GamesRelay

Name: Flow

Flow, stylised as "flOw" isn't a new game, it was first released as a free online flash game back in April 2006 and became very popular at the time. The game really took off however when it was released on the PlayStation Network albeit at a price. Still, the price for flOw is justified by its higher resolution graphics.

The premise in flOw is a fairly simple one; You control a small underwater lifeform that has to find other living underwater lifeforms and eat them. Eating various other aquatic species will allow you to evolve and grow in various shapes and sizes. Throughout your underwater eating frenzy you'll come across larger predators which you have to face, so making sure your large enough to battle this underwater minion will help greatly in completing the level for the creature your playing. Some of the food and creatures you eat only replenish your health and don't further your evolution, so while the game doesn't allow you to die, if you get eaten, you just move up a depth to start again.

The game plays by putting you in a top down perspective where you control your lifeform around the various depths of the ocean, eating your way through the current depth and then the red or blue creature will lead you to a lower depth and deeper and deeper as you progress through. Once you have reached the bottom you get to face the boss creature (It's not really a boss, just a larger more aggressive predator.) The boss creature you face has a few tricks up it's sleeve to keep you from eating it, much can be said about most creatures real or not... The creature can disappear and appear at any place in the current depth at any time so you'll no doubt find it coming at you from behind mouth open, but not all are the same, the bosses are as varied as the way in which they are presented, each offering something unique to the table for you to eat. Eating the end boss will reward you with the appearance of an egg, which can only be eaten once your creature has reached a certain point in its evolution, so if you can't consume it, you need to head back up in depth and carry on eating. Each egg you eat will unlock another creature for you to play with, though the game takes place all in one space which changes colour the deeper you go down, in total their are six creatures you can play with, four to unlock and one to play with while the end credits roll.

One of the greatest additions to the PlayStation 3 version of flOw is it’s upgraded graphics, the game runs in 1080p if your TV or monitor supports it, giving the visuals a crisp look to the game and a much larger play area at each depth.

FlOw is more a game you can relax with, with it's soothing soundtrack which plays nicely in the background it never comes across as tedious or annoying, but after time, can become repetitive. Thankfully the way the game tries to keep fresh is adapting the difficulty of the game to match your skill level so it's pretty much always challenging regardless of how well or how long you play the game. Though the game is quite short however, only taking around three hours to finish but that's just to unlock the creatures, you could of course go back to it and try any number of combinations to evolve your creature.

If you played flOw on the PC when it first came out then you should know what to expect since the gameplay hasn't changed at all, only the graphics. While this isn't a bad thing, it does make you wonder why you should purchase a game which is already free on a different platform. With that being said, flOw is still a great easy to play game and one that should be enjoyable regardless of age, if you have any qualms about purchasing it then you should check it out freely on the PC before hand.