Plain Sight

Plain Sight is a riot from the lovely candy like visuals to the silly squeaks and mechanical screams of robots being dismantled. Like the brassy jazz that accompanies the main menu Plain Sight is both playful and chaotic, hinging on the intrigue of complex patterns created by players navigating 3D space. The exciting combination of flying and hunting is difficult to master but rewards the player with the thrill of something resembling a dance gone mad. Particularly as the only way to score points is to detonate oneself in a life taking super-nova. Yes, this game features suicidal robots, with swords. What more could you possibly want? Gameplay I guess? Well, Plain Sight delivers in spades.

Plain Sight actively encourages players to use the ‘kill’ command as a key mechanic. Unlike other games however, suicide is not a way to escape a bug, to grief another player or to test the game worlds boundaries – it’s actually the only way to win – let me explain. Players must eliminate other players to gain energy or by collecting stars dropped into the level. As the players energy increases, so does the size and speed of their robot. This is a double edged sword however as they now effectively have a sign taped to their back saying, ‘KILL ME PLEASE’. Despite becoming primary targets, high energy players have the opportunity to score big points as multipliers increase for every enemy caught in a suicide explosion. This creates some exciting high reward/loss moments as players gamble on their life to the second before detonating. It’s a tense and exciting gameplay mechanic which translates well across all of the game modes including deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag and the ridiculous variation of Predator hunt, Ninja! Ninja! Botzilla! where one player is a huge green ninja - stronger but slower - while everyone else play as lighting fast super ninjas fighting against the gargantuan robot.

    

After a very brief tutorial explaining the basics of stabbing robots and blowing one-self up, it’s time to hit the servers; single player is possible but bots are predictable and unchallenging. By using the typical mouse look WASD control scheme the player controls a small ninja robot armed with a katana, suitably huggable in that Gir from Invader Zim kind of way. The first challenge to overcome is directing this chap because even though the environments are inert structures hanging in a void and are as threatening as a colourfully abstract product design piece, they pose a suitable hurdle. Surfaces in the immediate proximity of the players robot exert their own gravity rather than having a uniform field for the map. Thus traversing the platforms of gears, impossibly spiralling planes and spaces in-between are at first confusing and frustrating. 

Even the simple act of leaping from platform-to-platform I found frequently to be a maddingly disorientating circumference walk before being torn apart by an unseen enemy. This is not because the game is deficient in terms of design but that it’s just not like anything else. A close approximation would be a blend of a space-combat sim and the original Jedi Knight games on PC. It’s a tough learning curve with many experienced players kicking metal butt, but enduring the tough ninja robot love does yield results. After a few games, I became more accustom to the physics and nimble movements of my metal avatar; soon I was bouncing around the levels pulling of gravity sling-shot missile strikes through openings on unsuspecting enemies as well as head on sporting combat. It’s refreshing to have the latter in a time heavily focused on FPS instant battles, instead Plain Sight offers a deadly dance of finesse, searching for the perfect window to strike. 

This would be impossible if it were not for the auto-lock on function however, which even though sounds pitifully simplistic actually initiates frantic, tense, skilful melee combat. Attacks can be blocked through use of shields and various other skills can give the upper hand – unlocked through point collection. Some of these include: speed, strength of attacks, a reduction of detonation time and a warning when enemies are locking on. All of these are non-persist game-to-game; however, persistent perks can be bought through in-game success and up to three can be selected per game. This provides interesting tactical options similar to FPS class systems by building up skills to focus on offence, defence, star collection or something more balanced.

Plain Sight is focused, beautiful and exciting. It is a compelling experience free of the typical FPS and 3rd person shackles instead offering a form of combat more in common with space-combat sims than anything else. It is unlikely to have emerged from anything other than the independent gaming crowd were these experimental approaches can blossom. My only concern at writing is that the servers were not very populated and mostly only Deathmatch; this apparent disinterest in anything other than straight combat could damage the games longevity. Despite this I expect Plain Sight will be massively entertaining at LANs and at £10 a pop it should be seen as nothing other than a very tempting prospect. Dying has never been this fun!

8/10

Niall Macdonald – 11/11/10