Well, here we are. It seems like only yesterday I sat comfortably in the lobby of my grandma's condo in Florida, twinkly eyed and full of energy, playing 0xCELERATOR. For all the good and all the bad, 2013 has definitely been the most emotionally jam-packed year of my life. This blog was one of the only things that gave 2013 some much needed stability. To me, this was the most meaningful project I've undertaken to date. Thank you all so much for contributing to it.
I couldn't leave so unceremoniously after leaving you guys hanging for as long as I did, so I prepared a little surprise for you. It's not much, but I hope it leaves a bit of an impression.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th5jo_8j7GA
Thanks again, guys. Here's to an even better 2014.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Monday, December 16, 2013
WHAT THE HELL, DIGIPEN?
Okay, so today the DigiPen Game Gallery underwent a major design overhaul. The list looks a lot more aesthetically pleasing now, so that's nice, but there's one major problem...what was it again? Oh yeah I have no idea where all the games are. There were 2 games left on the old list that I was going to review today before moving onto the games I missed over the course of this year. I searched for both of them and found neither. So now, I don't know what to do. As damning as this may be to me, I might have to take another short hiatus. I don't see how I can continue until I make a plan to conquer this newest obstacle. Stay tuned.
This blog was going to last for two more weeks, DigiPen. TWO MORE WEEKS! You couldn't have waited until 2014 to completely alter your website?
This blog was going to last for two more weeks, DigiPen. TWO MORE WEEKS! You couldn't have waited until 2014 to completely alter your website?
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Feets of Fury and Protista (Or, How I Learned to Write Nothing and Still Make Progress)
This is not really a typical review post. Instead, it's going to end up being one of those updates that consist of me whining for 2 or 3 paragraphs. I did try to play both of the games in the title, but neither of them worked. With Feets of Fury, it was the same situation as Connection Established. All I can show you is a video. Unlike Connection Established, though, Feets of Fury didn't feature their youtube video on their game's webpage, so instead of linking you to the game itself, I'm just going to link the youtube video. The video makes the game look like a fun, fast-paced platformer kind of like A Flipping Good Time, but again, I wasn't able to play it, so I can't say.
Protista was a bit more of an interesting adventure. I knew this was going to be an interesting adventure when the thumbnail featured not a screenshot taken from the game, but a picture of some guy playing the game...on his Nintendo DS. I personally don't own a DS, and even if I did, I would have no idea how to put a file I found on the internet into a DS cartridge...or whatever. Instead, I found a DS Emulator and tried to use that (so yeah, my hard drive is even more pissed at me than usual), but even after I did that, I couldn't get the game to work. It starts up fine, but the game has no sound and barely responds to any of my input. When a reviewer says a game is "unplayable," they usually mean that the game is just incredibly frustrating to play, but Protista is literally unable to be played, at least on the emulator I was using. Frankly, I have neither the time nor the patience to experiment with different kinds of emulators, so I'm just going to consider both of today's games broken. Ironically, I still managed to write more today than I have for games that actually worked in the past...not sure whether that says more about me as a writer or certain DigiPen students as game designers...
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay functional
Links
With incredible Speeds I'm Moving my Feets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zjyduEK0EM
I Miss Biology Class: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=436
Protista was a bit more of an interesting adventure. I knew this was going to be an interesting adventure when the thumbnail featured not a screenshot taken from the game, but a picture of some guy playing the game...on his Nintendo DS. I personally don't own a DS, and even if I did, I would have no idea how to put a file I found on the internet into a DS cartridge...or whatever. Instead, I found a DS Emulator and tried to use that (so yeah, my hard drive is even more pissed at me than usual), but even after I did that, I couldn't get the game to work. It starts up fine, but the game has no sound and barely responds to any of my input. When a reviewer says a game is "unplayable," they usually mean that the game is just incredibly frustrating to play, but Protista is literally unable to be played, at least on the emulator I was using. Frankly, I have neither the time nor the patience to experiment with different kinds of emulators, so I'm just going to consider both of today's games broken. Ironically, I still managed to write more today than I have for games that actually worked in the past...not sure whether that says more about me as a writer or certain DigiPen students as game designers...
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay functional
Links
With incredible Speeds I'm Moving my Feets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zjyduEK0EM
I Miss Biology Class: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=436
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Connection Established (kinda) and Contrive
The download link for Connection Established didn't work, so I'm only going to be reviewing Contrive. for all it's worth, though, the link I'll post for Connection Established has a youtube video that showcases the game, so at least you can get a little taste of what it's like.
Contrive, while it doesn't advertise itself this way (thankfully) is one of those "poetic experience" type games. The exclusion of these two words from the game's description makes me want to pass over the game's narrative, but do I really want to let the description of a game, let alone a single noun phrase therein, determine the content of my entire review? No, I'm just going to review the game as if it didn't have a description, like I usually do.
The game is a series of puzzle-based levels with a short screen with some textual dialogue in between each. It's sort of like Braid in that way. The text tries to give some exposition about the plot of the game, but ends up just sounding like the ravings of a lunatic. I understand that that's the entire point and that the narrative is not supposed to be completely comprehensible at first glance, but I've always given narrative structures like that a sour look. Braid's story was complete gobbledygook (Seriously, Blogger? You're not going to put a squiggly line under that one? Okay...) as well, but it got away with it because the other elements of the game (gameplay, music, visual style, etc) all conveyed the feelings that the story was supposed to bring. You didn't need to understand the story. In Contrive, though, I feel like they made a perfectly fine puzzle platformer and then decided to add a deep, convoluted story that had nothing to do with the mechanics. The flow of time was a major theme in Braid's story as well as its mechanics, but I didn't see any of that consistency in Contrive. Then again, I only played through Contrive once, and I had to play Braid like 5 times before I understood it, so maybe the comparison is unfair. Good lord this is a long paragraph...
Let's talk about the gameplay then. The levels all consist of blocks, with each block containing platforms. Before the platforms can be traversed, though, the blocks need to be rotated a certain way. Imagine a regular succession of platforms, and then slice it into equal squares with a pizza cutter and rotate each individual square. That's what a level of Contrive looks like.
For a puzzle game, the gameplay is relatively straightforward. I never really had to think about which platforms to rotate which way, because the levels are designed so linearly. If you just keep going without even thinking about the level as a whole and just rotate the blocks when you get to the little rotatory cube that allows you to manipulate the level, you'll pretty much get it every time. A dummy block here and there wouldn't hurt. As long as it's a puzzle game, try to stump me!
So without the mental engagement of a puzzle game or the physical engagement of a platformer, a game like Contrive falls pretty flat. It's one of those games that didn't do anything wrong but didn't do anything particularly right either. Maybe give it a shot if you're bored, but for the most part I'd say there's nothing to see here.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay contrived
Links
Connection very much NOT established: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26726
Is a cute lil bunnymouse adventure: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26725
Contrive, while it doesn't advertise itself this way (thankfully) is one of those "poetic experience" type games. The exclusion of these two words from the game's description makes me want to pass over the game's narrative, but do I really want to let the description of a game, let alone a single noun phrase therein, determine the content of my entire review? No, I'm just going to review the game as if it didn't have a description, like I usually do.
