by Klaus von Hohenloe

Created on: November 12, 2008   Last Updated: March 11, 2011

Do you find yourself pining for the platform games of old? Do you crave the clever designs of Mario? Do you have a need for speed that only Sonic can satisfy? If so, you may want to keep your distance from Alex Gordon, by Alawar. It will only sully the memories you have of good platformers. Not only does it do almost nothing new for the genre, but the one or two new things it does are done poorly.

The story is the usual collection of cliches. You take on the roll of Alex Gordon, a genetic hybrid of a Crocodile Dundee and a cat (ok, so that's not too cliche). While exploring an island with your sister you discover an amulet made up of five gems. Suddenly the gems disappear and a gang of natives capture yourdefenselesssibling. You are then telepathically informed by the "Monkey King" that he is holding her prisoner until you collect all five of the missing gems.

Of course, a generic story does not a bad game make. Innovative gameplay, creative level design and re-playability can save any game, no matter how terrible the story. Unfortunately, Alex Gordon doesn't have any of these either. If you've played a generic bargain-bin platformer, you've played Alex Gordon. You run, jump, collect coins, and kill enemies by jumping on them all while exploring generic stages (forest, lava, frozen, etc.). Now, make the enemies dumber than bricks and the platforming barely harder than walking while chewing gum and you've got Alex Gordon.

The gamedefinitelyhas a dated look to it. Not only are the environments mostly static and uninspired, but the character animations are stiff and awkward. Alex looks like he's running around with a lead pipe for a spine, and his enemies move around like their valiumprescriptions need to get cut back.

A small amount of credit has to be given to Alawar for trying to do a few new-ish things, but only a tiny amount since those things are done terribly. The most notable "innovation" in the game is the ability to sneak. Sounds fun, right? Wrong. I encountered all of one type of enemy that you could sneak past, but I never actually found any reason to sneak past them! There was never a time that I had to sneak by them instead of just jumping on them and earning coins I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Not that the coins really matter. The game allows you to spend the coins to upgrade your personal island, which does nothing more than chance a static picture.

I might have recommended this game for little kids who would enjoy the lack of difficulty if it were $5. However, unless you join the Big Fish Game Club, which locks you into buying more than one game, you'll have to shell out $20 for it! For a downloadable game of such poor quality, which only has a play time of 2-4 hours, you're better off using that money for something more fun, like new socks.

1/5

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