Anyone who has ever
wanted to run through the Internet at breakneck speed, performing
daring jumps over abysses and obstacles in a Parkour manner, will
enjoy action platformer 404Sight, a free game available on Steam and developed by
graduates of the University of Utah. The premise sounds abstruse?
It is, because in the game the player's task is to save the free
internet by delivering important data to distribution points in the
internet as quickly as possible.
The story, a statement on the
subject of net neutrality, is primarily conveyed via text insertions,
but is rather secondary anyway, since the game's focus is on the
action. Not only the "architecture" of the virtual world,
which is reminiscent of the Tron movies, represents an obstacle for
the player. Also, the Internet Service Providers try to prevent the
transport of the data by putting so-called inhibitors and
deceleration fields in the way of the protagonist. As long as the
bandwidth display is full, these fields can be traversed with a boost
or the inhibitors can be destroyed, but without boost the character
is slowed down or reset to the last checkpoint by the inhibitors,
which is why you have to run around or jump over them.
Your avatar
achieves maximum speed only by using the "Ping" ability,
which can be activated at any time. Not only does it reveal the
dangers of the virtual world, but it also makes acceleration and jump
fields visible and usable, allowing you to move in a particularly
fast and agile way. Since obstacles like slow-down fields only have a
negative effect on the avatar while "Ping" is activated,
the use of the ability has to be weighed in a matter of seconds to
cross an area as quickly and safely as possible. If you don't make
any mistakes, you will experience a visually impressive rush of
speed, accompanied perfectly by the driving electronic music.
Don't expect to be overly wowed by the graphics. Still, the game's virtual world is staged coherently and its reduced, stylized visuals actually help navigating it. The controls can be pulled off easily either with mouse and keyboard or gamepad. The moderate degree of difficulty and fair checkpoints hardly cause any frustration. Unfortunately, even relatively inexperienced players will have played through the 14 levels within an hour (depending on skill). However, after finishing the game you can still explore alternative routes through the courses and try to beat your best times. I highly recommend checking out 404Sight if your into fast 3D platforming action.