Review Score:

Congratulations, Amanita Design, you have successfully created a point-and-click adventure game that essentially summarizes the early/mid-90’s feel of PC games, whilst superimposing a fresh coat of paint and a dark, super stylistic edge. Machinarium really is the tongue twister of the video game world: simple at first glance, but with exceeding levels of difficulty that bring you to that single solitary thread holding back your rage, before slowly reeling you back in with a sweet sense of smug-satisfaction. Machinarium is a game that, while appearing to be simple in design, is deceivingly complex beneath the hood.

Machinarium places you in control of video gaming’s cutest robot, just as he is coldly flung into the trash. Over the course of the game, you aim to stop a bomb from exploding, save your girlfriend and get back home just in time for dinner, consisting mostly of what I imagine to be robot cuisine – nothing new here. However, what really struck me and left me open mouthed, gawking at the monitor, were the visuals and the audio. The hand drawn, steampunk influenced backgrounds and the inventive character designs really compliment and work off of the dreamy, electric soundtrack. Tomas Dvorák’s composition’s are easily some of the best I’ve heard in recent games, stamping out most of that generic orchestral tripe. Anybody who worked on this game deserves a hand shaking of the highest calibre

A key component of Machinarium, as with the rest of the point-and-click world, is item collection, and putting these items to their proper use. Amanita Design have implemented a system where, once you have used any item in the right situation, it is tossed away to prevent unnecessary clutter of the inventory. At first, I was slightly bemused as to why this was implemented, as I had come across certain situations where items I previously had in my inventory would have helped me pass troublesome puzzles, however, after a few moments of thought on the matter, I came to the conclusion that this would eliminate certain degrees of difficulty.

And that leads me to this startling discovery – Machinarium is not an easy game. A variety of publications have stated that the well above average level of difficulty blocks Machinarium from being as fun as it could be, and, while I do disagree with that, I will say that this game is not for those who are prone to childish fits of rage. To remedy this, Amanita Design have added two in-game guides. Both located on the top right corner, the first is a relatively vague, stylized hint, presented in speech bubble form (similar to how all of the robots communicate in this game), the second being, to my surprise, a full in-depth picture guide to the specific level you are on. Both have proven to be very helpful, and I applaud Amanita Design for telling us “hey, you don’t even need to alt-tab if you’re stuck!”

However, having said all of that, the game is not without faults. The only major annoyance is that once the robot has his direction given to him via a mouse click, it is impossible to stop him. Accidental mouse clicks became quite the bother. There are a few minor faults, such as only being to investigate within a radius of about one foot, however, these are less of a problem relating directly to the game and more of a nitpicking problem on my part.

In conclusion, Machinarium is, quite simply, the best point-and-click adventure game I have ever played, able to stand up to the big studio games with ease. While it does, in fact, harbour a few faults here and there, it easily makes up for this with sheer creativity oozing out of every single orifice. Anybody with access to £10-$15, the internet and Steam needs to play this.

Thanks to Amanita Design for supplying a Reviewer Copy.