Lifted Review - A Little Off 88 MPH
In a year of cinematic 2.5D platformers, Lifted separates itself from the rest by having a strong focus on trying to replicate the family friendly tone of an 80s adventure movie. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lifted is the creation of ex-Disney imagineer Jeff Ashbrook and his studio Adventure Works.
You play as Ari, a student seeking extra credit from his high school physics teacher, Professor Ravensthorpe. But when he goes to assist him, Ari enters the Anytime Elevator alongside the professor and his pet chinchilla, Julius. Ari is gobsmacked to find Professor Ravensthorpe has invented a time machine, to travel back to the pyramids to pull off a heist to woo his crush.
From the first cutscene, Ari and Professor Ravensthorpe draw comparisons from Back to the Future's time travelling duo, Doc and Marty. Professor Ravensthorpe is a zany scientist whose usual logic is clouded by his romantic endeavour. Whereas, Ari wants nothing more than to return home unscathed to see his girlfriend. Both share personality traits clearly influenced by Marty and Doc. Ari's voice actor even goes as far as to sound like Marty in his inflections. Each performance makes you feel like you're controlling a cartoon.
As a Back to the Future fan, I enjoyed the homage, but I can see some people bemoaning the similarities. Yet it's clear the whole game is a love letter to 80s adventure movies as a whole. But Lifted separates itself from a simple homage by being a comedic, feel-good experience for a wide age range. Apart from a few vehicle sections, Lifted is a 2.5D puzzle platformer that focuses on approachability by including two difficulty options: classic and easy. The lower difficulty changes button timings, puzzle hints, and adds wider platforms to jump on.
Lifted is similar to every other 2.5D platformer, Ari moves along a linear path from a fixed-camera perspective to avoid dangerous obstacles like spike pits. He can jump and double jump over obstacles and land on narrow beams. Use handholds to climb walls that glint to instruct you to press a button to climb faster. But as the professor transports Ari through time, he develops more abilities: he can roll and dodge hazards, use a grappling hook to climb and solve platforming challenges such as pulling back trees, push and pull blocks to solve puzzles, use special shoes to shimmy up edges, slide down muddy hills and across ice floors, drag back obstacles to progress, and time your movements to survive strong winds.
However, some jumps from vines and other objects feel slightly too finicky when trying to grab another handhold. The design didn't often feel misjudged, but I could see how these issues could frustrate younger players.
Image: Lifted - Driving
By the end of the globe-trotting adventure, you combine these traversal skills to overcome linear challenges where you have to keep moving or risk dying. Thankfully, the checkpoints are generous, so you respawn right back into the action. Although, I did encounter a few occasions where reloading caused a few progress blocking glitches, like a jump where I couldn't avoid getting hit by a spear until I returned to the main menu to reload the game, and a section where a crucial platforming block didn't materialise.
It's a family friendly game with little peril and devoid of combat. Instead, Adventure Works breaks up the platforming sections with short semi on-rails driving levels where the perspective shifts as you avoid enemies. Or when you are pursued in a ride a mine cart and must jump over broken rails. They're a nice break, but the mine cart sections do feel slightly too slow to create any sense of speed.
Although the other largest gameplay mechanic is the puzzles. While not particularly challenging, they're engaging enough to change the pace. Most are block moving puzzles which have Ari place blocks on pressure plates to raise or lower elevators to slowly make his way forward. There are also light beam puzzles, and platforming puzzles that have Ari use different heights to jump on bounce pads to progress. While most of these sections feel nicely paced, a few did overstay their welcome during the pirate themed level.
For a pure platformer and puzzle game, Lifted uses a cartoon art style for the 3D character models that resemble Rayman's limbless design. It takes a bit to get used to, but the expressive cartoony faces and waggling hair helps to emphasise the fun banter between the professor, Ari and Julius the chinchilla. Environments also compliment the visual style, such as snow that has an almost candy floss look, resembling the graphics engine of the PlayStation game Dreams.
Image: Lifted - Muddy Slides
Cutscene animations are also high quality, but they do falter during certain platforming sections. This is especially true when shimmying up walls, as it feels like it's missing a few frames. Otherwise, for an indie game, Lifted has a lot of personality and heart. It clearly wears its inspirations of Indiana Jones with pride, and for good reason, as it's the bursts of banter that made me want to see the story through to the end. Despite this, I do feel some cutscene dialogue could've been done during gameplay to keep the pace up.
Although the overall plot feels a little too loose, but the professor and Ari have enough layers to front a breezy family friendly romp through time. Despite this, I did feel certain side characters strayed into stereotypes, which I believe could've been improved with additional backstory. However, I do look forward to whatever video game Adventure Works makes in the future.
Lifted also includes a cinematic score that verges on the well-known motifs of Back to the Future and Indiana Jones. It helps maintain the tone the studio chose during development. It keeps cutscenes filmic and does its best to up the excitement during action platforming sequences. Although the sound mix during certain actions scenes are poorly mixed.
There are also collectibles hidden around levels or in hard to reach places, in the shape of historical artifacts like Rosetta Stone pieces. It encourages players to explore the mostly linear levels, and gives older players a little replayability. Although Lifted isn't the longest video game. Yet if you're playing with younger family members, it's perfect for short pick up and play sessions.
Lifted is far from a perfect video game, and would benefit from a better structured story and extra gameplay elements. But the fun bond between the professor and Ari, and the simple gameplay makes a breezy experience ideal for a wide age range. It's a fun but flawed adventure that is still a good time.
*Review Code Provided By Publisher
