Child of Eden

Fortunately Child of Eden has arrived, and it's a game that completely absorbs you when you're playing it. A game which makes you laugh for no reason when playing it. A game which expresses pure joy at simply being a game. And it's brilliant.

This is a worthy succesor to Rez and one of those titles that can justify the eternal discussion arguing if games are a form of art.

Rez resurrected. Brilliant with or without a controller, Eden could last you a lifetime. [Aug 2011, p.92]

It's hard not to feel at least a little bit ecstatic taking part in its marvelously framed moments. Avid audiophiles weary of the standard-issue music game will definitely find something novel in this high-concept, yet easily enjoyed shooter.

Utterly beautiful and reasonably creative. [Issue#73, p.82]

It's a blissful, beautiful thing to play.

Strip away the neon visuals and the doomp-doomp-doomp of the soundtrack, and you're left with a pretty but woefully undercooked shooter.

child of eden is without a doubt. the best rail shooter for now. maybe it's not considered a rail shooter and more of a music game. but child of eden is stylish. and visually stunning. the game has breathtaking colors. sometimes developers imagination is up high. and that's were it is. child of eden is great on the ps3. but AWESOME on the xbox 360. it can be addicting. and fun. the visuals are so stunning and combined with the awesome music that make you feel down in tears. and cry i want more of this. and just feel happy and emotional with yourself, i give this game such a high score. due to the underrated moments of it. and the crazy results that are so much better than Call of duty and fps ****

I would like to give this game a 6.9. This game gave me a seizure and I'm not even prone to them. So whats the deal? Tons of flashing colors, to the point where you are circling a massive blob of brightness, shooting, and shooting, and shooting, and your eyes are screaming "AAAAAAAAAAAH". All the while your arm is held out, and you start to wonder.. why? Ok, that is just one part that irritated me. The rest of this game is pretty good actually! You adventure through some beautiful landscapes, skyscapes, spacescapes, and so on, until you win. It really is better with the Kinect because it is easier to get through. I did not enjoy starting at the end upon failure. All in all this game is very short, and has reasonable replay value. If you can get it for under 20$, and like the Kinect, shooters, and pretty colors, go ahead and get it.

The prequel to beloved cult classic Rez, Child of Eden had a lot to live up to. Does it? In many ways, yes, in a few (important) ways, no. The visuals 10/10. The graphics are stunning. Absolutely jaw-dropping visuals for the whole game, even games like El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron have a hard time competing. The music 4.5/10. This is one of my main complaints for the game. Aside from the bonus level that calls back to level 4 of Rez and the level Passion (using the song Maker by Genki Rockets, one of their best) the songs don't really sound different enough to stand out from each other. They're all minimalistic electronica with random Genki Rockets samples. It sounds orgasmic when you reach the first boss but there's just no variety. The original Rez had a variety of different music all from different artists. Add in the fact that Rez's creator and Child of Eden's director created the group and it starts to feel like he's on an ego trip. The story 3/10. I know it sounds dumb to judge Rez OR Child of Eden by their story, but what I'm judging here is the emotional impact. Rez's final level is truly an experience that every gamer should know. Can I really say the same for this game? Tetsuya Mizguchi's attempt to connect his music project The Genki Rockets to the canon of Rez just makes Child of Eden feel like a vanity project. Combine that with the ridiculous difficulty level and that seriously harms what emotional impact this game could have had. The gameplay 6.5/10. I will sound like a huge hypocrite for this, but the game is just too difficult, and not for good reasons either. Maybe the experience is better when played with Kinect (or they tone down the difficulty), but with a controller, even the normal difficulty is a difficult task. First off, the camera is disorienting. It moves with you to quite a degree (you can pretty much look entirely to your left and right, almost behind you) but between all the action and the camera autocentering itself (and boy is that awkward) it just doesn't work and often gets you hit. It's a rail shooter like Rez, but you can no longer use the lock-on laser to destroy bullets, only a purple machine gun. It sounds easy, but you have to be extremely precise with the purple gun (unlike the lock-on laser), and with all the movement and visuals and the worse camera, it's hard to tell where bullets are coming from at all let alone aim at them and hit them. And oh boy the bullets. The enemies on normal on the first level send out about as many bullets as the final bosses in Rez on the higher difficulties. Only they're harder to see and shoot down. You know where this is going. This makes the whole game a frustrating experience where you're fighting to barely stay alive. It's hard to enjoy the beautiful visuals and soundscapes when you're ALWAYS stressed out. This game is STRESSFUL. And the lock-on Perfect mechanic. If you chain full lock-ons (8 as in the original Rez) you're supposed to get a score multiplier. Only this seems to work only when it wants to. Sometimes you'll chain up to 8x, sometimes it'll just say 'good' 3 times and keep dropping. It never seemed consistent or predictable enough to make high score runs a viable option. And this game DESPERATELY wants to be a score attack game like its predecessor Rez, but it's not. The unpredictable scoring mechanic, the poor camera, and the constant fight to stay alive prevent this from being a game that's more about the experience like Rez was. Rez was easy, but if you WANTED to score attack you could challenge yourself. In this? The difficulty and randomness make score attacking impossible. Oh, and players of Rez know the frustration that is Rez boss battles, where you're fighting so hard to keep bullets off of you that you can barely attack the boss. That's made worse tenfold in this game. It sounds like I hate this game but I really don't. I would recommend this to anyone, at this point it's cheap and well worth the experience. I just think it has a lot of flaws and it wants to be things that it isn't.

I played this game on a controller, and it ****. This game is impossible to beat without a PS Move. It didn't account for the slower reaction time and lower accuracy of a controller joystick at all. At level 4 this game becomes impossibly difficult to play. For controller, this game is a 3. It's a nearly unplayable game.

I get that it's different just like Rez HD was and it's fun but I am seriously failing to see what people like about this game cause I had enough of this with Rez..I have played both games and I've put a couple hours into each one.I personally like Rez HD better but I can live life without this game and live it well.Actually if this was never made, I think I would be even more happy cause I wouldn't of had to waste hours of my life trying to see if there is something I am missing or what.I seriously wish I could have those hours back and play through a game that I have beat before or anything cause this is a shallow complete waste of every minute, of your life, you let Child of Eden **** gamer's out there,go to the arcade and relive some old arcade classics.This is the definition of a bad idea and if you do give this game a chance then you'll understand what I mean at the end of your gaming session with this game,even if you can call it that!