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I often find myself disappointed by the relative lack of creativity in games. More often than not, I've noticed that my all-time favourites are those that fully embrace a unique style and capitalise on that with verve. From that perspective, Metrico is a triumph. Dutch developer Digital Dreams' action puzzler confidently carries a distinct minimalism, commentary on the contrivances of modernity, all wrapped up with clever use of the PS Vita hardware. While sometimes it doesn't quite work because - of all things - issues with the Vita, it's still an exceptional, invigoratingly innovative effort.
You begin with a silhouette of your avatar on a pure white background, and with minimal instruction. Move forward and you'll begin to build the world, as bar charts and graphs appear in response to your actions, each of them marked by percentages, fractions, and coordinates. A bar graph that responds to your characters' jumps could scale with your height above the ground, grow with each leap or only change if your move horizontally as well as vertically. Each piece of every room you enter will react to your actions in different ways. With the environment constantly changing and shifting to match your inputs, careful observation becomes vital.
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