Surreal but superb
Bonkers, maddening and inventive. These are all words which can easily be applied to Switch and while it might not quite in the same league as puzzlers like Lemmings or strategy/actioners like Worms, it remains a compelling and original experience. The setup is similar to a lighthearted take on The Terminator nightmare, where every mechanical appliance in the world is hooked up to a single computer which unfortunately suffers from a terrible virus. It falls to the player to step in and save the day and what this largely entails is pressing buttons. There are a number of levels to complete before you get to the room with the virus and to get there you simply have to press hundreds and hundreds of buttons, many times over, in order to find the right combination which allows you to get through. However, pressing these buttons also triggers the appearance of various mad enemies, while some of them are hooked up to bombs linked to various other buildings. Trigger all these bombs and it's game over but manage to make it all the way through and you can be declared a hero. Switch is really anything but a conventional game. The actual gameplay is fairly minimal, after all it's just pressing buttons, but it's the side effects where Switch really appeals. There's an immense amount of off-the-wall situations to encounter and most of the time you can't help but hope that you don't find the correct route as you're actually more interested in triggering the crazy stuff instead. The visuals resemble a hand drawn cartoon which really suits the humour on display here, so if you are a fan of Monty Python and other such surreal experiences, there should be much to enjoy here.
