Ego Force

When I first launched Ego Force, I expected a shooter. Instead I got a brain teaser in the costume of an action game. Apparently it's some kind of experimental piece that nobody much remembers, and there's a reason.

It's a puzzle-action from the mid-nineties where you have to get through levels full of mechanisms, falling blocks and precise timing. Your character moves in isometric perspective, which was as fashionable in those days as sunglasses on a Pentium. The goal isn't to smash enemies but mainly to survive and think — the game doesn't throw you into continuous combat, instead it leaves you standing in front of a wall of stones and waiting for the right moment to pass through.

Controls are straightforward, but the precision the game demands is relentless. One pixel back and you fall into a pit. One step over the line and you fall again. That would be okay in a modern game with a polished engine, but Ego Force solves it by sending you back to the beginning of the level when you mess up. Frustration isn't a bad thing, sometimes you need it to remember a game. Here you feel it after ten minutes without the joy of success — more just relief that you finally solved the given block.

Graphics stick to isometry, colors are crude, animation minimal. Sounds remind you of a PC speaker tuned to high frequency. All together it creates an atmosphere of some laboratory experiment with a computer that doesn't like pampering you.

Ego Force is a curiosity you'll play if you like puzzles with strict rules and want to try something that bypasses mainstream nineties. In an emulator it's worth a few minutes to see what really experimental things showed up on PC. But long-term it won't hold you — and that's not a flaw of the game, that's just its nature.