Update Two Hundred and Twenty-Eight: 13 September 2018
Headlander
11.4 hours, 31 of 31 achievements
8.5/10
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
After originally trying and failing to play this game on my old laptop, playing it on the new one was a huge success! Headlander is a butter-smooth, finely done experience and it’s one of my favorite Metroidvanias I’ve played. It’s a couple of years old and criminally slept on - another wonderful success from Double Fine.
You want a strong aesthetic viewpoint with a gorgeous color palette? A generally lighthearted game with some interesting tinges of horror? Fun exploration? Unique mechanics? This game’s got ‘em. Your character is a head encased in a helmet with a jet on the bottom, the last human in a world full of robots. Knock off different robots’ heads (they’ll be okay!) and dock into their bodies to run around in, all with different powers and abilities - citizens, varying degrees of soldier robots, chess pieces, dogs, map guidance robots, map guidance robots with guns taped to them. None of the robots can jump, so you need your head to fly around and get some verticality. Your head can’t shoot or open doors, so you pop from body to body as needed. The controls are lovely and the ability progression system is interesting without going too crazy.
While the story is ultimately kind of simplistic, and the ending very abrupt, I’ve fallen in love with this game just because of how thoroughly integrated into everything the theme is. Everything is 70’s in the best way, always feeling like an inspiration and never a cliche. The technology, music, lifestyle - every civilian-classed robot type has their own dance, all from the era. I loved just looking at everything in this game. A triumph of level and set design for sure.
It’s also not very difficult (at least to me). The last handful of levels are moderately challenging, so I got to focus on taking everything in and exploring rather than trying not to die. A minus for some hardcore fans of the genre, but a big plus for me! There also isn’t a ton of backtracking, and quicktravel systems make cleaning up for achievements after the game is over a snap.
Fun to play, a delight to look at - bring Headlander home today.
Next up: Let’s go from ALL the colors to monotone in -
See you soon!
I just did a “oh hey this looks cool/you’ve made it sound good I’d totally play it wonder when it will go on sale” sort of thing before realizing…I already owned it…wew…I have too many games :/
Hey, that sounds like a WONDERFUL problem to have! Now you don’t have to wait to take a look at this gem c;
(and I’m glad I made it sound cool c: )
I enjoyed headlander a lot and think it deserved more attention. I liked the concept of a metroidvania where not only did you upgrade abilities, but you also changed function based on what body you were using. It was a nice idea and I think they mostly did a good job and they largely avoided the usual metroidvania trap of making you go through the same areas over and over.
Very yes! I’m really shocked at how little attention it got (I had NEVER heard of it before I happened to stumble across it on the steam store) vs. its quality and how good it was at everything.
That’s a very good point - you pretty much never visited an area more than once, beyond a VERY sparse amount of optional objectives. The head-switching mechanic reminded me of the whole point of Stacking (what body you’re in gives you a different ability to use) and I thought it was cool how a similar mechanic can be expressed and done up in very different ways.
Very yes! I’m really shocked at how little attention it got (I had NEVER heard of it before I happened to stumble across it on the steam store) vs. its quality and how good it was at everything.
That’s a very good point - you pretty much never visited an area more than once, beyond a VERY sparse amount of optional objectives. The head-switching mechanic reminded me of the whole point of Stacking (what body you’re in gives you a different ability to use) and I thought it was cool how a similar mechanic can be expressed and done up in very different ways.