Maize (PlayStation 4) Review

Maize truly is unlike most first-person narrative games on the market. It is a strange barrage of tones that unexpectedly work that goes from surreal and vaguely spooky, to Monty Python-esque comedy. When the story begins it is somewhat bewildering, because with a concept involving sentient corn, secret labs and government testing, the atmosphere is unusually restrained and subdued. Waking up in the middle of a cornfield and exploring what can be best described as a derelict farm, Maize does very little in the opening moments to explain anything. Information is given out in a mature manner and gives the plot a profound sense of build-up, although the earliest moments may take a bit too long to get the ball rolling. Once the initial slow hump is bypassed, Maize becomes a gripping and highly amusing adventure that does have a clever twist that should have been obvious, but is executed in the most hilarious way that a video game like this could have done.

So, yeah, there are sentient dim-witted corn guys, and they have a Queen, and she has been imprisoned by Bob. Bob is also a sentient dim-witted corn, but with a much crueller disposition and a yearning for world domination. Bob will, uh... stalk the protagonist through much of the adventure and will often make ineffectual yet hilarious attempts to make life harder. There is also Vladdy, the trash-talking Russian teddy bear with the robotic arm who is just tired of being the protagonist's tag-along and has a heart of gold. Vladdy is obviously the best character, even if his constant whining about everyone's ineptitude and climbing into vents can get slightly tedious. He could have been a bit more helpful during the gameplay instead of just being a glorified key, though. He could have served as the means to give hints instead of the utterly clumsy way Maize beats people over the head with solving some puzzles.

There is one diabolical puzzle close to the end of the game that has a very important key item that nobody will ever see due to how small it is and how it blends in, and if anyone finds it on their own, it is mostly due to luck. A spoiler alert for anyone who might be interested in this game and does not want to smash their head through a brick wall: the tape for copying the finger print is on the whiteboard in the lab with centrifuge.

The core gameplay of Maize is a 3D first-person adventure with an emphasis on point-and-click style puzzles that would not be out of place in a 90s LucasArts adventure game. Find-a-thing-and-put-the-thing-in-the-thing style of puzzles. These range from very obvious to head banging against the wall preposterous, as they often do, because it wouldn't be funny if the protagonist couldn't lug around a water cooler in his back pocket.

Maize is a really easy game mostly because the solutions are basically shown in 3D outlines. The only challenge that exists is navigating the appropriately maze-like level design of the facility and actually finding the necessary items to solve each situation. This is where Maize begins to falter and its design crumbles. Without any explanation, there will be pathways in the world that will become arbitrarily blocked by what can be best described as a wall of orange shoeboxes. These boxes will pop up in pathways that were completely open and free, and it becomes infuriating and insulting. It is very obvious that these barricades were likely implemented due to play-testers getting lost and not knowing where to go since these roadblocks are seemingly designed to funnel people to the intended destination instead of letting players figure it out on their own.

Graphically, Maize will not be winning any awards at all. The best aspects of the visuals are by far the character designs themselves and their facial expressions. The technical specs are fairly middling here, with the overall presentation looking like a last generation game. Textures fail to impress and 3D geometry is kept pretty low. The strongest visuals are seen early on with the lighting effects when exploring the farm for the first time. At best, Maize will slightly resemble a 90s-era CGI cutscene at times, while at worst it will look like an unfinished PC game running on low settings.

The audio is very interesting and is probably the best quality it has. The voice acting is good - in fact, it is way better than it has any reason to be. A lot of the cast is performed by one guy, too, and he manages to pull off a variety of voices that do not sound anything alike. The music is also something else, with a lot of eerie ambient tracks that fit the surreal and absurd nature of the atmosphere - and out of nowhere, there is a really awesome original 80s-inspired song called "Top Secret," which has two versions: a new wave and a rocking 80s metal interpretation. Maize truly was somebody's passion project, and if there was one aspect that was not compromised on, it was its unique and textured audio. One might even say that the developer has an ear for sound.