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.