Maize Review

One of my last reviews was for Potato Thriller, a game trying so hard to be funny but missing the mark by such a huge margin I came away from it needing a real palate cleanser, a game that could restore my faith in the medium. I can safely and wholeheartedly assure you, dear reader, that Maize from developers Finish Line Games has made me a believer once again.

Maize is a first person adventure game that keeps you on your toes not with difficult puzzles but rather with its utterly bizarre scenario. You see, the corn is alive, sentient and really wants your help… for some reason. They’re not the sharpest tools in the kit, but they’re earnest and ever so slightly off the wall in such a charming way. Joining them is your companion, a hastily put together Russian robotic teddy bear called Vladdy who begrudgingly helps you and insults you, the corn, the game’s setting and basically anything else that comes to mind while he does so.

Tying the fantastic character-driven humour together is the narrator. There’s no voiceover in Maize, the narration is presented as white text in the centre of the screen. These start as tutorials, and quickly turn into introspectives into the whole situation that almost precisely echo what I was thinking. After one particularly tense and bizarre encounter with the primary antagonist the white text chimes in with “So, that happened”.

This is more important than it appears

To not seem like a total hypocrite - after criticising a game for being random and praising this one for doing just that - I need to point out how much sheer detail has gone into Maize. There is a real story behind the events of the game and it’s told entirely through the environment and the collectables. Every environment is perfectly crafted and finely tuned, and so often I would find myself chuckling at something stupid written on a post-it stuck to a wall. There’s an entire story, almost entirely separate from the story of the game, told in passive-aggressive post-it notes between two characters littered throughout, and if that hasn’t sold you on this game, I don’t know what will.

The art is beautiful: I was deep in attempts to solve a puzzle when I walked towards the farmhouse and had to stop to take in the way the sun was peering over the top of it through the trees. It’s a cartoony art style but it’s so vibrant and full of life, it suits and sets the tone impeccably. Going back to an earlier point where I said that each environment is perfectly crafted, everywhere is filled with just scenery. The rooms of the aforementioned farmhouse are filled with trash, and the furniture is worn and used. The world feels lived in and that mostly comes down to how great the assets look. It is so clear, particularly when comparing Maize to Potato Thriller, how much effort Finish Line Games have put into this game.

The puzzles can be a little easy because the interactable items are all highlighted with a bright white border, though this would be necessary considering how many objects there are in the game. Each item you pick up also has a hint on how it can be used, which speeds up the more obtuse puzzles. The only time I got stuck was with a puzzle very late on in the game, and that was because I missed the key item - looking at the Steam forums I wasn’t the only one either.

Sentient Corn is not adept at using a broom

I do have a couple technical complaints: you have to go to .ini files to disable motion blur and there isn’t a way I’ve seen so far to modify FOV or head bobbing so if you get easily motion sick you might need to just keep an eye on this and hope those things are patched in. I also experienced some long loading times in some sections, and severe frame drops at points. I was running the game at Ultra with specs that probably only garnered Medium or High presets and while the drops were to single digits they were very infrequent, happening only a couple times in my three hours of playtime.

I love Maize, and the only thing stopping me giving it anything higher are those options that should not be optional on PC these days. Looking past that though, this is clearly a project of passion that constantly keeps turning the crazy up from the very beginning to reach the perfect conclusion. I enjoyed every minute I had with it and I cannot recommend it enough, though this needs to be in your library if you like A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Chicken Run or The Stanley Parable.