Steve Boxer is back to cover another of the latest, tastiest offerings on the PSN. This is one which has been knocking about for a little while, but we thought it was worth revisiting the game on the strength of its innovative weirdness…
If weird, quirky games with arty pretensions are your bag, then you really should think about spending the paltry £4.99 required to buy and download PixelJunk Eden. It’s delightfully bizarre, in a similar manner to fl0w – but in a completely different league to fl0w as far as its gameplay, which is more reminiscent of LocoRoco, is concerned. Indeed, once you get your head around PixelJunk Eden, you’ll find it surprisingly addictive.
If you had to fit it into an existing games genre, you’d probably describe it as a platform game – although it’s not much like any platformer you will have played in the past. To illustrate, we’ll attempt to describe it. Here goes. You control an insect-like creature called a Grimp, which can’t be moved left and right, but can jump in any direction (that direction being determined by the left stick). Any surface you encounter, you will stick to. And if you jump off a surface, your Grimp will remain attached to it by a silken thread, which you can use to swing around (and reel in by pressing the circle button). The thread will snap after about three rotations, though.
The levels are actually gardens and it’s your job as a flea-like Grimp to construct them. You will see hollow circular areas, which are essentially plant-buds, and you must germinate them by bashing into the grains of pollen which float across the screen (the best way to break several at once is to swing on a piece of silk). Then you can use the resulting plants to reach inaccessible Spectra. There are five Spectra in each garden. The first time you enter a garden, you just have to find one to clear; the next time two, and so on. Time will count down unless you collect crystals which are dotted about the gardens (bonus ones appear if, say, you take out a whole group of pollen). Predators appear, which will knock you off course unless you keep the X button depressed, which makes you spin and pass through everything except the stone areas that infrequently punctuate the gardens.
Got that? At least you should have an idea how wacky PixelJunk Eden is now. Factor in superb music, which starts off pretty ambient, but morphs into pretty click-house when action starts taking place, and you get a truly mesmerising experience. Despite its weirdness, PixelJunk Eden has a bizarre sort of logic to it, and it soon becomes thoroughly engrossing. Although if you’re the type of gamer who lives on an exclusive diet of shoot-em-ups and racing games, you’ll probably find it uncomfortably sedate and cerebral.
It’s certainly different, and we’ve become thoroughly addicted to it: it’s both soothing and moreish. It kind of crept onto the PlayStation Network rather unheralded, which we think is criminal. So go and check it out.
It’s a good game for a fiver, trophies are a bit on the hard side to get though, for me anyway, and I lost interest in it fairly quickly. Probably would have stuck at it more if it wasn’t for the ‘nearly completed a level after 15 mins only to miss a jump and fall to the ground missing every single platform on the way up and having to start again’ moments.
This is the only game that has made me physically throw my controller across the room!!!
Comment by Robothamster — Oct 13, 2008 @ 2:54 pm
I enjoyed this game when I first got it. Then I become frustrated by a fundamental flaw. The length of the game play-through time is made artificially long by the fact that you go into a garden, collect one spectra and then you have to leave, go back into the same garden to collect two spectra (spectras?) and then you have to leave. Go back for the third time, collecting the other two again along the way and arrggh, see where I’m coming from!? Why not let us run riot in a garden on a multiple-spectra-collecting-fest the first time around? So for me the game is a little tedious. PixelJunk Monsters is far better.
Comment by reakt — Oct 13, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
I think it’s a great game but loses it’s fun when you run out of time just before nearly completing a level, you have to complete each level 5 times to get all the spectra’s which makes it a little tedious too. Other than that, a very nice game with a unique feel ideal for those situations when you have a lot of time and fancy something different
Really wish they would add a ‘travelling mode’ though, with no time limit (and keep the trophies) - would make it more fun and more for me I think 
Comment by phluff — Oct 13, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
firmware 2.5 goes live 2nite!!!
Comment by adairdevil — Oct 13, 2008 @ 5:20 pm
Eden is different and innovative. I really like it although the quibbles already mentioned are justified. I haven’t found it as addictive as monsters but I do pop back now and again for a swing about…
Comment by Tom F — Oct 13, 2008 @ 9:26 pm
I enjoyed the game a great deal. I do not think that I would have fully completed it if I had not been earning trophies for doing so, but the trophies added a great challenge and I did not want to stop playing until I had obtained them all.
Comment by Mace — Oct 13, 2008 @ 9:57 pm
Played the demo, pretty, something a bit new and great music.
Was bored after a short time though. Thats just me though, I would urge anyone not sure to try the demo.
I’m guessing from this article it ain’t selling to well
Comment by Shrui — Oct 14, 2008 @ 5:29 am
If the Trophies were more attainable I would play it a lot more, it is fun to dip in and out of though
Comment by TheShirts — Oct 14, 2008 @ 9:54 am
I’m not sure which is more frustrating, missing that final jump 20 mins+ into a PJ Eden garden and running out of time or one PJ Monster getting through on round 19 when you’re so close to a rainbow.
Either way both those Pixel Junk games are great for the price, simple in nature but fiendishly addictive. I’d say I prefer Monsters as I’ve lost a serious amount of hours to the game but Eden is also alot of fun.
Comment by marvzilla — Oct 14, 2008 @ 10:09 am
Im 5th in the world on the 3 player leader board!
Is that worth any kind of prize Three Speech?
Comment by Xenostar — Oct 14, 2008 @ 11:24 am
@TheShirts - I agree. Some of those trophies are seriously hard - like the one where you have to collect every speck of pollen in a garden!
Comment by reakt — Oct 14, 2008 @ 11:24 am
This is by far the best of the ‘budget’ games on the store. It’s fantastic.
I also have to commend the trophies as well -every one of them pretty much is rewarding honest play (as opposed to some of the garbage you get in other titles where you can setup games to win or scour walkthroughs on the net).
Comment by PF — Oct 14, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
I find it horribly frustrating, so hardly play it. Mind you, I hardly play Monsters either.
It’s official: I’m rubbish.
Comment by nemo — Oct 14, 2008 @ 3:09 pm
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