Oil , A Bomb And A Girl – Machinarium

What is the ultimate game experience? , the graphics? , the story? the gameplay? the sound? or maybe all of it ?.

Machinarium is an Indie title that has by now made it to loads of platforms, a very popular game. Machinarium has been on the PS3 for a few months now and the Vita version arrived a week ago (finally!).

I completed Machinarium on the PS3 some months ago, loved it to bits which meant that I just had to get the Vita version too.

Machinarium ain’t a Crossbuy title so I’ve actually bought this game twice now, I have 2 reasons for that, it’s a fantastic experience and secondly, the price wasn’t bad at all for the Vita version.

PICTURES CONTAIN SPOILERS!

Price was one of the reasons I bought it but I also heard of all the piracy problems the game had on its original platform (PC) so I decided to get the game again and enjoy the game again and the trophies on the way as it has a separate set of trophies, identical to the ps3 trophies but 2 different lists.

The story, think a little bit of that Disney Pixar robot flick and then add a bomb, a girl, a plant, a bunch of puzzles… no, wait! .. the robot you play in the game did one thing very similar and that was:

“he was trashed and put to rest at a scrapheap/dump site and then re-assembled himself before starting his grand adventure”

His grand adventure is to stop the bad guys, disable the bomb and rescue his girlfriend.

The gameplay, it is a point and clicks game, a puzzle adventure game where you have to think quite a lot to do progress but at the same time the solution is logical but sometimes it’s just downright bizarre.

Everything from switches to be pushed and pulled (see picture above) to number puzzles.

The game can be extremely funny at times, silly but funny and yet classy.

There ain’t any QuickTime events or such but the game do require you to act quickly at certain places and sometimes you have a time limit and so on.

You’re in jail now, it was the plan, mission completed.

Next mission, get out of the cell but to do so you will have to make a cigarette for the cellmate who will then help you escape through a manhole but first you need to get a broom…

Here you have to tip over a “bad guy” and take his bullets and toss them on the ground and then steal his key to be able to open the 2 locks (see green lights) to free your cellmate(s)… I forgot to do a screenshot before I completed the stuff hehe…

Here is another puzzle (pictured above), quite funny and logical too…. umm.

See those 2 brown boxes? , see that oilcan in the water? , see that dog thing on the far right? See the control room on top of the stairs + boxes? and I have a plunger and a gun… it’s all connected…

I NEED THAT DOG! , why? , read below.

Here I moved the boxes to the next screen.

There is a magnet above the boxes, I need to power that up.

There is a woman with an umbrella here (the screenshot was taken after I solved this puzzle so the woman is hidden behind the control panel box.. sorry).

I need that umbrella to get past the water next to her…

The Woman won’t give me the umbrella unless I find her dog.

There is a button/switch next to the woman, I pushed that button/switch and it opened the panel you see, a puzzle is presented, solve the puzzle by organizing the arrows like I have done above).

The magnet is now powered up and it lifted up 1 of the two boxes.

I pushed the bottom box to the screen on the right (previous one).

Then I entered the control room by climbing the box and stairs.

I moved the oilcan all the way over to the right side of the screen by using the controls in the control room and then i “squirted” a few drops of oil next to the dog.

The dog loves oil so it heads over and starts licking the oil slick.

I quickly combined the plunger and the gun (that I found earlier in the game) and used it on the dog, the plunger gun worked (kind of) like a fishing rod and shot out a rope with the plunger attached to the dog and I reeled it in.

I brought the dog back to the woman.

I got the umbrella from the woman.

I used the umbrella to get past the water next to the woman.

Here I am, next to a pub which has no beer, spirits nor peanuts.. but that doesn’t matter as I am a robot and I drink oil…

A mini-game, it’s “tic tac toe!“.

Seems a lot of people get stuck on this one, I have completed it twice now (1 on PS3 and 1 on the VITA) and I have no problem beating the AI player but yes it’s not easy but if you use your “little grey ones” then you should be able to solve it in a matter of a few attempts.

Machinarium is a very special game, gorgeous to look at and the sound is nothing less than perfect, the puzzles are not too hard and not too easy and I can’t think of a single thing that I would want to change in it.

Movement and general performance are great but the Vita touchscreen can be a bit fiddly at times and I just ended up using the analog sticks and buttons as that felt more comfortable.

As you can see from the many (maybe too many?) screenshots i have made, it’s absolutely gorgeous and very consistent yet varied enough to not grow stale or whatever towards the end.

Machinarium is a small game, first time (Playstation 3) around I probably used like 10 hours on it but the second time (Playstation Vita) around I beat it in less than 3 hours but that’s because of the puzzles as I remembered them from the first playthrough but it was still fun.

Machinarium 2 is in development, let’s hope it gets finished and released on the PS3/Vita soon.

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