Flower – Three Hours Well Spent

Flower is a game that epitomizes what I think a casual game should be: cheap, short, and engaging.

At $9.99, Flower is less expensive that most casual games that you download to your PC.  I stated playing Flower at 3pm and finished it around 6pm.  That included a bathroom break and the occasional break to take care of my kids.

The first thing that you see when you start Flower is a very depressing grey metropolis.  The world is pretty much devoid of anything pretty or even living for that matter.

The only thing that’s not mechanical or grey is a sad looking flower in a pot on a table.  That’s “you”.

Flower takes full advantage of the Sixaxis controller of the PS3 and requires that you maneuver around the dark, brown world nudging other flowers until you end up with a horde of bright flower petals.  Once you’ve opened enough flowers, the world erupts in a cacophony of color and you complete that level.

The music is beautiful and the interactive world is nothing short of amazing.

This is a game that shows off the impressive graphics of the PS3 and if you’re blessed enough to own a 1080 dpi TV then you most definitely will not be disappointed.  Hell, I played the game on a regular 32″ TV and was still amazed at the graphics.

Badges are available in Flower and I actually managed to get a couple.

Unlike most casual games, Flower possesses some replay value.  Once you complete a level, your flower blooms in an amount equal to how well you did in the level.  One of my flowers looks just slightly better than it did when I started so I feel the need to go back and try to make that flower bloom to its full potential.

I experienced zero buyers remorse with Flower which is much better than I can say for most games that I’ve purchased.

All in all, this is a game that I can’t stop raving about and it’s definitely worth the cash that you pay.