Vital Stats

Genre: Action/Sim

Players: 1

Online: Leaderboards

Developer: Dejobaan Games

Publisher: Dejobaan Games

ESRB Rating: N/A

Release Date: 09/03/09

Platforms

• PC

Are you passively suicidal, but just don’t know how to take that single step to go pro? Dejobaan Games has found a way to literally do just that. Share their Reckless Disregard for Gravity by stepping off future superstructures without the inconvenience of permanent death. Wrap that up with the highest tier comedy writing, and this game will delight casual and hardcore gamers alike. So throw yourself off something tall. It’s fun!

The first step is a doozy
Aaaaa! started life as a humble base jumping simulator, but the developers found that increasing realism decreased the fun. So they took the venerable art of unjustified extrapolation and jacked the game around to the opposite extreme. So now you weave between floating buildings, tagging government buildings and smashing glass plates while judges give you points. Score enough points, and you’ll get some teeth to unlock new jumps and buy gear. Just try not to think about where they came from.

Once you’re plummeting, you score big points for each structure you buzz, or kiss, and a steady ping of small points as long as you hug the building’s surface. For bonus points, you can flip off protesters, smash unsuspecting birds, and perform miscellaneous other stunts. Then you unfurl your parachute at the bottom and limp into the sunset. Take that bundle and remix it 81 different ways, and you have Aaaaa!‘s gameplay.

Levels, like life, are short but not small, so dying is barely a hassle. This is a good thing, because because there’s a certain inexorable gravity about the game. Death comes swiftly with poor decisions, and mastering Aaaaa! requires painstaking precision, steely nerves, and ruthless efficiency. Fortunately, picking up the game is much easier. Casual gamers might not be thrilled with the 8-button control scheme (WASD + 4 buttons), but the learning curve is shallow, and the buttons are mapped wisely across the keyboard and mouse.

Go ahead.
You won’t even feel it.

The challenge arises from conflating obstacles with objectives. You kiss a building the same way you kill yourself on it: swoop in and get dangerously close. Maintain control and you kiss it. Smash clumsily into it and you die. The same goes for hugs. You have to get in close to tag a building, and ramming a bird makes you spin out of control. The glass plates are organized so that you can only hit them all at ramming speed. The list goes on.

The great thing about this system is that it makes the game feel artificially fair. Every time you die, you were doing something stupid. Sure, flirting with death is the only way to score point one, but it’s hardly the game’s fault that you tried to thread the needle through a three foot gap. By personally sowing every failure you reap, you mask some issues that might otherwise mar the fun. For instance, the first person perspective isn’t ideal for obstacle evasion: you can’t see your body, so it can be difficult to judge a looming collision. Aaaaa! also feels a little inconsistent when it comes to sheer walls. You sometimes bounce harmlessly off them, and other times they take your life at a graze. However, both these issues feel like mere quirks because they don’t decrease your agency.

Between the easy death and point-driven objectives, Aaaaa! has that classic arcade feel. This game would be right at home stealing quarters from your college fund in a badly-lit room. In fact, Aaaaa! feels like nothing so much as a racing game with no brakes. Screaming toward the ground is remarkably similar to racing through a full pipe in F-Zero. They share the optic flow as the world blurs past and the frantic twitching as you align yourself just so. However Aaaaa! sets itself apart with something you can’t get in the racing genre: exploration. Racing games squeeze you into a tunnel with 7 opponents to keep things lively. Aaaaa! strands you in a cavern alone. You pick the best path to rack up kisses and hugs, and there are many rewarding paths to the ground. It’s less aimless sandbox exploration and more frantic path optimization, but with the caveat that you don’t know the best way up front.

Much Ado About Falling

Highlights for Gamers:
Count the jokes in this frame.

Aaaaa! seems to appreciate that throwing yourself off floating future buildings is a little ridiculous. The game is packed with so many winks that you’ll think it’s having a seizure. Even the level selection grid is a pleasure to browse. Level names have sidelong relevance to their content, but absolute fidelity to smartly turned phrase. Some cells aren’t levels at all, but non sequitur factoids that are just fun to know. The game even comes with handy audio clips that will teach you to debristle a pig and make cookies. However, the best stuff comes in the interstitial news clips. Every few levels, a bored and slightly depressed newscaster will update you on the world of the future. The news itself vacillates between insane and completely ordinary, but the voice acting makes it all into absurd comedy.

Aaaaa!‘s visual style is no more serious than its writing, and garish neon is apparently the style of the future. The game never really settles on ugly or pretty, but it’s always striking. In fact, peering over a sheer cliff at the ads, traffic, and architecture can be overwhelming, and that can lead to lethal indecision. However, it’s all a part of the busy visual milieu, and everything hangs together and feels right.

It’s The Sudden Stop At The End
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! — A Reckless Disregard for Gravity is a magnificent action game. The controls are elegant, the challenge is self-motivated, and the play is easy to learn and hard to master. There’s a surfeit of content for an arcade-style offering, and it comes in bite-size chunks. It’s only a pity that the game isn’t portable.

What It Costs: $10

What It’s Worth:
•To The Hardcore: $20 (buy)
•To The Genre Fan: $20 (buy)
•To The Casual: $15 (buy)