About the Game:
In a twist of storytelling, The Cave is your narrator. He/it is a sarcastic, creator type character that references current trends and pop culture. At the beginning of your first play through you choose three characters out of seven. Each one has their own story, nuances and special abilities. In such, each has it's own area within the cave that can only be reached while using the appropriate player.
Sound:
Ambient music, narration and NPC voices take up the majority of the sounds in this game. The narrator has a great voice that is deep and ranged and the npc's voices fit their characters well. Each playable character also has distinct footsteps. You can always tell who you are playing as. The Hillbilly walks in bare feet and the Adventurer has heavy boots. This raises my only issue with the sound design, some of the character's movement sounds can get incredibly annoying and I was forced not to use the time traveler as much as I would have wanted to due to the futuristic laser Wah Wahs that grated on my brain. Also NPC's have a small set of speech options that makes returning to them tiresome.
Graphics:
The Cave has a neat graphical style. With a 2.5D perspective and cartoony style, the visual style is consistent and immersive. You are able to discern everything you need to know within seconds of looking at the new area you are in. Anything destructible is obviously distributable and pressure plates are very visible. The lighting effects relate to your environment well. As expected Double Fine has kept their game looking fresh and amazing.
Game play and Writing:
The writing is incredibly reminiscent of previous games done by the guys at Double Fine, it has the same humour you would expect from a monkey Island title for example. It's sardonic and witty and if you like that type of comedy then you'll love this. As stated previously each character has a unique story and they flow seamlessly between each other with parts of The Cave only accessible to that individual. The history of each character is portrayed in a series of cave painting that work as single panel comics depicting the storyline. These can help you discern what your nest move and overarching goal is for each player none of which is all that altruistic. The Game play is not unlike The Lost Vikings, where you find yourself switching fairly regularly between all three characters in your team constantly to solve the puzzles put in front of you. However they don't ever interact with each other (you can't say, use one as a platform for another) Each special abilty feels like it belongs and isn't forced, the Knight for example; has a leap of faith ability. There a couple of issues in the game play department. First off, with only 7 characters and the need to play with three at a time, you will find yourself repeating most of the game on the 3rd run through, repetition is a trend in fact in this game. There are sections that don't belong to a specific character that don't change and are always there such as finding the old prospector's mine carts. Once you figure out the solution to the puzzle the first time, every following attempt feels like a grind. Speaking of grinding, it seems like all of the puzzles involved backtracking up ropes and ladders that just feels like padding out game time. The puzzles are very easy to an adventure game vet and are more suited to a younger audience even though the subject matter is obviously for a more mature player. I played on PC and it gives you the ability to use both keyboard and/or mouse. DO NOT USE THE MOUSE, it is useless and it will make you angry. When you click your player moves on a path that you can't stop. There were only two places in the game where it made sense. The keyboard works well but with an non configurable control scheme it can feel cramped at times.
The Nitty Gritty
If you can deal with a ton backtracking, repetition, shifty controls and simple puzzles get this game. The writing is excellent and the comedy is good. I had high hopes for this one.
I begrudgingly give this game a 6.5 out of 10.
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