Frankly, I don't get how all the muppets around here can give this game 5 stars. It's far from worthy of such a high rating. Don't get me wrong, the game is good, but that's ALL it is: JUST GOOD.
It has some clever-ish writing, some decently funny dialogue, some amusing little puzzles, and I'll admit that the late-game bits have some nice li'l surprizes that're both clever and entertaining. But all in all, the game isn't that great.
For one, it's horribly poorly optimized. This's probably due to the developers' choice of engine. As anyone with even one fraction of a functioning brain knows by now, the Unreal 3 engine is one of the absolutely WORST engines on the market today, in no small part because of its extremely poor optimization.
There's also the issue that you can't change the controls in the game. AT ALL. Seriously. What the hell, Finish Line?! How could you miss something THAT obvious?!
Adding to that, there's also no option for having non-cutscene captions, so if you've got a hearing impairment, you're gonna miss out on A LOT of funny dialogue during the gameplay.
Not to mention the issue that you can't view the extras/collectables you've collected during the gameplay without loading your game. So yeah. There's no "Extras" section on the main menu screen. None whatsoever. How could you have missed that? I mean, come ON.
Then, of course, we come to the absolutely biggest issue I have with the game: replayability. Granted, not all games are meant to be replayed over and over again, but if your game can't be replayed at all without severely diminishing its overall impact, then that game is a pretty spectacular failure as entertainment. I wouldn't have minded the non-replayable nature of Maize if it hadn't been so bloody short! Barely six hours, and then it's done. And that's WITH a 100% completion ratio as well!
So all in all, it's a nice li'l morsel of a game. But for the love of dogs, DO NOT believe all the senseless fans gushing about 5/5 ratings!