As I said, Half Sonic the Hedgehog, half Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Defunct is a surprisingly fun little indie game for PC. The game is billed as an adventure game with a focus on flow and speed yet while I feel that those statements are in the wrong order, they are more or less accurate. In Defunct, you take control of a poor little robot with a broken engine. You live in a giant flying cargo ship and on your travels you are accidentally jettisoned. This is when the game actually kicks off as you struggle to catch up with your ship in a 3-dimensional Sonic-esque fashion. While your engine is broken you have the ability to “Gravitize” which presses you firmly to the ground and allows you to gain massive speed while going downhill and impedes your progress uphill.
There are three additional abilities available to help you navigate your robot through the game’s various levels and courses. In a pinch, you can activate your broken engine in order to push you along at what is, in comparison to the rest of the ways you can move through the game, a snails pace. You can magnetize your body and stick to various metal surfaces, allowing you to do things such as navigate a course upside down, which can come in quite handy. The most powerful ability that Defunct‘s robo-protagonist has at his disposal is the capacity to use Enerjuice. When you spray a can of the stuff into your engine you are sent flying and are treated to feeling like Nitrous mixed with a thunder clap.
As soon as you begin the game properly you find yourself tasked with going forwards, often with extreme single-mindedness and speed. While you can take the time to explore every inch and branching path within the game, Defunct’s level design and mechanics don’t really lend themselves to this style of play. I mean, it was more fun to me to just go max speed through the levels then to go slowly and find the collectibles. I just hate how short it is, it+'s basically made for speedrunners. If you speed through the levels normally, you're gonna be done in 1 hour (more or less)
STORY
RATING: 3/10
Eh, they tried. It's just not fit for this game. You're a robot - you fell from your ship - you're trying to get back to the ship. End of story, simple but nothing special.
VISUAL PRESENTATION
RATING: 7/10
I like it, has that Playstation 2 style which brought me waaaay back. It's simple, cartoonish, and just overall beautiful.
AUDIO PRESENTATION
RATING ?/10
While what I was able to hear of this games music was quite pleasant and appropriate, I rarely could hear it. I don’t know if it was a problem on my end or some issue with the game (and I did attempt to adjust this) but in comparison to the sound effects the music was almost on mute. So I'm not gonna score this, just because I don't know who's problem it is.
FINAL SCORE: 7/10
It is a simple and fun high-speed sort of escapade that I think many gamers will be surprised to find themselves enjoying. If you are a fan of speedrunning try it out, you might like it.
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