Review: Space Giraffe (arcade) (360)

Surrealism has always played a strong part in videogames. From Super Mario to Freak Out, Lemmings to Viva Pinata, designers have crafted worlds unseen anywhere else (initially through necessity due to the limitations of the hardware). But advancements in technology and the increase of development staff over the past few years have seen more and more “realistic” titles hit the shelves (racing games, FPS‘, sports sims), and some of the more imaginative series that exist now are from or influenced by titles of the 8/16 bit era, and gamers have become accustomed to their initially strange designs. Fortunately for us, there is one man who still makes the type of game he wants to play, and he’s not afraid of scaring players off either.

Space Giraffe is Jeff Minter’s pet project. A labour of love, the game sets out to give players something different. While at first glance, it resembles an acid tinged take on his excellent Jaguar blaster Tempest 2000, extended play reveals a game not too far removed, yet different enough to warrant owning both. Your “Giraffe” can move along the top of a plane or tunnel (depending on the stage you’re on) while enemies move toward you from the other side. The background pulses with trippy light synth effects, making it difficult for the player to focus (at first). You have to see past this to destroy the enemies before they get too close - when they’re all dispensed with, you move on to the next level. This may not make it sound like the most enthralling game ever made, but it’s when you delve a little deeper into the mechanics that the experience improves. There is a “power line” that makes its way toward you. You can push it back by shooting enemies, cultivating flowers (by pushing them back as they grow toward you), and by jumping (enabled by collecting pods). When the power line is pushed back, certain enemies that have made it to your level can be “bulled” off the screen. The more bad guys you charge into, the more your multiplier increases.  Yes, this isn’t a game for everyone.

Gamestyle has been a fan of Minter’s work for a while now, playing games like Llamatron, Sheep in Space and the aforementioned Tempest 2000 over the past 20 years or so. Despite the education, we still found Space Giraffe a bit of a shock. Upon first play the player is assaulted with a psychedelic background, pulsing in time to the music. We could barely see the playing field. It was about ten minutes into play (about the same time we stopped crying blood) that we were able to concentrate on the area we needed to. It sounds like a deterrent, but the mess of colours plays a large part in the challenge, forcing the player to block out what is not needed in order to survive. Without it, the game would lose a lot of its appeal, and would merely be another tube shooter.

Once over the initial onslaught of visual abuse, Space Giraffe becomes highly addictive. When the player’s understanding of the multiplier system kicks in levels become tactical affairs. Waiting for enemies to roll up next to you so you can smash them off the level, cultivating flowers to keep the power line back and saving those pods for sticky situations give the game more depth than you’d think. You’ll find yourself beating your previous score time and time again as you figure out the best way to tackle a level, and later stages in the game become very tough, giving the game plenty of replay value. The ability to continue from the latest level reached is a fair (and necessary) addition, and even high scores are carried to some completed levels, meaning you won’t have to play from the beginning to beat your cumulative score.

Space Giraffe isn’t without its problems. The backgrounds, while created to provide more of a challenge, tend to be unfair later in the game. Enemy bullets are much harder to pinpoint, and Gamestyle found itself wondering why a life had been lost on more than one occasion. Gamestyle imagines people who suffer from colour blindness will have an even tougher time with this one, and the ability to tone down the background would have been appreciated.

Space Giraffe won’t appeal to everyone. It demands you play by its rules, adjust to its learning curve. Only the dedicated will get to see everything it has to offer, but everyone should try it. If you have access to a Live subscription, download the demo (which contains a tutorial and a generous nine levels) and play it for about an hour. If it clicks, you’ll want more. If not, then move onto something else. So, how will you know if it's for you? There's only one way to find out...

Rating: 8 / 10

Words by Dan Gill