It seems as if the developers at Q Entertainment spent more time addressing the sights and sounds of Eden rather than designing a gameplay model that I'd want to come back to. In other words, you're forced to grind repeatedly to see Child of Eden's already limited number of stages. The bland shooting mechanics aren't fun, and you have to replay Archives multiple times to earn stars that unlock the next Archive. From a raw gameplay perspective, Child of Eden disappoints me. Use either your lock-on shot or a rapid-fire attack to purify the infected data and move on to face a boss battle filled with visual spectacle. Each Archive funnels you down a path filled with enemies and a few obstacles. Assuming you find a control scheme that works for you, Child of Eden won't challenge your gaming skills. Instead, I wrestled with dragging the reticle across the screen and often suffered damage from enemy fire because I couldn't aim quickly enough.

Although the Move can be calibrated in-game to an extent, the reticle movement doesn't feel like you're pointing and shooting. Both a traditional controller and a PlayStation Move controller can be used, though I preferred the DualShock at almost every turn. Like Mizuguchi's Rez before it, Child of Eden presents a series of on-rails Archives, or stages, that must be purified by you with a whole lot of shooting. I'd argue that Child of Eden's 'story' and ambience remain its strongest assets, as the short single-player experience lacks mechanical depth and - in many cases - frustrates through repetition.

Play The plotline of Child of Eden only contextualizes its cacophony of flashing lights and pulsing beats, but I loved the setup - especially watching Lumi float peacefully in the background.

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