Xbox One Review: Lair of the Clockwork God

Point and jump?

A classic Point-and-Click adventure AND an indie platfomer in one! Join Ben and Dan in a race against time to stop all the Apocalypses happening at the same time.

Point and click adventures are some of the best games from the 90s, while platformers are still at the top of their game thanks to the likes of Mario. Point and click games still come out but doesn’t have the mainstream appeal like a platformer does today, so how best to revive such a genre? By mashing the two together in Lair of the Clockwork God, obviously…

The game itself is more a parody of videogame mechanics than anything, constantly making jibes out outdated ways of playing games, breaking the 4th wall and having some nice meta-commentary as you play as Ben and Dan. The game lets you switch between the two where one will walk slowly and has the typical point-and-click options available, while the other can only do typical platformer moves like jumping.

The two have to work together to push forward through some well thought out levels. For example, you’ll need to use the platforming skills to reach an item, bring it back and use it with the point-and-click ability. It can be a bit more complex than that, but you get the basic idea. There’s also a strange visual-novel prequel that goes into how Ben and Dan met at school while taking down demons. It’s an odd addition but amusing, nonetheless.

The visuals are old-school and clearly pay homage to the likes of Monkey Island, while the game has no voice-acting to speak of, it has a great soundtrack and the script is priceless, full of sharp, dry witty dialogue.

The Verdict

Lair of the Clockwork God is a superb mash-up of two big genres and it works well. The writing is brilliant, the puzzles are clever and the level design is well thought out. I hope we get more games like this because this was something surprisingly special.

Score: 9.0