Solstice is an "experimental" exploration game. Now, I'm fine with experiments, but I have to ask what hypothesis this particular experiment was testing. It seems to be "players will want to keep playing a game even if they're given no motivation whatsoever to continue playing it," which is a hypothesis long since proven false and the negative of which has been held as a basic tenant of game design long before games even stepped into the video world.
In Solstice, you play as a little fairy thing who flies around the world looking for sun fragments. The sun, you see, exploded one day for no particular reason, leaving the world to fester in darkness. Now it's up to you to fly around activating these sun fragments and filling the world's dark soul with LIIIIGHHTTTT....LIGGHTT..LIGHT...light....light....
Sorry.
In the beginning of Solstice, the game tells you that the game is not about winning or losing, but about immersing yourself in a world of music, flight and freedom. At first, I thought that was just a little hint at how to best play the game, like in the beginning of Amnesia, the Dark Descent, but only after I activated enough sun fragments to make the plants come back and found myself flying utterly aimlessly throughout the world I'd just unmasked did I realize that they were actually foreshadowing the "ending" if you can call it that. After a while, you're just left to fly around with no goals, no motivation whatsoever...at least I think so. The game gives you no indication as to whether or not you've accomplished all there is to accomplish. I would've at least started scrolling the credits over the screen or something.
Before the endgame phase, though, you're lead around the dark world from waypoint to waypoint...wait a second, waypoints?! I thought this was an exploration game, why am I still being lead on a linear path? Eh, whatever. At each waypoint, a man trying to do a dark, ominous voice will explain a little bit about what's happening. I have to say, the tone of the voice really clashes with the tone of the game. It's like if the voice overs from Kirby's Epic Yarn featured a Norwegian folk metal vocalist to shout the dialogue to chugging guitars and bagpipes.
And that's Solstice in a nutshell. It's insubstantial and goes from giving the player no freedom to do anything but go from point a to point b to giving the player the freedom to do anything he or she wants in a world in which there is absolutely nothing to do. If I wanted to immerse myself in music, I'd zone out to my Spa station on Pandora.
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay experimental.
Links
Sun go Boom: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25267
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Solar Flare
Solar Flare is a 3D RTS wherein you are a planet hell bent on killing all the other planets. Seems legit.
The general rule of thumb with an RTS game is: the less wait time, the better. Actually, that's a good rule to stick to for any game, but RTS games seem to violate that rule more often than games of other genres do. Solar Flare commits the cardinal sin of "steadily refilling resource points," which means if you build stuff too quickly (that is to say, not making yourself a sandwich every time you erect a cannon), you're going to be waiting around quite a bit for your energy bar to fill up.
To Solar Flare's credit, it does try to keep things as fast-paced as possible, making the player control when the cannons fire rather than having them auto-fire. Honestly, though, that's just not enough. I spent about 3 quarters of a match just building energy towers to make my points refill faster, but I still had to wait an annoyingly long amount of time between cannon builds.
That's pretty much all there is to say about Solar Flare, really. It can be fun if you're patient enough not to mind taking a little nap every time you click a button, but I personally need more engagement. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay solar.
Links
Ahm Bliiind: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=8719
The general rule of thumb with an RTS game is: the less wait time, the better. Actually, that's a good rule to stick to for any game, but RTS games seem to violate that rule more often than games of other genres do. Solar Flare commits the cardinal sin of "steadily refilling resource points," which means if you build stuff too quickly (that is to say, not making yourself a sandwich every time you erect a cannon), you're going to be waiting around quite a bit for your energy bar to fill up.
To Solar Flare's credit, it does try to keep things as fast-paced as possible, making the player control when the cannons fire rather than having them auto-fire. Honestly, though, that's just not enough. I spent about 3 quarters of a match just building energy towers to make my points refill faster, but I still had to wait an annoyingly long amount of time between cannon builds.
That's pretty much all there is to say about Solar Flare, really. It can be fun if you're patient enough not to mind taking a little nap every time you click a button, but I personally need more engagement. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay solar.
Links
Ahm Bliiind: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=8719
Solace
The way I see it, there are 3 different kinds of video game narrative. First, there's the kind that explains the plot, setting, etc directly and overtly, like in Mass Effect or pretty much any AAA game. Then, there's the Oniro kind of narrative wherein you're given a vague idea of who you are and why you are where you are, but the events of the story aren't conveyed by traditional means; they're instead conveyed using symbols in the mechanics. That's my favorite kind of narrative, personally, but I digress. The third kind of narrative is the one in which there isn't really any narrative at all. No, I'm not talking about zero-context games like A Series of Tubes, I'm talking about the kind of games that just focus on an emotion or one theme and, rather than expand upon that theme with a story, characters, etc, they skip the middleman and just build their game to reinforce it, like in Shattered Nocturne.
