Developer: Reflections
Publisher: Ubisoft
RRP: £8.69 (Steam and Humblebundle)
Released: 16th August 2016
Available on: Steam and Humblebundle
Played Using: An Xbox 360 Control Pad
Approximate game length: 4 hours
You look up. There, on the far distant moon, you know that what lie up there is remains of the computer for your ship. You would sigh out of frustration but you’re a robot so that’s not on the cards. Best get to it, those ship parts aren’t going to gather themselves..
Once again we take control of B.U.D, a robot that still walks like a drunken toddler. In this game he’s trying to rebuild his ship because apparently the computer it can’t play tic-tac-toe and drive at the same time and it ended up driving itself into a asteroid field. The parts to the ship are scattered all across a, rather small, planet and now B.U.D has to find them all and rebuild the ship.
While playing Grow Up I got a sense of deja vu, and that’s because this game is almost exactly the same as its predecessor Grow Home. As such I’ll only be speaking on the things this game does differently so I don’t have to repeat points I’ve already made (please feel free to read my review for Grow Home). Yes, I know how lazy that seems.
As should be expected for a sequel there are new abilities to find that come in the form of upgrades to B.U.D himself and those additional use of seeds (more on that later).
Rather than the small island with a lot of verticality that you had in the previous game you now have an entire planet (albeit a small one) that still has a lot of verticality. To go with this extended scope B.U.D now has access to a overhead view of the world called a POD view. While in this view you can scout ahead, find where crystals are (if they’re visible) and set waypoints for yourself.
Scattered around the world are POD challenges, completing these unlocks a new suit for B.U.D, each suit has its own effect. My first one attracted all the insects on the planet to me… that was odd.
The flora of this world can be scanned allowing B.U.D to use seeds from whatever he’s scanned to help him navigate the world. For example, early in the game I scanned a large mushroom which when jumped on causes B.U.D to bounce very high, so when wanting to cross a body of water quickly I threw out a seed and then bounced over. Each type of flora in the world has its own attributes and uses.
All in all, this game is an improvement on its predecessor. I still hate the way that B.U.D moves but once again I was won over by the sheer charm of the game.
Also I have to say thank you Ubisoft for not forcing me to run Uplay when I start this game, it’s greatly appreciated and a lot less of a system hog.
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