Plain Sight

I think that it’s a fair assessment that I’ve been addicted to multiplayer games ever since the dawn of GoldenEye for the N64 and the entire summers I spent in my friend Jason’s living room. We ate, drank, and made sweet, sweet nerd love to that poor game. Strangely enough, while I love multiplayer based games, I have a bit of a problem with them as well: they infuriate me. Like a Juggalo being denied my heroin, I become an absolute jerk as soon as I die for the fiftieth time. And yet, Beatnik Games’ Plain Sight somehow goes past my noob rage and makes me forget my anger and smile instead.

Long have the arguments that graphics make a game good been forgotten, replaced instead by story or, more importantly, the sheer fun taken from playing the actual game. And while Plain Sight is not a graphically superior game, it is otherwise quite remarkable in its style. Jazzy music, a motif most robot-based games would never use, and absolutely adorable characters make the game a visual treat, even if its not the prettiest. Some might complain that there is no customization features, and rightfully so. However, the sheer cuteness of your robot is enough to make you forget all about designing your own little robot of suicidal doom. The looming tracks and brilliant neon lights, they force you to look back and realize that sometimes a game does not have to look like Mass Effect 2 to be stylishly spectacular.

The motto of the game seems to be simple enough: Kill Yourself. And, oddly enough, it fits perfectly with the basic idea behind the game. Essentially, you are a robot whose job it is to charge into other robots, blow them up, take their points, and then kill yourself with a detonation of pleasing proportions. By the end of a match, most of the players will be fully upgraded, giving them extra height on their jump or a stronger charge or… well, I won’t go into the long list of upgrades. Just know that you’re not the only robot in town with all of those powers. As you level up, most of the others will as well. As always there will be the stragglers – we call them the ditch diggers. Strangely enough, I am one of those Ditch Diggers…

The game is shockingly simple and yet hard at the same time. You can fight against the AI bots, but they’re not the same as other players. At anytime you could very well die, losing all of those points you took from that jerk with the terrible name. Yet, even if you do, you’re still left with a smile on your face. Why? Because, it’s fun. By making it where the points reset every match and the characters are all the same, Beatnik has taken away the anger that comes with losing valuable experience or seeing your character die. Even in Bad Company 2, where your characters in appearance are not customizable, there is a strong bit of frustration that can brew from having lesser ranked players snipe you or jump into a helicopter and remind you why you hate Battlefield games. Yet, in Plain Sight, there is no frustration in dying or losing a match. Instead, you are given a chance to have mindless fun for hours at a time.

If this game were twenty dollars, I would recommend buying it immediately. While it is not a game I could see myself playing for longer than a few hours, it is a game that I know I will not stop playing until Beatnik comes out with Plain Sight 2. The actual price of the game is only $9.99 and, as if to fully win my heart, can be bought on Steam.

I know it sounds as though I’m giving this game a good review and refusing to point out all of the bad. The problem is, however, that when I play the game, I don’t see the bad. Truly, I have an absolute blast, no pun intended, and anything wrong with the game I shrug off. No, I’m not trying to say how amazing I am, but rather how great this game is at convincing me that I should continue playing this other than my tenth Mass Effect 2 guy, whose stuck on Horizon on Insanity. Plain Sight is not a perfect game, but few games are. For people like myself, somebody who thoroughly enjoys online shenanigans, this is a game worth buying.