To a T

Beforehand, I was looking forward to To a T. It seemed to be a game that suited me by its strange premise and twisted story. I mean, when they capitalise on a common bug in games where characters do the so-called T-pose from time to time and shape an entire game around it, you can't help but get a little tickled by the idea. So, with hopes high and the game installed on my Xbox, I set off on the adventure that would become the seven longest hours I've ever spent in a game.

Yes, seven hours it took for me to scroll the credits. It doesn't sound like a mammoth project, but something you could easily squeeze out of a normal weekday evening - but that wasn't really the case.

But let's start in some sort of chronological order here. The adventure starts with creating your character. Choosing hairstyle, skin and hair colour along with the choice of names for both the main character and his dog. I named myself Joel and I wanted my dog to be called Conny - but for some very unclear reason the game refused to accept it. Every time I pressed Conny, the dog was automatically renamed 'Dog' and so it was called Codney instead. The game then starts in a life simulator piece where you have to do your business in the toilet, wash your face, eat milk and cereal and brush your teeth. You have to choose clothes too, and shoes, of course. But when you're stuck in a T-pose, all that becomes a bit tricky.

Everyday chores are designed as small mini-games, with toothbrushing and face-washing controlled by the analogue sticks. As the arms cannot bend, the main character in To a T has specially designed tools such as a very long toothbrush and the same piece of spoon. Most importantly, however, is the little dog, Codney, who helps with everything from flushing the toilet to squeezing a dollop of toothpaste onto the toothbrush.

Then it's time for school. The first day proves to be a tough one, with our T- posing protagonist not really wanting to go to school because some of his classmates insist on bullying him and making fun of his special appearance. But you have to go to school, and on the way there you have to buy a baguette from a giraffe and, of course, take part in its sandwich-eating competition. When the sandwich is eaten and the school day is finally over, it's time to go home and then what shouldn't happen happens - Codney poops on the driveway of a house and this results in our main character getting so stressed that he starts spinning so fast that he starts flying like a helicopter. As you can hear... this is a very strange game. Things accelerate even further when a wind turbine suddenly flies down from the sky and hits the school. This is the start of a mystery that, of course, must be solved.

I'm not going to give away too much of the plot. I'm sure some of you are keen to see what Keita Takahashi (the father of Katamari games) has cooked up. I thought it started off promisingly with everything from quirky mini-games to the amazing theme song: 'The perfect shape'. The theme song has stuck in my brain like an annoying fly and now I don't love it anymore, but it's memorable and as strange as the rest of To a T. Don't get me wrong here, I like strange, absurd and weird games but it takes such an excruciatingly long time for it to take off.

To a T is divided into ten episodes and already in the first part you see how coins are placed on roofs and other places that you cannot reach until later parts of the game. You are forced to walk around in a digital playhouse without the ability to fiddle with all the fun things. In episode after episode, you are forced to listen to singing giraffes and perform the same old ordinary everyday chores over and over again. Admittedly, you get to control both the dog and the mother in a couple of parts, but it's the same thing there - just things that contribute to the journey being longer and not at all more entertaining, as it should be.

Underneath all the fluff, there's a nice moral that everyone looks different and it doesn't matter. But this is delivered in such an incredibly slow-paced way that I was going crazy. Couple that with a virtual playroom that you can't really enjoy until after the credits roll and you realise it's not very fun at all. The whole game suffers from being too slow. It's too slow to move around the map and also downright awful to orientate yourself as the camera is locked and pans around the landscape as it pleases. 85% of the game is spent having helplessly boring conversations with everything from frogs to trees. You talk almost all the time, and cut-scene after cut-scene follows one another. It's not even made more fun by the ability to choose different filters that make the game look like it's being played on a CRT screen or that it's dressed in dark dramatic tones in the noir filter.

To a T can probably be classed as a cosy little game with a nice story, but there's nothing new here. Katamari Damacy offers so much more fun, and the only thing that To a T has that makes it even slightly unique is the premise that orients around the T-pose. The music is nice too, although it's annoying and sticks to your brain like a pesky fly trying to fly out a window over and over again. I can't really recommend this game. To me, it feels like seven hours I will never get back. Seven hours I should have spent doing something useful. Seven hours in a game that is neither pretty, funny nor particularly clever. To a T is a trifle where small moments, while memorable, are never enough to redeem it.