💾 Archived View for germination.systems › ~vidak › old-blog › 2013-02-25-glover.gemini captured on 2022-04-28 at 18:00:04. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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author: admin
generator: pandoc
title: Glover
viewport: 'width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes'
---
admin
2013-02-25T11:13:19+00:00
This
is a 3D platforming game from the late-nineties about an anthropomorphic
glove, and its ball. They don't get any more abstract than this.
Considering, though, that two of the best and most popular 3D
platforming main characters were a plumber with various magical caps,
and a bear with a red bird in its backpack, the outlandishness
of *Glover*'s protagonist is, strangely, neither here nor there.
platformer because its fundamental game-play concept revolves around
coordinating yourself with, and balancing yourself against your only
tool--a ball--which is both indispensably useful for your cause, but
incredibly dangerous. The player, as Glover, must bounce, throw, and
roll this ball in order to manipulate the game environment and solve
puzzles. What makes performing these actions so innovative is that the
physics of this undertaking in *Glover* is so realistic. When the player
stands on top of the ball, the controls become inverted. When Glover's
ball is thrown or bounced against a surface, it bounces away from it
along a realistic trajectory. At the touch of a button, you're able to
transform the quality of your sphere, which can make it lighter or
heavier, more or less elastic and so on. After coming to master these
basic ideas around which *Glover* was based, the player should start to
feel like they're not so much struggling to master and dominate an
inanimate object, but beginning to enter into a *partnership* with a
silent and uncommunicative, but nonetheless willingly cooperative second
The
unusual nature of working with a ball to explore and interact with a 3D
platformer might place the player on a steep learning curve at first,
but it manages to open up a strange and interesting new perspective
through which to view what might have become a stale and boring game
genre. The player is sure to have never seriously thought about just how
complex it really is to transport themselves up some stairs, or about
coordinating themselves up and around a series of simple slopes. The
added difficulty is definitely palpable, but with *Glover*, a large,
varied, and endlessly useful move-set is at one's disposal. Glover's
ball is a means for such things as reaching distant items and straddling
high perches, destroying walls, floating on water, defeating enemies,
and providing a speedy escape to tight situations. The incredible number
of things that *Glover*'s developer has managed to enable the player to
do with this ball is pretty damn clever.
While
glimpses of this kind of game-play can be seen in games such as *Super
Mario Galaxy*, the nature of *Glover* as a 3D platformer takes on a
completely different character to other games in its genre due to its
total reliance on bouncing, rolling and throwing. Getting coordinated
with *Glover*'s ball-based mechanics can at first be difficult, but
mastering it will lead to very satisfying game-play.
Game-play aside, the game's visuals are colourful and appealing, and it
seldom suffers from any frame-rate slowdown or texture clipping. The
game's textures themselves are simple, but they work together
harmoniously to show off a well-constructed atmosphere. *Glover*'s
worlds are incredibly abstract, but satisfyingly coherent, and never
shallow. Levels are frequently large, and the N64's draw-distance
(Z-buffer) limitations are 'concealed' with copious amounts of fog. This
is a bit disappointing because you might find yourself wanting to look
beyond the immediate puzzle at hand and give yourself some bearing--and
being unable to do so. Other than that, *Glover* manages to exploit the
features of the N64 reasonably well.
If you think you've seen it all, you haven't given *Glover* a spin. If
you have, and think *Glover*'s not really worth anyone's time, then you
haven't really been responding to what it's asking you to do. In many
places it will be challenging your hard-wired platforming sensibilities
very aggressively.
With so much to offer at dirt cheap prices on eBay, you don't have
anything to lose--and so much to gain!--by picking up a copy
of *Glover*.