Solace is in the third camp of video game narrative. It's a top-down rhythmic shooter that consists of 5 stages, each one named after one of the five stages of grief. For example, "Anger" has you decked out with a crap-ton of weapons from the get-go while super fast and powerful enemies flood the screen as metal music blasts in the background, each of your shots generating another guitar chug. "Depression" on the other hand, features enemies that pose you no threat whatsoever while your shots, which are almost completely ineffective, generate little acoustic guitar riffs as if played by the world's most depressed country music star. It's nice to see this kind of juxtaposition in the level design.
I only have two minor complaints for this game. First off, the rhythm in the depression stage needed work. Player input generating the music was an integral part of the game, and I understand the concept of taking a bit of control from the player in the depression stage, but the guitar riffs are just slightly off-beat, which is hard to ignore.
Second, some of the stages overstay their welcome a bit. Once again, depression is the worst offender, but really all the stages with the exception of bargaining and acceptance linger just a bit too long. I feel that the emotion they were trying to build gets built to its capacity a good 3-5 minutes before the level ends. Maybe I'm just a bit impatient, but timing is very important in a game like this.
Aside from that, though, the game is great. It's structured wonderfully, the gameplay is fun and varied, and while I won't say it makes you think, it certainly makes you feel. That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay comfy.
Links
Sock Lice: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18525
Solace is in the third camp of video game narrative. It's a top-down rhythmic shooter that consists of 5 stages, each one named after one of the five stages of grief. For example, "Anger" has you decked out with a crap-ton of weapons from the get-go while super fast and powerful enemies flood the screen as metal music blasts in the background, each of your shots generating another guitar chug. "Depression" on the other hand, features enemies that pose you no threat whatsoever while your shots, which are almost completely ineffective, generate little acoustic guitar riffs as if played by the world's most depressed country music star. It's nice to see this kind of juxtaposition in the level design.
I only have two minor complaints for this game. First off, the rhythm in the depression stage needed work. Player input generating the music was an integral part of the game, and I understand the concept of taking a bit of control from the player in the depression stage, but the guitar riffs are just slightly off-beat, which is hard to ignore.
Second, some of the stages overstay their welcome a bit. Once again, depression is the worst offender, but really all the stages with the exception of bargaining and acceptance linger just a bit too long. I feel that the emotion they were trying to build gets built to its capacity a good 3-5 minutes before the level ends. Maybe I'm just a bit impatient, but timing is very important in a game like this.
Aside from that, though, the game is great. It's structured wonderfully, the gameplay is fun and varied, and while I won't say it makes you think, it certainly makes you feel. That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay comfy.
Links
Sock Lice: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18525
Friday, September 6, 2013
taking the day off
My birthday isn't for another 26 days, but I celebrated it today, meaning I'm too hungover on cookies and pizza to focus, so screw it. I'll try to do 3 reviews tomorrow once the little gnome in my head stops playing the chimes.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Sol Invictus
Ever since Skyrim spread its gargantuan wings and cast its shadow of influence over us all, I've seen western-style dragons become all the rage with the youth of today. "Hey, Sally, whatcha drawin?" "A dragon." I find myself wondering, though, why dragons are portrayed as these monsters of wanton destruction whose only real purpose is to provide an objectively threatening beast for the protagonist in a story to slay at the end. I haven't seen a story about good dragons since Dragon Tales...oh God....I just nostalgia'd myself way too hard.
Before I lose my mind to the elegy, let's talk about Sol Invictus, a game wherein you are a dragon who is ostensibly there to save the...urhm...world? From the evil...uhm...rainclouds? I guess? The game itself is very simple. You fly around clear skies and look for grey clouds. You breathe fire at them until they are grey no more.
This game's biggest problem is that it suffers from something I like to call "I meant to do that" syndrome. IMTDTS is a rather infuriating affliction to deal with. As the name suggests, it's when game developers fully acknowledge genuine flaws with their game (or movie or book or what have you) but rather than try to fix them, they simply say "oh, I meant to do that." The goal of Sol Invictus is to create a "casual gaming experience." Anyone who believes that Sol Invictus accomplished that goal, I invite you to play five minutes of Bejeweled or Peggle or Wii Play. One thing all of those games have in common is that they at least challenge you in some way, sometimes very much so. In Sol Invictus, there is simply no way to fail, especially since you can just hold the "Q" button and lock onto the nearest defenseless cloud.
