Review | Sockventure

LifeisXbox’s Sockventure review | Who is ready for a review that even made it on twitch for a while! A review that allowed the whole house to hear that I was playing another platformer that I enjoyed! Well, here you all go; it’s time to go over my thoughts on Sockventure. It’s a beautiful game made by the people over at Nighthouse Games. But is this the precision platformer to learn the genre? Or is this that game we all been looking for to test our skills as a veteran? Find out right now!

We played Sockventure for 5 hours PC. This game is currently only available on Steam.

What we liked!

• General gameplay | A platformer that doesn’t feel right would be a disaster. And I played quite a few of those. But I will proudly tell you that Sockventure plays just right! Everything feels fluid, and hitting platforms is actually satisfying (I never thought I would say that, haha). Gameplay can be punishing, but it’s a precision platformer, so you were warned from the start. But if you then actually make your jumps and clear level after level, you will feel accomplished.
• Checkpoint system | At first, I thought there was only a single checkpoint at the start of every level. And by default, this is the case. But suppose the game notices you died quite a few times (and I even got an achievement for dying this many times). In that case, it will suggest mid-level checkpoints as an option to enable in the settings menu! This truly saved me a lot of time and can be helpful while speedrunning through levels.
• Music | When you play a game that requires focus, you need a special kind of music. And the people over at Nighthouse Games did just that. The background music is quite “hype,” yes, it wasn’t intrusive. I didn’t really notice it being there too much since I was laser-focused on my jumps, which is just how it should be. Also, the sound of all of these obstacles deserved an extra mention. Since I found some sound queues really accurate.
• Graphics | For an Indie game, I truly appreciated how much detail there was to enjoy! The game has loads of hidden animations, highly detailed graphics, and varying platforms. Also, when I launched Sockventure on my 4K tv, it just looked stunning. Mix this with a couch and your Xbox controller, and you have a weekend that you won’t forget soon. But this is not where it ends for you! If you got the luxury to play with an ultrawide display, you would get a broader view of the arena, and everything will be done just right. Nothing looked stretched, and you just get a bigger FOV. Something I have grown to appreciate.
• Controls | Which brings me right to my last point. Although it mixes in a bit with the “general gameplay.” If you play with mouse and keyboard, well, mostly keyboard, the game will feel great. It’s reactive and such but just handles like any other platformer. While if you pick up that controller, there is a whole new world that will open for you. Maybe I just prefer playing with a controller on these precision platformers. Or perhaps there is just something to it when a developer takes the time to actually make the controller feel amazing. Nonetheless, a solid experience with both input methods!

Somewhere between

• Coins | Currently, when you play Sockventure, you collect coins. It’s all friendly and excellent, but I hoped coins would serve as a bit more of a currency. At the moment, you collect coins to get achievements, but there isn’t much to do with them. I could be mistaken, of course, but either you gather them all (for the stars in the leaderboard), or you don’t bother with them. But it’s nicely done nonetheless.

What we disliked

• Honestly, there wasn’t anything wrong enough to be classified as a downside

CONCLUSION

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