Boy howdy, do I love me some stealth games. You remember back when you were like 7 years old, you would hide in various corners and crevices of your house while mommy was making breakfast. You'd see how close you could get without her noticing and, if you were feeling particularly mischievous, you'd jump out and see how high you could make her jump. Maybe that was just me, but stealth games capture that same kind of gleeful tension.
Snatch, in this context, is not the minigame in Saint's Row, which is about as far from a stealth game as you can get, but rather a top-down stealth 'em up wherein you play as a dude in a beret who wants to steal some stuff from a highly secure facility. That's about all there is in terms of context. I kept dying before I could learn any more.
As much as I fear doing this may make this review seem more like a haiku in terms of length, I'm going to start out with the one most glaring flaw, which is pretty much my only talking point. There are not enough checkpoints in this game. Not nearly.
Now, it's not secret that I am a huge fan of Deus Ex, and while that game wasn't exclusively a stealth game, if you chose to play it like one, it was some of the best stealthing you've ever done in a game. There are a lot of reasons why the stealth worked so well in Deus Ex. The AI was programmed to perfection (not all too realistically, but who cares), the enemies were laid out perfectly in perfectly designed levels and the whole thing was...well...perfect. Thing is, Snatch has all that. The levels are designed in such a way that everything is conveyed to you exactly when it needs to be conveyed. And you're the one who figures it out. The game doesn't just flash some text in front of you and hope you get it. Seriously, this is a fantastic example of level design that compliments the player's learning of the mechanics.
But what's the one thing Deus Ex had that Snatch doesn't? Save scumming. In Deus Ex, you could have a (pretty much) unlimited amount of save states wherever you wanted. In a stealth game especially, nothing can ruin the flow like long iteration time, so the designer of a stealth game must take every precaution to make sure that the player feels punishment for their mistakes, but can get right back into the game and try again with minimal frustration. That's where Snatch fails. I know how much the DigiPen devs hate the idea of saving a game, but in this game, there really needed to be some way to avoid restarting the entire level every time you die.
All-in-all, though, I still give this game a thumbs up. I'm holding back my ever-coveted seal of arbitrary approval for stumbling upon the aspect that makes good stealth games great, but I still say it's worth checking out. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay quiet.
Links
Gimme yo stuff: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=486
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Smiley Face all Over the Place
What can I say about Smiley Face all Over the Place? Well, It's a top-down Asteroids-ey shooter wherein you play as one of three very different stereotypical characters (kind of like in the "Zombies" mode of Call of Duty: Black Ops but without all the chemistry that made it worth putting up with their nonsense), each with different weapons, to take down hoards of triangles, squares, and one of those beach duck things from Super Mario Sunshine.
The characters are all designed fairly well. Their "bombs" all serve their purpose in a team situation; there's the shield, the buff and the destroyer. The 2 player mode is integrated well, too. At any time, you can simply press enter to have player 2 join. Of course, he will be controlled by the arrow keys, so he will be immediately hindered with the inability to move diagonally, but he also gets the mouse, which is much better for aiming than the "IJKL" keys. I imagine it works well that way. After all, I can't think of any way to avoid the arrow keys in this case, so giving the poor sap who got stuck with them a different advantage balances out the gameplay interestingly.
On the subject of balance, though, solo players will find that there's not much of it. One of the character's descriptions is that he is, quote, "BLOODY AWESOME," so the game is pretty much telling you outright who's the man to choose. Granted, I didn't try playing with the blue man who shoots arrows everywhere except where you aimed, but I think it's fair to take a character with that description out of the running.
The game looks fine, I guess. Nothing much to comment about on the aesthetics, but that still leaves the burning question: is it fun or interesting? Well, there's a bit of the former to be had, at least. Slow movement speed is a thorn in my side as always, and there are pretty much only two strategies in this game: circle strafe around the enemies and blast them to Valhalla or don't and die.
I haven't yet beaten the duckbill circle of death in the fifth wave, so at least this game has given me a reason to keep playing. All-in-all, it's a game. Yeah. One of those. That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay smiley
Links
pretty faces and smiley places: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24634
The characters are all designed fairly well. Their "bombs" all serve their purpose in a team situation; there's the shield, the buff and the destroyer. The 2 player mode is integrated well, too. At any time, you can simply press enter to have player 2 join. Of course, he will be controlled by the arrow keys, so he will be immediately hindered with the inability to move diagonally, but he also gets the mouse, which is much better for aiming than the "IJKL" keys. I imagine it works well that way. After all, I can't think of any way to avoid the arrow keys in this case, so giving the poor sap who got stuck with them a different advantage balances out the gameplay interestingly.
On the subject of balance, though, solo players will find that there's not much of it. One of the character's descriptions is that he is, quote, "BLOODY AWESOME," so the game is pretty much telling you outright who's the man to choose. Granted, I didn't try playing with the blue man who shoots arrows everywhere except where you aimed, but I think it's fair to take a character with that description out of the running.
The game looks fine, I guess. Nothing much to comment about on the aesthetics, but that still leaves the burning question: is it fun or interesting? Well, there's a bit of the former to be had, at least. Slow movement speed is a thorn in my side as always, and there are pretty much only two strategies in this game: circle strafe around the enemies and blast them to Valhalla or don't and die.
I haven't yet beaten the duckbill circle of death in the fifth wave, so at least this game has given me a reason to keep playing. All-in-all, it's a game. Yeah. One of those. That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay smiley
Links
pretty faces and smiley places: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24634
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