Aeon Flux
Utterly Fluxed.
Published: December 12, 2005
I really do have a soft spot for the guys at Terminal Reality, and I've been a fan of their games since Terminal Velocity (I even played the re-skinned version of it, Fury[sup]3[/sup], just to get more levels). Perhaps that's why I tolerated Aeon Flux for so long. It certainly helped that the game reveled in being all kinds of acrobatic deliciousness, and at times the shooting and the flipping and the neck snapping all came together perfectly, but just as often bad cameras made jumps ridiculously hard and the storyline never really sucked me in.
That last complaint there isn't exactly TR's fault. Aeon Flux was a series designed from the start to be over in a matter of minutes, with little to string the viewer along between episodes besides the allure of figuring out just what the hell was going on with Aeon herself, the Monicans she fought for, her oft-times enemy and sometimes love interest Trevor Goodchild, and the motivations of Goodchild and his Breen armies. Well, that and it was fun to watch lots of crazy PVC-clad anorexic weirdos die in creative ways - especially Aeon.
The game tries to bridge the 400 year gap between the cartoon shorts on Liquid Television and the feature film it's so clearly patterned after. It does this with a series of one-shot levels that aren't really related. Most will find this disorienting without the help of the timeline included in the instruction booklet that comes with the game and in all honesty it never really does feel comfortable. The development team did try to provide some semblance of continuity to things, but it's a very thin thread of connectivity at best.
As a result, the game never feels like it hits any kind of stride, and many of the levels suffer from a general lack of direction at times and ridiculous difficulty in others. The game recycles some key bits - mainly gunplay, diving off ledges to ride a zip cord down to a lower platform (sometimes with gunplay) and lots of hand-to-hand combat (that usually turns into gunplay later on). About the only time you're not shooting stuff is when you're jumping around, and Aeon was given a healthy stable of moves to add some oohs and ahhs to things.
There's a very clear Prince of Persia influence here, and it's not just that Aeon and the Prince share some moves that look almost frame-for-frame identical. The level designs try valiantly to mix up the combat with lots of quick jumps in an effort to give a meatier take on what was seen in the TV shorts. When it works, it works very well indeed, giving you the sense that Aeon has superhuman agility and grace. When it fails, though, it's a potentially game-ending experience. I'm not just talking about Game Over screen, I'm talking take-the-game-out-and-snap-it-in-half frustration that just isn't needed.
Part of this comes from some of the later segments that require you to run along walls or make jumps to poles. The camera angles can be absolutely murderous, and the game seems more than content to let you go sailing off into the abyss below at the expense of some life. Add in a bunch of constantly spawning enemies or long stretches where there are no soliders to kill to get more life and there's way way too much trial and error in place, especially since it can be hard to get past areas you've already bungled your way through.
There are a handful of pickups meant to ease this frustration. Health vials, yes, but also ammo clips for Aeon's gun, the FUG. Aeon's FUG can carry multiple types of ammo, which lets her alternate between the fast but weak flechettes found nearly everywhere to zingers that bounce from every enemy in the room to magma rounds for a shotgun-like blast to shockwave shells that send out pulses that knock enemies around.
These ammo clips usually aren't very plentiful, so hand-to-hand combat is most common, and ends up being where the game probably performs the most evenly. A light and strong attack can be mixed up for various combos, which weaken enemies and build the style meter. Style can be expended by holding the last button of an attack for a more powerful finish, but it's usually better to just whittle down an enemy's health and then use a takedown to finish them off. Holding L1 once the enemy's health is in the red allows you to snap their neck to build up health, stomp them around a bit for more style, throw them into things or detonate a spider bomb that clears an area and takes out nearby enemies.
Of these health is almost always the most important, particularly when you're out of ammo and have to suck up a bunch of hits to get in striking range, but the different moves do have specific uses. The FUG also carries Aeon's grappling hook, and it makes for some legitimately cool moves when you can just go sprinting off a ledge and fire out the hook as you fall. Many of her moves allow for a bit of preloading or stacking, so you can plant a bomb or dismount or get extra height on a jump or kill an enemy below by pressing the appropriate button a few seconds before landing.
That last complaint there isn't exactly TR's fault. Aeon Flux was a series designed from the start to be over in a matter of minutes, with little to string the viewer along between episodes besides the allure of figuring out just what the hell was going on with Aeon herself, the Monicans she fought for, her oft-times enemy and sometimes love interest Trevor Goodchild, and the motivations of Goodchild and his Breen armies. Well, that and it was fun to watch lots of crazy PVC-clad anorexic weirdos die in creative ways - especially Aeon.
The game tries to bridge the 400 year gap between the cartoon shorts on Liquid Television and the feature film it's so clearly patterned after. It does this with a series of one-shot levels that aren't really related. Most will find this disorienting without the help of the timeline included in the instruction booklet that comes with the game and in all honesty it never really does feel comfortable. The development team did try to provide some semblance of continuity to things, but it's a very thin thread of connectivity at best.
As a result, the game never feels like it hits any kind of stride, and many of the levels suffer from a general lack of direction at times and ridiculous difficulty in others. The game recycles some key bits - mainly gunplay, diving off ledges to ride a zip cord down to a lower platform (sometimes with gunplay) and lots of hand-to-hand combat (that usually turns into gunplay later on). About the only time you're not shooting stuff is when you're jumping around, and Aeon was given a healthy stable of moves to add some oohs and ahhs to things.
There's a very clear Prince of Persia influence here, and it's not just that Aeon and the Prince share some moves that look almost frame-for-frame identical. The level designs try valiantly to mix up the combat with lots of quick jumps in an effort to give a meatier take on what was seen in the TV shorts. When it works, it works very well indeed, giving you the sense that Aeon has superhuman agility and grace. When it fails, though, it's a potentially game-ending experience. I'm not just talking about Game Over screen, I'm talking take-the-game-out-and-snap-it-in-half frustration that just isn't needed.
Part of this comes from some of the later segments that require you to run along walls or make jumps to poles. The camera angles can be absolutely murderous, and the game seems more than content to let you go sailing off into the abyss below at the expense of some life. Add in a bunch of constantly spawning enemies or long stretches where there are no soliders to kill to get more life and there's way way too much trial and error in place, especially since it can be hard to get past areas you've already bungled your way through.
There are a handful of pickups meant to ease this frustration. Health vials, yes, but also ammo clips for Aeon's gun, the FUG. Aeon's FUG can carry multiple types of ammo, which lets her alternate between the fast but weak flechettes found nearly everywhere to zingers that bounce from every enemy in the room to magma rounds for a shotgun-like blast to shockwave shells that send out pulses that knock enemies around.
These ammo clips usually aren't very plentiful, so hand-to-hand combat is most common, and ends up being where the game probably performs the most evenly. A light and strong attack can be mixed up for various combos, which weaken enemies and build the style meter. Style can be expended by holding the last button of an attack for a more powerful finish, but it's usually better to just whittle down an enemy's health and then use a takedown to finish them off. Holding L1 once the enemy's health is in the red allows you to snap their neck to build up health, stomp them around a bit for more style, throw them into things or detonate a spider bomb that clears an area and takes out nearby enemies.
Of these health is almost always the most important, particularly when you're out of ammo and have to suck up a bunch of hits to get in striking range, but the different moves do have specific uses. The FUG also carries Aeon's grappling hook, and it makes for some legitimately cool moves when you can just go sprinting off a ledge and fire out the hook as you fall. Many of her moves allow for a bit of preloading or stacking, so you can plant a bomb or dismount or get extra height on a jump or kill an enemy below by pressing the appropriate button a few seconds before landing.
