the way

I’m not sure what exactly is “remastered” about this game, having no experience of the original. An original which is only a few years old itself, actually. I’m also not sure what sort of game it’s trying to be.

To look at the screenshots, it’s probably trying to channel Flashback or Blackthorne, or both. When you play it, however, it isn’t. There’s a bit of the Mega Drive Alien 3 game in there. Sure, there’s some Flashback. Some Gunpoint. Some Another World. As you move from Earth to another planet, then explore that planet, not only do the locations change graphically, byt the gameplay does too. You’re no longer a sneaky hacker – you’re a man with a gun. Only then you don’t have a gun, but you can teleport and move things with your mind instead. And then! To end it all, it’s a bullet hell shooter only you can’t shoot.

You have to stop each piston in turn so they move in a particular pattern. What is this pattern? Well, that’s why this bit was hard.

There’s platforming and puzzles. Reaction tests and timing tests. Infuriating “remember the sequence or fry” sections. Buttons to push, spikes to avoid, hoverbikes to pilot, monsters to run from, and lots more. It’s varied for sure, but that also causes a problem – it masters none of these.

Some of the puzzles are just too obscure with no clues. Some of the platforming is hit and miss as to whether you’ll grab a ledge or drop on some spikes (or sometimes, grab a ledge then drop off onto the spikes anyway because bugs). I found your shield power that you have use of for some of the game regularly failed to “initialise” so didn’t reflect enemy fire as it should, killing me. Collision detection isn’t great, so combined with wonky jumping inertia also led to many avoidable deaths. Thankfully, checkpoints are frequent so little progress is lost when you do die.

Sometimes Tincan (your tigerdog) responds to and follows you. Sometimes, he does not. Twice, he vanished completely when I needed him to progress.

The plot of the game is mostly fine – guy’s wife dies, so he goes off to find the Pyramid of Eternal Life or something to revive her, which fortuitously happens to be on the very planet his job sent him to to research. The stuff that happens along the way (aha!) is nonsense though. Magically from nowhere a bounty hunter stumbles across you? A tribe who tried to kill you start worshipping your dead wife because… well, I’m not really sure why. They also welcome your new “pet” – a massive tigerdogbeast whose parent previously terrorised them.

Issues aside, there’s an important point to make in this game’s favour: it was 89p. And for 89p there’s a lot of game here. A lot of good ideas, if a bit poorly executed. It’s definitely worth 89p. Knowing what I do now, however (and I’d gone in pretty blind), I’m glad I didn’t pay full price and I can’t recommend you do either.

Pretty sure that’s LeChuck, and it’s SUPPOSED to be LeChuck. There’s a Day of the Tentacle tentacle in this bit too. Who knows why this is.

One final question: Why is The Way Remastered rated a PEGI 16? There was nothing in there I’d consider more than a PEGI 7, so even a PEGI 12 would be overkill. Did I miss something?

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