AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!

AAAAaaaAaAAAaaaAAAa, splat.

Yes another wonderful game that the almighty Steam has decided to provide me with. This time it’s an out of left field gem, AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity. To say that I was pleasantly shocked at the fun factor of this title is an understatement. I went in thinking this was going to be some stupid game about people falling and becoming curb side paste, but instead I was treated to an addictive platformer of sorts, that sees you falling hundreds of feet through an obstacle course of death, trying to score the most points!

That’s really the key focus of AaaaaAA, it’s you taking a leap of faith off one building and then dodging and zing zagging past other structures and objects as you try to score the most points. At first it’s simple stuff, you try to get as close to each building as possible to earn either a hug or a kiss, a hug being kind of close to the building and a kiss meaning your pretty much… well kissing it. After each level you are ranked and from that you get points that you use to unlock other levels and abilities. These abilities including giving your supporters a thumbs up or flipping protestors the bird, as well as spray painting buildings as your fly past them.

The game for some reason has this pull to it that will have you going back for more on a daily basis, I can’t really explain it, maybe it’s the fact that the developers really are able to capture the wonder and rush that we would all like to feel, the kind of sensation that is only possible from jumping out of a plane or bungee jumping. Or it could be all the weird extra’s that are packed into the game, the little snippets chronicling the history of the jumping sport, the overly docile news broadcast, or, or its Zen moments.

These Zen moments that I speak about are these kind of side experience that the game randomly throws at you. In most cases when a game tries to relax me, I slam the skip button faster than a Ferrari hits 60 mph, but for some reason I actually participated, mostly because I was almost certain that by the end of it the game would scare me or do something that would follow its “out there” style. It was a shocking surprise that not only was the game actually relaxing me, but there was no prank at the end, it just zoned me out and let me stay there for as long as I wanted. As you get farther, weirder ones open up, like one that tries to make sure you never relax and another that tries to depress you.

The reason I haven’t brought up visuals is because there really not important, their ugly for the most part, but it doesn’t matter in the least, the game uses its visual component to do exactly what it needs to make the game fun, and that is to show the height and speed of your fall.

AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity is as I said before an out in left field gem, it’s a blast to play, and its odd side experiences and thrilling levels will bring back a feeling of pure fun that games use to be about. I also found that if you mute the music and put on your own stuff, it makes it feel that much more dramatic, I can’t explain it, but man did it make playing that much more fun.