Flower (PS3) Hands-On Preview

Do not underestimate the flower of PlayStation.

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The control scheme is utterly transparent, and a strong argument for the continued existence of the PS3's motion-sensing Sixaxis pad: holding a button causes the wind/you to blow (the view telescopes out excitingly) while tilting the controller changes your orientation. There's the odd fiddly moment, such as when you overshoot a bud and have to double back for it, but nothing (so far) to induce real frustration. As testament to this ease of use take that of my girlfriend, who mastered the game in seconds despite spending an hour last month fumbling in hysteria at the supposedly accessible LittleBigPlanet.

Each of the three preview levels has the faintest of structures - certain buds only sprout once you've collected enough of a different colour, and some serve as "switches" which allow access to the farther reaches - but within those broad confines you can flit about as you please. Failure isn't a factor - there are no time limits or adversaries, nothing to distract you from the sheer thrill of flight, carving a furrow through seething grasses towards the next clump of flowers.

Flower has a wonderful way of representing and rewarding progress. Each bud yields a petal once opened which is swept along in your passage, forming a long tail of delicate, turbulent colours, together with a single musical note or chord which drifts away into the depths of the mesmeric instrumental soundtrack.

It might be just the time-honoured collection mechanic dressed up in some fancy audio and particles, but the effects are significant in light of Lancaster's observations. You don't collect things in Flower because you're of the acquisitive, profit-driven persuasion - you collect them because they're so damn beautiful, and because they sound so exquisite.

Potentially the developer's finest achievement here is to let you enjoy this cranky old materialist trope as an aesthetic object, rather than assimilating it as a mere gameplay function. Likewise, you'll find yourself gathering petals in rapid sequence not because you're racing a timer or trying for a combo, but because you want to hear the impromptu little melodies that result.

Flower is likely to be short: it took me barely an hour to waft through the three levels on offer in our build, and going by the length of that apartment windowsill there won't be many more in the final release. Short of a ridiculously disproportionate price tag, though, I anticipate little trouble recommending this one. Botany has seldom seemed so rewarding.

Flower is released in Europe on 13 February 2009.

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