The game is a series of puzzle-based levels with a short screen with some textual dialogue in between each. It's sort of like Braid in that way. The text tries to give some exposition about the plot of the game, but ends up just sounding like the ravings of a lunatic. I understand that that's the entire point and that the narrative is not supposed to be completely comprehensible at first glance, but I've always given narrative structures like that a sour look. Braid's story was complete gobbledygook (Seriously, Blogger? You're not going to put a squiggly line under that one? Okay...) as well, but it got away with it because the other elements of the game (gameplay, music, visual style, etc) all conveyed the feelings that the story was supposed to bring. You didn't need to understand the story. In Contrive, though, I feel like they made a perfectly fine puzzle platformer and then decided to add a deep, convoluted story that had nothing to do with the mechanics. The flow of time was a major theme in Braid's story as well as its mechanics, but I didn't see any of that consistency in Contrive. Then again, I only played through Contrive once, and I had to play Braid like 5 times before I understood it, so maybe the comparison is unfair. Good lord this is a long paragraph...
Let's talk about the gameplay then. The levels all consist of blocks, with each block containing platforms. Before the platforms can be traversed, though, the blocks need to be rotated a certain way. Imagine a regular succession of platforms, and then slice it into equal squares with a pizza cutter and rotate each individual square. That's what a level of Contrive looks like.
For a puzzle game, the gameplay is relatively straightforward. I never really had to think about which platforms to rotate which way, because the levels are designed so linearly. If you just keep going without even thinking about the level as a whole and just rotate the blocks when you get to the little rotatory cube that allows you to manipulate the level, you'll pretty much get it every time. A dummy block here and there wouldn't hurt. As long as it's a puzzle game, try to stump me!
So without the mental engagement of a puzzle game or the physical engagement of a platformer, a game like Contrive falls pretty flat. It's one of those games that didn't do anything wrong but didn't do anything particularly right either. Maybe give it a shot if you're bored, but for the most part I'd say there's nothing to see here.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay contrived
Links
Connection very much NOT established: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26726
Is a cute lil bunnymouse adventure: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26725
Friday, December 13, 2013
Abyss and Aurora
Well, here we go again. I think I figured out why these 8 games are at the end of the list and so egregiously out of alphabetical order. Whereas the other games on the list were all ".exe" files (whether real or not real), Abyss and Aurora were both ".msi" files. Well jinkies, guys, I think we solved the mystery.
Remembering some older posts of mine, I realized that I seem to have a strange attraction to "ball games." From Aescher to Leshy, whenever the protagonist is a spherical object traversing a world of geometric peril, I seem to be sold. That said, it may come as no surprise that Abyss gets my recommendation.
I can, however, say that Abyss is my favorite of the "ball games" that I've played, so I'm not just enamored with it for its nature. The game sold me with it's amazing controls. The common problem with "ball games," which I definitely mentioned in one of my reviews...maybe Leshy's (yay professionalism), is that the momentum always seems out to get you. In Abyss, while the physics may be a bit wonky at times, they are perfectly tuned to give the player maximum control over their character.
Abyss is careful not to overstay its welcome. It only has 3 levels, each of which introduce and explore a new mechanic. In the first level, you're just learning how to play. In the second, a spring power is introduced. In the third, an ice power. If you need more elaboration to understand the game...well, good. Go play it yourself and find out. That way I have to write less and Abyss gets closer to the attention it deserves. Win-win. My point is that the game is perfectly paced.
Basically Everything in this game is expertly done. The levels are designed to be manageable but challenging and always fun (with the exception of the very last section, which involves a lot of waiting...and I don't like waiting). The iteration time between failure and retrial is wicked fast, and the game just feels great to play.
So, yeah, that's all I can really say about Abyss. It's good enough to get my seal of approval. Go play it. Now, let's dive into Aurora.
This is a very interesting game that's very hard for me to describe. The super abridged version is that you can control 2 or 3 cannons, which you use to shoot moving targets on the screen. You can also shoot randomly spawning powerups for bonus points, upgraded weapons, etc.
The aesthetic can only be described as trippy. The bright yet calm red and blue meld together in a way that draws you into the experience, and the immersive music seals the deal. Add onto that the very active gameplay and you've got yourself one heck of a sense of flow.
The targets move along fixed rails, so the real challenge in the game is lining up your line of fire with the rail that your target is travelling along in order to maximize your chance at hitting it. Either that or you can just get really good at timing your shots and just try to fire one round after another without worrying about lining up your shots optimally. Both strategies have their advantages and disadvantages.
The biggest downside to this game is that, after playing through it, I still have no idea how half of it works. My opinion on game design like this wavers a tad (I have lauded games like Dark Souls for allowing the player to complete the game without experiencing a good portion of it), but I feel like when you are able to utterly destroy the AI opponent without even knowing what one of your 3 primary buttons does, or why you keep stealing a hundred points from your opponent, then maybe the game has flawed conveyance. I guess I can't fault the game too much for that last thing because it's literally the first thing mentioned in the tutorial, which I was too stubborn to look at before I played. This entire paragraph is a very minor gripe, to be honest.
The bottom line is that Aurora is immersive and intense. I only wish that the game explained itself a bit better and that the AI was a bit more of a challenge, but the experience was still very fun. Now, do I give this game my seal of approval too? Am I just getting way too generous? See, I'm not sure. Abyss got the seal of approval, yet I didn't have as much fun with that game as I did with Aurora. On the other hand, Abyss didn't have as many flaws, so from a technical perspective, it's the better game. I guess up until now, my seal of approval has been mostly reserved for games whose flaws, if they even existed, were negligible, and why would I change the formula halfway through my last month of writing? Sorry, Aurora. You still get a hearty recommendation from me, but Abyss is the only one walking home with the seal today.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay psychedelic.
Links
Ab-Yes: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18581
Awrawrooo: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26727
Remembering some older posts of mine, I realized that I seem to have a strange attraction to "ball games." From Aescher to Leshy, whenever the protagonist is a spherical object traversing a world of geometric peril, I seem to be sold. That said, it may come as no surprise that Abyss gets my recommendation.
I can, however, say that Abyss is my favorite of the "ball games" that I've played, so I'm not just enamored with it for its nature. The game sold me with it's amazing controls. The common problem with "ball games," which I definitely mentioned in one of my reviews...maybe Leshy's (yay professionalism), is that the momentum always seems out to get you. In Abyss, while the physics may be a bit wonky at times, they are perfectly tuned to give the player maximum control over their character.
Abyss is careful not to overstay its welcome. It only has 3 levels, each of which introduce and explore a new mechanic. In the first level, you're just learning how to play. In the second, a spring power is introduced. In the third, an ice power. If you need more elaboration to understand the game...well, good. Go play it yourself and find out. That way I have to write less and Abyss gets closer to the attention it deserves. Win-win. My point is that the game is perfectly paced.
Basically Everything in this game is expertly done. The levels are designed to be manageable but challenging and always fun (with the exception of the very last section, which involves a lot of waiting...and I don't like waiting). The iteration time between failure and retrial is wicked fast, and the game just feels great to play.
So, yeah, that's all I can really say about Abyss. It's good enough to get my seal of approval. Go play it. Now, let's dive into Aurora.
This is a very interesting game that's very hard for me to describe. The super abridged version is that you can control 2 or 3 cannons, which you use to shoot moving targets on the screen. You can also shoot randomly spawning powerups for bonus points, upgraded weapons, etc.
The aesthetic can only be described as trippy. The bright yet calm red and blue meld together in a way that draws you into the experience, and the immersive music seals the deal. Add onto that the very active gameplay and you've got yourself one heck of a sense of flow.
The targets move along fixed rails, so the real challenge in the game is lining up your line of fire with the rail that your target is travelling along in order to maximize your chance at hitting it. Either that or you can just get really good at timing your shots and just try to fire one round after another without worrying about lining up your shots optimally. Both strategies have their advantages and disadvantages.
