Buy Magrunner: Dark Pulse

If Half-Life 1, Portal 2 and Cthulhu Mythos had a threesome, this [Magrunner: Dark Pulse] could be their baby!
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Story: You're one of the seven magrunners ready to participate in a space training program which go supeeeer well! and everything goes as planed... don't mind the monsters.

Gamepaly: Similiar to portal games but you have a glove-magnetic-gun instead of a portal-gun. The magnetic gun creates a magnetic field -+ which you use on objects in a logic way to pass the puzzles. The story unfolds as you go through puzzle rooms, but it won't be late 'till you find yourself in more complex stuff than simply chambers. At mid-point I felt some HL1 presence.. Xen for no reason at all! well, not quite

This is just a normal p̢͝u͘z̡͟z͏l͘͠ę game.

Nothing to see͝ ̵h͡er̷e

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I honestly enjoyed most of this game, which is why giving it a negative review bites. The problem is, the back chunk of the game is atrocious. You're suddenly going from what I referred to a couple of friends as "Hard-Mode Portal" (same 'solve the puzzle room' gameplay, with two-button controls, even if it's opposing magnetic polarities rather than holes in time/space) into a terrible action title.

I was going to recommend this with a caveat of "By the end, some puzzles become irritating due to the checkpoint system, where you may have to restart chunks of stage if you mistime a polarity swap or make a slight field mistake on some items", but no, when you suddenly have to begin juggling explosives to kill massive sahaguin and all sorts of tentacled beasties* whereas you were previously free to take time and puzzle things out? Ick. The final stages are the worst: one involves distracting and repeatedly-bombing a behemoth to reach an entrance within sight, and then the finale is an irritation because it combines waiting for enemy patterns with dodging instadeath and making precarious platforming leaps.

If you wanted an unpolished puzzle game, the first half or so is solid with little to no hand-holding (so it's got some brain-teasers for some of us). The latter bits, though? No. Nope no good no siree.

* I only mention this because while I was blind to the latter half of the game going all Cthulhu, I'm told the marketing heavily sold it as such? Either way, multiple people assured me it wasn't the spoiler I assumed.

Magrunner is too long for its own good. But it's a good game that deserved more recognition because it's in many ways similar to Portal and Q.U.B.E.
But instead of using portals or cubes you'll be solving puzzles using your Magtech glove, a glove that allows you to magnetize stuff. The puzzles are creative and challenging (most of the times) but there are just too many of them. About 6-7 hours in I got bored. Some of the puzzles just take too long to solve, which, as a result, made me lose interest.
Before that happened I actually had a great time with it. If you love FP puzzle games I'm pretty certain you'll love this one, too. It has nice visuals, good gameplay mechanics and a fun story. What's not to love?

[Rating: 77/100]

Magrunner: Dark Pulse has been called Portal with magnets meets Cthulu. It is an apt description, but not quite fair. It is portal only insofar as it is a FPS puzzle game, the feel is reminiscent of Portal, but it has it's own unique charm. A little more work on monster animations would have gone a long way, and the final "boss" is ridiculously difficult until you have the "AHAH!" moment, then the whole area can be completed in under 5 minutes because it isn't immediately evident what you need to do. The game is great fun, and quite original if you can push Portal out of your mind. Some of the puzzles are brilliantly put together. If you like Portal, buy it. If you like Cthulu, buy it. All I can say is:

Ia Ia Cthulu Fhtagn!

Magrunner: Dark Pulse is a really good first person puzzle game where you have the power to magnetize objects such as platforms and cubes to assist in getting from point A to point B. The magnetic aspect works reasonably well most of the time, but there are several instances where it is easy to get frustrated. During some of the later levels, the game starts to throw monsters at you in which you either have to kill or evade. The puzzle difficulty seemed to ramp up pretty well. Some of the final puzzles were indeed very tricky including many platforms with rotational paths that made them feel roller coaster like.

Calling the story weird is an understatement. I think it comes close to the lines of Zeno Clash weirdness. But it comes off as very entertaining and keeps the suspense going throughout. The unfortunate aspect is that the story does not bring closure to a lot of things and the ending is basically up to the player to interpret.

There are many elevator sequences that seemed a bit excessive basically moving you from one level to the next. That seemed to be the primary method they chose to inject a lot of the narrative. The atmosphere during the final chapter is pretty amazing including Cthulhu himself.

If you are a fan of the first person puzzle genre, Magrunner: Dark Pulse is definitely a title worth picking up.

