Review: Chris Unarmed | XBLIG

When I first started playing this game, I immediately thought to myself, “Yeah Moto, you scored the easy assignment this week.”

Boy, was I wrong.

Chris Unarmed, available on the Xbox Marketplace for a cool 240 MS, is a platform gamer that brings back memories of Super Mario and Sonic. You play as Chris, your average big-headed, armless fellow (hence the name of the game) who is off to save the world from a guy named Mango and his monsters. Unlike other games, what you see is what you get with your main character; he’s not going to get any superpowers and he’s certainly not going to sprout arms. Oh, and he’s apparently a very light gentleman as evidenced by the death that occurs when you jump on the monsters. That’s right, no squishery here.

Gameplay here is fairly straightforward; each level has one direction to head in and certain doors that you pick up keys for along the way.  You can also collect coins with Chris’s head on them, but there doesn’t seem to be a point other than bragging rights. In the beginning, the variety of monsters kept the game interesting; I wondered what threat each different color would bring. However, the real gems of this game are the actual levels themselves. It’s obvious that the designer put a lot of thought into each level; this is definitely quality work. The addition of doppelgangers was definitely a nice touch. Some of the levels, though, required the patience of a saint. I don’t consider myself a weak gamer, but there were certain points during the game when I had to ask myself, “Am I just really, really bad at this?” (Don’t answer that.)

I’ll have to admit that at first I found the actual mechanics to be annoying; when I jump onto something, I want to get there immediately, not drift like a leaf on the wind. (Geek cred to those who get the reference) However, the further into the game I played, the more that the physics made sense. The amount of time that the slow drift gives you is intentional, since in later levels it becomes important to guide Chris to safety during long falls. Or in my case, it allowed me to continually glide Chris into spike-covered walls. The wall jumping was also designed well; I appreciated not having to change directions as I jumped from wall to wall. In addition, the graphics themselves can be described as utilitarian at best. They get the job done and that’s it. The simplicity of it works though.

To be honest, the soundtrack and accompanying sounds annoyed me after five minutes. It sounded as if someone enjoyed the pipe organ setting on their electric keyboard so much that they decided to make a brief composition out of the keys they were hitting. In addition, the “Urgh” every time you hit a spike or a monster just didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the game. Of course, this could be because I heard it so frequently during my playing, but I digress…

There really isn’t a lot of replay value of this game, unless you want to try to beat your timer and collect more coins. In addition, there were certain times that my patience was tested to its limits (re: spike-covered walls). However, at around three dollars I’d say you definitely get your money’s worth. Therefore, if you’ve got three hours to spare, download it. Just don’t come crying to me when your arms fall off.



One Response to “Review: Chris Unarmed | XBLIG”

1. Tweets that mention Chris Unarmed Review: Xbox Live Indie Games | Indie Arcade -- Topsy.com says:

   January 18, 2010 at 1:56 pm

   [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Indie Arcade dot com, Indie Arcade dot com. Indie Arcade dot com said: @moto1986 reviews Chris Unarmed! Head on over to read her review at @theindiearcade! http://bit.ly/8Oe9hY [...]

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