Contact Review

By Dave McCarthy Published 19 December, 2006

Calling occupants of interplanetary craft.

Version tested: DS

It's easy to get jaded as a games journalist. If you think you play a lot of games, think how many games the average reviewer gets through. And think about what it's like to have to play games to deadline, worrying how you're going to come up with another devastatingly clever and unique piece of insight that will distinguish your review from all the others out there. Think about getting so many free games that if a game doesn't amaze or astonish within about ten seconds it's on to the discard pile, never to be played again (or, if you're less scrupulous, on to eBay for a quick buck). Imagine playing so many games that you can only see Gears of War as yet another underwhelmingly brown/grey gruff-voiced third-person shooter, or Shadow of the Colossus as just a boring sequence of tediously lengthy boss battles.

Yep, it's easy to get jaded as a games journalist. So when a game like Contact comes along, a game fizzing with ideas and bristling with a smart postmodern attitude, it's actually pretty exciting. It starts with the manual, which is laid out as if it's a weblog - so it comes complete with a 'VirtuaDiary' (sample quote: "It seems a device called the 'DS' was able to pick up my signal."), a 'Fun Survey', and knowing references to memes. It continues with the opening menu, which resembles a close-up of a keyboard's function keys, and it persists throughout the game with all sorts of clever intertextual references, and continual acknowledgement of the fourth wall.

'Contact' Screenshot stat

The stats screen.

Indeed it's so clever you'll probably need to look up words like 'intertextual', 'postmodern' and 'semiotics' over on Wikipedia just to understand how clever it is. Even if you don't, you'll surely get the reference to the Genji meme when you're told to hit a boss's weak point for massive damage, and surely you'll spot the sly digs at the Microsoft Windows autoupdate feature. Heck, there's even a whole island of electronic games and the nerds who play them called Habara (almost Akihabara, see?). There's not been a game this entertainingly knowing since Bangai-O, which is almost what you'd expect a game developed by the same whacked out developer as Killer 7.

"Oh, but what's the game about, and is it any good?" I hear you ask (there goes that fourth wall again). Well there's the rub. Because in many ways it's actually pretty disappointing. You play as, well, you, and your job is to help The Professor and his space dog Mochi recover some missing power cells by directing his assistant, a young boy named Terry. During the game The Professor stays on board his space ship, depicted on the top screen in a beautifully pared down isometric style. Meanwhile, Terry engages in typical action RPG behaviour down on the bottom screen, rendered in a more conventional, realistic style. And over the course of the game it becomes increasingly clear that The Professor's got a secret he's not sharing.

'Contact' Screenshot chef

One early location in the game grants you access to a chef suit.

There's a whole load of neat mechanics in the game. Terry can discover different costumes that grant him various abilities, like lockpicking, fishing, or cooking, and he can pick up various different types of weapon. His 30 different statistics level up continuously, simply through use, the same way as in the Elder Scrolls series. And there are interesting concepts, like the fact that it takes time for Terry to digest food and healing items, or the way you can play around with Mochi while the game is saving, to make him more powerful when he occasionally helps out Terry during battle. And there are other power-ups called decals, which you peel off, Panini-like, using the stylus, before sticking them on Terry or his enemies to produce various effects, from transforming enemies into cows to granting Terry a stat bonus.

But the mainstay of the game is simple combat and exploration. And that's where it falls down. Combat is totally basic: you just hit a button to enter a combat stance and wait for Terry and his enemy to trade blows. Exploration is just frustrating: wander through dungeons, fight a few enemies, find a boss, discover he's too hard to handle, backtrack, grind out battles against enemies to power up stats and obtain umpteen healing items, backtrack, beat the boss, find the cell, and start the process again. Or backtrack some more.

It's not totally rubbish and boring, but given the way the game sets your level of expectations so high, it does feel like it for a while. Still, if you can bear the disappointment, and push on through, you'll realise that, between the whole intertextual thing and the interesting-but-average RPG mechanics, there's still a decent game in here. It's just a shame it's not the amazingly brilliant one it could have been.

7 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
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About Dave McCarthy

Read more articles from Dave by visiting the Dave McCarthy archive page.

