No lengthy, conversation-filled cut scenes, no too-lengthy dialogue trees to irritatedly click through - in fact, no written words whatsoever (the drop-down menu notwithstanding). Suffice to say, the world of Machinarium is beautiful, haunting, charming and funny.Īdditionally, the entire game is completely devoid of human language. Except for the pixel hunting thing.Ī review like this would typically devote an early paragraph to summarizing the story, but I’m pleased to be unable to do so with Machinarium: the story is not only completely bare-bones and highly reliant on player inference (think Shadow of the Colossus), but it’s told in such a gradual and mostly unobtrusive way that half the fun comes from gradually discovering exactly what the unnamed protagonist’s relationship is to the rest of the world (I say mostly from time to time the protagonist will have a thought bubble flashback to provide backstory, but these are really short and easily skippable). Machinarium avoids every single one of these problems while still, somehow, feeling like an adventure game down to its very (rusty, metal) bones. I love Monkey Island and Sam and Max Hit the Road to death and consider the adventure genre one of my favorites, but I can’t pretend that the dialogue and noninteractive story sequences, however funny, can often feel boring and uninvolving that the endless backtrack-heavy inventory puzzles spread across dozens of different locations are confusing and not particularly rewarding to solve that pixel hunting is an absolute pain in the ass and should be avoided at all costs. It understands that most adventure games, even the “classics,” just aren’t that good. Machinarium, more so than most adventure games I’ve played, understands its own genre enough to ignore its conventions. Publisher: Amanita Design, Steam, Direc2Drive, Impulse, GamersGate I know I was pretty harsh on the game in our preview a few months ago, but thanks to a new hint system and a few more hours of playtime, I can confidently type the three boldface words that adorn the header of every review I write for a great adventure game that I fear might not sell enough copies to support its developers:

I don’t know if I prefer it outright over the motion-controlled glory that is Zack and Wiki, or the wacky time-travel-laffs of Chariots of the Dogs, but I do know that if you’re even remotely interested in adventure or puzzle games, you’d be a complete fool not to check out Machinarium. Machinarium may be the best adventure game I’ve ever played.

Machinarium 2 game