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We never doubted it for a second. It looked like December might pass by without a single EpiXR Games game \u2013 a Life of Fly<\/strong>, Murder Diaries<\/strong> or Paper Flight<\/strong> perhaps. But we needn\u2019t have worried, as they\u2019ve snuck in with a last-minute Aery.\u00a0<\/p>\nFor the uninitiated, EpiXR Games are a small independent studio that specialise in \u2013 effectively \u2013 a single game, released every month. That game is a flight sim that is so laid back that you could fall asleep and wake up with 1000G in your back pocket, wondering who put it there. In some of these games, you are flying around landscapes as a fly, in others a spirit, and in Aery games you play a macaw. These games have different names and varying stories, but they share environments between them (occasionally shockingly so) and they largely play the same way.<\/p>\n
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There\u2019s a hint of cynicism and sarcasm in every sentence we wrote there, but Aery \u2013 Path of Corruption<\/strong> demands more respect than most. For one, it is, without doubt, the best-looking of any EpiXR title. We don\u2019t know who they\u2019ve hired, or which intern is making the rest of the team look bad, but Aery \u2013 Path of Corruption looks rather splendid. And they\u2019ve not just taken an airbrush to the already existing library of levels they keep wheeling out: these are modelled anew, and they look fab.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe quality comes from the detail and the composition. In the very first level, you can fly into a shopping mall and investigate each individual shop. In previous Aerys, EpiXR would have shrugged and scattered some polygons about like bird-seed. In Aery \u2013 Path of Corruption you can glide into a music shop and see every last harp and harmonica, lovingly recreated. Our favourite moment was when we flew into the photocopying room of an office and found some scattered sheets with someone\u2019s bum printed on them. We don\u2019t often comment on the care and attention in one of these games, but there\u2019s plenty.<\/p>\n
In terms of composition, there\u2019s the odd level that feels cleverly put together. A spooky manor with a maze in its grounds feels artfully constructed, with forethought on how the player might explore and swoop around it. Canvassing the grounds and then moving up through the mansion, with the spooky goings-on getting more intense as you climb is impressive. We wish more of the EpiXR games sculpted the experience like this.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The story though? Fuhgeddaboutit. While there\u2019s been a sudden zhuzhing of the graphics, the story has somehow gotten worse. The \u2018Path of Corruption\u2019 refers to a character called Jack, who wants to build a house (don\u2019t buy any magic beans, Jack!). Jack needs money to build the house, so starts to fantasise about selling drugs and robbing banks to make ends meet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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And, of course, when he fantasises about these things, his imagination becomes a parrot that flies around those fantasies. So, Jack gets to fly around a Breaking Bad-style meth lab and the vaults of a bank.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most people decide to live with their parents or get stuck in the renting loop, rather than deciding that \u2013 hey \u2013 they\u2019re going to build their own house and commit heinous crimes to pay it off. But Jack\u2019s different, so we\u2019ll run with it. But we couldn\u2019t escape a feeling that\u2019s even stronger than in other Aerys: the level themes came first, and the story is tying itself in knots to excuse them. We go to an apocalypse level because Jack worries about what the world would look like if everyone took what they wanted. We go to a Fifth Element-style future level because, um, he\u2019s worried about his future? And the less said about the judgmental final line of the story, the better.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s utterly rubbish. But we suspect that people don\u2019t buy an Aery game for the storyline. The joy of these games is in the blissful floating about, and in this regard Aery \u2013 Path of Corruption doesn\u2019t disappoint. We\u2019d vote for Aery\u2019s approach over, say Paper Planes, because it leans into the no-friction serenity of the gameplay, rather than adding other mechanics on top. You simply point to the next feather on the horizon and then float towards it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s some amendments though, as Aery \u2013 Path of Corruption has a cycle of two different level objectives. On the odd levels, you have a huge number of feathers to find in an open world environment, more than we\u2019ve seen in any other Aery game (up to fifty-five); on the even levels, the feathers appear in a sequence. Find the first feather and the second feather materialises, and so on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We\u2019d have appreciated some tutorial text that actually said something like that. We assumed that every level would be a mahoosive collectathon, having played the first level, but the second only shows one feather at a time. We duly floated around the whole level, wondering where the feathers had gone, wasting fifteen minutes on a fruitless treasure hunt. We assumed it was a bug.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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There\u2019s frustration to be had in the bigger, open world levels too. With up to fifty-five feathers to be found, and the objective demanding you find every last one (no feather gets left behind!), there\u2019s ample opportunity to be left with just one. There\u2019s no hint system or Crackdown-style<\/strong> audio pulse to point to where they are, so you can bet that \u2013 at least once in the game \u2013 you will be painfully canvassing the area for one last feather. They\u2019re well highlighted, with big sparkly flourishes, but that doesn\u2019t necessarily help when the last feather is tucked round the back of a warehouse. We\u2019d argue that it\u2019s about time that EpiXR produced a mechanic that helped in these situations.\u00a0<\/p>\nFlying high up into the air and surveying Aery \u2013 Path of Corruption, particularly against the other EpiXR Games, we can say with confidence that it\u2019s one of their best. It doesn\u2019t knock Aery \u2013 Vikings<\/strong> off its perch (there\u2019s more potential for frustration here), but it\u2019s the most lavish and graphically detailed of all the Aerys, and it even takes a couple of risks that work. Just be prepared for one of the worst stories that we\u2019ve been exposed to on Xbox.\u00a0<\/p>\nYou can buy Aery \u2013 Path of Corruption from the <\/em>Xbox Store<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n
We never doubted it for a second. It looked like December might pass by without a single EpiXR Games game – a Life of Fly, Murder Diaries or Paper Flight perhaps. But we needn\u2019t have worried, as they\u2019ve snuck in with a last-minute Aery.\u00a0 For the uninitiated, EpiXR Games are a small independent studio that specialise in – effectively – a single game, released every month. That game is a flight sim that is so laid back that you could fall asleep and wake up with 1000G in your back pocket, wondering who put it there. In some of these\u2026<\/p>\n
Aery \u2013 Path of Corruption Review<\/p>\n
Aery \u2013 Path of Corruption Review<\/span><\/p>\n2022-12-17<\/p>\n
Dave Ozzy<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t
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<\/p>\nPros:<\/h4>\n
Rather pretty to look at<\/li>\n
A lot of work has gone into scenery detail<\/li>\n
As blissfully calm as usual<\/li>\n
Cons:<\/h4>\n
Truly terrible storytelling<\/li>\n
Levels are still recycled from other titles<\/li>\n
Open to last-feather frustration<\/li>\n
Info:<\/h4>\n
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![\"aery](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thexboxhub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/aery-path-of-corruption-review-2.jpg?resize=640%2C360&ssl=1\")
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