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Comments (28) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Tonka #1 5 years ago

    I'm tempted. Maybe an import/bargin bin buy.

  • CitizenGeek #2 5 years ago

    Sooo this gets a 7 and FFIII gets a 6?

  • MadMirko #3 5 years ago

    I know it's old, but why not do away with the numbers? I don't see how they help.

  • Roamer #4 5 years ago

    Looks really interesting. That last screenshot had me intrigued - contact contrast.

  • Rambaldi #5 5 years ago

    DO AWAY WITH NUMBERS!! ARE YOU MAD!!How the hell would we berate jaded reviewers THEN I ask you???

    Some people...

    /rolls eyes

  • MadMirko #6 5 years ago

    ARE YOU MAD!!

    Look a little to the left and find your answer.
    Edited by 1 at 19/12/06 @ 09:05

  • spongebob #7 5 years ago

    Numbers really oughta go. People would actually start reading the reviews as well and these comments would become probably more interesting.

    About the game in review. I was stoked about Contact when I read the previews and still had my DS Lite. It took too long to arrive and I sold the machine. Don't mind now that I see that people think it's only cut above average. I would've kept my DS if there had been one or two good RPGs. Even strategic ones, dammit.
    Edited by 1 at 19/12/06 @ 09:10

  • Rambaldi #8 5 years ago

    Come on guys, really, don't you think it's just a little bit pretentious, thinking about getting rid of numbers? This isn't the bloody Times Culture Section y'know! Besides, why shouldn't reviewers be expected to put their necks out and grade a piece of work? A quick skim and a glance at the score is very informative and, 95% of the time, bang on the money.

  • spongebob #9 5 years ago

    So why not just make a bit more elaborate numbers system and get rid of the text?

  • Der_tolle_Emil #10 5 years ago

    It's quite simple. Don't give people information they are unable to understand and/or interpret. Then again there is the question what to really interpret in the scores. It is hard enough comparing two games of the same genre let alone comparing games that have nothing in common to begin with.

    Besides, the text often really does not reflect the score (or the other way around) because people have different things they look for in games. Good example would be Final Fantasy 3. Some people may like random battles - they may enjoy the things Final Fantasy 3 has to offer although the reviewer doesn't. If someone is not put off by the time-typical design "flaws" and probably was looking for such a game in the first play they simply cannot understand the score. "It get's a 5 although it does the things I want it to do?". Which comes even more into play with big titles like Final Fantasy. I never really played the series (I bought FF1 and 2 for the GBA but I did not really enjoy them all that much) but it is even harder to understand that a Final Fantasy title gets rated worse than an unknown title. People are fast when it comes to forgiving mitstakes in bigger titles. It simply is hard to be objective on a series that you really love.

  • Chtulie #11 5 years ago

    "Combat is totally basic: you just hit a button to enter a combat stance and wait for Terry and his enemy to trade blows. Exploration is just frustrating: wander through dungeons, fight a few enemies, find a boss, discover he's too hard to handle, backtrack, grind out battles against enemies to power up stats and obtain umpteen healing items, backtrack, beat the boss"

    Aren't games like this insanely succesful? Looking at WoW and other MMORPG's that pretty much work like this, except there is no ending, no payoff with those, but there is one with Contact.

  • Rambaldi #12 5 years ago

    @spongebob

    Now you're just being silly. No system is perfect, but a reasonable amount of text and a score just works, period. If you want to read in-depth you can or if you want to skim and look at the score you can. It caters for pretty much everyone - except of course a handful of posters who let score discussions get under their skin ;)
    Edited by 2 at 19/12/06 @ 09:27

  • floppylobster #13 5 years ago

    Why not go back to the good ol' days and add a percentage for playablity?

    No, just kidding.

    But surely an online review site is the perfect place for adjusting/sliding scores.
    Give it a score for first impressions then add a score later when you've played it some more. And then a final score when you're ready for the full review. And later a retrospective score once it's been compared to other things that have come out.
    Then keep all scores attached to the review. (And don't be afraid to say "I was wrong" and drop your score after a couple of weeks reflection.)

    Fixing a score is a risky business up against so many with 20/20 hindsight.

  • Zomoniac #14 5 years ago

    TERRORIST MONKEYS!

