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ilomilo Review

ilomilo is set in a surreal world with abstract backdrops and strange goings on. The game features two main characters; ilo in red and milo in blue. They meet every morning in a park for breakfast and at the end of the day they return home. The following day they meet again, but the way to the park has been rearranged. Is there a mysterious force or have the poor characters both got bad memory? Your task is to reunite ilo and milo so they can continue their daily ritual.

Split over 4 distinct chapters with their own themes including aqua and night, ilomilo features a total of 49 levels to complete. The levels are found floating in the air built up of a series of cubes in three dimensional structures which your characters can traverse. ilo and milo start in separate locations and can be changed between each other at any time to work co-operatively. They are unable to cross to other sides of a cube unless there is a carpet on the edge or by using certain special cubes. These special cubes can be picked up and stowed away in their backpacks and can be used in a variety of ways depending on the cube type. A standard cube can fill a gap, an extending cube can be used to create bridges and a floating cube can take your characters to previously unreachable places. The trap door cube effectively flips you upside down, useful for accessing the opposite side of a cube and finally a rotating cube allows you to change sides of a cube. These cubes are introduced throughout the game so you are not overwhelmed with them all.

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The difficulty level starts off relaxed and increases as you progress. ilo and milo must work together to reunite, for example ilo can give milo a cube which he uses to fill a gap, thus creating a bridge which ilo can later cross. Later levels are more devious and take advantage of the three dimensions with good use of the special cubes. Floating cubes are not just for reaching higher places, remember this is in three dimensions, so the floating cube can be accessed from another side of an adjoining cube to turn it into a moving platform. The puzzles are never so hard that they are impossible to complete, but many levels will have you wondering just how in hell you are supposed to reunite your characters. You may spend 15 minutes scratching your head then you will try something new and it will all click in to place with an Eureka moment!

Levels can be replayed at any time and allow you to complete the level in lower number of moves to improve your online leaderboards position. Alternatively you may want to collect the often trickier to find bonus items found on the levels. Three Safka creatures can be collected and doing so for each level will earn you three bonus levels in each chapter to play on. There are also memory fragments which upon collecting enough will tell a portion of an unrelated side story. Finally there are photos and and vinyl records which when found will unlock bonus content in the gallery and music screens. You can speed through the story in around 5 hours but you would be missing a lot of the levels, completing all the levels and bonus levels would bring this closer to 12 hours and more if you want to get respectable leaderboard positions.

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The presentation is done well with little touches such as fun but totally useless trivia on the loading screens and in game tutorials and advice which are explained by the strange Napoleon hat wearing Sebastian. The story is progressed via static screens with a cute photo of ilo and milo in situations with some text, they even had me saying ah bless 🙂 A local multiplayer mode is available to play which allows each player to take control of a character. Everything seems to be covered, including a nod to an infamous indie game, a fairly fun bonus 8-bit style mini game called ilomilo shuffle and a level featuring retro pixel style characters which everyone seems to be doing now. This is the final game in the ‘Games For the Holidays’ promotion and if you have purchased Raskulls and/or A World of Keflings you can also choose to play as characters from those games which is a welcome addition.

Graphically the game looks amazing, the surreal scenery adds to the atmosphere and wackiness of the game, it is a cross between Little Big Planet in some ways with a hint of Viva Piñata style graphics and cuteness. The camera angles when changing sides of a cube can sometimes be a little disorientating but you can zoom out to get your bearings or rotate the camera manually. The music is amongst my favourite in recent times. There are a few tracks which remind me of 1970’s British TV kids shows with jolly sounding tunes featuring kazoos, xylophones and whistling that will keep you humming or whistling for days afterwards! Everything works together very well, wrapped up in a charming and humorous package. All it needs to put a bow on would be Ray Brooks (of Mr Benn fame) to do the narration, please do this for ilomilo 2 if it happens!

I have to be honest and admit I am hooked on ilomilo. I usually get bored of puzzle games either after a few hours or I complete the story. ilomilo kept me playing after completing the story and I am currently working my way through the levels I missed out on. You get a lot of content for your 800 :MSPoints:, if you want a great memorable puzzle game look no further!

Rating
Description
9.0Gameplay
The 49 levels are well designed and will take some time to fully complete. Puzzles are very clever but not impossible, thinking outside the box often helps.
9.0Graphics
Lovely abstract background scenery with plenty of cute graphics.
9.0Sound
A memorable collection of music which will have you humming or whistling away.
9.0Final Score


You can download the demo or purchase the full version on the Xbox Marketplace.

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