The biggest downside to this game is that, after playing through it, I still have no idea how half of it works. My opinion on game design like this wavers a tad (I have lauded games like Dark Souls for allowing the player to complete the game without experiencing a good portion of it), but I feel like when you are able to utterly destroy the AI opponent without even knowing what one of your 3 primary buttons does, or why you keep stealing a hundred points from your opponent, then maybe the game has flawed conveyance. I guess I can't fault the game too much for that last thing because it's literally the first thing mentioned in the tutorial, which I was too stubborn to look at before I played. This entire paragraph is a very minor gripe, to be honest.
The bottom line is that Aurora is immersive and intense. I only wish that the game explained itself a bit better and that the AI was a bit more of a challenge, but the experience was still very fun. Now, do I give this game my seal of approval too? Am I just getting way too generous? See, I'm not sure. Abyss got the seal of approval, yet I didn't have as much fun with that game as I did with Aurora. On the other hand, Abyss didn't have as many flaws, so from a technical perspective, it's the better game. I guess up until now, my seal of approval has been mostly reserved for games whose flaws, if they even existed, were negligible, and why would I change the formula halfway through my last month of writing? Sorry, Aurora. You still get a hearty recommendation from me, but Abyss is the only one walking home with the seal today.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay psychedelic.
Links
Ab-Yes: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18581
Awrawrooo: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26727
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Zombie Hut and Zombie Pancake Attack
Well, look what we have here. What better way to end the alphabet than with two zombie shooters? Well, I can think of a few...don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that the DigiPen gods have taken pity on my poor, tired soul with two entertaining yet insubstantial romps through pewpew town, it's just that having my review of two separate games inevitably take less than a page doesn't do much for my self esteem. Oh well, we play the cards we're dealt.
Zombie Hut is the one that I really don't have much to say about. It's a standard top-down zombie shooter wherein you have to deliver 30 (I think) pizzas before they get cold, all the while dodging and shooting impatient zombies who want their hapless delivery boy in 30 minutes or less. Apart from your gun, you are armed only with medkits, grenades, and energy drinks which make you go faster, all of which are scattered about the level.
While the grenade is kind of fun to use, it's not nearly as effective as your gun, which tears through zombies like the guillotine of Hephaestus through butter. The medkits are standard, though you'll never need to use them if you just make an effort to pass by the hospital when your health gets low. The only truly useful item is the energy drink, without which you might as well just sprinkle pepperoni on yourself and lie in wait of your inevitable demise. With the energy drink in hand, though, the game becomes almost insultingly easy. The only real threat is if you play like a fool and run yourself into a dead end, but even if that happens, you will probably have such a stockpile of grenades, bullets, and medkits that any number of zombies will crumble before your might like ants in a typhoon.
Ok, so maybe I had more to say about that game than I thought...regardless, whatever feelings my intro "paragraph" conveyed are probably similar to the ones you'll feel after playing Zombie Hut. Not wholly satisfied, but still entertained.
Now then, let's get to Zombie Pancake Attack. If this game had a marketing department, every member in it would deserve to be hunted down and sentenced to a hundred years of exile. The game advertises itself as a "tower defense" game, and the little thumbnail thing makes it look like it was thrown together in an hour by a dude who has an elementary knowledge of C++ and MSPaint.
Despite the horrible job this game did at selling itself to me, I was actually very entertained by Zombie Pancake Attack. Calling this game "tower defense" is like calling The Godfather an "Italian family drama." Yeah, I guess that's technically accurate, but it's a severe undersell. The only tower you're defending is yourself (and I guess the occasional townsperson), but you don't defend them by erecting automated turrets that fire at nauseatingly infrequent fixed intervals, you just shoot things!
You have two guns, a syrup gun and a plate gun. You first have to douse your pancake adversaries in syrup, and then you can shoot a plate at them to teleport them into oblivion. This is probably where the game derives its "strategy" name, but really all it boils down to is holding both the right and left mouse buttons and pointing at whatever you want to go away.
The game has three regular levels and two boss levels. The differences in kinda among the three levels keep the game as engaging as shooting pancakes can be. Yeah, the visual style is a little bland, but I find it at least charming, and it never took me out of the experience. The sound direction is spot on, and the gameplay is solid. My only real critique is that the game was as thought-provoking as it was challenging. That is to say, not at all. The only time I felt challenged was during the final boss, and that's just because I forgot I could move with A and D and was tanking unnecessary damage for the first half of the fight.
And that's it. Just like that, I can say I've powered through the DigiPen Game Gallery A-Z. Of course, you all know that my work is far from over. For some reason, there are still a few games out of alphabetical order after this, and then I want to go back and retry all the games that were added over the course of this year. It's going to be a fun couple of weeks, ain't it...
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay delicious
Links
Zombietime USA: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26148
Buttermilk Doomsday: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18534
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Zero Frontier and Zombie Farm
Zero Frontier is exactly what I like to see in a game. It's an original concept with a suitable narrative and competent game mechanics. Oops, I totally just wrote the last sentence of the review first, didn't I? Well, now that you know my opinion on Zero Frontier, let me substantiate it a bit.
The premise is that you are a lone astronaut who has come across an abandoned space station and must explore it (in a top-down omnidirectional fashion) in order to find an energy core that you can use to power your ship and bring yourself to safety. Now, as you all know, in space, no one can hear you walk...that's because there's no gravity, so you can't walk. Instead, you have to propel yourself using a self-refilling fire extinguisher type thing with RMB.
This mechanic was a bit annoying for me because I've been using my trackpad ever since my mouse ran out of battery and I was too lazy to run to the store to buy some AAAs. It's usually not too much of a problem, but playing games that heavily involve both the right and left mouse buttons is a tad annoying, especially when RMB is the predominant button. Can't really blame anyone but myself for this, though...just thought it deserved to be mentioned.
The gameplay gets an A+ from me. Yeah, momentum mechanics tend to be a bit infuriating to work with, but this game pulls it off as well as I think is possible. What really sells it is that the levels are designed in a way that's conducive to rocketing yourself across the room uncontrollably every now and again, but that will punish you for not thinking out your next move.
The regular levels are reasonably fun. enemies, obstacles, and pickups are all placed in such a way that promotes a natural progression of thought->action->failure->rethought->reward. This is not a game that you'll be able to breeze through in your first try. It's going to take you a couple attempts. I know some people don't like this kind of gameplay, so caveat emptor (er...download-or). I, however, find this to be among the most engaging structures for play a game can employ. That's part of the reason I've got 125 hours (and counting) clocked in Dark Souls.
What really made me love this game, though, were the boss rooms. The bosses themselves are standard large circular enemies that shoot projectiles in all 8 (or maybe like 12? I didn't count) directions, but the rooms are beautifully designed from start to finish. The second you step foot...er...float...into one, you're greeted by a stockpile of ammo and health and a change in the normal, semi-calming music to a more lively track that gets you ready for an intense fight that the game is sure to deliver.
I actually didn't get to finish this game because the second boss room was a bit too sadistic for me to complete in time to not fail my Calculus test tomorrow, but for all the failed attempts at completing it, I never once lost the motivation to continue...perhaps everyday school and work environments can learn a thing or two from games like this. Ah, but now I'm overstepping my bounds and dipping into Extra Credits' territory, so I'll move onto game #2.
It's rare that I stop playing a game before it has, in any meaningful sense, begun. As you all know by now, though, I am of the unbending opinion that a game should not be given any breaks just because it's being played for the purpose of a review. If a professional reviewer found the beginning of a game so appalling that he or she had no motivation to continue, I would graciously accept the poor review with the caveat "I didn't play the whole thing." Heck, that policy would probably saved me a few hundred dollars over the years in bad purchases. That's exactly what happened with Zombie Farm.
