AaaaaAAaaa: A Reckless Disregard for Gravity Review

You have to give indie game studios credit for always attempting something new and different. Not constrained by publisher demands and working on limited budgets, indie games always find a way to entertain and enlighten given the medium they are in. Indie developer Dejobaan Games have done just that with their titles. Their previous effort, A Wonderful End of the World, was a fun and simple Katamari Damacy-like game that surprises you with its sense of humor and fun gameplay.

Their newest game, AaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity(yes, that is the title), is a quirky, fun, and insane game that follows the grand tradition of the indie game, while providing an experience that can be only described as intense.

In A Reckless Disregard for Gravity(we’ll keep it at that for now), you play as a base jumping athlete who participates in a special sport in the future. See, all the cities have been built as suspended sky based cities(think Cloud City) and a new sport has risen that has you jumping off these skyscrapers to gain points and hit the landing pad. You’ll also have to combine tricks and fanfare, like flicking off your protesters and waving to your fans. You gain more points by hitting point squares, flying close to buildings and hitting the right landing on the landing pad. At the end of each level, you gain teeth based on your point total, which are used to gain more levels and extras.

The game is super simple, but hard to master. Progressive levels become harder mazes of buildings and complex mountains that require precision skill and quick reflexes. They also throw in more fans and protesters to please, making for that feeling that makes you want to try for that perfect score over and over again. While some players may find a home in this type of gameplay, and it is fun, the game gets too hard too soon. The first few levels are quite easy and introduce you to the game mechanics. But after this, the game becomes challenging to maddening in the span of a few levels, and can throw some players off.

If you can get past the steep difficulty curve, the game offers a lot for gamers to chew on. There are over 80 levels of base jumping action and each one offers a different challenge or setting. Some levels will offer straight skyscrapers while others take place in outside environments. It’s a nice variety that keeps you always engaged for the next level. The game also offers clever extras to pace yourself, such as meditation seminars to relax you and even anti-meditation seminars that offer tongue in cheek advice such as having you visualize that spiders are all over your body. Fun stuff.

Graphically, A Reckless Disregard for Gravity looks great. It can run on almost any computer and offers simple visuals that are fleshed out thanks to the trippy and Tron-like backgrounds that surround the levels. Dejobaan Games has also done a great job communicating the sense of vertigo and speed your falling at. You really feel like your standing at the top of a building, falling at 200+ MPH down.

All in all, A Reckless Disregard for Gravity is a fun title that offers a new game experience. The sense of speed, skill, and comedy you get from the game is truly unique. For $15, the game is a steal and offers hours upon hours of gaming goodness. And it’s always nice to support a indie developer.