Developer/Publisher: Compulsion Games/Focus Home Interactive Released: November 2013 Played on: PS4 (also available on PC, PS3, 360, Xbone)

I really love the PS4 Dualshock 4 controller. Perfectly weighted body, satisfyingly resistant triggers and dreamily balanced analog sticks. Ah. I just love holding it. Even playing middling quality games like Contrast is a pleasure. Oh, right, I’m meant to be talking about the game!

Contrast is a 3D puzzle platformer with quite an interesting premise – you play a young girl’s imaginary friend who can manipulate objects in the real world as well as merging with well lit walls to explore and manipulate the shadows that have been cast. The whole thing is wrapped up in a French-noirish aesthetic, your character, Dawn, is some sort of circus acrobat and the young girl Didi’s dysfunctional parents are straight out of a 1930’s gangster film. All the characters aside from Didi and Dawn exist only as voices and shadows (there is a pretty dissatisfying narrative reason eventually provided for this) and you spend most of your time running about the empty dream-like world solving puzzles, generally “how to get from point A to point B by manipulating light and shadow” puzzles.

While most of the puzzles are fairly enjoyable (despite a clunky feeling run and jump), they never inspire any real sense of surprise or accomplishment. The platforming all seems very familiar and rarely inspired, and combined with a lack of polish and at least 2 game-breaking bugs that I encountered that required restarts, Contrast struggles to keep the player engaged.

The story is at times intriguing, as Didi sneaks out of her bedroom to roam the streets and help her estranged father out, unwittingly uncovering hidden truths about her past. But a cheesy ending following the game’s most frustrating section (a slow climb up a tower that I was forced to replay due to a game-breaking bug) removes any real emotional resonance.

Completable in around 3 hours, the game does not outstay its welcome, but overall does not do enough well to warrant a recommendation.

Verdict: Contrast feels like a game that wanted so much to emerge from the shadows, but the absence of engaging gameplay and a stifled story keep it from shining through. Without its placement as a free PS+ game, it would have remained entirely obscured.

Should Bradley play this: Nope. Move along.