What hurts the most is that I'm pretty sure Zombie Farm had the potential to be decent. The 3D art, while nothing by today's standards, had that Crazy Cross kind of appeal and definitely handles colors responsibly. Once I learned what to do, I'm sure the game would have flowed perfectly and kept me entertained for as long as I requested of it...but getting to that stage would be so infuriating and tedious that frankly, it's just not worth your time.
The game starts with a bat, who was one voice-over away from being Navi 2.0, swirling gleefully around your head and telling you in the form of a dialogue box the basic background and controls of the game...and when I say "basic," I use that word loosely. Even if I were okay with the idea of text-box based exposition (which I'm very much not), I would still say that this much superfluous text is nothing short of erroneous. Thinking your game's narrative is so brilliant that it deserves more than half a minute of the player's time to be spent reading instead of playing is even more pretentious than the wording in my last sentence.
After that, I walked around the overworld with little to no idea where the hell I was going until I came upon the character I was supposed to talk to. Oh, goody! More dialogue. I was told to pay a visit to the local shop, which I could distinguish between the other identical buildings that had no function in the game whatsoever because the shop would be highlighted when I walked near it. So then I spent a little time awkwardly dragging myself across any house-like building I could find until the game popped me back into the starting room and gave me a big ol' "Thanks for trying." After this, I was mildly (read, "wildly") agitated, but not enough so to prevent me from trying to amend my perfectly justified mistakes. So I pressed the action button to restart, and was greeted by my good friend Batthew (not joking. That's the name they went with) explaining the game to me all over again. First with a sigh and then with a partially yelled "nope!" I exited the game, never to be booted up again.
Maybe, just maybe, if the game had employed design choices that made actually playing the game the least bit rewarding, I would be able to forgive the terrible conveyance. But there are no background sounds, the gameplay is unengaging as all hell at startup, and what am I putting myself through all of this for anyways? A glorified RTS? That's what it seems like...No thanks.
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay zombified.
Links
Whoosh Kapow Fun: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26035
None of the above: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=508
The premise is that you are a lone astronaut who has come across an abandoned space station and must explore it (in a top-down omnidirectional fashion) in order to find an energy core that you can use to power your ship and bring yourself to safety. Now, as you all know, in space, no one can hear you walk...that's because there's no gravity, so you can't walk. Instead, you have to propel yourself using a self-refilling fire extinguisher type thing with RMB.
This mechanic was a bit annoying for me because I've been using my trackpad ever since my mouse ran out of battery and I was too lazy to run to the store to buy some AAAs. It's usually not too much of a problem, but playing games that heavily involve both the right and left mouse buttons is a tad annoying, especially when RMB is the predominant button. Can't really blame anyone but myself for this, though...just thought it deserved to be mentioned.
The gameplay gets an A+ from me. Yeah, momentum mechanics tend to be a bit infuriating to work with, but this game pulls it off as well as I think is possible. What really sells it is that the levels are designed in a way that's conducive to rocketing yourself across the room uncontrollably every now and again, but that will punish you for not thinking out your next move.
The regular levels are reasonably fun. enemies, obstacles, and pickups are all placed in such a way that promotes a natural progression of thought->action->failure->rethought->reward. This is not a game that you'll be able to breeze through in your first try. It's going to take you a couple attempts. I know some people don't like this kind of gameplay, so caveat emptor (er...download-or). I, however, find this to be among the most engaging structures for play a game can employ. That's part of the reason I've got 125 hours (and counting) clocked in Dark Souls.
What really made me love this game, though, were the boss rooms. The bosses themselves are standard large circular enemies that shoot projectiles in all 8 (or maybe like 12? I didn't count) directions, but the rooms are beautifully designed from start to finish. The second you step foot...er...float...into one, you're greeted by a stockpile of ammo and health and a change in the normal, semi-calming music to a more lively track that gets you ready for an intense fight that the game is sure to deliver.
I actually didn't get to finish this game because the second boss room was a bit too sadistic for me to complete in time to not fail my Calculus test tomorrow, but for all the failed attempts at completing it, I never once lost the motivation to continue...perhaps everyday school and work environments can learn a thing or two from games like this. Ah, but now I'm overstepping my bounds and dipping into Extra Credits' territory, so I'll move onto game #2.
It's rare that I stop playing a game before it has, in any meaningful sense, begun. As you all know by now, though, I am of the unbending opinion that a game should not be given any breaks just because it's being played for the purpose of a review. If a professional reviewer found the beginning of a game so appalling that he or she had no motivation to continue, I would graciously accept the poor review with the caveat "I didn't play the whole thing." Heck, that policy would probably saved me a few hundred dollars over the years in bad purchases. That's exactly what happened with Zombie Farm.
What hurts the most is that I'm pretty sure Zombie Farm had the potential to be decent. The 3D art, while nothing by today's standards, had that Crazy Cross kind of appeal and definitely handles colors responsibly. Once I learned what to do, I'm sure the game would have flowed perfectly and kept me entertained for as long as I requested of it...but getting to that stage would be so infuriating and tedious that frankly, it's just not worth your time.
The game starts with a bat, who was one voice-over away from being Navi 2.0, swirling gleefully around your head and telling you in the form of a dialogue box the basic background and controls of the game...and when I say "basic," I use that word loosely. Even if I were okay with the idea of text-box based exposition (which I'm very much not), I would still say that this much superfluous text is nothing short of erroneous. Thinking your game's narrative is so brilliant that it deserves more than half a minute of the player's time to be spent reading instead of playing is even more pretentious than the wording in my last sentence.
After that, I walked around the overworld with little to no idea where the hell I was going until I came upon the character I was supposed to talk to. Oh, goody! More dialogue. I was told to pay a visit to the local shop, which I could distinguish between the other identical buildings that had no function in the game whatsoever because the shop would be highlighted when I walked near it. So then I spent a little time awkwardly dragging myself across any house-like building I could find until the game popped me back into the starting room and gave me a big ol' "Thanks for trying." After this, I was mildly (read, "wildly") agitated, but not enough so to prevent me from trying to amend my perfectly justified mistakes. So I pressed the action button to restart, and was greeted by my good friend Batthew (not joking. That's the name they went with) explaining the game to me all over again. First with a sigh and then with a partially yelled "nope!" I exited the game, never to be booted up again.
Maybe, just maybe, if the game had employed design choices that made actually playing the game the least bit rewarding, I would be able to forgive the terrible conveyance. But there are no background sounds, the gameplay is unengaging as all hell at startup, and what am I putting myself through all of this for anyways? A glorified RTS? That's what it seems like...No thanks.
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay zombified.
Links
Whoosh Kapow Fun: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26035
None of the above: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=508
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
YSoul and Zartan
YSoul started up with a menu screen featuring an adrenaline-pumping techno beat accompanied by the sight of the camera zooming down a road at high speeds. I thought I was in for a pulse-pounding adventure that would put my reflexes to the test and challenge my might as a gamer...
This game looks nice and it has some good ideas, but ultimately, it's a "hold 'd' to win" game. My guess is that the developers wanted to make a Sonic Colors-esque spectacle (hence the powerup that perfectly mimics a powerup from that game, even down to the color), but ran out of time or motivation or whatever and just decided "does it work? then submit it." Final verdict: not much to see here.
Zartan is another take on the ol' Bionic Commando swinging mechanic. It even uses a frog tongue as a grappling hook, like in Froggle. Like my playthrough of Froggle, my experience with Zartan had a bit of a rocky start. First off, the game seemed to have a terrible problem with visual conveyance. Things that looked like walls were actually in the background, etc. This problem remedies itself before long, though.
