Headlander Review

Come on we’ve always wanted to do it haven’t we, you know, play as a floating head ? Nope just me ?!? Well in headlander you do just that. The 8-hour campaign starts you off as a head waking up on a platform. You try to speak your first words then realize you have no body or lungs with which to speak. This, of course, means no dialogue from you, but the voice that awoke you helps guide you on your way with a decent narrative.

The story is not the greatest point, that being a sinister robotic AI taking over the world and universe, with humans all but gone. You’re tasked with bringing this robot down, and to do this as just a head, you can with a great and innovative mechanic, fly and rip off the heads of other robots and use their bodies to move about. Your head can also rip open tunnel entrances to find new areas with power up modules, and sometimes to get through to the next room.

Whilst on a robot body you soon learn how to shoot a laser, sometimes to take out other robots and other times to unlock doors. It’s all fairly basic stuff. Navigation on this side scroller is via the use of an excellent map, and interaction with the in-game NPC’s can unlock side quests, which to be honest, generally were nothing more than go to the other side of the map to then pick something up and come all the way back.

The graphics are good but the art style fantastic. The theme of the game is a 70’s space station psychedelic vibe, and it’s pulled off with aplomb. You just needed a cameo from Scooby Doo and the gang to say “groovy” and it would be complete. In fact groovy is a word to describe the settings of rooms and the settings. Even if you didn’t know who made this game and had played Double fine games before, you’d know it was a double fine production just by looking at it. Although the graphics themselves aren’t stunning, I do have to mention the beam from the laser is one favourite of mine. It just looks great on the PS4.

Audio is decent with a pleasant space themed soundtrack keeping you company and a few nice in game noises to boot.

It’s all very pleasant if just, well, a bit boring, though. To progress is either a case of firefights or finding the right coloured robot body to walk through the matching coloured door. There are also some basic power-ups that help you navigate some tricky areas, but generally, that’s about all there is to the game, getting from A to B.

Played on the PS4
Review Code Supplied by Developer