Plain Sight Review

There are plenty of serious games out there these days, with in-depth stories and complex characters; games you have to spare a few hours a day to play through. But what if you don't have those few hours spare and fancy some no strings attached gaming fun? Well that's where Plain Sight comes in!

Plain Sight has one of the most simple concepts I've come across in a game so far. You play as a robot armed with a sword, the aim of the game is to kill other players by running and jumping towards them, locking on to them using the left mouse button, holding the button to build power and letting it go blowing your opponents to kingdom come.

Doing this earns you energy, which makes your little robot bigger and better, but this energy can only be accessed by blowing yourself sky high! Seems a little counterproductive right? I thought that too, but when you respawn you find it was actually worth it and you are now a step in front of the others with your bigger more powerful robot! On the flip side you're now a bigger target, best keep moving! It's also possible to catch a few people with your suicidal tendencies and kill them in the process, which is nice.

Your reward for this is points and exp - and what do points and exp make? Prize's of course! Prizes in the form of upgrades for your robot to be precise.

From the statistic screen which pops up every time you die, you can access the upgrade menu from here. This is really handy if you're getting the snot kicked out of you for example and you need a stronger shield, just get yourself killed and upgrade yours, depending on your available XP of course.

Plain Sight can often be an incredibly manic experience, with games hosting as many as 20 people on some servers. Its fair to say that the learning curve in this game is a steep one. There is a tutorial but its not hugely detailed and just instructs you on the most basic manoeuvres in the game i.e walking, aiming and slicing. You're left pretty much to your own devices to learn, this can take a while when you're in the middle of lots of people trying to get you in a manner not dissimilar to a scene from the film Kill Bill! But a bit of perseverance will see you through and you'll be ganging up on a helpless newbie in no time!

The most difficult aspect to this game I think is the traversing of the landscapes, because so much is going on, it's very easy to run headlong into a wall or get yourself stuck in a corner you've fallen down as you've not paid attention. It makes it very hard to see what's coming sometimes until it's right in front of you and bam, someone's got you. Overall the design is very pretty with some well designed levels filled with bright funky colours - certainly enough to keep you entertained whilst leaping and bounding your way away from certain doom. This isn't to say that they are perfect mind; there are little glitches that when they happen once or twice are forgivable but start to get irritating after the 20th time. These include getting stuck to walls and falling into the smallest gaps, jumps not really working and sometimes even movement being an issue leaving you no choice but to detonate yourself.

Once you've gotten used to the levels and controls your well away. This is a very fun little game, one that you can have a really good laugh on with a group of friends when you're fed up of other multi-player games or just want something a little more light hearted. Selling for a rather reasonable £7.99/$9.99/€8.99 on Steam at the moment, it would be rude not to get this; hours of fast paced, totally original fun for very little buck seems like a no-brainer to me. If finding novel ways to kill your friends (not in real life of course) and ninja robots with swords blowing themselves up are two things that often cross your mind then this is definitely the game for you, even if not, it's definitely worth a go.