Admittedly, I don't really remember many of the other 2D swinging games on this list, but I think I can confidently say that Zartan is not the best...not by a long shot. In It Belongs in an Ancient Ruin, for example, I never felt cheated out of my progress because the mechanics were all very intuitive and did exactly what you told them to do. Zartan, on the other hand, is no stranger to the cheap death. The hitboxes on things that instakill you are too big, the camera moves a bit too fast, making it more difficult to set up your next grapple, and the whole game, while having its very fun moments, constantly verges on being frustrating. Another thing I liked about IBiaAR is that no design choices seemed pointless, but in Zartan, there seems to be no purpose in collecting the fruit strewn about the level, which is one of the most major objectives the game gives you.
If you like the idea of 2D swinging games, you'll like Zartan, and while the raw quality of the game is not as good as I'd have liked, there's certainly enough to keep you occupied...if not entertained...for a while. Of course, there is no save feature, so whether this is a blessing or a curse is up to you to decide.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay sticky
Links
Y not: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18529
Lickiana Jones: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25888
PS- we've finally made it to the last letter of the alphabet...how exciting
This game looks nice and it has some good ideas, but ultimately, it's a "hold 'd' to win" game. My guess is that the developers wanted to make a Sonic Colors-esque spectacle (hence the powerup that perfectly mimics a powerup from that game, even down to the color), but ran out of time or motivation or whatever and just decided "does it work? then submit it." Final verdict: not much to see here.
Zartan is another take on the ol' Bionic Commando swinging mechanic. It even uses a frog tongue as a grappling hook, like in Froggle. Like my playthrough of Froggle, my experience with Zartan had a bit of a rocky start. First off, the game seemed to have a terrible problem with visual conveyance. Things that looked like walls were actually in the background, etc. This problem remedies itself before long, though.
Admittedly, I don't really remember many of the other 2D swinging games on this list, but I think I can confidently say that Zartan is not the best...not by a long shot. In It Belongs in an Ancient Ruin, for example, I never felt cheated out of my progress because the mechanics were all very intuitive and did exactly what you told them to do. Zartan, on the other hand, is no stranger to the cheap death. The hitboxes on things that instakill you are too big, the camera moves a bit too fast, making it more difficult to set up your next grapple, and the whole game, while having its very fun moments, constantly verges on being frustrating. Another thing I liked about IBiaAR is that no design choices seemed pointless, but in Zartan, there seems to be no purpose in collecting the fruit strewn about the level, which is one of the most major objectives the game gives you.
If you like the idea of 2D swinging games, you'll like Zartan, and while the raw quality of the game is not as good as I'd have liked, there's certainly enough to keep you occupied...if not entertained...for a while. Of course, there is no save feature, so whether this is a blessing or a curse is up to you to decide.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay sticky
Links
Y not: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18529
Lickiana Jones: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25888
PS- we've finally made it to the last letter of the alphabet...how exciting
Monday, December 9, 2013
YAPA-G and YFront
Kids, this is why you don't procrastinate until the last minute to do things. I'm so tired today. Under normal circumstances, I would either review only one game or just take the day off, but unfortunately those luxuries have been long since used up.
I guess I'm lucky that neither of these games really gave me anything too interesting to talk about. YAPA-G literally stands for "Yet Another Post Apocalyptic Game." I'm not making that up. They might as well have just named it "nothing interesting here."
And there may have very well been something quite interesting here, but I wasn't able to understand it. I basically just left-and-right clicked around the screen for a while until the game told me I won. I'm all for a game easing the player into the experience, but I feel like I shouldn't be able to beat the game if I literally know nothing about the mechanics or how the game works. All I could gather is that it's a bit like Risk but it's over in like 5 turns.
For all it's worth, the music is nice...that's all I can really appreciate about this one to be honest.
Next up we have Starfox...I mean StarTeddy...I mean YFront, which can best be described as "what might have happened if Starfox were made for a DOS computer that just so happened to integrate seamless voice acting. This is a terrible idea, by the way, because playing with the z-axis was a daring stunt even when the Super FX chip was around. Seriously, the resemblances to our beloved bush-dwelling starfighter are uncanny. Not that there's anything wrong with a little homage, but usually when you call back to something, you try to improve upon it. Otherwise, it usually gets referred to as "ripping off"
and what exactly did YFront improve about Starfox? Absolutely nothing. In fact, it seems to have taken a step back. There's a terrible problem with depth. Your enemies are always way closer (and by extension deadlier) than they seem. The game is very disorienting in that way and I applaud anyone who can play this game with any semblance of skill, because I'll bet before long you're going to resort to mashing buttons and hoping you don't die, because keeping up with the game's perception problems is far too frustrating.
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay in motion
Links
this again: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26698
*doppler sound*: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24156
I guess I'm lucky that neither of these games really gave me anything too interesting to talk about. YAPA-G literally stands for "Yet Another Post Apocalyptic Game." I'm not making that up. They might as well have just named it "nothing interesting here."
And there may have very well been something quite interesting here, but I wasn't able to understand it. I basically just left-and-right clicked around the screen for a while until the game told me I won. I'm all for a game easing the player into the experience, but I feel like I shouldn't be able to beat the game if I literally know nothing about the mechanics or how the game works. All I could gather is that it's a bit like Risk but it's over in like 5 turns.
For all it's worth, the music is nice...that's all I can really appreciate about this one to be honest.
Next up we have Starfox...I mean StarTeddy...I mean YFront, which can best be described as "what might have happened if Starfox were made for a DOS computer that just so happened to integrate seamless voice acting. This is a terrible idea, by the way, because playing with the z-axis was a daring stunt even when the Super FX chip was around. Seriously, the resemblances to our beloved bush-dwelling starfighter are uncanny. Not that there's anything wrong with a little homage, but usually when you call back to something, you try to improve upon it. Otherwise, it usually gets referred to as "ripping off"
and what exactly did YFront improve about Starfox? Absolutely nothing. In fact, it seems to have taken a step back. There's a terrible problem with depth. Your enemies are always way closer (and by extension deadlier) than they seem. The game is very disorienting in that way and I applaud anyone who can play this game with any semblance of skill, because I'll bet before long you're going to resort to mashing buttons and hoping you don't die, because keeping up with the game's perception problems is far too frustrating.
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay in motion
Links
this again: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26698
*doppler sound*: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24156
Sunday, December 8, 2013
XM-13 Deadly Assault and Xtreme Arena (kinda)
XM-13 Deadly Assault is one of those games that reminds me that I'm reviewing school projects. It wasn't made to push any boundaries or test an idea or to present a new way of designing games, it was just made for the sake of being made. While it would be fallacious to say "not that there's anything wrong with that," it would also be a bit unrealistic of me to say every game should set out with some passionate agenda, and the inspiration behind the game doesn't intrinsically make the end product any better or worse. With that said, let's take a look.
XM-13 is your standard "splosions go everywhere bang bang boom" type of game. You control a giant mech, so the game naturally feels sluggish. I don't see why so many games feel the need to limit your sprint and jump functions. I mean the jump would make sense if this game had any real platforming, but for the most part it's just shooting everything in sight.
This game tried to go for the Attack of the 50ft Robot appeal (whoa, blast from the past. I'm gonna get emotional) that hits that primitive part of your brain that just wants to destroy. What 50ft Robot understood, though, is that the player needs to feel fully in control of the destruction they cause. That game didn't feel the need to jam the screen with particle effects: it just gave you things to crush and let you crush them. Most importantly, 50ft Robot controlled smooth as butter.
