A Musical Experiment in a Clunky Pixel-Art Shell
I don’t really get the whole “Youtube Celebrity” thing, I have to say,. My son watches far more of these people than I consider to be healthy (although it could be worse, I suppose), but I can’t get on with them.
This leads me neatly to the subject of today’s review, Look Mum No Computer, coming from The Bitfather and Headup. You see, Sam James Battle is a well known Youtuber who runs a channel called Look Mum No Computer and has done so since 2013. He apparently is an electronics enthusiast, musician and composer, who posts videos about making audio equipment that he then uses to make music.
Well, he’s now branching out into the world of video games with the release of a game by the same name and Look Mum No Computer (the game) is a pixel art, twin stick shooter. But are we better off watching a video or playing the game? I’ll attempt to tell you now.
Sinking into Soldersworth
Kicking off with the story, and Sam has made a computerised backpack called Kosmo, and with Kosmo’s help, he can be made smaller, porting into various electronic items kicking about the town of Soldersworth. However, it appears that various bits of equipment have begun to go haywire: everything from a fridge to Sam’s synthesiser. Using Kosmo’s power, our mission is to go inside each of the appliances, sort out what is ailing them and return them to proper operation. Sounds pretty easy, no?
Well, the gameplay does have something to say about that last statement, sadly. The game is, as I mentioned above, at heart a twin stick shooter. And as far as the actual shooting goes, it isn’t too bad.
Weapons or Waveforms
The normal twin stick controls apply, with the left stick moving Sam about, and the right stick firing his weapon of choice. However, there is a wrinkle to this whole game: the shoe horning in of the music kind of content that the Youtube channel is famous for. You see, as we explore the interiors of various appliances, we find new artefacts that can be utilised in order to build new parts. Parts for what, I hear you ask? Well, parts for our weapons or for the syntheiser that Sam has in his workshop. And it is upgrading this that allows extra bits of music to be added into the soundtrack of the game.
Therefore, you can choose how much of the music you want to hear. Do you spend all the modules in the offensive capabilities, as every game ever has taught us, or go more down the musician route and mix up the soundtrack. Well, the choice is yours. To be honest, I wasn’t overly enamoured by this feature. Maybe if you are a fan of the channel, it may float your boat more than mine, but I couldn’t see the point. Approaching it as a gamer, rather than a musician, the choice is pretty much a no brainer.
When Shooting and Walking Become the Real Enemies
And then the other thing that really lets Look Mum No Computer down are in the controls, as they are clunky and generally dreadful. There is a part in an early appliance (a vacuum cleaner, if you must know) where we are challenged to a race by a dust bunny, one of the inhabitants. The race takes place in a maze made up of both destructible and non-destructible parts and the idea is obviously for Sam to destroy the parts of the maze he needs to to get around. The thing is, the shooting controls are so wayward that the race feels almost impossible to win.
You can then add in the fact that the weapon overheats while you are desperately waving it around trying to shoot stationary objects, and it’s easy to see the issues that we face. Hell, even the walking controls are a bit ropy, as trying to get through narrow spaces is a bit tricky and quite often sees you getting hung up: usually just long enough for a baddy to come and get you, normally when you are on your last sliver of health.
A Premise with Potential
This may all make it seem like I didn’t particularly enjoy playing Look Mum No Computer, but that isn’t quite the full picture. There is no doubt that the premise is interesting, and while the graphics are exceedingly basic (retro pixel art is a phrase I’m beginning to dread when I read the synopsis of a game), they do have a certain amount of charm about them. The worlds available for exploration are pretty well designed and realised too, whilst the enemies and bosses are also quite well done.
And further to that? The upgrading of Sam’s weapons is quite rewarding (upgrading the music less so, to my mind) but on the whole, the less appealing elements do just outweigh the good, sadly.
One for the YouTube Fans, Not the Genre Veterans
As a game, there are much better twin stick shooters out there, and as an electronic music experience, I have literally nothing to compare it to, and that therefore makes Look Mum No Computer a hard one to score.
Ultimately, I have to review this as a game (this is a gaming website, after all). Just be sure that if you are familiar with the Youtube channel it is based on, you may find enjoyment in Look Mum No Computer, but for the rest of us, there are much better games out there.
Important Links
Look Mum No Computer Turns Music Into Console Mayhem – https://www.thexboxhub.com/look-mum-no-computer-turns-music-into-console-mayhem/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/look-mum-no-computer/9nlgnfwb0d48
