Everyone remembers that wicked childhood pleasure of getting away with breaking the rules, and Vandals lets you enjoy that same feeling to the hilt. Combining artistic creativity and mental puzzle exercises, Vandals by developers Cosmografik, Novelab, Ex Nihilo and publisher ARTE France is a colorful strategy game that challenges you to elude the police as you paint the night with your own graffiti designs. With an ever-changing mixture of obstacles and endless drawing possibilities, this game is one of the most entertaining ones I have played in a while.
I will admit that the basic premise is simple: avoid the cops, make it to the graffiti location, create your art, and escape. However, Vandals has enough moving parts and changes in scenery to keep each new round engaging: for one thing, it places you in a specific country for each round of levels, and the background music makes you feel immersed in that certain location. For example, my first round was set in Paris, 1968, and that level of detailed information allows the game to feel even more real. Furthermore, the street layouts get increasingly difficult, and the quantity and proximity of the policemen grows quickly. Luckily, the game teaches you several diversion tactics to distract the law enforcers or make them follow the wrong lead—blowing the whistle and throwing a bottle, for instance, work extremely well. But what I liked the most was the fact that you needed to think a few steps ahead so that you led the cops away from you while still leaving yourself an open alternative escape route. A couple times, I was caught and arrested because I was simply too cocky and believed that I could collect bonus stars in addition to escaping, which gave the police enough time to catch up with me. You will be far more successful if you think before you use up your whistle and/or bottle decoy and deploy them at the right time, in the right place.
This may sound like a lot of thinking, and it is—but do not despair, for Vandals very cleverly offsets these brain teasers with very fun and relaxing drawing sessions! My favorite part of the round was composing my own miniature pieces of art on the walls of Paris, since the game very considerately pauses the police chase when you start vandalizing the place. You also get an unrealistically full set of colors to choose from, which I appreciated immensely. When you start the game for a very first time, you create your “pseudo” phrase, which ends up being your signature for the rest of the game, so choose wisely! In addition, you initially type the “pseudo phrase” using the keyboard (it took me forever to figure out that I needed to type this—the rest of the game exclusively uses the mouse), and from then on you can either draw something of your own or leave your pseudo phrase and color it in.
Everyone has artistic and analytical sides to them, and Vandals allows you to make use of both. In addition to a really beautiful, bright, bold graphic design, it offers a seemingly endless amount of variety, adrenaline rush, and feel good vandalism. If you live off the thrill of the chase and are looking for a momentary escape, Vandals has your back.
Rating: 10/10
Watch the Vandals Launch Trailer:
Vandals is available via Steam (PC, Mac), iOS and Android.
PC Review
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Overall Score - 10/1010/10
From the moment I first played Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy on the original Xbox, I have always had an avid curiosity and enthusiasm for video games. I admire their ability to immerse us in completely different worlds, and I am always eager to see how they integrate the newest breakthroughs in digital technology to make virtual reality feel real. I am currently a senior at UC Berkeley, but when I'm not studying I always make time to play Xbox One with my younger brother.
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