XM-13 on the other hand, chugs like a steam train in a beer drinking contest. It's pretty bad when a game boldly declares "tactical nuke inbound" and my first reaction is not "oh, this is gonna be sweet" but rather "ooh, the framerate's not gonna like that." I've said before that my laptop is a pretty disappointing piece of machinery (even though it's an ostensibly top-of-the line Alienware, so idk what that's about), but come on. I was just running Saints Row IV seamlessly and I can't handle a game that might have looked impressive in 2005? Look, I'm not suggesting that a DigiPen game should resemble the newest games with cutting-edge graphics nor am I suggesting that DigiPen studenst should be as good at optimization as people who do that for a living. All I'm saying is that if you're going to push the envelope and go for graphical quality, you'd better be able to make it run, because a game with poor graphics at 60 frames per second looks and feels a hell of a lot better than even the most visually stunning games at 2 frames per second.
And Xtreme Arena was a not real exe, so that's all I got for now. Until next time, stay deadly.
Links
W-DED Sirius XM: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26688
doesn't exist: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=604
XM-13 is your standard "splosions go everywhere bang bang boom" type of game. You control a giant mech, so the game naturally feels sluggish. I don't see why so many games feel the need to limit your sprint and jump functions. I mean the jump would make sense if this game had any real platforming, but for the most part it's just shooting everything in sight.
This game tried to go for the Attack of the 50ft Robot appeal (whoa, blast from the past. I'm gonna get emotional) that hits that primitive part of your brain that just wants to destroy. What 50ft Robot understood, though, is that the player needs to feel fully in control of the destruction they cause. That game didn't feel the need to jam the screen with particle effects: it just gave you things to crush and let you crush them. Most importantly, 50ft Robot controlled smooth as butter.
XM-13 on the other hand, chugs like a steam train in a beer drinking contest. It's pretty bad when a game boldly declares "tactical nuke inbound" and my first reaction is not "oh, this is gonna be sweet" but rather "ooh, the framerate's not gonna like that." I've said before that my laptop is a pretty disappointing piece of machinery (even though it's an ostensibly top-of-the line Alienware, so idk what that's about), but come on. I was just running Saints Row IV seamlessly and I can't handle a game that might have looked impressive in 2005? Look, I'm not suggesting that a DigiPen game should resemble the newest games with cutting-edge graphics nor am I suggesting that DigiPen studenst should be as good at optimization as people who do that for a living. All I'm saying is that if you're going to push the envelope and go for graphical quality, you'd better be able to make it run, because a game with poor graphics at 60 frames per second looks and feels a hell of a lot better than even the most visually stunning games at 2 frames per second.
And Xtreme Arena was a not real exe, so that's all I got for now. Until next time, stay deadly.
Links
W-DED Sirius XM: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26688
doesn't exist: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=604
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Wub Wub Racer Magic and Wyrm (kinda)
Wub Wub Racer Magic is beautiful in its simplicity. You know that weird Japanese game show? No, not that one, the other one. The Human Tetris thing? Well, it's basically that, but with spaceships. You fly a ship down a narrow corridor filled with walls comprised of 9 blocks, one of which is always missing. You have to fly through the hole lest you be blown to smithereens.
The only real noteworthy thing is that this is one of maybe 5 games on this list to actually have made me laugh out loud. There's something absolutely hilarious about the way your ship just sorta disintegrates when it hits a wall. This game is the definition of a time-waster. It's the kind of game you play while listening to a podcast or something.
And I couldn't get Wyrm to work, so...yeah. I guess this is where the review ends.
Links
Dubstep Noises: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26685
Wyrmenheimer: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=554
The only real noteworthy thing is that this is one of maybe 5 games on this list to actually have made me laugh out loud. There's something absolutely hilarious about the way your ship just sorta disintegrates when it hits a wall. This game is the definition of a time-waster. It's the kind of game you play while listening to a podcast or something.
And I couldn't get Wyrm to work, so...yeah. I guess this is where the review ends.
Links
Dubstep Noises: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26685
Wyrmenheimer: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=554
Friday, December 6, 2013
Whisper of the Goddess and Wrecking Ball
Whisper of the Goddess is a puzzle game in the lightest sense of the word. In my current state of mind, I'm very grateful to have a game that rewards thought and problem solving, but doesn't require you to be more than like 25% conscious to get through it.
I'm going to do a terrible job explaining the mechanics, so I suggest you download this one and try if for yourself if you're curious. Basically, you have to latch onto blocks that you can then move across rails to get from point A to point B. You'll have to be strategic about which blocks you flip, move, and latch onto and when...but as I said, the game is fairly straightforward and not likely to leave you stumped.
The most impressive thing about this game, I think, is its sheer size. The developers seem to have packed as much content as possible into this game, each level maintaining the same quality design as the last. This is venerable in many a sense, and it will certainly keep you from getting bored. Personally, I prefer a more concise game that doesn't dwell too much on mechanics after they've been explored, but I can still definitely appreciate the prolific nature of the developers' brains.
The quality of this game is top-notch. Any problem you have with it will not be because of dodgy design, but because of the concept. If you're not into puzzle games or if you only like puzzles that make you feel really smart for figuring them out, skip over this one. I had fun with it, though, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a fun, charming adventure that isn't completely mindless but won't leave you puzzled either.
Wrecking Ball...more like Wrecked Game. I have no idea what's going on in this game. All I can figure out is that there are robots playing what seems to be like European handball but with weapons of mass destruction. Sounds cool, right? Well yeah, the premise is cool, but good luck playing the damn thing. My weapons seem to be completely ineffective and whenever I get the ball I get stunlocked by enemy fire and fumble it quicker than I can say "ouch"
I don't know...maybe I was just playing it wrong, but I gave it three tries and couldn't figure it out. Maybe toy around with this one for a bit to see if you can figure out what I've been missing, because the game seems like it would be really fun if it worked. I like the "recharge" mechanic that requires you to back off from the action a bit to replenish your armor and weapons, but I just can't figure out the rest....sorry.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay destructive
Links
Shhh, Goddess is talking: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26710
Miley Cyrus: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=440
I'm going to do a terrible job explaining the mechanics, so I suggest you download this one and try if for yourself if you're curious. Basically, you have to latch onto blocks that you can then move across rails to get from point A to point B. You'll have to be strategic about which blocks you flip, move, and latch onto and when...but as I said, the game is fairly straightforward and not likely to leave you stumped.
The most impressive thing about this game, I think, is its sheer size. The developers seem to have packed as much content as possible into this game, each level maintaining the same quality design as the last. This is venerable in many a sense, and it will certainly keep you from getting bored. Personally, I prefer a more concise game that doesn't dwell too much on mechanics after they've been explored, but I can still definitely appreciate the prolific nature of the developers' brains.
The quality of this game is top-notch. Any problem you have with it will not be because of dodgy design, but because of the concept. If you're not into puzzle games or if you only like puzzles that make you feel really smart for figuring them out, skip over this one. I had fun with it, though, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a fun, charming adventure that isn't completely mindless but won't leave you puzzled either.
