Releasing old classic adventure games to a new generation of gamers has jump-started a genre many believed was long dead.

 

For those of us that enjoyed playing the classics of genre during the nineties, these new iterations hardly offer anything new, however, beyond splitting games into episodes and making the interface a little more practical.

 

Machinarium doesn’t re-invent the wheel, but it does provide an entirely new experience simply by changing the emphasis of different parts of the traditional adventure game formula.

 

In fact, everything is so perfectly balanced and refined that a play through of Machinarium can have the effect of making every other adventure game before it seem empty and flat.

 

The game was created on a shoestring budget by Amanita Design, the same indie developers that earned their name from the heavily stylised science fiction adventure Samorost.

 

For anyone who played Samorost or its sequel, it won’t surprise you to hear that from the very first frame of the opening animation, Machinarium draws you in to a world unlike any other.

 

Set inside a robot metropolis, the attention of detail in Machinarium is absolutely staggering. The game oozes style, but it’s a different type of style than that seen in a game like Mirrors Edge.

 

This is entirely effortless and seamless experience to the player. It’s there if you want to experience it, but it’s not forced upon you.

 

The art is heavily industrial and influenced by cyber punk, but despite being grey and seemingly soulless at first glance, closer inspection reveals unique touches of beauty in every screen.

 

A strong environment is essential here, considering Machinarium has to be one of the first adventure games we’ve ever played without any dialogue or any human element whatsoever.

 

No greater accolade can be given to the art direction than how well the story is told simply through animation and drawings in speech bubbles.

 

If even a tenth of every game released with a lengthy script boasting ‘x’ lines of dialogue could come close to Machinarium in terms of a characterisation and story, we’d be happy gamers.

 

You play a robot that has been thrown out of the city by a gang that has stolen your girlfriend. Your initial efforts during the first scenes of the game focus on getting yourself back into the city, but the world soon opens up for you to explore.

 

General gameplay is more traditionally point and click. You pick up objects, use them with other objects and people, combine different items in your inventory and solve a variety of different puzzles.

 

There’s a mix of inventory management and pure puzzle solving that should please most adventure purists.

 

You can’t die and you won’t ever get to a point in the game where you are endlessly moving between large amounts of environments trying to use everything on everything else.

 

Machinarium isn’t easy though. If you think you’re good at Telltale adventure games, you’ll probably find yourself hitting a few brick walls with Machinarium, at least until you get used to the games logic and interaction system.

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