Child Of Eden
360 | XBLA | Review: Glen Downey
Rated: 4 out of 5
Silence is broken by the appearance of a single cell. Shoot it. It divides. Synths play. Shoot the new ones, they divide again. More synths. Drums kick in as a new organism appears. The single cells evolve into space jelly fish. They evolve into space sting rays schooling around a giant space whale that swims through a black hole. It disassembles itself into stars then rematerialises as a galaxy sized cosmic phoenix, while a raging club track responds to every action.
The next game in the synaesthetic body of work by Q? Entertainment, Child Of Eden finally gives us a reason to plug in the Kinect unit for more than just crappy mini games and dance-offs.
Child Of Eden is the spiritual successor to 2001’s Underworld inspired cyber-psychadelic classic Rez. Only this one cranks it up a notch on the space hippy stakes and sets you up in the far future at the molecular level in an attempt to recreate the existence of the first human born in outer space, Jurrassic Park-style.
Shooting stuff makes noises that fit in and interact with the soundtrack. One enemy might be a snare sound, another might be a bass synth and so on. As you progress through the levels this cacophony builds to a banging dance choon.
a banging dance choon. It’s the Kinect that seals the deal here. Your right hand is one gun; your left is a rapid fire secondary gun. Each is aimed by waving your hand to an enemy and then gesturing to fire.
It’s not the longest game, but you’ll play it over and over. And if we ever get bored of having our brains fried by kickarse dance music and insane Japanese psychedelia, then may the Galactic Space Phoenix have mercy on us all.
