Cloning Clyde Review

Trapped inside a demented lab full of security robots and exploding mutuated chickens, can Clyde puzzle his way to freedom? Yes, but only with the help of his clones.

It's hard not to like Cloning Clyde. And believe us, we tried. We tried to pass it off as yet another platform puzzler with a kooky main character and some interesting play mechanics that seem fresh the first time but wear thin after a while. We also scoffed at it for being nothing more than a quirky little diversion that you played while waiting for your Halo friends to log on. We even made fun of its clothes and stole its lunch money. But after spending some quality time with Cloning Clyde, we couldn't help but be impressed by this little game that could.

It's a wild, wild world
The concept art is as hilarious as the final product

The concept art is as hilarious as the final product

The game's premise revolves around a rather simple man named Clyde who becomes the subject of a bizarre cloning experiment gone awry. He, along with his machine-made clones, must escape from a series of bizarre environments using rocks, animals and even their own bodies as tools. The gameplay is simplistic and repetitive but it possesses a strangely addictive charm that kept drawing us back.

And Clyde's crudely animated world had us chuckling out loud with its off-beat flavor. Imagine a Looney Tunes landscape where chickens and monkeys and frogs (oh my!) come cannonballing out of pipes, exploding barrels are available at the pull of a switch and cloned versions of your character fall from the sky like so many pennies.

Back in the day

It's as surreal as it sounds but it makes an odd sort of sense, in the same way that, say, three single-tasking Vikings working together to escape from an alien spaceship does. Old school gamers should recognize that as the premise of the classic Lost Vikings and in a nutshell, Cloning Clyde is an updated throwback to games of that ilk.

Not everything is perfect in the land of Clone. We had trouble with the overly loose controls that resulted in a ton of misaimed jumps and the audio didn't exactly wow our ears. But the game is charming and funny enough to overcome these minor deficiencies. Cloning Clyde isn't the deepest puzzler in the world but at 800 Live points, it's a terrific bargain.

Won't the real Cloning Clyde please stand up?

Won't the real Cloning Clyde please stand up?

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