Wrecking Ball...more like Wrecked Game. I have no idea what's going on in this game. All I can figure out is that there are robots playing what seems to be like European handball but with weapons of mass destruction. Sounds cool, right? Well yeah, the premise is cool, but good luck playing the damn thing. My weapons seem to be completely ineffective and whenever I get the ball I get stunlocked by enemy fire and fumble it quicker than I can say "ouch"
I don't know...maybe I was just playing it wrong, but I gave it three tries and couldn't figure it out. Maybe toy around with this one for a bit to see if you can figure out what I've been missing, because the game seems like it would be really fun if it worked. I like the "recharge" mechanic that requires you to back off from the action a bit to replenish your armor and weapons, but I just can't figure out the rest....sorry.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay destructive
Links
Shhh, Goddess is talking: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26710
Miley Cyrus: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=440
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Wake the Dragon and War of the Currents
Hey, remember yesterday when I said some games are designed such that skipping the tutorial is a death sentence? Well...Wake the Dragon. Playing this game is just one nightmare after another. The first thing I did was try to play without the tutorial. All I could figure out how to do was change the color of certain blocks...but that seemed to do nothing. So then the timer ran out, an enemy spawned, and it was game over.
Great.
So then I started up the tutorial, which was even more excessively wordy than some of my blog posts, and admittedly, that's saying something. Having neither the time nor the patience to sit through a tutorial that starts off explaining that the little green glowy orb floating around the corner is, in fact, green and glowy, I promptly nope'd out of the tutorial and clicked "how to play," where I was given an incredibly barebones and unhelpful summary of the mechanics...again, mirroring my blog in the worst possible ways. Press 2 to detonate...3 to disperse...4 to spawn boss...who? what? what does any of this mean?
So I started up the game again hoping that the mechanics would make sense and...no, they didn't. I pressed 2 to to the detonate shout to get rid of an enemy when it spawned, but then the shout never worked again. Does it only work once for some reason? Does it have a cooldown time that lasts longer than the one indicated by the little meter filling back up? Whatever. I didn't have the patience to stick around for the answer to those questions. This game gets a nope out of 10.
War of the Currents is jam-packed with stuff that interested me, both good and bad, so I'm bound to leave a lot of critical stuff out in a review that I have to push out in the span of like an hour. Therefore, allow me to give a quick mini-review before I attempt to go more in-depth. War of the Currents is a clever game with big ambitions and its head on straight, but it bit off a bit more than it could chew and the gameplay suffers a bit as a result. I recommend it overall.
The story is an interesting "alternative history" take on the Edison v. Tesla conflict, a really interesting thing for any who aren't familiar, so the game gets points right out of the gate for tickling my tangential learning spot. The opening cutscene does lose some favor with me just for existing, but for what it's worth, the 5 seconds I watched were very well done. It had a professional look to it and started out with a very thought provoking phrase that summed up a critique I have of modern thinkers much more eloquently than I was ever able to.
Now let's talk gameplay. Overall, it's very well executed but slightly unpolished. The game is very combat-oriented, and you have a varied set of moves to keep you entertained. You can mash the attack key, you can shoryuken, you can stunlock your enemies and you can use some well-timed shields to avoid tanking too much damage. The major downside to all of this is that it's all optional. It's like if your teacher offered to give you an extra point on a quiz if you watch a 15 minute long YouTube video. Yeah, it's nice to get rewarded, and watching the video isn't exactly boring, but if it's all auxiliary, then it can be kind of tough to motivate yourself to do it. Other than that, there are minor issues. The framerate occasionally chugs (and come on, I know my laptop has heating issues, but it's a game made of 2D sprites. It should run pretty smoothly), some platforms blend in with the background, making jumping across them kind of a pain, and the "overcharge mode" throws any challenge the game might have had right out the window.
So yeah. One of these games is definitely worth your time. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay electrical
Links
Don't Wake Dragon-daddy: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26021
Zappity do da: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26712
Great.
So then I started up the tutorial, which was even more excessively wordy than some of my blog posts, and admittedly, that's saying something. Having neither the time nor the patience to sit through a tutorial that starts off explaining that the little green glowy orb floating around the corner is, in fact, green and glowy, I promptly nope'd out of the tutorial and clicked "how to play," where I was given an incredibly barebones and unhelpful summary of the mechanics...again, mirroring my blog in the worst possible ways. Press 2 to detonate...3 to disperse...4 to spawn boss...who? what? what does any of this mean?
So I started up the game again hoping that the mechanics would make sense and...no, they didn't. I pressed 2 to to the detonate shout to get rid of an enemy when it spawned, but then the shout never worked again. Does it only work once for some reason? Does it have a cooldown time that lasts longer than the one indicated by the little meter filling back up? Whatever. I didn't have the patience to stick around for the answer to those questions. This game gets a nope out of 10.
War of the Currents is jam-packed with stuff that interested me, both good and bad, so I'm bound to leave a lot of critical stuff out in a review that I have to push out in the span of like an hour. Therefore, allow me to give a quick mini-review before I attempt to go more in-depth. War of the Currents is a clever game with big ambitions and its head on straight, but it bit off a bit more than it could chew and the gameplay suffers a bit as a result. I recommend it overall.
The story is an interesting "alternative history" take on the Edison v. Tesla conflict, a really interesting thing for any who aren't familiar, so the game gets points right out of the gate for tickling my tangential learning spot. The opening cutscene does lose some favor with me just for existing, but for what it's worth, the 5 seconds I watched were very well done. It had a professional look to it and started out with a very thought provoking phrase that summed up a critique I have of modern thinkers much more eloquently than I was ever able to.
Now let's talk gameplay. Overall, it's very well executed but slightly unpolished. The game is very combat-oriented, and you have a varied set of moves to keep you entertained. You can mash the attack key, you can shoryuken, you can stunlock your enemies and you can use some well-timed shields to avoid tanking too much damage. The major downside to all of this is that it's all optional. It's like if your teacher offered to give you an extra point on a quiz if you watch a 15 minute long YouTube video. Yeah, it's nice to get rewarded, and watching the video isn't exactly boring, but if it's all auxiliary, then it can be kind of tough to motivate yourself to do it. Other than that, there are minor issues. The framerate occasionally chugs (and come on, I know my laptop has heating issues, but it's a game made of 2D sprites. It should run pretty smoothly), some platforms blend in with the background, making jumping across them kind of a pain, and the "overcharge mode" throws any challenge the game might have had right out the window.
So yeah. One of these games is definitely worth your time. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay electrical
Links
Don't Wake Dragon-daddy: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26021
Zappity do da: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26712
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Voxel Smash and Voyage
It's always bittersweet to see a more recent game on deck to be reviewed. On the one hand, as technology has improved and game theory has become more understood, the games have tended to get better. On the other hand, they've also tended to get bigger. Don't get me wrong, I love a gargantuan epic of a game every now again...I mean hell, I'm one of those people who's crazy enough to consider replaying Mass Effect...as in all of it. That's going to have to wait till after the blog is finished, of course, but still...
Anyways, what I'm getting at is that neither of today's games were particularly long, but neither of them were anything short of a good time, either. Essentially, today was the perfect blogging day, so I'd be in a fantastic mood if I weren't so tired.
Voxel Smash is apparently a callback to one of those eras of gaming that I'm too young to have experienced, because I don't know what the hell a voxel is. Apparently, Blogger doesn't either, because it's giving me that ever irksome red squiggly line...then again, Blogger also doesn't understand the word "gameplay." Fortunately for us, Voxel Smash does.
I'll describe the gameplay as "Minecraft meets Dark Souls," if that makes any sense...which of course it doesn't, so let me clarify. Voxel Smash has the blocky, simplistic aesthetic of Minecraft and the gameplay of Dark Souls...just with the dial turned back down to "baby's first beat em up."
The game is designed with the sole intention of letting the player have fun, and it pulls it off very nicely. This is one of the rare games that I stopped playing because of time constraints rather than because I stopped wanting to play. You can roll, slash, shoot hadokens, and even do this really cool spear move that takes a bit of skill to implement, but is very satisfying when you do. All of the mechanics are explained intuitively, and, without being too esoteric, they reward the player for figuring them out.
