Project3

Really, guys?  Two CUB3 clones in one day?

Alright, well at least this one has some damn substance.  Actually, I'm not sure whether I like this game more than I like CUB3.  They both have their advantages.

I think the main thing Project3 has going for it is the aesthetic.  This game is quite pretty.  And hey, CUB3 was nothing to sneeze at either, but I think Project3 has it beat.  The colors pop more, the sound effects are crisper, the turning is smoother, it just feels better.

The thing that CUB3 has over Project3 is variety, and CUB3 did not have much variety.  The only real difference in the gameplay is that CUB3 let you use missiles as well as lasers to take down your enemies.  In Project3, it's lasers or gtfo.

Really, there's a very simple way to determine whether I recommend this game to you.  Didja like the space shooter sections in Star Wars: Battlefront II?  Yeah?  Then you'll like this.  End of story.

That's all I got for now.  Until next time, stay spacey.

Links
Third Project: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=1409

Project Zeit

Well, this was different.

Project Zeit can best be described as Chibi Robo meets Grand Theft Auto.  I'll give your mind a moment to stop imploding...you good?  Alright.

you play as a robotic Vietnam veteran who is strapped for cash and has to take on a job at a delivery service.  That delivery service is in some serious financial trouble as a result of it being a generally terrible service being located not too far from a vastly superior one which you, in all your robotic, logic-processing glory, decided to forego.  

Then again, maybe it's for the best you don't try offering your services to a place that can actually afford to fire you, because since the various surfaces of the overworld all have the same amount of friction, you're going to be barreling through roads, sidewalks, and lawns alike just to get to your next objective.

Pretty soon after you learn the ropes, the game decides to give you a gun, at which point all bets are off and you, as the bloodthirsty player, decide to just go ape-nuts bonkers.  Soon enough, by doing missions that come right the hell out of nowhere (such as 'sploding cars with c4), you get more weapons and are able to go even more lollipop loony.

Actually, this game ends up being kind of similar to Attack of the 50ft Robot. Except you're not 50ft, you're just a robot who uses conventional means to tear up the city. 

Aside from all that, the game's design is preposterously sloppy, but I actually think that adds to the charm.  For example, while walking around on foot, the entire city may as well be built on an ice rink, because you slip around like mad.  I think that's kind of fun, though. It's not so bad to the point where getting to where you need to go is impossible or even frustrating.  It's just funny.

One sloppy design choice that I didn't care for, though, was the completely arbitrary placement of checkpoints.  No wonder the delivery service is doing poorly, the routes you have to take make the US Postal Service seem efficient.  It's not too terribly inconvenient to just drive back to where you were once you go through an obnoxiously out of place checkpoint, so it didn't bother me too much, but still.

The thing that bothered me most, though, is that there is only one save point in the entire overworld (or at least only one that I could find).  This means that you not only have to remember how to get back to that save point, but you actually have to put in the travel time to get there before you can quit without losing progress.  Whyyyyyy.

The whole game just kind of smells like "don't give a damn," which I find to be a quite appealing fragrance if applied to an appealing surface.  In some cases, it can be a death sentence for games that are designed to be taken seriously.  Project Zeit is just a silly little adventure that's a great relaxation tool.

That's all I got for today.  Until next time, stay predominant.

I have no idea what they were going for with this title: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=504

Project Starfighter

I tried, I really tried to come up with some clever analysis of this game, but I just couldn't think of anything.  The only thing that strikes me about this game is that it's CUB3 but worse.

Everything is gray, there are no sound effects, the controls are floaty as hell...actually, on the subject of controls, you guys all know that I love WASD as a default movement control, but in this game, it's counterproductive.  See, the "A" and "D" keys do the same thing as moving your mouse left and right.  It's not a bad thing, but still...just kinda pointless.  Actually, I guess it's better to have the option to control with the keyboard for players who prefer to do so, but up and down don't have alternate controls, so the whole thing just feels sloppy.

This was a senior game, surprise surprise.  The guys who made this were probably done learning about game design, and they needed to make some sort of game because of educational obligations.  That's what I'm guessing, at least, almost all of the games on this list that have made me just feel defeated and without anything useful to say have been senior games.

Some day I'm going to figure out how to make the senior games interesting...but it is not this day.  That's all I got for now.  Until next time, stay involved.

Links
Project Unoriginal: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=406