A fun gaming experiance beyond imagination
Overview: Flower is beyond. And well within a class of it's own, a perfect syncronicity between graphic beauty, and simple flowing game play that can appeal to anyone, though the game is aimed toward people who live in a big city, or anywhere that rolling fields are well out of reach.
What makes the game instantly likeable is the fact that it's not An Inconvenient Truth: the videogame. Flower is more about the colour, the wind, the sounds, the relaxation of nature rather than its, er, controversial destruction.
Gameplay: You start out in a dirty colourless apartment, with a potted plant sitting by a broken window. As you complete each level, the apartment (and the city out the window) improve. The story leaves much to player interpretation, but it's never too vague. Each level involves moving a petal around with the wind in fields and valleys, touching other flowers and taking one of their petals with you, there are specific flowers you must touch and others that grant you differant unusual powers. The last two levels ditch the upbeat dreamy rhythm for a more serious, scarier tone. I don't want to ruin it but let's say that while it's possible to turn a field into a colourful nature paradise, can the little flower do the same to a junkyard, or Gotham City? Well, yes actually.
Controls: Flower is a great example of motion control done right, in fact, to do it any other way would be a disaster. You control the wind carried petals by moving your controller in a similar manner to a flight stick, to accelerate you hold down any button or analog stick. Yep, only one button is used.
Graphics/Fx: the graphics are smooth and dreamlike, it's hard to find fault in this game in this area, FX on the other hand is a little more hard to judge, but if physics is the question then Flower has it covered. Just moving through the grass in a whisp like manner, was enough to win me over, it's hard to put into words but it's there. I do however find it odd that water is curiously absent in this game.
Music/Sound Fx: The music of Flower is told mainly through orchestral sound FX, every flower you touch plays a different note, So in a sense the game as a whole is a cross between the bit.trip series, Katamari Damarcy, and Pac-Man.
End Note: The primary fault with Flower is that it's short, however it does have some replay value though hidden flowers. Flower seems silly to give a score to, but as a reviewer I must so I shall give it a 10. Playing a videogame to relax and escape to the countryside sounds silly when I type this down, but then again, it seems only natural.