The platform genre has become supersaturated over the past few years. This review walks you through Scaler (both the title name and the star of the show), a game that seems to pay homage to most of the successful platform games, while adding its own spiky yellow edge. Canadian-based Global Star (GS) Software brings you this fun time-killer with an MSRP under twenty dollars. According to GS, this game appeals to all ages, and this is true. The difficulty ranges depending on how seasoned a gamer you are and in what genres you play well. Scaler entails a lot of different play mechanics to keep the game pretty fresh until the end.
You start Scaler in the ever so popular tutorial stage that pretty much every game has. As you make your way through the first level, you get a very good look at what is to come later in the game. Scaler is very colorful, and the creatures are very uniquely designed. Scaler provides a wide array of ways to travel through levels including rail riding, wall crawling, and sneaking around in camouflage. As you progress, you earn transformations that are necessary to complete some levels and to defeat some enemies. There are five transformations total. Unfortunately, you cannot scroll through them to use them when you want. You can only use the transformation provided for that particular stage.
There are five bosses and ten worlds. Each boss does not take the same three stomps on the head to defeat; rather, each ranges from a fight high in the air to suspended platforms and rail riding in between. In Scaler, your mission is to collect all of the lizard eggs and foil the evil plot of Looger, a lizard bent on ruling the multiverse. You can also collect Klokkies, which are your currency in the lizard world. With them you can buy upgrades such as an extra life bar, steel claws, and longer camouflage time.
During the first stage you meet a new friend named Leon. You travel with him to the different areas of the lizard world on his Repidactile (a flying lizard-bird). When making your way through levels, you use Scaler’s different attacks to defeat enemies. Scaler‘s attacks include a claw attack, a jumping ground pound, and a tongue whip. The claw attack allows you to perform a three-hit combo. The ground pound is useful when you are up-close and personal with too many enemies at once. The tongue whip is mainly used to stun enemies, but it will take out some of the smaller enemies. The tongue can also get those hard-to-reach items in your quest to attain a perfectly completed game. You can also build up electricity bombs by rail riding, which creates static electricity from the intense speeds. The bombs are useful when you are surrounded by several of the larger enemies.
After collecting each egg, Scaler does a wide variety of celebration dances and poses. Overall, Scaler has very good voice acting, but the dialogue is sometimes dry and cheesy, definitely keeping the game at a lower than teenage rating. Most of the music has a jungle beat to it, which fits perfectly with the environments and the theme of the game. The sound effects are great, especially the noises some of the creatures make. Also the way you can hear the wind blowing when rail riding adds to the atmosphere of Scaler. The Bakudan form of Scaler offers the cutest voice in this reviewer’s opinion.
Surprisingly enough for a 3D platform game, Scaler has very good camera angles throughout the game. Scaler provides English and French dialogue. The art gallery in Scaler offers gamers a large package of pictures, storyboards, and character and world concept art. You unlock the items in the gallery by collecting Crystal Gems, which are located throughout the levels. Scaler also offers a well-blended variety of mini-game genres including racing, flying, and first-person shooting. These genres accompany the many transformations of Scaler.
Albeit a tad short, Scaler is worth the 2000 pennies it charges. You may even grow fond of the characters as you see their relationship develop amid a very Disney-like plot. This blue lizard offers way more than a certain purple dragon at over half the cost. Scaler‘s high speed may remind some of a certain other blue creature, but since he is only making revivals of his earlier days, why not try a game with a totally next-generation look and feel, but without all those camera glitches.