Ok so yes i will admit why i bought this game first,i am a huge H.P.Lovecroft fan and allways have been (read all the stories he has written and found that i enjoy his works but THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH and THE CALL OF CTHULUH and probablly me favorites) and thats what first intrigued me about this game.
MAGRUNNER is very similar in play style to PORTAL,whereas in portal you have the "APERTURE HAND HELD PORTAL DEVICE" (god thats a mouth full) in MAGRUNNER you have the MAG GLOVE which fires 2 coloured charges.1 is green and one is red (push and pull mechanics come into play here-1 attracts and 1 repels) and it plays in much the same way as the "APERTURE...........oh lets call it the portal gun (its easier and doesnt take as long to wright) does in both of the PORTAL games.The graphics in MAGRUNNER are good and the music and overall feeling of dread that something may be coming for you at any point is quite intense at some points during the game.The story is told with gusto and never lets up (i havent finished yet but i am enjoying the story so far and i love the LOVECROFTIAN-(is that even a word DUH)-overtones in trhe story),as what starts out ot be a sci fi story about energy comsumption and finding new power sources soon turns into a horror induced nightmare and you find out why you and the other MAGRUNNERS are there and your purpass in the greater story is revealed.The main character is called DAX WARD and this sounds a lot like a character Lovecroft created himself CHARLES DEXTER WARD (any relation to this character is not know at this point as i havent finished the game just yet),DAX will no doubt before the end of the game encounter more similarities i dont doubt and will come across more of the horrors that Lovecroft created on the way.
I like this game and it is good to see a developer investing in a Lovcraft based game as there is not a lot (if any) out there (or film,tv series or any other medium for that matter),i would also reccomend that if you want to play anything inspired by Lovecrofts work also search out the game CALL OF CTHULUH : DARK CORNERS OF THE EARTH (also available on steam) as that is one of the best survival horror first person games i have ever played (finished it on the X BOX and going to play through on steam as soon as time permits).
So in closing if you loved PORTAL you will more than likely enjoy this and if you didnt steer clear and probably try DARK CORNERS OF THE EARTH instead as that game really does grab you by the throat and doesnt let go.

Do i recommand this game? Maybe!
It took me 10 hours to finish the game, a third of that is playing, another third is thinking, and the last third is dying.
This game is a « portal » copycat, with magnetism as game engine, but the physics are often imprecise.
It remembers me another game, bad rats, when you think the solution correctly, you build the solution correctly, but it may fail just because of some pixels offset, or even worse, won't do the same result between two identical simulation!
A puzzle game can be hard and challenging, it's not the problem, but it shall not be « hard » to build the solution, it's just annoying and not enjoyable.
I give three situations you will encounter in the game:
- Sometimes you need many tries ( deaths ) just because the timing of platforms or cubes ( how hard is it to detect the peak altitude of a cube when you are riding it and then perform the correct imprecise jump!).
- Often (very often), and despite of the zoom feature, you will send your « newton » (a castable magnetic point) instead of setting the magnetism of a device, because we are talking about pixel aiming here...
- Sometimes, with the exact same configuration between two tries and when 3 or more magnetic points are involved, the result will differ, making you think your solution was bad at first. It's even worse when it happens on « catapults » because the cubes are snapped to the same precise position, so it's not even a targetting problem.

When i play a puzzle game, i don't wan't to be blocked because a piece don't fit well, i don't call that a hard puzzle but a glitched puzzle.

Anyway, the physics are also almost realist, it means when you expect to « capture » a charged object by using another object in vinicity, it will or not work depending of the momentum and the distance of the moving object, wich means some situations are complex but previsible, and added to the pre-existing points, you will be able and will need to place your own point (one at time) on almost any surface . In term of complexity, it worth the speed and direction conservation you have to master in portal when you use big falls to make big or long jumps ^^ This was the feature that made me go on to see what challenging puzzle was waiting for me in the next level, despite of the « glitches » i mentioned before.

The graphims are okay, and clear enough to focus on activable objects.

The story is a joke and the Cthulhu background is just a pretext to glue the puzzles together, don't expect epic fights ( there are only 2 kind of monsters, and they basically just walk towards you and you die on contact... the screenshoot are kind of lying btw. i suspect in early versions they just planned to use a countdown to add some stress) or deep story, everything is incoherent and not fun ( opposite to portal story), and the cutscenes are unskippable! ( remember i said you will die often not because you are not clever, but because of the unfair difficulty to build the solution, expect to see the same cutscenes often ). You will feel alone till the end.

