Do you ever wonder if inside your computer, there is another war raging between various programs but you couldn’t just press Ctrl-Alt-Del to end it? Well most people wouldn’t as they aren’t that bored, but damned if I could explain some of what was going on in the next game to our next contestant for your consideration.

So plug in a new keyboard, polish that mouse, and launch your reading executable for Transistor.

Pretty good first date….

Released last year by the same chaps who released that game Bastion with the neverending commentary by a man who wouldn’t be out of place on a late night jazz radio show while you wandered through various places trying to make things right, this time a slightly different approach has been taken. So what’s it all about then and is it worth your precious time away from watching cute cats on the you of tubes?

You play a character called Red, who cannot speak any more for some reason, and you begin the game standing over someone who has been killed with a talking sword, sorry, Transistor. So far, so normal.

So given you’re next to a dead guy with the weapon that was inside a body, the only real option you have to start with is to wander off, dragging the sword in tow. Every so often he has something to say about what’s going on. It’s the same Jazz voice from Bastion too, so at times it’s going to feel quite similar to what’s been done before. But in reality, you are shoved head first into something that you have no idea of what’s going on.

Slowly but surely as you progress, wandering around some strangely empty places, you begin to see that the place you inhabited was teaming with life, but now it appears various things are appearing, all designed to cause Red to be dead. Red has the funky jazz sword, so clearly this is about to get real, son.

My god, I’m surrounded by young ladies….in the game only…..I’m more sad now.

When it comes to the combat in the game you basically have a choice, to either hit the nasty programs by hitting various buttons while running around a bit or (and this is the more interesting way), in the frozen turn state that those familiar with turn-based combat gaming such as Xcom: Enemy Unknown.

You can then plan out what your moves or even just wander off from the naughty programs, queue hits on them from behind and then press play. Boom, your enemies are defeated and the world is a better place for circuits, LEDs and whatever other electronic crap you can think of.

When you do a certain action, you eat a little bit of a bar so you can only do a certain number of things before executing. Once it’s depleted, you are a bit boned for defending yourself till it recharges so you have to choose your actions wisely, for if you are hit too many times, you start losing abilities, but get your health back each time. But you get a number of abilities or “functions” to fight back, and you pick more as time goes on as you pick up experience.

Can you press control, alt and delete for additional functions here?

The only thing is, half the time you don’t really know what the functions are supposed to do and unless you are very close to the screen to read the huge amount of text, this is where confusion could set in.

You see, this was originally released on Steam, so basically everyone who was playing this originally had their noses shoved up to the screen looking at the pretty words of wisdom.

Sitting on a sofa, away from the television, it was a lot harder to get what things did, so in the end, I just added things and hoped they would do something. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t. Either way, it was more down to luck and doing the same thing which got me through many battles.

You can make the game harder as you progress with additional unlocks which gave you bonuses but at the cost of the system being a lot better against you, a nice way of knocking things up a notch if you were find it too easy.

Actually started to sing “under the sea” at this bit….

So we know what is happening and how you batter the email spammers, people from Nigeria offering money and all the nasty things in the system or city you’re wandering around in, but there is a huge amount which needs to be said for the art style, the music and some really quirky additions which make the whole thing more interesting than you might think.

Red may have lost her voice, but press a button and she hums along to the wonderful soundtrack and a little spotlight shines on her, so you’re getting a concert for one and something where you may linger for a few minutes, just to hear the lovely melody.

The art style is also quite striking with a liberal use of neon, that doesn’t go over the top or make you wonder if Jeff Bridges is going to sneak up on you and pull you in to do one of those bike races. All in all, it’s very easy on the eye.

The PS4 version rather had a neat new trick in that the smooth Jazz voice came out of the controller as opposed to the speakers, with the controller also lighting up when he spoke, just like the wonder sword did on screen. Quite interesting and a nice way to use the hardware available.

The world that’s been built is actually rather interesting, but you in many ways will never know what was happening more than what you find in various terminals and it’s not going to be hard to come away slightly confused about how it all happened in the first place.

But there is more than enough for you to come here, play through the nicely designed levels, have a great time and perhaps even shed a tear at the end too. It’s not hard to see why so many people praised this game and if you have the time, do give it a go.