Recently had the pleasure of an enjoyable few sessions on the Game of the Year edition of Badland, that was part of the Playstation Plus package.
The game is a physics puzzler, requiring you to get the central character, a gelatinous blob-like creature, from the start of each level, to the end without falling of the left edge of the scrolling screen. Generally, your movement is restricted to pressing the "R" trigger that boosts the blob up the screen and then controlling the descent. Though this starts of fairly basic, a series of collectable triggers around each level can change the size, speed, rotation and density of the character, as well as creating dozens of clones. Traps, portals, buzzsaws and mazes of increasing difficulty will try and end your progress.
For clarities sake, I completed 90 of the 100 single player levels that were available in this game. I started the "Doomsday" levels, but progress was slow and I felt like I'd seen all the game had to offer. There is a multiplayer functionality too, but I can't speak to how that works.
Physics puzzle games are a hugely congested area since the days of "Trials HD", amongst others, made them popular, but I do feel like "Badland" was worth my time to play. It's very impressive how much variety can be rung out of simple mechanics with just the use of intelligent game design. It's visually quite impressive, with a great use of shadow and light but with its cartoony animation style. I felt there was more going on in the backgrounds than I was properly able to look at, as I was concentrating on making progress.
As it was, essentially, free to me, it's hard to argue that it wasn't value for money - and for less than £1, which I can see the game is now on most platforms, I'd still say it was very worth it. It's not perhaps the most original game in the world, but in terms of polishing this particular genre, it's right up there.
