Soar like a bird, then crash back down to Earth
Vane
THERE’S SOMETHING about Vane that’s so
obvious, we need to get it out of the way
now, or it’s going to clog up our thoughts,
and we may never stop talking about it.
Vane is beautiful. It’s breathtaking. It’s
the sort of game that makes us wish we
published four-page reviews, just so
we could fill three of them with images.
The game runs at 4K, 60fps, highest
settings on our GTX 1070 Ti test bed.
You may look at the screenshot above
and say it runs so well because there’s
nothing there, just empty desert and low-
res cliffs, and we’d have to shuffle slightly
and concede the point. There is a lot of
empty desert and low-res cliffs, but it’s
an artistic choice that works, providing
a gorgeous backdrop to explore against.
Vane is ver y much an explor ation game.
You start as a human, possibly a mother
cradling her child, but left ambiguous
enough to remain uncertain. She runs
through a ruined cityscape being further
destroyed by lightning strikes. You’re
given no direction—that much holds for
the entire the game—so you run, findingdiscover the path that leads to progress.
As he does, the game becomes more of
a platform game, as you gather more
children, and the scenery transforms. It
never becomes less than lovely to look at.
Vane lacks focus, and that’s unusual in
a short game. The tracking through and
over the desert is frustrating when you
can’t find the one thing you need. Later,
sluggish movement and sticky scenery
have the same effect. Vane has cracked
half of what it takes to make a great game,
let’s hope the devs can bring the rest to
bear on their next project. Meanwhile, it
sure does look pretty. –IAN EVENDENA restricted color palette and
low-res art style can work wonders.ways to progress as the wind whips up
the fabric of the city into barriers to your
progress. Eventually, you meet a tall,
bird-like figure. It rejects you, and you fly
skyward, swept up by the storm.
Loading. Then you are a bird in the
desert. There’s no perceivable link to the
scene before, so you take off and fly.
The bird appears black, but sparkles
and iridesces as the camera and its
plumage move, the peaks in its feathers
mirroring the triangles the nearby cliffs
are clearly built from. The gentlest
guidance sets you following a chasm in
the rock—there’s nothing else to do—
so you explore. This is the backbone of
the game, and its downfall. Something
glints in the distance. You find a structure,
gather more birds, move to another
structure, bringing the flock together so
its weight pushes the spinning apparatus
off balance, bringing it crashing down.
Then you’re a boy. He can pull levers
and free caged birds in ways a single bird
never could, but is limited by being stuck
on the ground. He still needs to explore, toVane
VANE Lush graphics; sweeping
soundtrack; marvelous flight.
VAIN Lack of focus and direction; sticky
collision detection.
RECOMMENDED SPECS 2.4GHz quad-core
CPU; 8GB RAM; GTX 780/R9 290X.
$20, http://www.friendandfoegames.com, ESRB: E6
VERDICTmaximumpc.com OCT 2019 MAXIMUMPC 91
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