Coreship

Somewhere between the last review and this one I woke up with my head on my keyboard, casually drooling onto the touchpad.  The reason I'm telling you this is so you know that my mental status is not exactly tip-top, so please excuse any spelling errors or incoherent ramblings.

With taht being siad, let's give ourselfs the good ol cream puddn

Coreship is an arcade style top-down shooter with an aesthetic like that of a modern day Asteroids.  The main idea is that you are trying to defend a fortress for as long as you can.  You start out with a pathetic little ship equipped with a tiny booster and a couple machine guns, but as you kill enemies, you get money.  You can then spend that money in the shop to upgrade your ship

Here's where the game gets interesting.  You chose exactly where the upgrades go on your ship.  It's possibly the most engaging customization screen I've ever worked with.  Instead of just scrolling through a menu of different guns and armors, you place the armor around your ship.  In reality, this doesn't add too much to the game because there is still a statistically best way to customize your ship, meaning it's still just a linear upgrade system.  However, being able to place the nodes slightly off center or construct your ship's armor to resemble a giant space phallus give it a very personal charm.  The ship becomes yours. the fact that you have to kill ships to get the money gives your ship an even more personal feel.  You earn your right to fly a pair of space breasts that lactate lasers.

That said, no game is without its flaws and this game has a lot of flaws.  As I said before, the customization is pretty much just a facade.  The giant space phallus will be nowhere near as efficient armor that just consists of a bunch of lines protecting your ship's core, so the incentive for creativity is unique to the player.  If this game were done again, I'd like to see things like the option to fortify certain pieces of armor, doubling their strength for the same price as just adding another piece of armor.  That way, you can design your ship however you want and still get the most bang out of your buck.

In addition, the movement controls are a little wonky, and that's not just because my head is currently perceiving the world around me in bright pastel colors while the walls sing jaunty folk tunes.  I like the idea that they were working with; essentially, whichever direction you aim in becomes the front of your ship, so W, A, S, and D will do different things depending on where you're aiming.  I realize that that's pretty much the same description as the movement from Cease Fire 20makeupyourdamnmind but I assure you the game controls nothing like that.  The difference is that Coreship is in space rather than in tanks, so freestyle movement is key.  It's tough to explain, but trust me: the movement system in Coreship definitely has the right ideas but is still a little sticky and hard to grasp.

All in all, despite this game's flaws, it still gets my seal of approval.  The magic word of the day is "creativity," ladies and gentlemen.  That magical human element goes a long way with me.  It invokes that magical childish glee that video gaming is all about.

Until next time, stay creative

Links

if Notch made Asteroids: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26002

Core

Before we begin, I just wanna be a sap for a second and mention a fellow blogger: my girlfriend, Lydia.  She recently gave me a shout out in one of her blogs after doing an amusing mini-review of Portal in a format very similar to my own.  I'll put a link to her blog down below.  Check it out if you're in the mood for some touching anecdotes that are sure to make you go "aww."

Alright, back to Video Games:

Core is Metroid but bad.  Let's start out with the first problem, the control scheme.  I get that in Metroid you had a nice convenient controller with which to aim, but there's no reason a keyboard can't work just as well.  When I emulated Super Metroid (don't pirate games, kids), I was able to set up the input in a manner that didn't confuse me, so why can't it work in Core? aiming the blaster is not easy to get used to.

And on the topic of the blaster, that's another problem.  Why do the shots trail off after only about half a second on the screen?  I feel like it would be more effective to use Simon Belmont's whip than to use this pathetic little pea shooter.  See, when you make a design choice like that, there has to be a reason.  I get that Core is trying to deliver a pseudo-scary experience much like in Metroid, but honestly I don't think having a blaster that actually blasts stuff would be too much of a hindrance to the atmosphere.

What is a hindrance to the atmosphere, however, is the platforming.  The jump is straight up annoying.  The second you let go of the spacebar, gravity has a lot of fun with your sprite.  This means that if you try to time your jumps accounting for the distance you'll gain while falling, like in a good platformer, you'll fall short of whatever platform you were trying to jump on.  This makes the game as a whole feel sticky and unmanageable like a chewed up wad of gum caught in hair that you haven't washed since you spilled talcum powder all over it.

The aesthetic is fine, but unoriginal.  I'll give you all one guess as to which nintendo IP Core wants to be the most. I'll give you a hint: it starts with "M" and ends in "etroid."

This game failed to impress.  Granted, I quit before anything cool was introduced, so there might be some kind of life-altering mechanic of the gods that gets introduced three levels in, but I'll respond to that the same way I respond to people who try to get me to play League of Legends:  A game has to earn my playtime.  If I'm frustrated by the first level, I'm not going to play on to find out what the rest of the game has to offer.  Maybe if I paid for the game and was determined to make my purchase seem worth it, I'd grit my teeth and push through it, but these games are not only free, but numerous.  I can't waste time playing through bad games when there are (probably) more than four hundred games left to play.

Until next time, stay original.

Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25900
Lydia's blog: http://vivalavidaconamor.blogspot.com/

PS- sorry for the hiatus, but I was away from the computer for the weekend.