When I play a game on this list, there are 3 reasons that I keep playing.
1) I'm having too much ding dang darn fun to stop.
2) I'm interested in how the plot develops from the point I'm at.
3) The game has given me so little to write about that I have to keep playing lest my review look more like a haiku.
Now you tell me...which of these things is not like the others?
Unfortunately, Robotstacle Course held my attention for the third reason and the third reason alone. What makes me even more angry is that after playing to the point of mind-numbing boredom, I still don't have much to say. The game is decently put together, but that's all it is. Everything works, albeit not well.
All right, there are some specific problems I had with the game, though it's mostly nitpicky stuff. For example, light blue is the predominant color used in the visual design, yet the soundtrack wants to set a frantic "hurry up, you're going to die" mood. Contradictory design is like the easiest flaw to avoid...how do you even make a mistake like that? Whatever...not a big deal.
The platforming can be a bit slippery some times. One notable segment had me jumping at the same bit of wall, changing nothing about my strategy, for more than a minute before it worked. Sometimes the platforms are a bit too high, sometimes your momentum is a bit too great, and the whole thing just feels kind of sloppy.
I do like the concept of placing certain platforms around the room prior to platforming to facilitate your completion of the level, but such a mechanic should really only be the icing on the cake rather than the spongey, fluffy goodness that holds it all together.
In short, this game isn't poorly designed. There's nothing about it that makes me too angry. But it's not fun, it's not interesting, and there are much better ways to spend your time. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay on the DAMN PLATFORM YOU STUPID HUNK OF METAL
...okay so maybe I did get a little mad.
Links
Oh look, there's wordplay in the title. How original: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26697
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Robbin Hook
oh, I get it...cuz it sounds like Robin Hood, but he uses a hook to rob people...so he's a robbin' hook...hyeh..
In the past, I've had good experiences with swinging games, especially on this list. Something about Spidermanning through levels at high speeds just tickles my brain.
So take it with a grain of salt when I say Robbin Hook has the most unintuitive swinging mechanics I've experienced in a game on this list so far. In context, that's not really a bad thing. That's like saying your Siberian husky isn't quite as intimidating as a grizzly bear.
Really, the mechanics are fine, they just aren't quite as intuitive as the others, and what's so disheartening about this to me is that I have no idea why. It's just all too common a problem that I lose all my momentum for one reason or another, be it that I grazed the ground or wrapped around a platform or whatever else. Also, why the hell does my hook stay deployed when I hit the ground? I can't see a single scenario in which that would improve anything about the game. Robbin Hook had a crapload of playtesters, too. Not one of them decided to raise their hand and say, "uh, yeah. This is good and all, but keeping my hook deployed 2 feet away from me is kinda dumb."
So yeah. I don't really have much more to say other than casual and unspecific praise. The levels are thoughtfully designed, the menu screen is cute (although why they decided to make the "start game" button a tiny ass notebook that's about the least apparent thing in the room is beyond me), and I like the use of a level select with all levels unlocked from the get-go.
All in all...is good. That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay kleptomaniacal.
Links
I steal ur shiz: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18537
In the past, I've had good experiences with swinging games, especially on this list. Something about Spidermanning through levels at high speeds just tickles my brain.
So take it with a grain of salt when I say Robbin Hook has the most unintuitive swinging mechanics I've experienced in a game on this list so far. In context, that's not really a bad thing. That's like saying your Siberian husky isn't quite as intimidating as a grizzly bear.
Really, the mechanics are fine, they just aren't quite as intuitive as the others, and what's so disheartening about this to me is that I have no idea why. It's just all too common a problem that I lose all my momentum for one reason or another, be it that I grazed the ground or wrapped around a platform or whatever else. Also, why the hell does my hook stay deployed when I hit the ground? I can't see a single scenario in which that would improve anything about the game. Robbin Hook had a crapload of playtesters, too. Not one of them decided to raise their hand and say, "uh, yeah. This is good and all, but keeping my hook deployed 2 feet away from me is kinda dumb."
