Content Sections Xbox Games Xbox Hardware Xbox Community Xtras If there is one lesson that you can take away from Spelunky, it's that life is precious.
Spelunky takes the DNA of the niche rougelike genre and splices it into a platformer. Each level is a journey toward the bottom of the stage, albeit one where one false move leads to death. And in Spelunky, death sends you back to the very beginning of the game. Oh, and every time youll be facing a brand new game with constantly changing randomly generated levels.
And youre going to die a lot as you play Spelunky. Re-made from the original PC release, the XBLA version of the game does a lot to polish and perfect a game that was already pretty compelling in the first place.
Spelunky's adorable archeologist hero clearly studied at the same school of archeology as a certain Dr. Jones, with all the regard for the scientific method that entails. The only equipment you start with is a handful of ropes, which help you climb out of the many holes you'll find yourself in, and a couple bombs that'll help you make your way through walls and ledges that get in your way. These two tools, and few other equip-able items scattered through the world, are what allow you to venture off the predetermined path in the game's randomized levels.
But while the levels might be random, the game is far from it. Calling it that would undermine the amount of effort that went into the game's design. Every little element in the game behaves a certain way, and crafting these systems in a way that their individual behaviors are consistent and understandable while their interaction can be chaotic and unpredictable, clearly shows an immense amount of thought was put into the game.
The crux of the game is a constant tug-of-war of risk and reward that makes Spelunky a high tension affair. The game is constantly forcing players to make decisions. Rob the shopkeeper for his wares and face a quick death at the end of his shotgun? Rescue the damsel in distress for extra health or take the golden idol for a huge cash bonus? Do you use that last bomb to get to that far-off crate in hopes of replenishing your stash?
It's a testament that it never frustrates. Spot-on controls mean that you rarely can blame anything but yourself when it inevitably all goes wrong, and while the game's new graphical style doesn't come off quite as charming as the originals pixel art, it's a lot easier to clearly tell what's going on at any given moment.
It'll also help you identify the wonderful variety of things that can kill you in Spelunky. Everything, including but not limited to spike traps, skeleton piranhas, yetis, and exploding frogs, is seemingly out to get you. You'll quickly find yourself learning from each death, pushing forward with every session. There's a palpable feeling of satisfaction that comes with getting just a bit further then you had before, one that overrides the despair of each time you fall short.
If you are looking to beat Spelunky it probably isn't quite as difficult as I'm making it out to be, considering you can inch your way forward with unlockable shortcuts that allow you to start at the beginning of each of the game's four zones. But that would be missing the point. Spelunky is about clawing your way from the beginning to the end, with each retry moving closer to a perfect run through the game's abyss.
Spelunky isn't perfect. The game's new jazzy soundtrack can fall on the wrong side of cheesy. A multiplayer mode was made specificity for the Xbox version, and is a silly but overall slight addition. And the lack of online play in both the co-operative and competitive multiplayer is sure to be a deal breaker for some.
Spelunky is probably not for everyone. For all my attempts to romanticize the game's difficulty, it still demands patience from its players, and that might be too much for some. Those that stick it out though, or have an affinity for similar punishing trials like Dark Souls or Super Meat Boy, will find a game that rewards the time you spend with it with nearly infinite amounts of replayability. It all adds up to make Spelunky the best port of a mining related indie PC game to hit the Xbox.
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Spelunky at IGN
Spelunky at GameSpy
Spelunky at TeamXbox
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Spelunky at GameStats
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