Out of Line isn’t offensively rubbish or broken, nor are its mechanics frustratingly opaque. It’s not horrible to look at or listen to, and playing through it left me chilled, which is not necessarily how I finish all my platformer sessions, believe me. The puzzles and platforming are perfectly perfunctory, and though it takes a little while to get used to your spear – more on that in a sec – there’s not a single maddening sequence or frustrating boss fight to scupper your journey, making it wonderfully accessible for those who are new to the genre (or even new to gaming completely).
Out of Line reviewPublisher: Hatinh InteractiveDeveloper: Nerd MonkeysPlatform: Played on SwitchAvailability: Out now on PC, Xbox, PlayStation and Switch
But after finishing up my second playthrough – my first took 90 minutes; my second just a little more than an hour – I’m still none the wiser as to what happened in this story, nor why. There are worst ways to while away an hour, granted, but though the game is beautifully simple – and simply beautiful – the truth is, it’s a bit… well, unremarkable. As pretty as Out of Line is with its hand-drawn artwork and haunting soundscape, it’s neither boring nor captivating. Neither terrible nor terrific. Instead, it sits somewhere in the middle of a mediocre no-man’s-land.
To be clear, this no-man’s-land isn’t necessarily a place. It’s just that the journey you take and the puzzles you encounter in Out of Line are not particularly memorable. There’s zero challenge here. Coupled with an incredibly light-touch story – you’re never formally introduced to the character you play as, and you never understand their motivations or backstory – it’s hard to decipher what, exactly, is going on.
Out of Line Launch_Trailer (PC) Watch on YouTube
As for what’s “out of line” here? Well, that’s San, the tiny, pale-faced figure at the heart of this tale. After waking up in a strange land of monoliths and flying cubes, San works methodically through environs like a factory, a forest, and the belly of rusty machinery that spews scalding steam, trying to escape the mechanical claws of their pursuers, gigantic, oddly sentient machines that shriek and pin you with the glare of their searchlights.