Review: Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers (PC)

I loved pretty much everything about this game. First of all, while a lot of the games I've played lately (Psychonauts, Beyond Good and Evil, Shelter, Don't Starve, 140) have had a really interesting aesthetic dimension, there hasn't been one that I've flat-out enjoyed as much as Tiny and Big's. Most of the abovementioned games, while being (mostly) good games that I've (mostly) enjoyed playing, have a look that, to me, elicits a response like "Oh neat! That's clever!" Tiny and Big, on the other hand, has a look that elicits a response like "Wow, this is the coolest fucking thing ajdklajeiopaj."

That video gives you a little sense of what the game's about and what it looks like. For some reason, the style just absolutely jives with me in a way that makes me feel not just like I'm playing a fun game, but also a cool game. It seems like the sort of game you would have gone to a 50s-era sci-fi themed speakeasy to play. Or something.

Anyway, the video also shows you pretty much the entirety of the gameplay: you move through huge, open levels, using your laser to cut things, your rope to drag things, and your rocket to push things. It's really satisfying and kinetic, especially when you slice through the base of an obelisk, then pull it over with your rope and scramble out from underneath it as it tips over and crashes to the ground. The game actually mostly succeeds in creating the sense that you can do anything to the world using these three mechanisms (slice, pull, push), though of course you can't. But making you feel like you can is quite an achievement. This hit me especially hard when I was playing one of the later levels, trying to climb a tall structure, and I realized that I was allowed to stop thinking in terms of what to jump up to next because I could literally carve a huge staircase in the side of the rock wall if I wanted to. And I wanted to. It succeeds in making you feel powerful in a way a lot of games try and fail at.

No mean feat when you consider the objective of the game is to get your underwear back.

In a way, actually, this is sort of the game's greatest weakness as well. Because at times it feels like anything is possible, it becomes disappointing that the game is really about doing the same three or four things over and over again. Most of the levels involve, primarily, making bridges by cutting down towers, or making bridges by cutting down conveniently-placed ceiling beams. There's some excellent variation, though, in the form of one sort-of free climbing level that gave me the strongest sense of vertigo I can remember ever having gotten playing a game since Mario 64, and an epic boss battle (the first one) that plays with the game's physics system in really interesting and pulse-pounding ways.

Unless you're one of those people who must explore absolutely every nook an cranny in a virtual world, though, the majority of the game is going to involve slicing and dragging things, and eventually the feeling of being a god is going to fade and be replaced by the feeling of being a...bricklayer, I guess? Something bad as compared to a god, for sure.

Pictured: Not Iron Man.

Tiny and Big is a short game, and by the end I couldn't decide if I should be happy it ended when it did because it was running out of Cool New Ideas, or if I should be disappointed that it didn't find more to do with its slice, pull, and push mechanics. It seems like there could have been so much more to this game, but yet it's also nearly perfect as it is. I suppose this isn't a bad conundrum to have to face after playing a game. I think it means that the game was pretty awesome.

Oh, and you know what else is fucking awesome?! The soundtrack! Not only is it a totally badass, weird mishmash of electronica and accordion music (klezmer?), the tracks are also doled out in-game for intrepid explorers who seek out hidden rooms and such. Now that's a neat idea that also takes some serious confidence in the awesomeness of your soundtrack from a developer's perspective. But in this case, that confidence is well-founded. I definitely found myself exploring the game's levels more hoping to find more tracks, and when I finished the game and was still missing a few tracks, I immediately bought the soundtrack just so I could hear them.

And that's the icing on the cell-shaded cake for Tiny and Big. A great game that might leave you wishing there was more, but mostly because what's there is phenomenally well-presented, cool-looking (and sounding), and, most importantly, fun to play.