So, of course, the game has no challenge. Without challenge, there are few legs a game has left to stand on. Now, I've liked unchallenging games in the past, like Snowfall, but that game was, of course, all about the narrative. It challenged your sense of morality rather than your reflexes (except for that damn grizzly bear). Sol Invictus challenges absolutely nothing, so it's about as gratifying as right clicking on your desktop to make that little menu appear and then clicking away.
The game looks nice enough, so if all you're looking for is the equivalent of an Nvidia tech demo, then I've found the game for you. People who value challenge or agency or all those other wonderful things games are known for will probably be left disappointed.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay shiny.
Links
Los Cintivus: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24659
Before I lose my mind to the elegy, let's talk about Sol Invictus, a game wherein you are a dragon who is ostensibly there to save the...urhm...world? From the evil...uhm...rainclouds? I guess? The game itself is very simple. You fly around clear skies and look for grey clouds. You breathe fire at them until they are grey no more.
This game's biggest problem is that it suffers from something I like to call "I meant to do that" syndrome. IMTDTS is a rather infuriating affliction to deal with. As the name suggests, it's when game developers fully acknowledge genuine flaws with their game (or movie or book or what have you) but rather than try to fix them, they simply say "oh, I meant to do that." The goal of Sol Invictus is to create a "casual gaming experience." Anyone who believes that Sol Invictus accomplished that goal, I invite you to play five minutes of Bejeweled or Peggle or Wii Play. One thing all of those games have in common is that they at least challenge you in some way, sometimes very much so. In Sol Invictus, there is simply no way to fail, especially since you can just hold the "Q" button and lock onto the nearest defenseless cloud.
So, of course, the game has no challenge. Without challenge, there are few legs a game has left to stand on. Now, I've liked unchallenging games in the past, like Snowfall, but that game was, of course, all about the narrative. It challenged your sense of morality rather than your reflexes (except for that damn grizzly bear). Sol Invictus challenges absolutely nothing, so it's about as gratifying as right clicking on your desktop to make that little menu appear and then clicking away.
The game looks nice enough, so if all you're looking for is the equivalent of an Nvidia tech demo, then I've found the game for you. People who value challenge or agency or all those other wonderful things games are known for will probably be left disappointed.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay shiny.
Links
Los Cintivus: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24659
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Snowfall
Wow, what a journey this one was...
All right, time for a little backstory. There I was, browsing the DigiPen Game Gallery, catching glimpses of my projects for the next few days. Then, I see one thumbnail that looks familiar. The game is titled "Snowfall." I've never heard of it, but there was something about the art style...of course, I thought. I've seen art like this before. I clicked on the game, and sure enough, I see only one name credited with creating Snowfall. Andrew Nack, solo game designer extraordinaire. Needless to say, I was excited.
Then I read the description of the game. It read: "Instead of giving the player a fun experience, the game focuses on making the player as frustrated, angry, and depressed as possible while still maintaining a quality game experience." I tell ya, that got me thinking. First off, I wondered what exactly he meant by "quality game experience," because usually if a game makes me frustrated and depressed, I would alt+f4 out of it and judge its quality to be quite poor.
The game's description whetted my appetite even more. By this time, I was dying to see what this game was all about. Impatiently, I downloaded the game, ran the file, and was greeted by a title screen with no music or sound whatsoever...I didn't recall any of Nack's other games doing that, but hey, maybe this one's different...
I started the game and, still without any sound, was greeted by a character I presumed to be me being held by a character I presumed to be my mother in the middle of a snowstorm. And then......nothing happened. At this point, I was definitely feeling the frustration and depression that was promised to me, but I had my doubts that this was the way Nack intended it to happen. So, I looked up the game on YouTube to see if anyone else was having the problem (don't ask why I went to youtube before google. That's just how I roll). I found a video of the game, with Andrew Nack explaining the game as he played it, and sent a personal message to that account explaining my problem. I then caught a glimpse of my own inbox and the 61 unread messages that had piled up since I started my channel in 2008 and realized that the course of action I took might not have been the best one. I then composed an email to Andrew Nack and swiftly received a reply suggesting I play on a different computer and see what happens. If this were any other game by any other designer, I probably would have given up long before this point, but I was determined to get frustrated and depressed by whatever tricks Nack had up his sleeve. So, I went into my attic and searched for my old junker laptop with a Pentium processor, 11'' screen, and a staggering 1.9GB of free hard drive space.
At this point, I was quite pissed at...well pretty much everyone and everything, really. I was almost determined to slam my laptop closed with enough force to concuss the mice probably living in my wall at the first hint of anything in the game I didn't like. All the stars were aligned perfectly. I was hunched over on an uncomfortable piano bench, straining my eyes and having my thighs burned from the frankly ridiculous heat the old Pentium was giving off.
