Windscape
A 3D WORLD OF COLOURED TRIANGLES? WHAT DAY IS IT? WHAT YEAR? JUSTIN TOWELL
PUBLISHER HEADUP GAMES / DEVELOPER MAGIC SANDBOX / RELEASE DATE OUT NOW / COST £16.74/$19.99
feel. However, the polygon count is far
higher than classic 3D gaming could
manage, which means Windscape
looks more like a modern game with its
textures missing, which is distinctly
less likeable; chunkier would arguably
have been better. Also, the basic
character graphics mean people
don’t blink – and since humanoid
foes maintain eye contact as they
slump to the floor, that makes for a
very unnerving spectacle. ‘Why?’ They
seem to ask, as the light fades from
their dying, staring eyes. Ugh.
Some later areas of the game turn
up the flair and look lovely thanks to
slick elemental effects (including one
particularly beautiful icy temperature
shift), but the game often looks bland
and sparse.
Speaking of sparse, the NPC
population is alarmingly thin on the
ground. There’s hardly anyone to meet
and the few you do encounter have
little to say. Villagers spout nonsense
single words like “quirrel” while a text
box tells you what they’re actually
saying. With so few NPCs to meet andYou can’t get much
more ‘indie’ than
a game created by
just one man. But
ambition certainly
isn’t lacking here:
Windscape is a fully 3D, first-person
adventure game. Yes, like Skyrim,
though it’s nowhere near as intricate.
Instead, this game embraces old-
school simplicity, having been inspired
by classic RPGs like The Legend Of
Zelda, Secret Of Mana and Golden
Axe Warrior. The result is a nostalgic
throwback that would probably be
just as playable if it were turned
into an 8-bit Game Gear title. But if
you’ve noticed that few 8-bit RPGs
get Xbox One remakes, you’ll realise
the fundamental problem here. That
kind of adventure is just too basic for
today’s tastes.
Not that it tries to shy away from
its simplicity. The art style is unusual
in that there’s barely any texturing at
all. Instead, the world and characters
are made up of flat-shaded polygons,
giving it an early ’90s ‘Virtua’ kind of
no documents to discover in the game
itself, there’s little world-building.
Even more concerning is that
there’s nobody around to give you
more things to do. There are two or
maybe three very basic side-quests
across the entire game. And when
the main story path is so linear and
funnelled, there’s little incentive or
even opportunity to venture off the
beaten track. Everything feels skeletal
and skin-deep.
Indeed, those are accurate
descriptions of pretty much every
element. The combat is a slog, with
barely any difficulty until the final
hour. Enemy AI is particularly poor, with
many slow attack animations that let
you run around the back and get a few
hits in before a projectile is obligingly
fired at the spot you occupied five
seconds ago. But worse, some
enemies freeze or get stuck on the
scenery, including mummies that can’t
escape from their own sarcophagi,
leaving you to stand in front of them
and chip away at their health at your
leisure. Worst of all, it’s actuallyshort
cutWHAT IS IT?
A first-person
role-playing game
created by just
one developer.
WHAT’S IT LIKE?
It’s like Skyrim but
smaller, simpler and
without textures on
its scenery.
WHO’S IT FOR?
Younger,
less-demanding
gamers, perhaps, or
those looking for
nostalgia over depth.088 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE