Players take on the role of Mr. ESC, a self-designated “escapologist,” meaning he dedicates his life to saving people from disasters; fire, earthquakes, and floods – you name it, and ESC has probably survived it. Despite his love of danger, Mr ESC is not a superhero; he relies purely on agility and intelligence to rescue the citizens of his home city (which goes unnamed). The main aim of Exit is to find the people trapped in each stage, and guide them down to the exit of each level. Along the way, there will be various hazards that Mr ESC and his companions must overcome – fire, electrified floors, shutters and flooded rooms for example. Using a combination of your wit, Mr ESC’s skills and the assistance of the citizens will help you to get Mr ESC and his followers out of danger.
You sure are!
Upon starting a level, it’s best to take a look around the level with the analogue stick – this will help the player to determine the locations of any survivors, as well as the obstacles that Mr ESC needs to tackle in order to get to them and get them out of the level. Survivors come in four types – young children, who are good at crawling in small spaces, young adults, who can do just about everything Mr ESC can (except leaping great distances), adults, who are good for pushing boxes around, but need assistance doing anything else, and the injured, who are nothing more than a liability – they need to be carried by either Mr ESC or a young adult, and often require the use of a stretcher, which can be difficult to find. Once you’ve recruited a survivor, they can be directed to do a number of things, but be wary that they will do anything you tell them including walking to their death, jumping into fires and so on. However, if a survivor is in “follow” mode, they will have the sense to keep themselves out of harm.
Exit controls a lot like Delphine Software’s 16-bit adventure Flashback; Mr ESC can run, leap and grab edges much like Conrad did years ago. The developer has made a number of silly design choices in regards to ESC’s movement though; you can run like the wind on flat ground, but when it comes to ladders and stairs, you’d think he’s a contestant on The Biggest Loser. It’s something the player gets used to, but you know it could be better, especially given the fact that there’s a strong sense of emergency in the game, not just for rescuing people from natural disaster, but the fact you’ve got to do so in a set time limit. Judging the falling distance that Mr ESC can handle can be a little challenging - sometimes he'll be able to drop down from a ledge without a without a problem, while others he'll roll around holding his knee, and sook like a toddler.
ESC undergoes preparations for Beijing 2008
The main strengths of Exit lie within the execution of the game’s levels. The game is always fair – it’s always easy to see where you’ve gone wrong in a puzzle (and you’ll always have to restart the level to do it right), the time limit is liberal, and the pace of difficulty level progression is quite steady. The first 10 levels are a fairly comprehensive tutorial on how to control ESC and so on, but from there on, you’ll be alone and will have to apply all of the concepts you learnt in the tutorial to be able to progress. There are times you might get stuck on a level (we got stuck on 2-6, yet had no problem with harder levels), but you can always move on to the next one.
The base game comes with 100 levels spread across 10 locations, but if that’s not enough, Taito has been releasing bonus level packs for download from their site since the game’s Japanese release, meaning that there’s another 110 levels for players to take on. The downloadable pick up straight from the end of the main game’s levels, so their difficulty is a little more fiendish, so try to beat the base levels before going back for more. Nevertheless, giving players essentially a complete second game worth of levels for no charge is a very admirable deed on behalf of Taito. Expect to get about 20-25 hours out of the main game and the expansion levels combined.
Before his beer goggles wear off and he sees the chick he was getting with
One of the things that really drew us into Exit was the game’s rather unique visual style. Most of the character models are rather plain black and white caricatures with little specific detail. Mr ESC stands out from the crowd due to his red tie and orange hat. Despite their simple appearance, the characters of Exit animate with amazing fluidity – something more developers need to pay attention to. The appearance of the characters is a stark contrast to the game’s backdrops, which are vibrant, highly detailed and reflective of modern design – despite the difference, the differing parts of the game’s graphical style mesh together perfectly. Exit’s soundtrack compliments the game’s unique visual style with its own peculiar mix of jazz and technosynth, which is pretty catchy. The voice work is reasonably good, but Taito could have probably used a few extra samples for each type of survivor – while the voices can be helpful in leading you to a survivor or reminding you of a trap, the constant cries of “Help me!” grow annoying over the course of the game.
With its own distinct approach to puzzle gameplay, and a unique visual style, Exit really stands apart from the crowd. This uniqueness may be somewhat amplified by the PSP’s largely unimaginative library (with only a handful of exceptions), but anyone who’s tired of the standard puzzle games and is looking for something a little different, Exit is highly recommended. Only minor issues hold it back from being alongside the best games of 2006, but PSP puzzle fans can't go wrong with Exit.
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