POSTED 13/8/12


SOUND SHAPES

Sony

Cry at the sadness of the world. Cry so long you break its cold, and you hear the gathering sounds... NOT NOW JAMES, WE'RE BUSY!

Yep gather sounds, hear them, see them, feel them – hell, even touch them if you dig grubby fingerprints all over your screen. This is Sound Shapes’ thang.

A conglomeration of classic platforming tropes – you’re a fried egg with an eye in it that rolls, jumps, swims and occasionally goes all flitty in a UFO - the level design interacts with the music. Or the other way about. At any rate, hit a ‘note’ and it triggers a sound, as do encountered nasties, emitting bleeps and bloops as they blurt forth red death. Yep, if anything’s scarlet, run like it’s a harlot (insert better rhyme if you’re unhappy with ours).

Sound Shapes could have had the name ‘Pixeljunk’ sticky-taped on and nobody would’ve raised something raiseable. Visually reminiscent of LocoRoco, functionally reminiscent of the lovely Chime, several designers’ visuals are accompanied by tunes from musos including Beck and that dude who dresses like a dead mouse. Fucked if we can remember his name though...

The campaign, accessed as a series of LP tracks, only takes a few hours – and you’ll discover mucho frustration throughout. No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no there’s no limit on lives though. Knock this over and you unlock ‘Death Mode’, where you’re tasked with gathering mucho notes in bugger all time, and the acer ‘Beat School’ – kinda Cubase Very-Lite where you recreate music tracks by sticking notes where they should be stuck.

Sound Shapes also packs a LittleBigPlanet-like level creator, with the usual share-ability. Plus, buy PS3 and get Vita free, or verse-vica, and share your progress between them by going cloudy.

Laugh at the wonder of it all. Laugh so loud you break your fall, and you hear the gathering sounds…

CLICK THIS!



CLICK THIS!