Okay, okay. I have some explaining to do.
I was at a debate tournament this weekend, which is why I didn't post a review yesterday. I just got home now and, honestly, am so tired that I might not even post a review tonight. I hope I'll make up for it with one of the most prolific weekends this blog will ever see.
It pains me greatly to not post a review tonight, so look out for it later. I project that if I decide to put one up, it'll be here by 11:00pm (Eastern Standard Time)
Peace,
-Dean
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Block Breakers
Well, for a game with such a simple title, this game certainly has more than its fair share of girth. The install file for this thing is almost a whole gigabyte (which, yes, is not much when dealing with games, but most of these games are 50MB, tops).
The question is, does Block Breakers squander its generous memory space? Or does it use all it has to deliver an experience as jam-packed as my hard drive?
Well, to be perfectly honest, this game isn't much in terms of depth. The gameplay is as simple as the title, though the control scheme is a bit wonky. There's an optional tutorial, but with out playing it, I'm not sure how you'd figure out that you use the arrow keys to attack when movement is already handled by WASD and the mouse buttons are completely unused. Oh well. The tutorial is short and sweet, so i can forgive this game for now.
This game is arcade-style, which is good for me because it only takes me about ten minutes to play it before I've gained enough info to write a review. The main selling point of this game is the aesthetic. They really try to impress you with their 3D rendering skills. I wasn't blown away, but honestly I think that's only because I was comparing it to bLight the whole time. True, the game isn't quite as pretty as bLight, but it's still got charm, personality, and enough polygons to make my graphics chip sweat a little.
The gameplay is absolute madness. Everything moves so quickly and sporadically that it's nigh-impossible to tell what you're doing. True, the characters are varied enough that you can spot the difference between you and an enemy easily, but that doesn't help when you're careening down into the void because you didn't see that hammer flying at the block you happened to be standing on. In fact, the game would be confusing even if it weren't for the crazily paced environment shifts and particle physic nightmares. See, you are given a hammer and some enemies. Every human instinct should tell you to aim your hammer at your enemies, but that doesn't do anything. What you're aiming for is the ground beneath them, which creates a weird disconnect that leaves the game feeling overall sloppy and imprecise.
As odd as this may seem, I think I'm going to end up recommending Block Breakers for the very reasons that I've just spent three paragraphs complaining about. See, a game like this isn't meant to test your skill, and the player should know that going into it. It's very similar in my opinion to a variation of Super Smash Bros. Brawl (oh dear, I've said it. Let the firestorm begin).
Like Brawl, the controls are messy and designed in such a way that you end up blindly mashing buttons rather than learning the nuances of the game. It's not a game you compete with your friends in. It's a game you play because you want to turn your brain off and escape for a bit. And escape I did. The music, graphics and gameplay meld together in such a way that I was unable to maintain my analytical viewpoint and instead just relaxed and played. And you know what? If a game can do that, I give it my seal of approval (even if falling into the depths of space every 2 nanoseconds does ruin the flow a bit).
Links
a Mario Party minigame on 'roids: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=8714
PS - the music keeps playing indefinitely, even after you close the game...WHY?!
The question is, does Block Breakers squander its generous memory space? Or does it use all it has to deliver an experience as jam-packed as my hard drive?
Well, to be perfectly honest, this game isn't much in terms of depth. The gameplay is as simple as the title, though the control scheme is a bit wonky. There's an optional tutorial, but with out playing it, I'm not sure how you'd figure out that you use the arrow keys to attack when movement is already handled by WASD and the mouse buttons are completely unused. Oh well. The tutorial is short and sweet, so i can forgive this game for now.
This game is arcade-style, which is good for me because it only takes me about ten minutes to play it before I've gained enough info to write a review. The main selling point of this game is the aesthetic. They really try to impress you with their 3D rendering skills. I wasn't blown away, but honestly I think that's only because I was comparing it to bLight the whole time. True, the game isn't quite as pretty as bLight, but it's still got charm, personality, and enough polygons to make my graphics chip sweat a little.