This is one lesson that Voyage could have learned from Voxel Smash. The instructions are conveyed very hamhandedly in the form of a text-guided tutorial that locks off mechanics before the game deems you ready to use them. I understand that Voyage is a much different game with more complex controls and rules that are more imperative to know, but still. The first few levels are such walks through the park that I could have beaten them without breaking a sweat without the tutorial, and it would have made me feel better as a player, too. I guess you could make the argument that they give you the option to skip the tutorial at any time, but before the game begins, I have no idea how nightmarish the first few levels are going to be. I've played many a game wherein I blazed right through the tutorial without paying attention and have proceeded to have my rear handed to me on a silver platter within five minutes. Obviously, this is not one of those games, but my point is that I didn't know that before the game began, so skipping the tutorial was way too scary.
Other than that, though, Voyager does everything it means too and does it well. It's an RTS, which I've never been too big a fan of, but it's a good RTS; my saying that is like a vegan complimenting your steak tartar, so take that as you will, but the game looks good, sounds amazing, and feels fine. It's competently put together and it doesn't fall into any of the traps that most RTS games fall into. I hate its kind, but I had fun with it, so I'll give this one a recommendation, but I'll save my seal of approval for Voxel Smash.
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay volumetric.
Links
What does the Voxel Say: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26912
play long and prosper: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26709
Anyways, what I'm getting at is that neither of today's games were particularly long, but neither of them were anything short of a good time, either. Essentially, today was the perfect blogging day, so I'd be in a fantastic mood if I weren't so tired.
Voxel Smash is apparently a callback to one of those eras of gaming that I'm too young to have experienced, because I don't know what the hell a voxel is. Apparently, Blogger doesn't either, because it's giving me that ever irksome red squiggly line...then again, Blogger also doesn't understand the word "gameplay." Fortunately for us, Voxel Smash does.
I'll describe the gameplay as "Minecraft meets Dark Souls," if that makes any sense...which of course it doesn't, so let me clarify. Voxel Smash has the blocky, simplistic aesthetic of Minecraft and the gameplay of Dark Souls...just with the dial turned back down to "baby's first beat em up."
The game is designed with the sole intention of letting the player have fun, and it pulls it off very nicely. This is one of the rare games that I stopped playing because of time constraints rather than because I stopped wanting to play. You can roll, slash, shoot hadokens, and even do this really cool spear move that takes a bit of skill to implement, but is very satisfying when you do. All of the mechanics are explained intuitively, and, without being too esoteric, they reward the player for figuring them out.
This is one lesson that Voyage could have learned from Voxel Smash. The instructions are conveyed very hamhandedly in the form of a text-guided tutorial that locks off mechanics before the game deems you ready to use them. I understand that Voyage is a much different game with more complex controls and rules that are more imperative to know, but still. The first few levels are such walks through the park that I could have beaten them without breaking a sweat without the tutorial, and it would have made me feel better as a player, too. I guess you could make the argument that they give you the option to skip the tutorial at any time, but before the game begins, I have no idea how nightmarish the first few levels are going to be. I've played many a game wherein I blazed right through the tutorial without paying attention and have proceeded to have my rear handed to me on a silver platter within five minutes. Obviously, this is not one of those games, but my point is that I didn't know that before the game began, so skipping the tutorial was way too scary.
Other than that, though, Voyager does everything it means too and does it well. It's an RTS, which I've never been too big a fan of, but it's a good RTS; my saying that is like a vegan complimenting your steak tartar, so take that as you will, but the game looks good, sounds amazing, and feels fine. It's competently put together and it doesn't fall into any of the traps that most RTS games fall into. I hate its kind, but I had fun with it, so I'll give this one a recommendation, but I'll save my seal of approval for Voxel Smash.
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay volumetric.
Links
What does the Voxel Say: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26912
play long and prosper: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26709
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Viruleon and Void
That's right, I'm back after a hiatus that was way longer than I'm sure any of us were comfortable with. But hey, we're here now, and I'm refreshed and ready to get back into...*ahem*...the groove of things. The year is winding down and I can finally see the light at the end of this incredibly long tunnel...it seems like an eternity ago I was lounging in the lobby of my grandmother's Florida condo, sporadically shifting between playing A Flipping Good Time and studying for my SATs. Man...how the times have changed.
But I don't have time to get all sentimental on you just yet. For now, let me lay down the law: As you can probably tell from the title of this post, I'm going back to the 2 game per post format. It's likely going to stay this way consistently until the end of the year, but as always, I've got to be flexible. One way or another, I'm going to try to get through about 14 games each week. If all goes as planned, I'll finish the list right on schedule.
Boy oh boy it feels good to be playing these games again. I may not have always looked forward to them in the past, but after all that's happened recently, I sure as hell missed these good old Ikaruga clones. And thus we have Viruleon. It's an omnidirectional top-down spaceship game wherein you collect orbs that allow you to change color. Crashing into other ships of the same color destroys them. Crashing into ships of the opposite color destroys you.
The three things that caught my eye here were the orb mechanic, the AI, and the controls; the former two in a good way, the latter in a bad way. I like how you aren't allowed to just change color willy-nilly. That would make the game a bit too mindless. Instead, you constantly have to consider how many charges you have left and use them accordingly. It adds a layer of depth to the play and makes the experience more rewarding as a result.
Now, the AI. A less careful team would probably just program all enemy ships to either float around the screen aimlessly or attack you. Makes sense...they're enemies after all. In Viruleon, the AI behaves a bit like the Pacman ghosts. the enemies of the same color retreat while the enemies of the opposite color attack. This is helpful for two reasons. First, it makes immediately identifying your predators from your prey much easier and less frustrating. Second, it adds challenge to the game, as the enemies are very good at retreating.
Alright, finally, the controls. It feels like the "S" button should function as a brake rather than a reverse. I find myself often wanting to quickly turn 180 degrees and skid to a halt to get a good angle on approaching my enemies, but instead I turn 180 degrees and keep rocketing in the same direction I've been going. Using the "S" key is just confusing, so don't be surprised if you don't end up using it at all during play. The controls as a whole are very simple, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it. the gameplay does get kind of stale kind of quickly, but at least you aren't overloaded with commands to learn.
All-in-all, this game passes my test. It's not amazing, but it's polished and thought through enough for me to recommend that you try it out. Good job on this one, guys.
Okay, now let's talk Void. It's a game made from the Source engine, which has proved to be a timeless and endlessly helpful tool in a game designer's arsenal before. In Void, you can shoot dimensional rifts which cause all items within their blast radii to revert back in time. Imagine if you could carry around and shoot those purple stones from the one level of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
So yeah, it's not an entirely new or interesting game mechanic (I'm not sure whether this game came out before or after Skyward Sword because for some reason, the date isn't posted). It gets the job done, though, and while most of the game didn't elicit more than a "mmhm" out of me, certain aspects of the level design made me smirk and say "alright, that was clever."
This game's strongest suit by far, though, is the visual department. My goodness this game looks amazing, and not just because of all those shiny Source engine graphics. The steampunk style is always appealing, and this game juxtaposes Victorian intricacy with dilapidated sewers to create a very powerful effect.
This game didn't quite have enough "wow" for me to recommend it, as the installation process is a bit more annoying than it is for most games, but if you've got time to kill, there's nothing that should keep you from giving it a try. Hell, it might be worth it to play through the game just to see what is possibly the most genius credits sequence since the one in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay refreshed
Links (god it felt good to type that again)
Cerulean Viruleon: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26009
I can't pronounce this title without sounding like I'm advertising a phone: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=23876
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