Hello everyone, it's been awhile but I'm happy to belabor your interest once again with this semi-candid opinion piece about Octodad.
I first heard ab...wait, no I wasn't serious about boring you to death. I'll get right to the point.
Octodad is a great game. Well, it's a great idea. It could have been amazing. Part of Octodad is amazing, and part of it isn't. I guess that seems to be the biggest problem.
You see, Octodad is a relatively simple premise. You are an average every day dad with a family. The goal of the game is just to do well, daily life stuff. It's kind of like a cover-based shooter third person Sims but without all the setting people on fire and interior design. So you go around making food, doing chores, hanging out. This seems like a boring premise, but...you are actually an octopus. Didn't notice? Niether did I at first. It wasn't until I got to the story portion of the game that I figured it out.
Anyway, you use a combination of buttons to control each limb, which at times is hilarious and at others, maddening. One button for one arm, another button for the right leg, andother for the left leg. It's an interesting balancing act of trying to keep everything working in tandem. All in all, going through all the levels is really fun. It's easily one of the funniest games you'll ever play. An entire room can become enrapt by the necktied cephalopod clumsily trying to pour milk into a glass. And for this very reason alone, you should get the game, however....
The main issue with the game is that after the first two levels, the game devolves very quickly into simple collection missions and minigames. Instead of the game asking you to have fun, it asks you to "do stuff". This isn't fun. It quickly becomes tedious and boring. When you're octodad, you want to do things like carry 100 banana creampies on a platter. Not shoot basketballs or put big cords into big outlets. I don't want to accomplish technically impressive things involving hand eye coordination. I want to accomplish basic things that I take for granted in my human body.
My major beef with this too, is that when I first played the game at PAX, they had a demo with the first two levels which were made up of these nice little obstacles...but when I bought the game, everything past these demo levels were just puzzle solving and minigames with a rare opportunity to get jiggy. It's a bit disappointing, all in all. It's an enjoyable game, it's worth the current price ~15$, and it's an experience like no other. But just keep in mind that it does have some pitfalls. Sadly, I think if you can just obtain a demo, you'd probably get a much better value.
Verdict: On a scale of street signs being the lowest, and sarcastic post-it notes from angry roomates being the highest, Octodad rightfully deserves 7 cereal-box crossword puzzles.
