Clive ‘N’ Wrench is a throwback 3D platformer created by one developer, Rob Wass, working for over a decade. As you might imagine from that, the end result is both heartfelt and fiddly. It’s a fascinating trip back to the glory days of the PS1 and N64 collectathon platformers that the developer clearly loves. It’s also filled with glitches and floaty jumps that are hard to land. It has input lag at times, and if you’re playing on Switch there’s a lot of loading.
Clive ‘N’ WrenchPublisher: Numskull GamesDeveloper: Dinosaur Bytes StudioPlatform: Played on SwitchAvailability: Out now on Switch, PC, PS5, PS4
Yes, absolutely. I get all of this. But I have already lost one morning to Clive ‘N’ Wrench, and, reader? I suspect I am going to lose another. That’s because Clive ‘N’ Wrench, for all its problems, is a return to something I have discovered that I really enjoy – the expansive worlds of old platformers.
The first level is a perfect example. Clive ‘N’ Wrench throws you through a bunch of different time periods, I gather, but it kicks off with a sort of Honey I Shrunk the Kids pastiche. You’ve got a kitchen, living room and bathroom to explore, but you’re absolutely tiny. It feels like Banjo Kazooie mixed with Micro Machines. I leap from sponges in the sink and dance past gas hobs. I climb chairs to get onto breakfast tables. I navigate the toothbrush pot by the bathroom mirror.
I love this stuff because of the obvious thrill that the developer found in rendering an entire house of things in the game, and then letting sofas, coffee tables and record players stand in for fantasy landscapes of mountains and ravines and all that jazz. I also love the fact that a lot of the rooms in this section are fairly huge spaces, which is perfect for a collectathon. I stand up on top of the sofa and just spin the camera around, working out where I’m headed next and how I want to get there. The platforming is iffy, the combat is a bit of a fudge, and the collectables themselves have to provide a lot of the impetus to continue, but it doesn’t matter. For a few moments, Clive ‘N’ Wrench reminds me of the first Crysis, of all things. It’s about surveying a terrain, picking a path, and working out how to get there.