  • spongebob #15 5 years ago

    Rambaldi I am not that uptight :)

  • chirou #16 5 years ago

    "
    95%???? Ur so wrong lol 96 is more accurite!!!

    Seriously though, I agree. My problem isn't with the providing of a score, which can indicate at a glance how good the reviewer thought the game was. As a very rough guide to go by, they're ace. (I prefer scores out of five, but that's not important.) The review is of course, the important bit.

    If only we could keep scores but get rid of folk that can't peacefully accept that different people like some games more than others. Nothing wrong with the odd discussion of scores, but having flame wars over them - especially quibbling over a single mark in an out-of-ten scoring system - is mighty silly."

    5/10

  • Rambaldi #17 5 years ago

    LOL. Top discussion lads. A definite 8/10 ;)

  • peak_performance #18 5 years ago

    The game has great style, but I'm just bored while playing it :/ Killer 7 is better.

  • posh_geordie #19 5 years ago

    Post deleted at 18:45:04 02-01-2012

  • MadMirko #20 5 years ago

    We (Codemasters) are distributing the Euro release of this; it's out February.

    Yesyes, but what's your stance on review scores?

    Just kidding, good to know.

  • spongebob #21 5 years ago

    I hope Santa gives me at least 8/10 this year.

  • #22 5 years ago

    Who cares about numbers? Even if EG rated this game 5, it still is far too interesting a game to not have a look at. I've been interested with the development of this game and to see it in its final form is great. I'll import if the European launch date is too far away.

    @ CitizenGeek
    Final Fantasy III received a 6 because whilst it is a remake of the original it doesn't hold much more than that. Graphically the game is beautiful and yes, I would probably love the game way too much if I had it right now but still, you have to understand EG's point of view and how they rate games.

    Contact offers something new to us (well... enough to grab that extra number.). FFIII seems to revisit familiar gameplay wearing a nice aesthetically pleasing coat.
    Edited by 1 at 20/12/06 @ 11:46

  • Genji #23 5 years ago

    I've played and finished this. 7 or 8 seems about right for me.

    It's an... interesting game, in the same way that Killer7 was interesting. In style, it's very, very post-modern. Kind of like Earthbound was. You'll probably either love it or hate it. I'm more on the "love" side, myself.

    It's also quite short. The higher-level skills in fishing and cooking - as well as any other costume - require an INSANE amount of grinding to get. And they're not worth it, since you'll have finished the game before you even get them.

    I look forward to the sequel.
    Edited by 1 at 19/12/06 @ 11:38

  • chupachups #24 5 years ago

    Instead of numbers, they ought to say who would like the game and who would hate it. Then people can decide which of the two they're most similar to.

    Incidentally, why is it that so many promising games on the DS turn out to be too short? At the beginning I thought it was just developers getting to know the DS, but it's been out for 2 years now and they're still churning out games that make me regret paying full price.
    Edited by 1 at 19/12/06 @ 13:10

  • paul_haine #25 5 years ago

    I wanted to like this game a lot, because, as the reviewer says, there's a lot of cleverness and many nice features. But, yeah, the game itself is pretty dull. I hated the combat - just press the button and hope that you win, and if you don't then you get sent back to your ship and have to plough your way through the level again to reach the same point. The costume-changing becomes frustrating as you can only do it in one location...the notion of 'digestion' is nice but only until you realise you can't take any more potions because you're full, and have no choice but to take a beating.

    Lots of nice ideas, basically, but shame about the implementation. By the way, what about the WiFi aspect?

  • Pinchy #26 5 years ago

    Sounds like a Mr Ben simulator.

  • chupachups #27 5 years ago

    "Sounds like a Mr Ben simulator."

    That would be AMAZING! :-)

  • Tonka #28 5 years ago

    A round of applauds for the person responsible for the article header image. They have been brilliant in all three sizes.

  • #29 5 years ago


    ningaru wrote:
    I'll import if the European launch date is too far away.

    Alas, the launch date is February 16-02-07. Not long now.

  • The_Aardvark #30 5 years ago

    This review totally nails it. There's lots of cute/interesting/novel packaging but the heart of the game is totally monotonous.