So yeah. I don't really have much more to say other than casual and unspecific praise. The levels are thoughtfully designed, the menu screen is cute (although why they decided to make the "start game" button a tiny ass notebook that's about the least apparent thing in the room is beyond me), and I like the use of a level select with all levels unlocked from the get-go.
All in all...is good. That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay kleptomaniacal.
Links
I steal ur shiz: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18537
Monday, August 5, 2013
Rhinopocalypse (kinda)
Well, I promised you 4 reviews, today, and I was getting really tired after Rex Texas, but I'm a man of my word, so I decided to pull through for Rhinopocalypse, but it appears that karma was in my favor, because the download is not yet available. Yaaay! But of course, that means that in order to keep my integrity, I'll have to check up on this game every so often and review it if the download becomes available before the year's end. Booo.
The next game on the list looks interesting, so maybe I'll give it a shot, but right now, my compulsion to play System Shock 2 is much more powerful, and when I start playing System Shock 2, I'm usually too brain-dead to think about reviewing a game afterward, so we'll see how this goes.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay as dishonest as it takes to keep being honest. myaw haw hawwwww
The next game on the list looks interesting, so maybe I'll give it a shot, but right now, my compulsion to play System Shock 2 is much more powerful, and when I start playing System Shock 2, I'm usually too brain-dead to think about reviewing a game afterward, so we'll see how this goes.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay as dishonest as it takes to keep being honest. myaw haw hawwwww
Rex Texas
Whooo-ee, git along, lil' doggy!
I was amused by how little the developers of this little gem seemed to know about what a stereotypical Texan looks like, because for a guy whose name translates to "King of Texas," the titular character looks less like a cowboy and more like "Rico Rodriguez Jr." It's weird, because the icon for this game is a guy in a 10-gallon hat assembled about as crudely as one would expect his moral and intellectual spirits to be (just kidding, Texas. I love you <3).
anyhow, my relative impression of Rex Texas, if drawn on a graph, would sort of resemble a beautiful Texas mountainside. For all who would rather I do the visualizing for them, that looks a bit like this:
/|
/ |
/ |
/ |
/ |
____/ |
Boy howdy, I hate making half-assed ASCII art. The things I do for my nigh-nonexistent audience...
Now, let's break that graph down a bit, shall we? Let's start with the ground-level line at the beginning. first impressions of Rex Texas were a bit shaky. This may have been because the combination of amoxicillin and clavulanic acid in my system has basically reduced my digestive system to a porridge palatable only to those troll-things from The Hobbit, but I was nauseous within the first 5 minutes of play because the developers put way too much stake in the "world" part of the word "overworld" and designed the damn thing as a sphere that shifts along with you, making me feel almost seasick. Not only that, but dying was way too easy. In addition, I was not a fan of this game's "read a barely intelligible sign and hope for the best" method of conveyance which left me confused and completely out of flow.
I started climbing the metaphorical mountain when I entered my first cave and got my first powerup, the double jump. Suddenly, traversing the map was more fun than it was in Just Cause 2. There are few better feelings that the DigiPen Game Gallery has made me feel than the one I get from watching Riccito hookshot onto a mountain and then do a little tumble-roll up onto a cliff. My immersion only increased as I explored the cave more and found more powerups that made exploring the overworld even more enjoyable and rewarding. It was honestly some of the most fun I've had in a very long time, and I've replayed more than a few of my favorite games this summer. It wasn't long before I found myself adding little games to the game, such as "hey, let's see if I can clear this cave without having Riccito touch the ground once" I couldn't help but notice, however, that the one thing this game lacked was direction.
Sure, you can occasionally stumble onto a map that points to a particular place on the map and says "you should totally check this place out," but even Just Cause 2 was able to justify your crazy mass murdering and exploration somehow. In this game, there's just kinda nothing. "This won't be a problem," I thought, "as long as the game lets me continue from where I left off after I exit." After all, this game is basically designed to be a toybox to distract you from your miserable life for a few wonderful moments before you go back to filling in timesheets, and being able to pick it up and put it down is essential to a game like that. Otherwise, it would make as much sense as an action figures that vaporizes once you stop playing with it.
