Review: "Floater", created by This is Pop

OK, I saw this game advertised on TV, and had to check it out. It's called "Floater," and is hosted on Adult Swim's website

Towards the end of the review, I start calling the floating body a "floater" both as a plug for the name of the game, and as a way to stop writing corpse and dead body in the review :D

Story: N/A

Well, there's not much of a story in this game, nor is there much needed...it opens with a small statement about when the player was a kid, and used to hang out with their buddy's by the river, poking a dead body with a stick and high five-ing each other...that's pretty much it, it's a nostalgia game for those who actually did poke dead bodies in rivers as a kid.

Graphics: 4/5

Seeing as this game moves by pretty quickly, and the only real graphics needed are the stick for poking, the dead body that's being poked, and the various obstacles in the river said body runs in to, there's not much necessary here. Along the banks of the river, if you move slowly, you'll see various wild animals going about their day of drinking water, eating grass, and other natural things...but that's not why this game is played. The lines are clean, crisp, and colorful, which makes it actually a relatively nice looking game.

Music: 4/5

Considering I've only ever seen dead body in the river gags on shows taking place in the South (ie Family Guy), the musical choice for this game fits the bill of what I expected. Basically it's a looping track of a banjo player going to town (although the actual track is only about six seconds long). It's not overly annoying during gameplay, considering the player is concentrating on poking the corpse and hitting obstacles for greater points, the track IS annoying enough to mute while writing a review. Mercifully, there is a mute function if it's just not your style. Overall, limited, but appropriate.

Controls: 3/5

Simple enough, the mouse directs where the stick will poke the corpse, and thus pushes the corpse along the plane you poke. Although there's basically two controls here, namely the direction of the mouse and clicking the left mouse button, this reviewer found actually controlling the motion of the body difficult. Besides needing to become relatively familiar with how far the body is poked, the controls themselves are really quite simple to get.

Gameplay: 3/5

The gameplay is fast, and during gameplay, this reviewer didn't reach the end of any particular level. It may be that there are no levels, per se, as much as there is time limits and the goal of amassing as many points as possible before time runs out. Besides that, the gameplay is pretty good, and there are a number of whimsical ways to gain points (some of them being directing your floater into rocks, angry beavers, water snakes, and logs). The high scores can be posted online for those who register at Adult Swim's website , however it wasn't an issue for this reviewer.

Difficulty: 3/5

Probably the two most difficult aspects of this otherwise straightforward game are controlling the floater and running out of time. There are checkpoints along the route (similar to that old inner tube arcade game) where you can gain 10 seconds on your remaining time. Depending on how quickly you choose to progress through the game, actually passing through these checkpoints can be challenging. Additionally, the floater itself is sensitive to pokes, and sometimes floats into a bank that takes valuable time to escape from. Having said this, the overall difficulty isn't hard, boiling down to amassing points by hitting as many things as possible.

Overall: 3/5

It's a pretty fun, short waste of time game that reflects what style of games adult swim hosts on their website. A number of their games are, as the name suggests, not for the kiddies, but as something an adult working person can quickly play through during their coffee break to ease the stress of that boss hanging over your head all morning. This game is reminiscent of the river inner tube arcade game this reviewer used to see as a kid, so people playing this might expect similar gameplay. A nice, short diversion from more important manners, and one that lends itself well to review :) . ゲームをやった！

Check out this and other entertaining games on Adult Swim