Game - Cobalt

Release Date - February 2 , 2016

Platform - Xbox One

Developer / Publisher - Oxeye and Mojang

 

By now, I'm sure you all know that Cobalt is the first game out by Oxeye Studio and published by Minecraft developer Mojang. At first glance, Cobalt is a side scrolling, action platformer. Once you play it, it becomes totally clear that the game isn't sure what it wants to be at all. I'm sure Cobalt has to translate from some ancient language somewhere and means "chaotic". Let's start at the beginning, shall we?

Right from the start, it appears that the devs. over at Oxeye took a thought of "What if we did this?", pushed it down a hill and it just snow balled from there. Normally, I'm not one to complain about having too much to do in a game, and what IS in Cobalt IS kind of decent. On the other side, it becomes the clear defintion of "Too much of a good thing can hurt you". When you first start Cobalt, you'll go through a tutorial about some of the moves you can shoot good ole, little Cobalt through. You'll be able to shoot, jump, roll slide, jump slide, double jump, jump up walls, fly, ride animals, throw birds, jump and shoot, roll and shoot, jump up a wall, jump off a wall and pick locks. That's just the tutorial. This part is actually pretty good because it is pleasant

Cobalt contains a story mode with a pretty standard and loose plot. You play an alien who is summoned to a planet after following a distress signal. The only way to find out what happened to the colonists is by progressing through the levels and deciphering the A.I. Along the way, you'll defeat enemies, die, find some secrets, die, make a few jumps and then die. That is after you die of course. I can deal with dying and I'll never complain about a game being too hard as long as it is results in something tangible. Cobalt goes the extra mile, however, in generating that "WHAT. THE. FUCK." response. Make no bones about it. Cobalt is not an overall bad game. As I stated, what is in the game is kind of decent. On the downside, the overall length that Oxeye went to in order to include content into Cobalt ended up being the game's downfall. 

The very first level took me three hours alone to complete. Three hours. It wasn't because I sucked and kept dying either. In fact, I only died 6 times. The reason it took me three hours was because of the poor level design. At certain points, too often to count, you'll seem to be at an impass with no way to progress. Doubling and tripling back because you think you missed something only adds to the aggravation and time spend playing. The boss in the first level represents the epitomy of just how Cobalt tried way too hard. In order to beat the first level, you have to walk around and "jolt" these machines. A short little conversation happens between them and Cobalt followed by an enemy popping out. Once you beat the enemy, you'll follow the guide on screen to the next machine. There are four machines in total. Normally, follow the guide and hack the machine is no big deal. As I said, however, Cobalt is its own worst enemy. WIthout missing anything or having to double back anywhere, for some ungodly reason Cobalt forced me to complete the same trivial task for 30 minutes straight in order to proceed. 30 minutes! I didn't miss anything that prolonged my play. There was no switch I forgot to flip. It was just "hey, go run around for 30 minutes. have fun". I seriously considered turning the game off and rendering Cobalt as my first unreviewable game due to this poor setup. 

As I said, I'll never complain about a game being too long as long as there is some tangible reason for it. In Cobalt, however, the only reason is "just because". It goes well beyond the reasonable limitations in a game and the worst part is there is nothing you can do about it. You're stuck as long as you want to proceed. And let's be honest, after about 10 straight minutes of doing the same thing, regardless of what game it's in, you start thinking "Ok, something's up here. I had to miss something" and start doing something else. We all know this. As much as I try, I can't figure out why the hell Oxeye decided for such long levels. It ended up taking longer than the 30 minutes because you stop to go look for this phantom object you missed, then need to start over when you come back again. 

Four levels of the story mode took me a whopping 15 hours. For 4 levels. 15 hours. Even if I wanted to play more, which I honestly didn't, I couldn't have because a bug stopped my progress. I needed to unlock an object and the item I needed to do it just wouldn't appear. There were simply too many times where I thought the game was too hard and that I had missed something, only to find out that I didn't miss anything at all and just had to endure through it like a morphine drip. After so many hours of "Jesus Chri.....come on man!" reactions, I had to stop the story mode. It's a shame too, because Oxeye did a good job in other areas. The graphical setup is gorgeous, the audio is good and ties into the story line at the time and there is not as much backtracking as there is in most games - at least not due to the story. 

When you die in Cobalt, there should also be a little image that pops up in .GIF form on the screen of that Wonka meme just staring at you all sarcastically. You respawn very quickly in Cobalt, almost too quickly. Often times, more often than not, you spawn surrounded by the enemies that just killed you. Guess what? That's right, they kill you right away again. It's a neverending cycle that only luck  can get you out of. At one point, on level 4, I died 14 straight times even with trying to roll out of the way. "Spam the defense" button isn't, nor should it ever be, a valid excuse to escape an enemy. There needs to be some strategy and not simply button mash to get away from a glitch. 

The arcade mode is really the only redeeming feature in Cobalt. It features a number of speed and combat challenge, a TDM mode, Deathstrike and Plug Slam. This is like a capture the flag mode where you'll need to avoid being eviscerated by another little robot. The online multiplayer features up to 8 players at once in each game mode and functions somewhat as a redeeming feature for Cobalt. What makes them good is that they take advantage of what is good in Cobalt being its control scheme. When bullets or any thing is shot at you, Cobalt enters an auto slow-mo mode which is actually ok. It lets you jump over it or roll into the bullet to knock it back at your enemy easier. In fact, it's basically a necessity becasue with a full group of 8 players in an online match in Cobalt, it would be completely unplayable at normal speeds. 

As you may know, Cobalt was in development for a long time and it seems obvious to me what happened. Jens Bergensten, Daniel Brynolf, and Pontus Hammerberg got together and were like "Wouldn't it be cool if we made a game like....?" They all agreed and got to work. Unfortunately, that idea just kept going and going with everything thrown in like a jambalaya until it went way past the point of no return. 

Overall, Cobalt is a side scroller that features a devastatingly horrible level design, useless deaths and an overly frustrating time constraint system that handcuffs you to a paddle-less boat while it takes the death plunge over the falls. There is simply nothing in the story mode whatsoever, other than a total rewrite, that can save Cobalt from its too many chefs spoil the soup setup. Even with the average arcade mode and online multiplayer, Cobalt is a below average game in general, not just a side scroller. 

Unless you're a sadist with a passion for punishment, I suggest  taking a pass for your own sanity.