And, since you already saw the graph, I'm pretty sure you all know where I'm going with this. I really hate it when developers forget that people might not want to sit through your game in one go. It doesn't matter how fun your game is, people aren't always going to have 3 hours free to get through your whole fiasco. That's why I was never a fan of the early NES games, but even with those, you could just pause the game and turn off your TV, but a computer is a device that gets absent-mindedly turned off and on all the time. Yeah, that's not my most compelling argument, but still. Learn how to make your game save a player's progress, dammit!
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay a-grapplin'
Links
Text Lexus: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=1408
I was amused by how little the developers of this little gem seemed to know about what a stereotypical Texan looks like, because for a guy whose name translates to "King of Texas," the titular character looks less like a cowboy and more like "Rico Rodriguez Jr." It's weird, because the icon for this game is a guy in a 10-gallon hat assembled about as crudely as one would expect his moral and intellectual spirits to be (just kidding, Texas. I love you <3).
anyhow, my relative impression of Rex Texas, if drawn on a graph, would sort of resemble a beautiful Texas mountainside. For all who would rather I do the visualizing for them, that looks a bit like this:
/|
/ |
/ |
/ |
/ |
____/ |
Boy howdy, I hate making half-assed ASCII art. The things I do for my nigh-nonexistent audience...
Now, let's break that graph down a bit, shall we? Let's start with the ground-level line at the beginning. first impressions of Rex Texas were a bit shaky. This may have been because the combination of amoxicillin and clavulanic acid in my system has basically reduced my digestive system to a porridge palatable only to those troll-things from The Hobbit, but I was nauseous within the first 5 minutes of play because the developers put way too much stake in the "world" part of the word "overworld" and designed the damn thing as a sphere that shifts along with you, making me feel almost seasick. Not only that, but dying was way too easy. In addition, I was not a fan of this game's "read a barely intelligible sign and hope for the best" method of conveyance which left me confused and completely out of flow.
I started climbing the metaphorical mountain when I entered my first cave and got my first powerup, the double jump. Suddenly, traversing the map was more fun than it was in Just Cause 2. There are few better feelings that the DigiPen Game Gallery has made me feel than the one I get from watching Riccito hookshot onto a mountain and then do a little tumble-roll up onto a cliff. My immersion only increased as I explored the cave more and found more powerups that made exploring the overworld even more enjoyable and rewarding. It was honestly some of the most fun I've had in a very long time, and I've replayed more than a few of my favorite games this summer. It wasn't long before I found myself adding little games to the game, such as "hey, let's see if I can clear this cave without having Riccito touch the ground once" I couldn't help but notice, however, that the one thing this game lacked was direction.
Sure, you can occasionally stumble onto a map that points to a particular place on the map and says "you should totally check this place out," but even Just Cause 2 was able to justify your crazy mass murdering and exploration somehow. In this game, there's just kinda nothing. "This won't be a problem," I thought, "as long as the game lets me continue from where I left off after I exit." After all, this game is basically designed to be a toybox to distract you from your miserable life for a few wonderful moments before you go back to filling in timesheets, and being able to pick it up and put it down is essential to a game like that. Otherwise, it would make as much sense as an action figures that vaporizes once you stop playing with it.
And, since you already saw the graph, I'm pretty sure you all know where I'm going with this. I really hate it when developers forget that people might not want to sit through your game in one go. It doesn't matter how fun your game is, people aren't always going to have 3 hours free to get through your whole fiasco. That's why I was never a fan of the early NES games, but even with those, you could just pause the game and turn off your TV, but a computer is a device that gets absent-mindedly turned off and on all the time. Yeah, that's not my most compelling argument, but still. Learn how to make your game save a player's progress, dammit!
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay a-grapplin'
Links
Text Lexus: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=1408
Return to the Sky
This game surprised me right off the bat by having something I don't think any other game on this list did: an expository voiceover! While chilled by the professionalism displayed in this introduction, I was not terribly interested in which part of the sky I'm returning to nor why I want to return there in the first place. The title established my mission and that was enough for me, so I dove right in.
