T.E.C. 3001 – Review (PC)

T.E.C. 3001 – Review (PC)

“Speed has never been pushed this far” boasts the games development team. T.E.C. 3001 is a ‘runner’ platform game, challenging the player’s reflexes and hand eye co-ordination. There is some semblance of a plot; you play as a Tesla Energy Collector – a ‘cutting-edge robot’ designed to collect ‘virtual space energy’ within some kind of virtual reality. It is all rather nonsensical. But who cares? This game is all about pace, speed and robots. And it has plenty of that to offer.

T.E.C. 3001 is undeniably ‘indie’, but not in that charming risk taking retro way we are accustomed to. It feels cheap, and in places tacky. But credit where credit is due, this game was put together by three Serbian students in their spare time. Originally a title on the Xbox Live Indie games store, it has more recently been ported to iOS and PC with a steam launch.

Its aesthetic is a hodgepodge mixture of influences; the level backdrops are made up of distant neon cities and computer grids taken right out of Tron, while the titular T.E.C. unit appears to be some combination of the Terminator and Mark IV Iron Man armour. Repetitive animations and poor sound design do nothing to help with this feeling of cheapness. The sound that accompanies a double jump would often continue and finish even when the jump itself was cut short by a sudden landing.

Even the victory pose appears to be taken from the box art of the original Tron.
Even the victory pose appears to be taken from the box art of the original Tron.

These issues with presentation aside, the game does manage to deliver on its promise of speed. You control the robot from a third person perspective as you race across branching courses, ducking, jumping and charging your way through the assortment of obstacles. The level design is where the game really shines. As you progress through the game’s 41 levels, different obstacles and gameplay elements are introduced and used to create varying and interesting challenges. Initially, the red ‘speed down’ gates are to be avoided in order to keep up your momentum. However, some later courses will have you needing to hit these gates, with the slower speed being needed to navigate this particular course’s tricky twists and tight turns. In one such course the lower speed allows you to slowly free-fall from a ledge on to a platform below. This willingness to explore the different design space afforded by the varying power-ups and obstacles helps the game to move beyond its humble ‘runner’ game origins and offer engaging and challenging moments.

The sense of speed is great, and the feeling of momentum as you slide under obstacles or bank around corners is impressive. The game boasts a foot tapping and rather infectious electronic soundtrack that suits the pace of the action. The gameplay is nicely broken up and varied by the addition of differing styles of courses; drag race stages give you no control over direction and instead focus on speed changes and obstacle dodging, while the ‘lane swap’ levels often move at an impressive breakneck speed throughout and only offer you the ability to move between three lanes of movement. This variety was a welcome break from the game’s usual gameplay.

The sense of speed is impressive at times. Some of the later levels provide a real challenge with cluttered obstacle courses.
The sense of speed is impressive at times. Some of the later levels provide a real challenge with cluttered obstacle courses.

Control mappings to an Xbox 360 controller are rather unintuitive at first, with the different between ‘charge’ and ‘speed up’ escaping me during the tutorial due to no explanation. This is only made all the more awkward by the game not showing on screen buttons for the controller when it is plugged in, instead showing keyboard controls during tooltips and the tutorial. This is inexcusable considering the title began life on the Xbox platform’s indie arcade.

While T.E.C. 3001 is nothing to necessarily write home about, it is a competent and relatively fun distraction. With 41 courses and some local splitscreen race modes, it provides several hours of content for a low price of admission. Essentially, the game offers a good budget alternative to other popular ‘runner’ style games on Steam at the moment. At £2.79 it comes in at just under half the price of both Race the Sun and Bit.Trip Runner.

Pros:
  – Cheap, with a good amount of content for the price of admission
  – Strong sense of speed
– Responsive Controls
  – Good soundtrack

Cons:
 – Feels cheap and tacky
 – Nothing new in terms of the genre
 – Ultimately, feels like one of those iOS ports we are all sick of seeing

Rating: 3 out of 5.
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