of the gamer. Though you certainly have the ability to look around at the entire level at your own pace and discretion, it's almost impossible to solve a puzzle without wasting turns and restarting from the beginning. There's really no way, for example, to know which televisions will activate first with the collected remote, or to understand where the rotating lamps are aimed without turning them on. Puzzles really should give the gamer the sense that the solution is right in front of their face, but especially in the later levels you just can't solve these layouts without failing over and over just to learn the layout of the room. It's almost unfair, and very much irritatingly repetitive.
And it's not just the trial-and-error that gets annoying. It's also the inconsistency of the game's world. In some levels you can reach for lamps in the darkness and turn on the light, but in others it's instant death.
Maybe this is because I didn't rush through the game to get a review out in less than twenty four hours of its release, but I can hardly relate to these woes. I almost was always able to figure out what my next move was supposed to be as long as I just took a second to analyze my surroundings. The harder levels often presented slightly ambiguous possibilities, but that's perfectly legitimate design and didn't detract from my enjoyment. In fact I'd say that any game, especially "horror" games, should frequently have areas where the player has to take risks. I hope I don't sound like a fanboy of the old school Resident Evil games who defends the unpopular controls because they "make the game scarier," but I really don't see how the few chance-based decisions this game throws at the player are bad at all.
The game isn't inconsistent at all. Lamps within arm's length of a lit area are reachable, and ones that are further away aren't. I don't see what's so complicated about this. If anything, the game should be docked points for not making it clear enough if a light is or isn't, but I never had any problems figuring it out. If there's really any uncertainty you can always just slow down and get a closer look, which always cleared things up for me.
"Puzzles really should give the gamer the sense that the solution is right in front of their face" is by far my favorite quote here. Where can I even begin in explaining how insane this is? Where did Harris get this design philosophy? What games are like that? I can't even argue with this because I have no idea what he means and I can't think of any examples that could possibly explain what he's saying. Whatever he's saying, LIT's basic design is sound anyway.
By far the worst part about the review isn't that it penalizes LIT for bullshit reasons, but because LIT does indeed have flaws which the review does not address. The biggest flaw, bad controls, are addressed by Harris but there is much more than just that. My personal problem was that the game could have been more than it is. It could have introduced more randomized elements to make each playthrough of every level more exciting. It could have been more creative with its puzzle mechanics. It could have added more scary elements instead of using the same shadowy specters in the background for every level. The first time I shown my flashlight into the completely black room I felt a mental resistance, a fear that something would be out there that I don't want to see. Several levels later I got used to the fact that there would never be anything other than those same shadowy things I saw the first time. I don't like saying how a game should be because I'm not the designer and it's not my game, and that's my biggest hurdle in critiquing a game like LIT. It's a very solid concept but could be much more, but I can't say exactly how without taking over the authorial role
But whatever the game could be, it should certainly not be how IGN's staff want it. The game isn't perfect but it's important to understand why.
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1 comment
This is what I don't like about game reviews in general. Reviewers often don't distinguish between real problems and idiosyncrasies that are crucial to the game's design. For instance their review of Wii Sports criticizes the game for its simplicity when the whole point of the game was that it could be played by people who had never played a video game before.
Of course I suppose for their intended audience that probably is probably perceived as an important point so it's hard to criticize them for writing like that.