Magnetic: Cage Closed is essentially Portal, but using the gravity gun from Half-Life 2. Sounds amazing, right? It does, until you realise that Magnetic doesn’t have the guile, class or downright creativity of the two games it so freely apes.

The premise will be incredibly familiar for anyone who has played the original Portal. You, an unnamed prisoner, wake up in a closed off room, to then be informed that you will put through your paces in a series of test chambers. The rules are simple, pass all the chambers and you will be released and all your crimes wiped clean. Lose, and you die in prison. As you go through the game you will be communicated to by either the completely bonkers prison warden or the slightly less bonkers scientist controlling the chambers.

The first stumbling block the game runs into is that none of the characters have the charm or wit of the infamous GlaDos from Portal and thus the attempts at ‘telling a story’ fall flat. There is no context given as to why you are in prison and the game seems to never fully decide as to whether it wants to be serious or comical. As such, it ends up doing neither and thus the story is completely forgettable.

 

This would be forgivable if the core gameplay mechanics were strong enough to pull the game through. In fairness to Magnetic, the fundamental mechanics are at best enjoyable and at worst, intriguing. Obviously using your magnetic gun you are able to move around metallic objects at your will, but the game does require some outside of the box thinking such as using magnetic charges to repel yourself over gaps or up to previously out of reach areas.

Nevertheless, the game becomes very repetitive very quickly. The chambers all look nigh on identical, which to be fair so do Portal’s. However that game was able to get away with it by having better mechanics and a unique, interesting antagonist in GlaDos.

 

As much as I would love to say that all of Magnetic problems end there, unfortunately I can’t. The nature of the puzzles requires precise movement and placement of objects. The game simply doesn’t offer you the millimetre precise movement that is needed. It often feels clumsy to move your character and the objects around you. Also, as the magnet gun is obviously at your characters front, it means when you want to repel yourself you have to be facing away from the direction you want to go. Meaning that timing a landing is often a frustrating case of trail and error. Add into this the extremely unforgiving checkpointing system and there are a few moments that will strain your motivation to keep going.

Ultimately, Magnetic is a polarizing game (sorry, had to). If this review seems overly negative, let me say this. Magnetic is not a terrible game. Of all the games I have played in my life time there have been many that are much worse than this. Its just if you are going to so freely plagiarise the ideas from one of the best games of the last decade, then you better make sure yours is up to scratch. Magnetic, unfortunately is just average in every capacity. There is nothing it does better than Portal, and in trying so hard to copy that game, it fails to establish its own identity.

 

It seems like this Magnet has a negative charge….

 

Magnetic is available digitally through Steam, Xbox Marketplace or the Playstation network. You can see the launch trailer below.

 

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