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