The gameplay is absolute madness. Everything moves so quickly and sporadically that it's nigh-impossible to tell what you're doing. True, the characters are varied enough that you can spot the difference between you and an enemy easily, but that doesn't help when you're careening down into the void because you didn't see that hammer flying at the block you happened to be standing on. In fact, the game would be confusing even if it weren't for the crazily paced environment shifts and particle physic nightmares. See, you are given a hammer and some enemies. Every human instinct should tell you to aim your hammer at your enemies, but that doesn't do anything. What you're aiming for is the ground beneath them, which creates a weird disconnect that leaves the game feeling overall sloppy and imprecise.
As odd as this may seem, I think I'm going to end up recommending Block Breakers for the very reasons that I've just spent three paragraphs complaining about. See, a game like this isn't meant to test your skill, and the player should know that going into it. It's very similar in my opinion to a variation of Super Smash Bros. Brawl (oh dear, I've said it. Let the firestorm begin).
Like Brawl, the controls are messy and designed in such a way that you end up blindly mashing buttons rather than learning the nuances of the game. It's not a game you compete with your friends in. It's a game you play because you want to turn your brain off and escape for a bit. And escape I did. The music, graphics and gameplay meld together in such a way that I was unable to maintain my analytical viewpoint and instead just relaxed and played. And you know what? If a game can do that, I give it my seal of approval (even if falling into the depths of space every 2 nanoseconds does ruin the flow a bit).
Links
a Mario Party minigame on 'roids: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=8714
PS - the music keeps playing indefinitely, even after you close the game...WHY?!
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Blitzkrieg
Okay, folks. You know the drill. Wednesday = lousy review day, so bear with me.
Actually, this week it seems Wednesday also = lousy game day. Remember when I said that Berserk was the most average game I've played? Well Blitzkrieg is literally Berserk. The two games are nigh identical.
Same controls, same graphical style, and I swear one of the enemies is a direct copypasta of one of the enemies from Berserk. The two games were made by separate students in the same grade in the same academic year, too, so maybe the two teams were collaborating at some point and then there was some sort of split, so each team took their ball of source code and went home. I'm not sure. If this post somehow makes it to someone who knows, be sure to comment away (and so, the first step toward selling out was taken).
The only real criticism I can level at Blitzkrieg is that the difficulty curve is absolutely off the walls. The first 10 or so levels are walks through the park that anyone with two functioning hands should be able to get through on their first shot. Just when I was ready to declare that the game was too worried that the player might die every now and again, I hit a brick wall of a level that took me about 5 tries to get past. Not even three levels after that one, the difficulty was reduced to zero and literally all you had to do to beat the stage was hold "up." A bit more care in handling the difficulty curve would have been greatly appreciated.
Apart from that, the flow isn't executed very well. To begin with, the movement speed is sluggish enough to get slightly annoying. The real flow killer, however, is that every time you clear a level you have to wait for an obnoxious and unskippable score counter to do a flirtatious little dance for you.
Well that's all the time I have for now. Honestly I'm relieved that an insubstantial game like Blitzkrieg should fall on my off day.
Until next time, stay glowy
Links
Berse-uh-I mean-Blitzkrieg: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25881
Actually, this week it seems Wednesday also = lousy game day. Remember when I said that Berserk was the most average game I've played? Well Blitzkrieg is literally Berserk. The two games are nigh identical.
Same controls, same graphical style, and I swear one of the enemies is a direct copypasta of one of the enemies from Berserk. The two games were made by separate students in the same grade in the same academic year, too, so maybe the two teams were collaborating at some point and then there was some sort of split, so each team took their ball of source code and went home. I'm not sure. If this post somehow makes it to someone who knows, be sure to comment away (and so, the first step toward selling out was taken).
