First Look – Albert and Otto: The Adventure Beings
Albert & Otto is a story about a boy and a magical bunny who are on an adventure trying to save a lost loved one. With each possessing separate sets of skills they must work together to overcome any and all challenges that come their way. What starts off as a simple “save-the-girl” story, things soon take a dark turn and you start to take a deeper look into Albert’s life as your journey unfolds.
Now, the story presented may not be apparent to some, especially if you aren’t proficient at puzzle games like myself. However, there is a dark underlying tale here behind all of the challenging puzzles that is taking place. Your adventure starts with a little girl disappearing in a cloud of darkness. This little girl I can only assume is Albert’s sister.
The gameplay then starts with you, the player, controlling only Albert armed with a gun and his wits. This is where the questions started for me right away; “Who is this boy? Why the hell does he have a gun? Damn that was a high fall he survived.” Most of these questions are answered if paying attention to the environment whilst playing the game; however, I was still left with many questions upon completion. Without any direct lines of dialogue delivered it is a simplistic, yet powerful style of storytelling the developers decided to go for.
Back to this boy Albert for a second, though. Being as he is the main character, let me tell you what he can do. He can shoot that gun he holds so preciously on to. He can also jump and push things around. Unfortunately, that is the extent of Albert’s skills until you come across this red rabbit. Yes, you guessed it! That red floppy rabbit is the same you see during the opening cut scene and his name is Otto. It was at this moment the game truly started to captivate me.
Once you grab Otto the solutions to the puzzles open up drastically. With the use of Otto, Albert is now able to double jump whenever holding him. Otto also comes in clutch holding down pressure plates so Albert can make his way through certain gates. As the story progresses more abilities get unlocked for Otto to use – telekinetic powers alongside giving off electrical impulses to be exact. These are all skills that become crucial whenever tackling the physics based puzzles that players will come across on their journeys.
Albert & Otto does a great job of mixing puzzles and platforms into one entity as you progress throughout the game. While the puzzles themselves weren’t too terribly complicated; they weren’t straight forward either, I always felt a real sense of accomplishment when getting through each part I found myself even slightly stuck on. This feeling mostly stemmed from the fact that I am absolute garbage at platformers, so anytime I can navigate my self through a section that takes precision timing on my jumps I feel a sense of pride. Add on the fact that I have to solve a puzzle of sorts while dodging danger I’m surprised was wasn’t doing my best Tim Tebow impression every 10 minutes.
For what is going to be a four part episodic series; Albert & Otto – The Adventure Begins has done its job in piquing my interest into this dark tale presented to players. Unfortunately I was not able to find confirmation on whether or not the price of $4.99 on Steam will include all 4 episodes of this epic saga. At anywhere from 2 to 3 hours of game play, the intriguing puzzles and challenging platforming sections have me waiting with anticipation. I cant wait to see where developer K Bros Games takes us next on this journey of Albert and his red floppy rabbit Otto.
stafunoob
TimHost of Rough Tims & Waking Up w/ Stafunoob. Broadcaster and Content Creator for KBMOD. Hot Cheetos, Takis, and Gushers are my lifeblood, feed me them so I know it's real.
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