Beam that marble up, Scottie!

By: Uma Smith

As we get closer to the release of the PlayStation VITA, I am saddened by the fact that my beloved PlayStation Portable will be fading away in terms of ongoing development and focus from Sony. Interestingly enough, developer Nordcurrent has released a PSP game, Fading Shadows, just recently via the PlayStation Network. Looking at the name of the title, is it “foreshadowing” what this system will become?

Anyway, in this particular game, you guide a marble within an environment filled with puzzles and switches to a specific destination. However, there’s a twist. Instead of controlling the marble itself, you control a beam of light to weaken or strengthen the gravitational pull toward the direction you want the marble to move. You also get to ignite barrels of dynamite and reflect off mirrors to activate some of the switches.

Your marble can take on the form of glass, metal and wood, and each form has a specific set of characteristics. Wood allows the marble to float in water, but it can burn up easily. Metal gives it the ability to jump and double-jump but will rust in water. Finally, glass has a light weight, which allows it to avoid setting off weight-based triggers, but shatters if hit too hard and can sink in water.

Fading Shadows is meant to be a relaxing and slow-paced game. If you take note of the movement of the beam of light and the marble, you’ll find that care and finesse are the key elements to success. However, this makes solving the puzzles time-consuming and painful. For speed demons, it’ll definitely provide a grueling experience.

To make matters worse, there are numerous opportunities for your marble to be thrown off a ledge accidentally. How is that possible for a slow-paced game? Well, with the various ramps and jumps that can have your marble rolling off, you’ll have to redirect it to an alternate route. This also slows down your progress and makes the puzzle-solving task even more irritating.

But wait, there’s more! The camera seems very uncooperative. It’s really difficult to get the right angle and point of view for the action. This can be detrimental since you’ll be unable to spot important clues within the environment or avoid hazardous obstacles. Also, objects tend to get in the way of the camera when things suddenly shift.

Listening to the background, the music is set at a relaxing and steady mood. Keeping that in mind, it can really make you fall asleep because of its repetitive track. The ambient tunes provide enjoyment for those who listen to Trance music, but the looping takes it away. Although it fits well with the intended pacing, it fails to captivate.

Nonetheless, Fading Shadows is not all bad. If you take a look at its visuals, the power of its graphics engine is pretty decent even though it can appear grainy at times. Objects in the foreground or background blur out depending on how the view is zoomed. Also, the storyline is presented through some genuinely detailed artwork. However, I have caught the frame rate suffer at times during the gameplay.

Fading Shadows‘ 40 levels will take around five hours to complete. Afterward, there isn’t much replay value unless you consider the multiplayer feature where you can engage another friend with a PSP in an ad-hoc session.

Here, you are placed in some random level where you’ll race to see who can complete it first. It’s not very stimulating considering you can’t bump into your opponent to disrupt his or her progress. So it’s basically like playing on your own but with a ghost marble racing against you.

In retrospect, the puzzles contained in Fading Shadows do add a significant degree of challenge, but so does the slowness of the game. Essentially, you’ll find that as you progress further your interest level will quickly “fade” away.

OVERALL (2.25/5)

Although Fading Shadows does have an interesting concept for a puzzle game, it just has too many issues working against it. Going at a slow pace should lead to a calming experience, not a frustrating one. As much as I would like to praise this game, I’d have to say that the $9.99 asking price is just not worth it. I’m afraid that Fading Shadows will be “fading” into the “shadows” of the gaming world.