There is a decent chance you won't finish the game because you won't enjoy it till the end, or even because it's too hard.
You may enjoy it if you don't mind loosing half of your play time because of the game and not because of you, the other half will show you how clever you are.

Overall Rating: 6.5 out of 10

What happens when you put together Portal, Cthulhu Mythos and magnets? this is what you get. In fact, that's precisely what you pay for, and that doesn't disappoint in that regard.

Magrunner: Dark Pulse is an interesting first person puzzle platformer. If you've played Portal or Quantum Conundrum, this is the style of gameplay but instead of portals or changing the dimension the room is in, you harness the power of magnetism. The gameplay is centered around using a Mag Glove to manipulate platforms, cubes and stationary objects to finish a level. This allows a level of thinking similar to other puzzle platformers, but the method was not explored until now.

How Does it Play?

The game is a real mind bender and has the player execute platforming skills while solving the puzzle on the fly. Not only are you switching the magnetism of something(attract/repel) but you're usually jumping along something at the same time. It usually works. However, the limits of the physics that the Unreal Engine has means now and then there will be moments where the physics will go hay wire and make you redo part of a puzzle again or kill you if you're dealing with explosive cubes or pit falls. Each puzzle takes about the time of what you would expect, about the same as a Portal puzzle room if you try it the first time. The difficulty curve is gradual and does not erratically change back and forth when progressing.

One feature of the game you recieve mid way through the game is Newton, a robotic dog you can attach to most surfaces that has his own magnetic pull(or repel depending on how you want to use him), I found this an interesting way to make the puzzles more interesting, changing the entire thought process on beating a level. However, I found Newton to be really hit or miss. Sometimes his magnetic pull and radius of it to be too small in some instances, when you have to guide along a cube on wall to get it to the other side of a pit, sometimes the angle on which you're looking to move Newton will mean the cube is just barely out of reach of the "New" Newton, and you have to redo that part of the puzzle again(as in the cube respawns at a set point, not restarting from a checkpoint) Another point of dismay with Newt is you might end up spawning him when you don't want to, which can destroy progress on certain puzzles, which can be frustrating.

The Mag Glove itself, I must add, is responsive and easy to use, especially with the zoom feature that makes sure you're hitting the right thing when you're in larger areas, you can even hold down one of the mouse buttons to have it paint a laser over where you want to shoot, making sure you're always landing your charge changing shot where you want it.

Despite Newton helping you along and the precision and reliability of your Mag Glove, the physics do not feel right in this game. While puzzles work as intended, it feels like the pulling strength is weaker than the repelling strength, which can throw off a players timing and how they are going about solving a puzzle. It also sometimes flat out doesn't work, sometimes you must ride a cube up a shaft or sling accross a chasm on one, and sometimes it just fails with no fault on the players end. Why this has yet to be fixed, I have no idea. Explosive cubes also sometimes blow up in the players hand for no reason, especially on the final boss fight.

Speaking of, (spoiler free!) the final boss/puzzle is, interesting. It's not bad, but because of a flaw with saving, it can become impossible. Explosive cubes are thrown at you if you're not fast enough stunning the one who's throwing them at you, and right when you die, you can pass through a save "gate" on the platform(s). If this happens, the level must be restarted. This segment of the final area feels tacked on as if they forgot they needed to make a final boss. The save system in general is wonky, you cannot save manual, and it only saves once you reach certain parts of the map, but since the levels do not progress in a set pattern or line, you may find yourself activating a save gate when you didn't want to, meaning, when you do more of the puzzle and die, you go back further than normal, as the gate does not activate again with the exception of a couple levels.

All in all, it is perfectly playable, but rough around the edges. If you're a fan of puzzles and platformers, and of course, Portal, then the game is for you. Now, onto the other bits of what the game offers.

How's the Story?

Bluntly, not good. It feels extremely cobbled together, as if the only thought of the entire development was "Portal x Cthulhu!" While an interesting premise, the execution falls flat on its face. None of the characters are likable, the dialogue feels wooden and unconvincing (especially form the antagonist) most if not all character interactions are done from holochat, basically the characters are projected above your mag glove, which is cool, and talk to you, nice idea but it doesn't help much with the story, especially when you die and have to listen and look at them over and over again.