Then I heard the first few notes of the main theme...
dunnnnnnnn.....dunnnnnn.......
Then I heard the sounds of the storm blowing....
whooooshhhhhhh whooossshhhhhhh
This was it. The moment I was waiting for. I was finally going to experience Snowfall. And experience it I did. Not only did the game hold my attention until its completion, but it held my attention enough for me to play it three times in a row.
I'm going to do my best to avoid spoilers in this review, but do note that doing so is going to severely limit what I can say about this game. I guess you'll just have to experience it for yourself when you play it upon my recommendation...oops, did I speak too soon?
Anyways, I guess there are two questions one must ask when reviewing Snowfall. First off, how well did it adhere to its mission statement of frustrating and depressing the player, and second off, how well was the game designed?
My answer to the first question is...well...I guess it did what it sent out to do. After I played it for the first time, I felt like crap because of how the game ended, whereas my second and third playthroughs made me feel like crap while I was playing the game, but gave me a rather satisfying ending...I guess.
Playing this game made me feel similar to how I felt when I played Spec Ops: The Line, and if you've played that game, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Just like in Spec Ops, the area in which Snowfall excels is in player choice. You're given tons of choices throughout the game, most of which have a rather large impact on the story. You're given 3 paths to follow, which I'll call the paths of good, evil, and humanity. Each have their pros and cons, and you're pressured to make decisions very quickly, so your brain is not going to have an easy time getting through this game. Strangely enough, the game manages to make you think that time is of the essence when making decisions, but tends to give you enough time to think things through as much as you need (with one very annoying exception that I'll get to in a bit).
It's rare that I find a DigiPen game that's all about the narrative. The last game I played that I can remember really being all about the narrative was Be Good. Yeah, remember those days? That was a long time ago. Snowfall does nothing objectively wrong, and the things I really disagreed with (for example that there's only one opportunity to die, which will come to you after only a moment of hesitation and completely negate the progress you've made thus far), might be the things that make the game so beautiful in the end (Andrew Nack would probably respond to that criticism by saying I was meant to feel frustrated, and ask me if I enjoyed the game regardless, to which I would have to answer yes, because of how well written and designed the game was).
So yeah, Nack hits that narrative ball right out of the park with this one. The only game on the list that I've played that rivals it in terms of narrative is Oniro (I didn't mention that game before because it was all about the mechanics and puzzle solving at heart. It just had a really good narrative as well). The mechanics do exactly what they need to do and serve the narrative perfectly. Also, I don't even need to tell you about the other aesthetic elements like visual and sound design. Come on...it's Andrew Nack.
This game gets my seal of approval for, if nothing else, boldly going where no game (*cough* except Spec Ops: The Line *cough*) has gone before. If you're tired of playing just another puzzle game or just another shooter or whatever it might be, this game will be the breath of fresh, moldy, smokey air you were looking for, you crazy masochist. All I'll say in terms of criticism, though, is that it wasn't quite as impactful as I think it was meant to be. I mean, what can you expect from a game that's only about 10 minutes long?
Well, that was quite a wild ride I just went on. It's games like these that really make me glad that I took on this project last January. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay unconventional.
Links
Snowfall (DigiPen): https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26418
Snowfall (Andrew Nack's website): http://www.andrewnack.com/snowfall/
Andrew Nack explains his game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6kn9Z6IecY&feature=player_embedded#t=1
All right, time for a little backstory. There I was, browsing the DigiPen Game Gallery, catching glimpses of my projects for the next few days. Then, I see one thumbnail that looks familiar. The game is titled "Snowfall." I've never heard of it, but there was something about the art style...of course, I thought. I've seen art like this before. I clicked on the game, and sure enough, I see only one name credited with creating Snowfall. Andrew Nack, solo game designer extraordinaire. Needless to say, I was excited.
Then I read the description of the game. It read: "Instead of giving the player a fun experience, the game focuses on making the player as frustrated, angry, and depressed as possible while still maintaining a quality game experience." I tell ya, that got me thinking. First off, I wondered what exactly he meant by "quality game experience," because usually if a game makes me frustrated and depressed, I would alt+f4 out of it and judge its quality to be quite poor.
The game's description whetted my appetite even more. By this time, I was dying to see what this game was all about. Impatiently, I downloaded the game, ran the file, and was greeted by a title screen with no music or sound whatsoever...I didn't recall any of Nack's other games doing that, but hey, maybe this one's different...
