The Unfinished Swan

There are very few games which are able to buck trends with aplomb and do it this gracefully. Pick it up when you can and give it the time it deserves.

The Unfinished Swan is best seen as an interactive bedtime story. There are no enemies to kill, the threats to Monroe's safety are few and far between and there's nothing too taxing to figure out, but that's not what this title is all about. If you sometimes tire of the triple A titles and enjoy seeing what else the medium of games can offer, or you have enjoyed creations like Journey over the past few years, then Unfinished Swan should be on your list of games to purchase.

You'll quickly forget about the short length of The Unfinished Swan when you step into the wonderful world of the game. It is an imaginative journey where the level design surprises you time after time.

A beautiful, intense but short surprise. A great experience anybody interested in games should buy, taking into account that its opening sequence feels way better than the rest of the gameplay, and that most players will only go through the story once, that is 4-5 hours tops.

A brief, sweet experience made all the better by its unique presentation and interesting mechanics. [Issue#225, p.82]

The Unfinished Swan tries to touch the player with a special aesthetic and a unique gameplay concept, but it only succeeds on an average level. It loses itself too much in trying to be something special and never really grabs the player because of it. It lacks unity and continuity and therefore doesn't let its beautiful mold settle, which leaves the game with a pretty aura, instead of a soul.

Beautiful visuals, clever ideas and a pleasant story can't make up for a shallow and overly linear gameplay. Condensed in an experience that lasts about an hour and a half, The Unfinished Swan can't show its true potential nor can it satisfy the player. We really wish things were different, but you can go ahead and ignore what could otherwise have been an indie masterpiece.

Once I figured out how to get out of the first room, the game was excellent. Lovely style, wonderful puzzles, engaging storytelling-- an extremely unique game. Highly recommended for Portal fans or for anyone interested in the First-person puzzle genre.

The Unfinished Swan is a storybook. It’s the story read to you by your mother that, upon hearing, brings you back to the simpler time of childhood. It cradles you and the surrounding world is revealed by painting it yourself. It’s a quick game and for that it’s been knocked, but any longer and the magic would be ruined. It’s a bedtime story that knows exactly how it should be told and when it should end.

A good but not great game. It has some very creative ideas but it doesn't do alot with **** story has some charm but it doesn't really go anywhere. It can be very pretty sometimes and it it's very unique but it just seemed to be missing that extra something that would have made it great. It's also over before you know it without that much reason to go back. Not a bad game but I would have felt much better paying $10 or less for it.

This was an okay game I guess. The idea looked interesting and the story, when presented, sounded wonderful and like something I'd definitely want to play and would be interested in. So, just to be sure, I got the demo and I'm glad I did. Despite how wonderful the game sounded the camera movement was disorienting and confusing, not intuitive at all and the actual character movement was just as bad. I will grant it the graphics were decent (nothing compared to Journey as everyone says, I'd much rather look and listen to Journey) but the music was completely forgettable and what can be remembered is only how bad it was. To be perfectly honest, the game play is slow and gets boring rather quickly. There is only so much ink you can splatter around before you're just bored and things get sort of frustrating because if you don't splatter it with ink you can't see it... and that's just sort of lame. BUT that's the whole game it seems... there are worse games because this is at least bearable but it's still just.... boring.... really boring...

I reckon the idea is really creative and original, but I felt sick after 3 or 4 hours of playing. You need to keep moving the camera around, and everything is 2-colors, I think that's the main reason for the dizziness. So I can't say I enjoyed too much.