The concept of a utopian, globally linked world with Cthulhu Mythos is interesting all the way through, but usually only through the imagery you actually see as you play through the game, later levels have a giant vision/hallucination of cthulhu, in a dark backround while you solve puzzles, it looks utterly incredible and scary. But it does not help the plot, the plot feels extremely shallow and cobbled together, as stated before. I can't emphasis that enough, the game really feels disjointed because of the story.

How Does it Look?

Great! The game runs on Unreal Engine 3, while aged, still manages to look great with this game, the texture work is fantastic. The latter levels that take place in space are awe inspiring, the nebulae, galaxies and planets swirl around you, the petrified/statues of hidious eldritch nightmares(and the living ones, too!) have real texture and a sense of slime to them. I admit however, the character models aren't that great, they seem modeled well with a good poly count, but they aren't animated very well, including all the people who holo chat with you and the Deep One monsters you encounter(the fish people), are not animated very well and are pretty unconvincing in their movement.

The game is fairly easy to run and should run fine on low end computers too. However, if you're playing at a high resolution(1080 p or higher) you will experience some incredible screen tearing, whcih can detract from the set pieces and overall look and flow of the game. Interestingly, vsync can be turned on to mitigate this, but you must do so through the config files, as well as AA, ambient occlusion and motion blur. Why these graphic options are not in the menu, I have no idea.

How Does it Sound?

Decent. While not the best audio work i've heard, the music is fitting to the level at hand and the eerie and strange tone of the game, while keeping that futuristic, techy feel. The sound effects are great, the clank of a falling cube, the destruction of a wall, the sound of platforms sliding/being activated, the impact of the player as he lands on the ground.

Sadly, as mentioned before, the voicework is poor. Not only is it poorly acted, it feels very static when played and not mixed well into the overall sound of the game. For example, when you fall, Dax makes a yell/scream, but it's mastered so low you probably won't hear it unless you have headphones.

Good game but flawed, needs work in quite a few areas. You'll get about 10 hours of gameplay your first run, and is enjoyable if just for the first time. However, wait for it to be on sale, $20 USD is a bit too much for this game, $12 feels more fair to the quality, content and length. Take it for what it is, and you'll enjoy it :)

I wanted to like this game but it's... absolutely stubborn about making me dislike it. It's fun in theory, but in execution it's just a more physics heavy Portal with less cleverly designed/more tedious puzzles.

First off, the story. Is way too instrusive. In acts 1 and 2 you have elevator segments between a large portion of the levels that takes up a loading screen for essentially a cutscene... that is the same every time, just with a different person talking to you. The plot actually affects the gameplay very little in the first two acts, other than to make things take longer. All characters communicate via a hologram popping up over the magnet gun, but don't actually do anything. Sure, the scenery gradually degrades more and more, but that's about all that happens plotwise that is the slightest bit relevant to gameplay. Well until the third act when monsters start appearing.

Another issue is the tedium in the puzzles; there's a lot of waiting around for things to be in the right place and making mistakes can sometimes set you back quite a bit even if you don't die. On top of that there's a lot of trial and error involved (far far more than Portal) because of the physics engine, which is unfortunately not perfect enough for this kind of game. There's inconsistencies in how objects behave on occasion and it's often hard to predict what will happen until you test it. Some of the puzzle rooms are pretty big as well while also lacking in direction, leading to confusion not even part of the puzzle. The game also doesn't have a large enough variety in obstacles to keep things fresh; at some point things stop evolving (aside from the monster segments) and the puzzles start to get rather repetitious. Maybe digging deeper into a concept explored previously but it's not fresh enough to hold the interest. The game probably could've benefitted from being shorter, especially in the second act; that segment of the game took up probably 60-70% of my initial run playtime on its own.

The monster segments are also entirely out of place; they're alright when you know what to do but until you do they're largely trial and error, often almost expecting you to know what to do if you want to survive at all. There's not a large number of them and they're all confined to the end of the game, but they still really aren't a good fit for the formula. The final boss especially, since it is entirely possible to have the game autosave mere fractions of a second before you die, forcing a level restart. Plus there's a needlessly difficult platform hop involved. I thought we agreed that first person games and intense platforming are a combination that really has to be fine-tuned or excluded period. It's only a single hop done twice but it's a pretty fast moving platform and failure means death, soooo.

The game's on the whole not terrible, it's an interesting concept and there are some good puzzle designs here but there are far more bad puzzles than good and I wouldn't recommend it over its peers.