The only real criticism I can level at Blitzkrieg is that the difficulty curve is absolutely off the walls. The first 10 or so levels are walks through the park that anyone with two functioning hands should be able to get through on their first shot. Just when I was ready to declare that the game was too worried that the player might die every now and again, I hit a brick wall of a level that took me about 5 tries to get past. Not even three levels after that one, the difficulty was reduced to zero and literally all you had to do to beat the stage was hold "up." A bit more care in handling the difficulty curve would have been greatly appreciated.
Apart from that, the flow isn't executed very well. To begin with, the movement speed is sluggish enough to get slightly annoying. The real flow killer, however, is that every time you clear a level you have to wait for an obnoxious and unskippable score counter to do a flirtatious little dance for you.
Well that's all the time I have for now. Honestly I'm relieved that an insubstantial game like Blitzkrieg should fall on my off day.
Until next time, stay glowy
Links
Berse-uh-I mean-Blitzkrieg: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25881
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
BLINK
Alright, folks, I've got a Physics test and an English paper to deal with, so I'm going to keep this snappy.
Blink is good. It's not great, but it's good. The best way to describe it is budget Braid. Yes, the two games have completely different mechanics and the playstyle of one is unlike the playstyle of the other, aesthetically the resemblance between the two games is uncanny. The suspicions starts when the player hears the classy piano piece being played in the background, which sounds almost exactly like the background music for Braid. Toss in a character with a frighteningly proportioned head, a stylized world with a minimalist graphical style and world manipulation mechanics and the similarities become hard to miss.
Like Braid, this game is going to take me a while to finish because the puzzles to get pretty difficult pretty fast and I don't have the time to really think of solutions now. Even though I didn't play through the game, I got a sense for its mechanics, which really do hold up well.
Because of my limited experience with the game and my cramped schedule, I'm going to end this little analysis with some closing remarks. The game is pleasant and thought provoking if a bit frustrating. If you like puzzles, check it out. If not, don't.
Links
ironically titled game because robots don't blink... https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25909
P.S- the development team also has a funny title of "team alien" with a logo of a robot. It's the little things that keep ya goin.
Blink is good. It's not great, but it's good. The best way to describe it is budget Braid. Yes, the two games have completely different mechanics and the playstyle of one is unlike the playstyle of the other, aesthetically the resemblance between the two games is uncanny. The suspicions starts when the player hears the classy piano piece being played in the background, which sounds almost exactly like the background music for Braid. Toss in a character with a frighteningly proportioned head, a stylized world with a minimalist graphical style and world manipulation mechanics and the similarities become hard to miss.
Like Braid, this game is going to take me a while to finish because the puzzles to get pretty difficult pretty fast and I don't have the time to really think of solutions now. Even though I didn't play through the game, I got a sense for its mechanics, which really do hold up well.
Because of my limited experience with the game and my cramped schedule, I'm going to end this little analysis with some closing remarks. The game is pleasant and thought provoking if a bit frustrating. If you like puzzles, check it out. If not, don't.
Links
ironically titled game because robots don't blink... https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25909
P.S- the development team also has a funny title of "team alien" with a logo of a robot. It's the little things that keep ya goin.
Monday, January 28, 2013
bLight
oh dear, where to begin with this one?
I suppose the first thing I should mention is the first thing that intrigued my about this game: the graphical style. Hot damn this game is pretty. I say that not only because the graphical quality is enough to rival even the most affluent of indie developers but also just because the game looks beautiful aesthetically. Like Aphotic Ascent, the game plays with the whole Light/Dark dichotomy, except this game is a lot more pleasing to the eye. For starters, the light is colorful. That's more than just a childish desire for pretty colors, mind you. Visually, more colors are simply prettier to look at. The game is very vibrant for the most part, which really makes the enemies stand out. When you go over a dark area to introduce light to it, you can see the shadows being replaced by twinkly moss, the character designs are wonderful...it's just a damn fine game to look at. Certainly the prettiest game on the list so far. But, the question still remains...how does it play?
