I’ve spent countless late nights falling asleep on the couch while watching Adult Swim and now, thanks to their joint effort with those creative geniuses over at Double Fine, I can enjoy their special brand of insanity in their latest game, Headlander. The first thing you notice about Headlander is the logo; something stripped straight from the 70’s like cover art from an Atari 2600 game cartridge or a Logan’s Run movie poster. It only gets better when you hit the Start button.
Headlander skips the formalities of any major plot and simply introduces you (as any of three selectable faces) as the last surviving human in the universe. No pressure…right? Well, maybe just a little since you are only a head in a jar – somebody likes their Futurama references. More accurately, you are a head in a helmet; a rocket powered helmet capable of flying around and installing itself onto any robot body that doesn’t already have a head or any of numerous data ports and control panels. Believe me; it makes more sense after the tutorial which only lasts a few scrolling screens; at least to learn the basics. More advanced functions come into play later when you gain the ability to suck the heads right off of bodies, turning the whole game into some crazy robotic possession puzzle game.
This Metroidvania style game is loaded with action, puzzles, and a massive map that will have you exploring and backtracking for hours. Puzzles are integrated right into the environments, usually consisting of colored doors and locks that you can only access once you have docked your head with a robot of matching or higher security clearance using the standard ROYGBIV spectrum with higher level colors (to the right) unlocking any colored doors that level or lower (to the left). The higher the level color the more bounces and distance you can get with your robot’s laser, which comes into play since you often need to shoot distant doors from afar then quickly detach your head and fly through before it closes.
I found the laser controls extremely difficulty to aim with any accuracy, even when bringing up the precision aiming that slows down the targeting and displays a tracer line showing all the bounce angles. The big issue is that the enemy AI is too good and once alerted will fire with uncanny accuracy the moment you enter a new screen. And since there is no health system in Headlander the only way to heal is to hijack a new body with more health than your old one, which means making accurate headshots or simply detaching your head and sucking off theirs – a tactic I found much easier than trying to shoot their heads off. But higher-level robots are more resistant to your head-sucking tactics, so be sure to upgrade your vacuum distance and power levels in the tech tree.
There are some fun uses for head docking like sucking the head off Mappy, the map bot and syncing his info to help complete your map screen or docking with a Roomba-style cleaning droid to get inside maintenance areas, taking over a gun turret, or even attaching to a robot puppy to satisfy some rich robot lady’s lost dog side quest. Sometimes it’s fun just to rip the head off a passing robot citizen to temporarily assume their identity, enjoy their style of walking or engage in conversations with others.
There is a fantastic self-improvement upgrade system lurking beneath that surface that requires you to find energy orbs to fill a meter and essentially “level up”, thus earning a skill point you can use to purchase new and better abilities for health, combat, head sucking, personal deflector shield, etc. If you are good about finding all the secret areas, you should easily find enough energy to max out all your abilities. My only complaint with the system is that there are some environmental gates that are tied to optional ability upgrades like the deflector shield.
Headlander can get challenging at times; not just in knowing what to do, but also in knowing where to go and how to get there. Locked doors might force you to detach your head and fly through air ducts, or an electrified floor might send you in search of a robot with rubber insulated wheels. Thankfully, there are plenty of cleverly integrated signs depicting clues to solving most of these puzzles. And yes, there is a lot of backtracking in the game, but the designers have placed fast-travel teleporters in major sections of the game making it easy to get around once you have discovered and unlocked them.
I loved the art style for Headlander with its vibrant colors and LSD-inspired special effects. There is something distinctive about the visuals that look like a cross between Psychonauts and the more recent Broken Age games, all combined with amazing sound effect and one of the best soundtracks of any action-puzzle-platformer release this year. The cutscenes are fun and seamlessly integrated with the gameplay, and I love the voice-in-your-head narrator who does an admirable Rex Allen Jr. impression. The sheer amount of dialogue is staggering. Each character has multiple and often hilarious responses; even the cleaning robot had six replies before repeating.
Headlander is a reasonably long game and there is a fantastic “end game” mode you can enjoy once you have finished the story. This allows you to go back and 100% the game by collecting any missed items and upgrades as well as interacting with the population who will now have all new things to say. There are also a few Easter eggs hidden in the game that are only available after winning.
There are so many Metroidvania games coming out these days and most of them are falling back on retro 16-bit graphics, so it was nice to see a 70’s throwback that actually had some next-gen flavor to the presentation while maintaining a classic 70’s vibe. With its combination of challenging action, thought-provoking puzzles, and environmental awareness exploration, I loved every minute I spent playing Headlander, and anyone who enjoys this type of game will too.