Now, a returning reader may know that I'm not a fan of pixel art in modern games. I find it to be pretentious and unnecessary. However, the pixelated art style in Return to the Sky commits none of the sins I normally associate with pixel art while also being pretty damn breathtaking, especially the big, omnipotent skull of purple smoke chasing you around everywhere. I like the kind of art that calls back to the old days, but is beautiful enough in its complexity that it never could have existed back then. The art style herein is distinct, awe-inspiring, and nostalgic without any of those particular flavors becoming overbearing, so, in short, A+.
Many people disagree with me on this, but I feel that the way a game looks is not quite as important as how it sounds, and while the sound direction in Return to the Sky isn't quite as fantastic as its visual design, it certainly gets the job done. Your ears won't be crying for relief, but they won't be calling for more, either. What the sound direction does is set the mood, which is the most important thing it can do. Even if you didn't see the game, you would feel like you were trapped in the darkest part of Aladdin.
But I don't think anyone would deny that how a game feels is the most important aesthetic sense of all, and with a few minor tweaks here and there, Return to the Sky could feel downright amazing. It already flows beautifully with its thoughtfully placed platforms that force you to learn the mechanics through the mechanics alone (a reading from the first book of Egoraptor), but there's a bit of a delay between your pressing the jump button and your character actually jumping. Your character is athletic enough to linger in the air so that this isn't much of a problem, but jumping at the very end of a platform is a habit you will have to unlearn for this game.
In my Resonance review, I said I like games that challenge my mind as well as my reflexes, and I wasn't necessarily talking about philosophically-charged niche games like Deus Ex. This game is a more colloquial example of what I'm talking about. I don't need enough mind food to go ahead and white a dissertation on the nature of man; all I want is to be able to nod my head and go "oh yeah. That was the right thing to do, and I know exactly why," which is a feeling this game conveys to me beautifully. This one gets my seal of approval.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay skybound.
Links
Wheee: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26721
Now, a returning reader may know that I'm not a fan of pixel art in modern games. I find it to be pretentious and unnecessary. However, the pixelated art style in Return to the Sky commits none of the sins I normally associate with pixel art while also being pretty damn breathtaking, especially the big, omnipotent skull of purple smoke chasing you around everywhere. I like the kind of art that calls back to the old days, but is beautiful enough in its complexity that it never could have existed back then. The art style herein is distinct, awe-inspiring, and nostalgic without any of those particular flavors becoming overbearing, so, in short, A+.
Many people disagree with me on this, but I feel that the way a game looks is not quite as important as how it sounds, and while the sound direction in Return to the Sky isn't quite as fantastic as its visual design, it certainly gets the job done. Your ears won't be crying for relief, but they won't be calling for more, either. What the sound direction does is set the mood, which is the most important thing it can do. Even if you didn't see the game, you would feel like you were trapped in the darkest part of Aladdin.
But I don't think anyone would deny that how a game feels is the most important aesthetic sense of all, and with a few minor tweaks here and there, Return to the Sky could feel downright amazing. It already flows beautifully with its thoughtfully placed platforms that force you to learn the mechanics through the mechanics alone (a reading from the first book of Egoraptor), but there's a bit of a delay between your pressing the jump button and your character actually jumping. Your character is athletic enough to linger in the air so that this isn't much of a problem, but jumping at the very end of a platform is a habit you will have to unlearn for this game.
In my Resonance review, I said I like games that challenge my mind as well as my reflexes, and I wasn't necessarily talking about philosophically-charged niche games like Deus Ex. This game is a more colloquial example of what I'm talking about. I don't need enough mind food to go ahead and white a dissertation on the nature of man; all I want is to be able to nod my head and go "oh yeah. That was the right thing to do, and I know exactly why," which is a feeling this game conveys to me beautifully. This one gets my seal of approval.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay skybound.
Links
Wheee: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26721
Return of the Fallen Lords
Due to my abnormally unforgiving schedule recently, I was not able to keep up with my schedule, as you may have noticed. I was rather religiously adhering to a "2 reviews every other day" policy. In the name of shirking trends, I have vowed to get back on schedule today, no matter how crappy these antibiotics are making me feel. I've estimated that to take about 4 reviews, so these next four are going to gradually decline in quality, kind of like my intestines at the moment.