Well, for the most part, the controls are solid. The setup is simple, but the implementation of the controls is kind of complex. I'll try to summarize it, but you would get a much better understanding from actually playing the game (yeah, big surprise). Basically, you WASD to move and use the arrow keys to change into any 4 colors: blue, red, yellow and green. These colors correspond not only to which kind of teammates you can spawn, but also the attack formation your teammates will take. This gives the game a good amount of complexity, leaving the player to constantly analyze in his head which position he or she wants to be in strategically while also needing to consider which enemies to spawn. In addition, teammates can be combined together to form significantly stronger teammates, but there are only a small amount of combined teammates you can have on the field at one time, giving the player even more to think about.The gameplay as a result could get very frantic as a result.
It could...but it doesn't.
The main flaw of the game is that it's just way too easy. In fact, it's so easy it becomes literally impossible. Allow me to clarify: the game starts up difficult enough when you only have a limited amount of troops to work with, but eventually you're so bogged down with troop-spawning crystals that every slot is filled up and you still have about 300 crystals in your inventory just wasting away. Also, the only way you can get rid of teammates and free up some space for more teammates is to have enemies kill them. Unfortunately, if you're like me and filled up half the screen with healing creatures, you're SOL because the little buggers never die. It got to the point where I needed to collect the power of blue (yes, that's actually how the game refers to it) and spawn some defensive guys, but there was no room for any more troops. I suppose this is why the game decided never to give me the power of blue, thus preventing me from advancing.
Perhaps this was a glitch, but still. The low difficulty is noticeable and spamming monsters is just too effective a strategy. This game would have really benefited from a fratricide button so you could clear out some space to rearrange your team.
This flaw is really glaring, and makes the game kind of unfun after 20 or so minutes of play. Nevertheless, I recommend it. Most of these games aren't 20 minutes long anyway, and the 20 minutes I had with this game were some of the best I've had since I started the list. This game gets my seal of approval.
Until next time, stay beautiful (hey, it actually works here!)
Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18531
I suppose the first thing I should mention is the first thing that intrigued my about this game: the graphical style. Hot damn this game is pretty. I say that not only because the graphical quality is enough to rival even the most affluent of indie developers but also just because the game looks beautiful aesthetically. Like Aphotic Ascent, the game plays with the whole Light/Dark dichotomy, except this game is a lot more pleasing to the eye. For starters, the light is colorful. That's more than just a childish desire for pretty colors, mind you. Visually, more colors are simply prettier to look at. The game is very vibrant for the most part, which really makes the enemies stand out. When you go over a dark area to introduce light to it, you can see the shadows being replaced by twinkly moss, the character designs are wonderful...it's just a damn fine game to look at. Certainly the prettiest game on the list so far. But, the question still remains...how does it play?
Well, for the most part, the controls are solid. The setup is simple, but the implementation of the controls is kind of complex. I'll try to summarize it, but you would get a much better understanding from actually playing the game (yeah, big surprise). Basically, you WASD to move and use the arrow keys to change into any 4 colors: blue, red, yellow and green. These colors correspond not only to which kind of teammates you can spawn, but also the attack formation your teammates will take. This gives the game a good amount of complexity, leaving the player to constantly analyze in his head which position he or she wants to be in strategically while also needing to consider which enemies to spawn. In addition, teammates can be combined together to form significantly stronger teammates, but there are only a small amount of combined teammates you can have on the field at one time, giving the player even more to think about.The gameplay as a result could get very frantic as a result.
It could...but it doesn't.
The main flaw of the game is that it's just way too easy. In fact, it's so easy it becomes literally impossible. Allow me to clarify: the game starts up difficult enough when you only have a limited amount of troops to work with, but eventually you're so bogged down with troop-spawning crystals that every slot is filled up and you still have about 300 crystals in your inventory just wasting away. Also, the only way you can get rid of teammates and free up some space for more teammates is to have enemies kill them. Unfortunately, if you're like me and filled up half the screen with healing creatures, you're SOL because the little buggers never die. It got to the point where I needed to collect the power of blue (yes, that's actually how the game refers to it) and spawn some defensive guys, but there was no room for any more troops. I suppose this is why the game decided never to give me the power of blue, thus preventing me from advancing.
