Review: Maize – PS4

We’re having something of a bad run here at Pure PlayStation when it comes to reviews. Like, a really bad run. For every decent game that lands in our laps, we expect a turd or two to follow. But three? In one month? What is this madness?!?!
As you can probably guess from my opening paragraph, Maize isn’t a masterpiece and I’m not going to have very many good things to say about it. In fact, let’s get the good things out of the way right now:

1. It didn’t blow up my PS4, which would have then blown up my house, and possibly made me homeless. Great stuff.
2. It didn’t become a sentient program that took over my PS4 and accompanying electronics, which would have no doubt killed me and enslaved my woman and child.
3. I’m not legally obliged to play the game ever again, and I can delete it from my console at any time. (I already have.)

So, if you’re looking for the positives, there they are. Now let’s get onto why this brand of Maize is stuck in the mud.

For one, the game is boring. Like, super boring. The game revolves around sentient corn and how they’re wandering around. Weird, right? But that’s the premise of the game and the kind of comedy it’s going for. You start off in a maze of corn (oh, that’s fucking clever) and you wander around aimlessly for a while. I ended up picking up a rock and a muffin along my way. Did they come in use? Well, just like the rest of the stuff you pick up along the way, some items are useful, others are pointless. Plenty of items just end up in your gallery of stuff, complete with what I’m guessing is supposed to be comedic descriptions of the items. I didn’t laugh. Not once. I didn’t grin. I didn’t even do that thing where you let out a bit of extra air from your nose when you’re ever so slightly amused. Nothing. No, I’m not dead on the inside. I laugh every time my kid falls over the legs he is still learning to use. Every. Damn. Time. So my comedy radar isn’t broken, basically.

You’re soon introduced to the Corn Boys (not their official name) after doing a bit of busy work. I was hoping my boredom was going to be rewarded with razor-sharp wit. It was not. I was more inclined to find something razor-sharp and cut my ears off. The writing is downright awful. None of the jokes land anywhere near funny, and the delivery is pretty piss poor, too. Great, I thought, but I carried on against my own internal desire to burn my PlayStation 4 and vow to never eat corn again.
Oh, dear readers, it doesn’t get any better from here. It actually gets worse. The gameplay is reduced to wandering around, picking up bits of random crap, find an interactive point, flicking through your items to see what works, and that’s it. It’s a chore. But there’s more… The bear. The wannabe Ted. The mopey Russian teddy bear that spends his time following you around while spewing the same insults out over and over again. How is that supposed to be funny? How is some stupid little bear calling me an idiot supposed to make me not infuriated with the game? Who actually thought this was funny? It’s like a 12-year old who has only just discovered Family Guy was tasked with writing the bear’s dialogue. It’s that bad.

Honestly, I can’t say anything else. The story isn’t very good and the annoying bear, z-tier comedy, and generally poor presentation didn’t help. The gameplay wasn’t even up to par, so what else am I supposed to say? The music? Oh, the same music that loops for hours on end. No, thanks.