Exit Review

Superheroes don’t have to wear obscenely coloured costumes, move faster than the speed of light, shoot web from their wrists, control the weather or possess any other such fantastical powers. Well, that’s what Mr. Escape, the hero of Ubisoft’s Exit would like you to believe. In a world where merely saving people the good old fashioned way doesn’t seem good enough, does this simple puzzler have what to takes to prove people wrong?

The gameplay mechanics in Exit are remarkably simple. As Mr. Escape, you must save people from dangerous buildings in ten levels, each containing ten stages. Rather than giving you slick platform character control over the hero, everything is very deliberate; if you are after a free-flowing platformer, look elsewhere. Movement is slow and moves have to be carried out almost as if the character is moving on an invisible grid: Move two paces right, stop, pick up special move icon, move one pace right, use special move, move three paces right, etc.

Each level will see you having to solve puzzles so you and the trapped civilians (which the game calls companions) can get out alive. Early levels require little more than making these people follow you, but soon you’ll have to direct companions to pick up items for you, activate switches and more. Mr. Escape is controlled using the d-pad, while the analogue stick is used to select companions and direct them to move to a certain location or carry out a certain action. It’s a simple set of controls to master, but working out how best to get out of a building becomes anything but.

To add an extra layer of complexity, different companions have different abilities. Kids, for example, can’t climb that well, but they can crawl through narrow spaces. In gameplay terms, this means you need to help them up and down high platforms, but they can reach areas other characters can’t. Adults and Young people have their own set of abilities, and Patients provide yet another problem. These companions can’t move on their own, so need to be carried or pushed around on a stretcher.

Later levels regularly turn into a test of patience, with one mistake ending a level, often causing you to waste time after the event as you weren’t aware of your mistake at the time. It’s also very easy to miss-time a running jump and fall to your death, and on occasion mix up the analogue and digital controls with equally fatal results. Whether or not you’ll want to keep going in the wake of these moments of sheer annoyance will depend entirely on how much you want to see what lies ahead. There’s no reward for completing the levels and the gameplay doesn’t change all that much as you progress, but there’s a certain joy to be found by showing the game who’s boss.

Some wonderfully stylish visuals certainly help matters. There’s nothing technically brilliant about Exit, but the characters and levels look superb. While the 3D levels viewed from a 2D perspective aren’t all that detailed, they’re drawn like they’ve come straight out of a comic book, and Mr. Escape has some of the smoothest animation I’ve seen in some time. Sadly, this flowing animation means Mr. Escape often takes slightly longer to do things than you’d like, adding another item to the list of annoying problems with the game. Voice samples from the helpless companions that are heard over and over again don’t really ease tensions, and at times you’ll wish you could opt to leave a few of them behind.

Exit certainly provides something a little unique for PSP owners, making the most of what the system is good at, but it’s thrown in a load of problems of its own. For every devilish puzzle that you crack, there’s a moment of annoyance due to the clunky controls or slow character movement. The sense of accomplishment gained by completing the game is just enough to make this worth considering, but be warned that it’ll go out of its way to make you hate it.