Perhaps this was a glitch, but still. The low difficulty is noticeable and spamming monsters is just too effective a strategy. This game would have really benefited from a fratricide button so you could clear out some space to rearrange your team.
This flaw is really glaring, and makes the game kind of unfun after 20 or so minutes of play. Nevertheless, I recommend it. Most of these games aren't 20 minutes long anyway, and the 20 minutes I had with this game were some of the best I've had since I started the list. This game gets my seal of approval.
Until next time, stay beautiful (hey, it actually works here!)
Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18531
BlackOut
The amount of games that simply don't work on this list is starting ti get disheartening. I've reviewed 35 games so far and something like 5 of them gave me some sort of error screen when I tried to play them. That's not even counting the ones like Apoch, which broke down after I played it for a bit.
It's a shame too because BlackOut looked like a really fun game. The screenshots were promising and it advertises itself as having "incredible replay value." Unfortunately, I can't be the judge of that because "the side-by-side configuration is incorrect" (honestly sometimes I think programmers just make stuff up).
Well I'm not going to waste any more time on this because I want to get a legitimate review out my the end of the day. Stay beautiful.
Links
*sigh*: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26138
It's a shame too because BlackOut looked like a really fun game. The screenshots were promising and it advertises itself as having "incredible replay value." Unfortunately, I can't be the judge of that because "the side-by-side configuration is incorrect" (honestly sometimes I think programmers just make stuff up).
Well I'm not going to waste any more time on this because I want to get a legitimate review out my the end of the day. Stay beautiful.
Links
*sigh*: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26138
Sunday, January 27, 2013
BlackHole
Ok, we need to talk about conveyance.
Conveyance is one of the most important aspects of game design. period. People who actually know something about game design will be angry with a game developer who doesn't incorporate it into their games; and people who aren't familiar with game design will be angry as well, even if they don't know exactly why.
If you don't know what conveyance is, you should watch Egoraptor's Sequelitis on Megaman. He explains it much better than I ever could. I'll provide a link below. Basically, conveyance is how well you teach the player how to play your game. Some games do this with button tutorials (which I loathe), but really well designed games will be able to teach the player through the mechanics alone. Usually, conveyance refers to teaching players how to use the controls they already know in order to progress through the game. In games with bad conveyance, however, it can sometimes be difficult to even learn which buttons you are supposed to press
And herein lies the most basic problem with BlackHole.
See, if you're dealing with a controller, there are usually a maximum of 10 buttons that you have to work with. Because of this, it's acceptable for controller-oriented games to not explain which buttons do what, because the player can just press all the buttons and learn for themselves in a matter of seconds. This is more rewarding to the player than is having his or her hand held through a button tutorial.
Then again, if you're dealing with a computer, there are often more than 100 buttons that the player has to work with. Most PC games stick with a generally accepted button layout so as not to confuse the players. WASD to move, mouse to aim, click for action. BlackHole keeps to this formula for the most part, except WASD and the mouse both aim, leaving no feasible control for movement. In order to move forward, you have to press "r", and to move backward, you press "f".
Now why did I spend the last 5 paragraphs of this little analysis ranting about that? Because it took me like 15 minutes to figure out how to move forward! Granted, "r" and "f" are close to the WASD keys, so they should be among the first buttons the player presses for experimentation. However, unless you hold the keys down, the speed boost you gain from hitting them is negligible, which lead me to believe that the keys did nothing. I suppose that's why they put a speed counter on the HUD, so you can see that pressing "r" causes the value to shoot up a bit, but still; a "how to play" screen would have been appreciated in this case.
