The Maw (Xbox 360)

The Maw is a game about pet ownership, but it just so happens that the pet you’re raising in it is a carnivorous purple alien blob that grows in size the more it eats. Like any pet though, it’s important that you feed it, get it some exercise, and use it to take down a hostile alien race.

 

The Maw positions the player as a somewhat typical looking alien named Frank who is captured without explanation and placed in a ship’s hold with other abducted aliens, Frank immediately forming a bond with a small purple creature known as The Maw. When this spaceship ends up crashing on a new planet though, only Frank and The Maw survive, the two needing to work together to get off this strange new world as well as fighting against their former captors who are trying to reclaim their lost prisoners. It’s a wordless adventure and the emphasis seems to be more on the time you spend with your unusual pet along the way, the main enemy forces mostly serving as obstacles similar to natural wildlife and hazards until the small bit of plot present begins to reach its climax.

Frank and The Maw both have different abilities they bring to the table. Frank’s capabilities are much simpler, his humanoid body being a good fit for typical navigation like jumping around on ledges and rocks that the gooey Maw can’t reach, but Frank also comes packed with an electric leash. While this leash’s main purpose is for guiding The Maw around, Frank can also use it to grab onto objects to slam them down or hurl them towards The Maw to eat, it finding some extra use as a way to cling to flying enemies as well and ride them around in a few levels. The Maw’s capabilities tend to have the more varied use though, primarily because your little purple pet is able to take on the traits of things he devours. For the most part, when you give The Maw something to eat, it contributes to its mass, your alien friend often needing to be a certain size before you can exit a level and steadily growing over the course of the game as you feed it more and more. However, when it gets its jaws on something like a fiery lizard it will get some fire breath of its own, it can learn to inflate from some flying worms if you feed some to it, and there are a few other powers that crop up over the course of your short journey to escape the strange planet, each with a different sort of usefulness.

 

There aren’t very many puzzles in The Maw’s gameplay, the focus being on building up your pet and then snagging whatever power will let you overcome roadblocks. Many levels take place in wide open areas where you’ll want to explore with your pet to find it the food it needs to expand, and this can be a bit relaxing, especially since even when you do take damage, you’re just knocked around rather than killed. Most of the alien wildlife isn’t really much of a concern though, although the hunters who captured you two in the first place will use things like turrets you need to dodge and defensive machines you’ll need to disable to move on. There is generally very little pressure to the affair, but at the same time, things can feel rather tame because of it. Many environments are very large and the only things to do in them are easily feed mostly passive wildlife to The Maw, but there are some levels that do ask for more action from the player, especially once The Maw has grown to an intimidating size. The powers you gain vary in how interesting their design is as well. Inflating The Maw makes for a few moments of platforming and laser eyes will make combat more interesting than the usual mode of throwing them to your pet to eat or slamming them and then feeding them to your pet, but many of them are just about making progress rather than really changing how things are played.

As a consequence of the easygoing tone the level’s are designed around, there’s very little pushing against the player very hard in The Maw and thus your actions aren’t very involved. Your interaction with The Maw is usually limited to leading it around by the leash or calling it over to use its power or eat something. There are a few extra objectives on top of just making progress such as eating all available alien life in a stage or finding the secret creature that is usually hidden quite well, but these are perhaps not as challenging as they could be either. Part of regular play will involve just exploring as much of the area as you can to build up The Maw’s mass to meet that level’s requirements, so going the extra mile here is more about just not stopping yourself from what would come naturally because of the game’s structure. Even though the game isn’t really difficult, it’s not without its charms. Gradually seeing The Maw grow more and more does make for decent payoff for your time investment, especially when it truly starts to get massive. There’s definitely an adrenaline rush in seeing how much better it is at dealing with what were once intimidating threats in its new much larger and more capable late game forms.

 

Enjoyment of The Maw will probably come down to whether you buy more into its focus on raising the creature or if you’re looking for meaningful puzzles and platforming. The Maw puts down very light obstacles to your progression besides the basic traits of your companion, but if you are interested in the gradual growth of your alien blob, finding all the aliens to make him bigger is done decently enough, although it is still a bit shallow. The Maw’s only purposes are to eat and sometimes use its powers, so much of the bonding is done through cutscenes and it can feel a bit detached how you’re leading this creature around like an eating machine rather than a pet. It’s not hard for a human to get attached to anything cute and friendly, but The Maw is really more tool than a living creature you’re getting along with. The Maw doesn’t use its gameplay approach to much effect, but it at least keeps things brisk, meaning that it doesn’t wear out its tiny amount of mechanics in the span of a playthrough.

THE VERDICT: The Maw splits the player’s necessary actions between two characters, with the main alien handling platforming and acquisition of food while The Maw mostly earns its use through eating things and gaining new abilities to overcome the environment. Neither one is really explored in any depth though or given anything challenging to do with their skills, but the gradual raising of your weird alien pet is somewhat satisfying as you watch it go from a tiny blob into a gargantuan force to be reckoned with. Even at full size though it doesn’t change things up too much, so outside of the relaxing feeling of gathering food in open areas to make The Maw bigger and better, there’s only a small amount of content to attach yourself to either emotionally or as a gameplay challenge.

 

And so, I give The Maw for Xbox 360…

An OKAY rating. The Maw feels like its dabbling in its new ideas rather than fully committing to them. Getting new powers doesn’t overly change how you play, and even when they do have a more noticeable impact, the betters one boil down to better jumping or better attacks rather than something that feels like it introduces some challenging new layer to the game. Having your main source of interesting skills controlled by an AI pet probably necessitates some simplicity in what you face, but even some better command options for The Maw other than just commanding it to come to you or walking it towards what you want taken care of would help it perhaps be a more involved action experience. While I’m not sure how much the game wishes to emphasize a master-pet relationship between Frank and The Maw, its better moments come from how it does manage to emulate some of the enjoyment you’d get from a game where you need to take care of a creature and get to see it grow over time. It’s more about overcoming the environment here rather than the bond with your alien buddy, but since the better moments of play come from scouring areas for hidden food or trying to figure out how to get a creature to The Maw to give it a power, playing into the pet angle might not have hurt it either.

 

The Maw’s length may be what keeps it from growing stale, the satisfying growth of the alien blob well paced to keep paying off in a short span of play, but The Maw would need to be more involved if it didn’t want to be mostly about passive enjoyment. Too much of the game feels hands off since most action is handled by The Maw, a being which can’t do anything too involved because you don’t have direct control over it. Still, working together with it can make your brief alien adventure interesting despite a general lack of depth.