A select few games have the power to immerse you so completely in their world that reality seems to be nothing more than background noise, particularly when the lights are dimmed and youve got your sound system turned right up. Some games do this through the sheer force of their audiovisual presentation, others manage to make the outside world unimportant by virtue of their addictive gameplay. With others, its all about the experience games where the mechanics arent as important as the emotions they invoke, simply by positing you within their universe and allowing you to explore according to your own personal whims. Flower is very much within that third group transcending its medium to become something perhaps closer to art than any game has managed yet.
You play as the wind, believe it or not a breeze which increases to a fierce gust the longer you hold down any of the controllers buttons, with gentle tilts of the pad guiding its path through impossibly lush fields. Its dreamlike feel is entirely deliberate beginning in a rundown city apartment, you see the clash between the hustle and bustle of urban life (illustrated by brief monochrome vignettes coloured with the neon streaks of accelerated traffic flow) and the natural world, with a wilting flower in a sad window display dreaming perhaps of its afterlife in the elysian fields that make up the games levels.
The flower begins alone amid a sea of swaying grass, and as your breeze gently picks up a petal, it blooms, with life and colour flooding back to dry patches of yellowing blades as your collection increases. The singular objective is to collect enough flowers to open up the next area, eventually reaching a miniature whirlwind, where the petals spiral together, transporting you back to the apartment where your tired bloom has now sprung to life opening wider if youve discovered any of the three groups of aqua-toned flowers which appear once youve collected all the petals within a given area.
And thats all there is to be done, for six levels, and approximately two hours of content if youre rushing through. But, assuming youre in possession of a soul, you simply wont want to. Flower not only offers PS3s most beautiful environments, but a sensation of freedom and flight quite unlike any other videogame. Whether whispering between the millions of individually-animated blades of grass, or soaring high above these colourful fields, this is perhaps the most gorgeous digital world your eyes have ever been treated to. The sparse sound effects and musical flourishes as you add to your petal collection are a sufficiently lush audio accompaniment, and the additional gameplay tweaks added to each stage (which we wont spoil here) mean youll simultaneously be reluctant to leave an area, but aching to move onto the next.
So intense is the experience that, once youve truly completed Flower, return visits wont have anything like the same impact as your first play, making it more of a one-shot deal than most other games. But at just £6.29, Flowers very special kind of bliss represents an absolute bargain.