Other than that, BlackHole is actually a really entertaining game. There's no specific goal to accomplish, but there are a good variety of missions to select, all available from the start, leaving the player to decide which game mode he or she wants to play at all times. I like this in a game, personally.
The incentive for completing missions is that you get money, which you can spend on upgrades, which you will need if you want to stand a chance in some of the harder missions. This is a good system at its core, but the execution is a little sloppy in BlackHole because you can just keep playing an easy mission for 10 minutes and get enough money to upgrade your laser to its maximum potential, at which point there's very little that can touch you. Seriously, once you get the laser to the highest level even the enemy flagships go down easier than a fly in a hurricane.
In short, once you figure out the controls of BlackHole, it becomes a fun experience that's very reminiscent of the dogfights from Star Wars: Battlefront II. In fact, The graphics rival those of Battlefront II (at times...kind of) and the sound direction is, in my opinion, superior. That alone earns this game my seal of approval
Until next time, stay spacey.
Links
sequelitis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM
Wholly Black: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=549
Conveyance is one of the most important aspects of game design. period. People who actually know something about game design will be angry with a game developer who doesn't incorporate it into their games; and people who aren't familiar with game design will be angry as well, even if they don't know exactly why.
If you don't know what conveyance is, you should watch Egoraptor's Sequelitis on Megaman. He explains it much better than I ever could. I'll provide a link below. Basically, conveyance is how well you teach the player how to play your game. Some games do this with button tutorials (which I loathe), but really well designed games will be able to teach the player through the mechanics alone. Usually, conveyance refers to teaching players how to use the controls they already know in order to progress through the game. In games with bad conveyance, however, it can sometimes be difficult to even learn which buttons you are supposed to press
And herein lies the most basic problem with BlackHole.
See, if you're dealing with a controller, there are usually a maximum of 10 buttons that you have to work with. Because of this, it's acceptable for controller-oriented games to not explain which buttons do what, because the player can just press all the buttons and learn for themselves in a matter of seconds. This is more rewarding to the player than is having his or her hand held through a button tutorial.
Then again, if you're dealing with a computer, there are often more than 100 buttons that the player has to work with. Most PC games stick with a generally accepted button layout so as not to confuse the players. WASD to move, mouse to aim, click for action. BlackHole keeps to this formula for the most part, except WASD and the mouse both aim, leaving no feasible control for movement. In order to move forward, you have to press "r", and to move backward, you press "f".
Now why did I spend the last 5 paragraphs of this little analysis ranting about that? Because it took me like 15 minutes to figure out how to move forward! Granted, "r" and "f" are close to the WASD keys, so they should be among the first buttons the player presses for experimentation. However, unless you hold the keys down, the speed boost you gain from hitting them is negligible, which lead me to believe that the keys did nothing. I suppose that's why they put a speed counter on the HUD, so you can see that pressing "r" causes the value to shoot up a bit, but still; a "how to play" screen would have been appreciated in this case.
Other than that, BlackHole is actually a really entertaining game. There's no specific goal to accomplish, but there are a good variety of missions to select, all available from the start, leaving the player to decide which game mode he or she wants to play at all times. I like this in a game, personally.
The incentive for completing missions is that you get money, which you can spend on upgrades, which you will need if you want to stand a chance in some of the harder missions. This is a good system at its core, but the execution is a little sloppy in BlackHole because you can just keep playing an easy mission for 10 minutes and get enough money to upgrade your laser to its maximum potential, at which point there's very little that can touch you. Seriously, once you get the laser to the highest level even the enemy flagships go down easier than a fly in a hurricane.
In short, once you figure out the controls of BlackHole, it becomes a fun experience that's very reminiscent of the dogfights from Star Wars: Battlefront II. In fact, The graphics rival those of Battlefront II (at times...kind of) and the sound direction is, in my opinion, superior. That alone earns this game my seal of approval
Until next time, stay spacey.
Links
sequelitis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM
Wholly Black: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=549
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