TEARAWAY UNFOLDED WHO?

Don’t like it. Never tried it. Every month we force one of our team to play their most tf feared d game

MY TWISTED SOUL CAN’T RESIST THE GAME’S DELIGHTFUL PUZZLES.

Sackboy-hating Dave Meikleham tries to give Media Molecule’s other cutesy adventure a spin. Can the game’s oh-so-precious papercraft thaw his horrendously cynical ticker?

Hello. I’m a heartless husk of a human being. I cheer for the bad guys in films, celebrate little grannies losing fortunes on game shows, and revel in being an all-round curmudgeon. I also have a strong aversion to ‘cute’: the only thing that makes me go “awww” in this world is my Labrador hopping on the dishwasher to peek out the kitchen window. Still, even I’ll admit this… Tearaway Unfolded is bloody adorable.

Media Molecule does good papercraft, I’ll give the LittleBigPlanet developer that. Now, I’ve not been the artistic type since I got told off at school for drawing obscene pictures of dinosaurs, but the wonderful world of Tearaway Unfolded really is something to behold. So much so, I may even forgive the studio for that insipid twit Sackboy. For a kid who grew up binging on Neil Buchanan as he made tanker-sized arts and crafts crabs out of deflated life jackets on Art Attack, I can certainly appreciate Tearaway’s lovely cardboard kingdoms.

I stayed away from the original Tearaway because even looking at a PS Vita gives my index fingers spasms, so it’s a relief this Unfolded redux is a lot kinder on my grumpy digits. Hell, not only is it a pleasure to control on PS4, it has the best damn use of the DualShock 4’s lightbar I’ve ever seen – you use it to direct a beam of light that scares off and redirects little scrunched up paper balls, called Scraps. Again, adorable!

In spite of my hatred for all things cute and cuddly, my twisted soul can’t resist Tearaway’s delightful puzzles. Using trampolines to dunk paper balls into hoops like Stephen Curry! Drawing the Squirrel King a crown by tracing my finger around the touchpad! Seeing my grimacing mug up there in the moon, courtesy of the PlayStation Camera! You win, Tearaway. You’re too damn cute not to play.