I started the game and, still without any sound, was greeted by a character I presumed to be me being held by a character I presumed to be my mother in the middle of a snowstorm. And then......nothing happened. At this point, I was definitely feeling the frustration and depression that was promised to me, but I had my doubts that this was the way Nack intended it to happen. So, I looked up the game on YouTube to see if anyone else was having the problem (don't ask why I went to youtube before google. That's just how I roll). I found a video of the game, with Andrew Nack explaining the game as he played it, and sent a personal message to that account explaining my problem. I then caught a glimpse of my own inbox and the 61 unread messages that had piled up since I started my channel in 2008 and realized that the course of action I took might not have been the best one. I then composed an email to Andrew Nack and swiftly received a reply suggesting I play on a different computer and see what happens. If this were any other game by any other designer, I probably would have given up long before this point, but I was determined to get frustrated and depressed by whatever tricks Nack had up his sleeve. So, I went into my attic and searched for my old junker laptop with a Pentium processor, 11'' screen, and a staggering 1.9GB of free hard drive space.
At this point, I was quite pissed at...well pretty much everyone and everything, really. I was almost determined to slam my laptop closed with enough force to concuss the mice probably living in my wall at the first hint of anything in the game I didn't like. All the stars were aligned perfectly. I was hunched over on an uncomfortable piano bench, straining my eyes and having my thighs burned from the frankly ridiculous heat the old Pentium was giving off.
Then I heard the first few notes of the main theme...
dunnnnnnnn.....dunnnnnn.......
Then I heard the sounds of the storm blowing....
whooooshhhhhhh whooossshhhhhhh
This was it. The moment I was waiting for. I was finally going to experience Snowfall. And experience it I did. Not only did the game hold my attention until its completion, but it held my attention enough for me to play it three times in a row.
I'm going to do my best to avoid spoilers in this review, but do note that doing so is going to severely limit what I can say about this game. I guess you'll just have to experience it for yourself when you play it upon my recommendation...oops, did I speak too soon?
Anyways, I guess there are two questions one must ask when reviewing Snowfall. First off, how well did it adhere to its mission statement of frustrating and depressing the player, and second off, how well was the game designed?
My answer to the first question is...well...I guess it did what it sent out to do. After I played it for the first time, I felt like crap because of how the game ended, whereas my second and third playthroughs made me feel like crap while I was playing the game, but gave me a rather satisfying ending...I guess.
Playing this game made me feel similar to how I felt when I played Spec Ops: The Line, and if you've played that game, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Just like in Spec Ops, the area in which Snowfall excels is in player choice. You're given tons of choices throughout the game, most of which have a rather large impact on the story. You're given 3 paths to follow, which I'll call the paths of good, evil, and humanity. Each have their pros and cons, and you're pressured to make decisions very quickly, so your brain is not going to have an easy time getting through this game. Strangely enough, the game manages to make you think that time is of the essence when making decisions, but tends to give you enough time to think things through as much as you need (with one very annoying exception that I'll get to in a bit).
It's rare that I find a DigiPen game that's all about the narrative. The last game I played that I can remember really being all about the narrative was Be Good. Yeah, remember those days? That was a long time ago. Snowfall does nothing objectively wrong, and the things I really disagreed with (for example that there's only one opportunity to die, which will come to you after only a moment of hesitation and completely negate the progress you've made thus far), might be the things that make the game so beautiful in the end (Andrew Nack would probably respond to that criticism by saying I was meant to feel frustrated, and ask me if I enjoyed the game regardless, to which I would have to answer yes, because of how well written and designed the game was).
So yeah, Nack hits that narrative ball right out of the park with this one. The only game on the list that I've played that rivals it in terms of narrative is Oniro (I didn't mention that game before because it was all about the mechanics and puzzle solving at heart. It just had a really good narrative as well). The mechanics do exactly what they need to do and serve the narrative perfectly. Also, I don't even need to tell you about the other aesthetic elements like visual and sound design. Come on...it's Andrew Nack.
This game gets my seal of approval for, if nothing else, boldly going where no game (*cough* except Spec Ops: The Line *cough*) has gone before. If you're tired of playing just another puzzle game or just another shooter or whatever it might be, this game will be the breath of fresh, moldy, smokey air you were looking for, you crazy masochist. All I'll say in terms of criticism, though, is that it wasn't quite as impactful as I think it was meant to be. I mean, what can you expect from a game that's only about 10 minutes long?
Well, that was quite a wild ride I just went on. It's games like these that really make me glad that I took on this project last January. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay unconventional.
Links
Snowfall (DigiPen): https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26418
Snowfall (Andrew Nack's website): http://www.andrewnack.com/snowfall/
Andrew Nack explains his game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6kn9Z6IecY&feature=player_embedded#t=1
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Snatch
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
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
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