TAKING FLIGHT
The pull of the unknown is powerful indeed. But the excitement of setting off on a new adventure is often tinged with sadness: every departure means leaving something, or someone, behind. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where that could be more pronounced than a journey into space, not least when it’s clear the goodbye is going to be permanent. The new game from Sword & Sworcery creator Superbrothers, made in collaboration with Pine Scented Software, hits you with that just a minute or two in. Looking through the eyes of protagonist Mei, you step out of a yurt to a sea of faces, at once sombre yet expectant, all looking directly at you. Beyond mum, dad and older sister lies the low-altitude vehicle of the title, the one you will pilot for much of your journey. The urge to start your journey is strong. But you’re also made to feel the wrench of leaving.
Then you clamber up a ladder into the cockpit and it feels as if a weight has been lifted. Your diminutive Jett is an incredibly nippy and agile craft, as you soon discover during a training exercise which lets you get to grips with its handling before you head for the cosmodrome from where you leave your cradle world behind.
On screen the vehicle looks tiny, the camera pulled back to offer a thrilling widescreen view of your surroundings: an appetite whetter for the landscapes you’ll discover in the hours to come. But before you arrive, there’s a truly electrifying launch sequence, set to a piece of music by Jim Guthrie (his sole contribution to the soundtrack) in which the roar of rockets and soaring synths build to a Hans Zimmer-beating crescendo that all but lifts us out of our seat. Deftly establishing the game’s heady blend of the expansive and the intimate, it’s an intro for the ages – a spine-tingling moment that feels more suited to an IMAX screen than our modest PC monitor.
But then and – the two-person team that first conceived and has since developed much of the game – have had plenty of time to think about that opening. has taken a long while to get off the ground. In its embryonic form, in fact, it existed before took over Adams’ life and put his pseudonym Superbrothers on the map. The two previously worked together at Koei Canada, where McAllister was a programmer and Adams a CG designer on the interestingly flawed futuristic racer . Which, perhaps surprisingly, provided the initial spark of inspiration.