Return of the Fallen Lords is an arcade shooter wherein you defend a tower and/or yourself from the minions of Thanatos, whose job descriptions are basically "be a jerkface." You move with the WASD keys and shoot hammers in any of 8 directions with the arrow keys.
Especially in Hammerthon mode, the enemy placement seems to be bullet-hell inspired, which seems like it should make for buckets of fun, given the octodirectional projectile you're equipped with. Note, however, that in any decent bullet-hell game, you can move as you shoot. In RotFL, you get locked in place whenever you attack. This is a rather detrimental design choice because it reduces the gameplay to a very formulaic "line your character up with the enemy, tank a few hits inevitably, kill one enemy, rinse and repeat." Since it's infinitely more difficult to determine the path of an unbending diagonal line than it is that of a straight horizontal or vertical line, you're pretty much only going to use 4 of the 8 directions, which makes the game smell of missed potential somewhat.
Other than that, Tower mode feels like a contrived add-on rather than an integral part of the game, which is weird because Tower mode is what is automatically selected when you start the game. You're not given enough indication as to when more tower pieces become available for you to pick up, and the tower has so much health that it's basically equivalent to a baited tree stand and the enemies are deer. As all of us Animal Planet viewers know, that's illegal because it takes all the challenge out of hunting, so why would you work a mechanic like that into the main part of your game?
So yeah, stick to Hammerthon mode, but even there the air is thick with contrivance. Why does the rock elemental seem to wreck the enemies' shops way more than the other elementals that are just as plentiful, for example?
This game does demonstrate a great aesthetic sense with a 3D design that not many games on this list can match, although this game did come out this year, so the technology was in its favor. Even past that, though, there are some cute details that were able to elicit a smile from even jaded ol' me. My favorite is that when you mouse over the "quit" button, your character does an overly dramatic pratfall flat on his back, so at least the last thing I saw before I walked away was charming.
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay fallin'
Links
grrr smash raar: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26714
Return of the Fallen Lords is an arcade shooter wherein you defend a tower and/or yourself from the minions of Thanatos, whose job descriptions are basically "be a jerkface." You move with the WASD keys and shoot hammers in any of 8 directions with the arrow keys.
Especially in Hammerthon mode, the enemy placement seems to be bullet-hell inspired, which seems like it should make for buckets of fun, given the octodirectional projectile you're equipped with. Note, however, that in any decent bullet-hell game, you can move as you shoot. In RotFL, you get locked in place whenever you attack. This is a rather detrimental design choice because it reduces the gameplay to a very formulaic "line your character up with the enemy, tank a few hits inevitably, kill one enemy, rinse and repeat." Since it's infinitely more difficult to determine the path of an unbending diagonal line than it is that of a straight horizontal or vertical line, you're pretty much only going to use 4 of the 8 directions, which makes the game smell of missed potential somewhat.
Other than that, Tower mode feels like a contrived add-on rather than an integral part of the game, which is weird because Tower mode is what is automatically selected when you start the game. You're not given enough indication as to when more tower pieces become available for you to pick up, and the tower has so much health that it's basically equivalent to a baited tree stand and the enemies are deer. As all of us Animal Planet viewers know, that's illegal because it takes all the challenge out of hunting, so why would you work a mechanic like that into the main part of your game?
So yeah, stick to Hammerthon mode, but even there the air is thick with contrivance. Why does the rock elemental seem to wreck the enemies' shops way more than the other elementals that are just as plentiful, for example?
This game does demonstrate a great aesthetic sense with a 3D design that not many games on this list can match, although this game did come out this year, so the technology was in its favor. Even past that, though, there are some cute details that were able to elicit a smile from even jaded ol' me. My favorite is that when you mouse over the "quit" button, your character does an overly dramatic pratfall flat on his back, so at least the last thing I saw before I walked away was charming.
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay fallin'
Links
grrr smash raar: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26714
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