EVERYTHING

All things to all people… and more

Hoo boy. Talk about a monumental task. I’ve taken on daunting reviews before; from once-in-a-generation classics to games so crushingly dull I’ve had to slap myself awake. What I’ve never done? Review a game that encompasses the vastness of the universe… in 275 words (approx). Eek.

What an astonishing experience. 1 ‘Videogame’ doesn’t cover it. You’re looking at an ambient adventure that does Everything. Undeniably arthouse, this is a game where you can listen to the musings of the late philosopher Alan Watts while you glide around the ocean as an entire continent. You can control and switch between hundreds of variants of flora and fauna – from single-celled amoebae to an entire lenticular galaxy – all with a tap of q.

There’s no goal, per se. Everything is a vast sandbox of interconnected planets where you can ascend until you control the Solar System, then descend back to inhabit a scorpion. Sure, you can follow markers to complete bizarre objectives, like grouping together as a herd of mammoth, then making them sing. Really though, you should just absorb a sensory experience like no other… even if the engine is a tad ugly.

But graphics be damned. You can exist as so many objects, 2 from pebbles to shoes, it’s easier to list what you can’t be. You can’t be a PocketStation; or some Jelly Babies; or a VHS with that episode of Neighbours where Harold returns from the dead. Otherwise, you can pretty much be Everything.

Weird yet wonderful, baffling yet beguiling, silly yet symbolic, this is a piece of art to make you appreciate the amazing absurdity of creation. Safe to say, it’s worth 12 quid.

FOOTNOTES1 Creator David OReilly’s last game, Mountain, let you control a big hill. He’s become more ambitious. 2 Like in No Man’s Sky, you can catalogue every life form and planet you come across.