Viruleon and Void

That's right, I'm back after a hiatus that was way longer than I'm sure any of us were comfortable with.  But hey, we're here now, and I'm refreshed and ready to get back into...*ahem*...the groove of things.  The year is winding down and I can finally see the light at the end of this incredibly long tunnel...it seems like an eternity ago I was lounging in the lobby of my grandmother's Florida condo, sporadically shifting between playing A Flipping Good Time and studying for my SATs.  Man...how the times have changed.

But I don't have time to get all sentimental on you just yet.  For now, let me lay down the law: As you can probably tell from the title of this post, I'm going back to the 2 game per post format.  It's likely going to stay this way consistently until the end of the year, but as always, I've got to be flexible.  One way or another, I'm going to try to get through about 14 games each week.  If all goes as planned, I'll finish the list right on schedule.

Boy oh boy it feels good to be playing these games again.  I may not have always looked forward to them in the past, but after all that's happened recently, I sure as hell missed these good old Ikaruga clones.  And thus we have Viruleon.  It's an omnidirectional top-down spaceship game wherein you collect orbs that allow you to change color.  Crashing into other ships of the same color destroys them.  Crashing into ships of the opposite color destroys you.

The three things that caught my eye here were the orb mechanic, the AI, and the controls; the former two in a good way, the latter in a bad way.  I like how you aren't allowed to just change color willy-nilly.  That would make the game a bit too mindless.  Instead, you constantly have to consider how many charges you have left and use them accordingly.  It adds a layer of depth to the play and makes the experience more rewarding as a result.

Now, the AI.  A less careful team would probably just program all enemy ships to either float around the screen aimlessly or attack you.  Makes sense...they're enemies after all.  In Viruleon, the AI behaves a bit like the Pacman ghosts.  the enemies of the same color retreat while the enemies of the opposite color attack.  This is helpful for two reasons.  First, it makes immediately identifying your predators from your prey much easier and less frustrating.  Second, it adds challenge to the game, as the enemies are very good at retreating.

Alright, finally, the controls. It feels like the "S" button should function as a brake rather than a reverse.  I find myself often wanting to quickly turn 180 degrees and skid to a halt to get a good angle on approaching my enemies, but instead I turn 180 degrees and keep rocketing in the same direction I've been going.  Using the "S" key is just confusing, so don't be surprised if you don't end up using it at all during play.  The controls as a whole are very simple, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it.  the gameplay does get kind of stale kind of quickly, but at least you aren't overloaded with commands to learn.

All-in-all, this game passes my test.  It's not amazing, but it's polished and thought through enough for me to recommend that you try it out.  Good job on this one, guys.

Okay, now let's talk Void.  It's a game made from the Source engine, which has proved to be a timeless and endlessly helpful tool in a game designer's arsenal before.  In Void, you can shoot dimensional rifts which cause all items within their blast radii to revert back in time.  Imagine if you could carry around and shoot those purple stones from the one level of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

So yeah, it's not an entirely new or interesting game mechanic (I'm not sure whether this game came out before or after Skyward Sword because for some reason, the date isn't posted). It gets the job done, though, and while most of the game didn't elicit more than a "mmhm" out of me, certain aspects of the level design made me smirk and say "alright, that was clever."

This game's strongest suit by far, though, is the visual department.  My goodness this game looks amazing, and not just because of all those shiny Source engine graphics.  The steampunk style is always appealing, and this game juxtaposes Victorian intricacy with dilapidated sewers to create a very powerful effect.

This game didn't quite have enough "wow" for me to recommend it, as the installation process is a bit more annoying than it is for most games, but if you've got time to kill, there's nothing that should keep you from giving it a try.  Hell, it might be worth it to play through the game just to see what is possibly the most genius credits sequence since the one in Super Smash Bros. Melee.

That's all I got for now.  Until next time, stay refreshed

Links (god it felt good to type that again)
Cerulean Viruleon: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26009
I can't pronounce this title without sounding like I'm advertising a phone: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=23876

update

I'm going dark until December 3rd.  I have to straighten out some personal stuff.  That gives me 28 days to get through 51 games.  I think I can pull that off.  Stay tuned.

Vinnie's Little Virus

Remember before when I said that a review could potentially boil down to 2 sentences?  Well, get ready for the most underwhelming review of all time, because I genuinely have nothing to say about this one.

It's a shoot-em-up wherein you play as a virus with the goal to infect humanity.  It's got ASCII graphics, which are charming even during the atrociously ugly cutscenes that make the ones in Crazy Cross look like they had a million dollar budget...and the ones in Crazy Cross were pretty damn bad.

So the central mechanics are simple enough.  shoot enemies, collect powerups.  Left and right clicks respectively.  Is it fun?  Well kinda, in the Minesweeper way in that it staves off boredom, but it's certainly not engaging or entertaining or any of the other "e" words a game should strive to be.

I think the devs new they had just made a thing to alt+tab into while you're watching cat videos on Youtube or something, which is why they added the option to automatically beat a level by pressing "m," which I found out before I even learned how to shoot.

So yeah.  It's a tiny file with a charming look, so if you get tired of Mahjong Titans and want something a bit more "gamey," then pick this one up.

That's all I got for now.  Until next time, stay viral

Links
achoo: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=477

bro level

I know I've said this a lot, but I've got a lot of stuff going on in my life right now.  This time it's not just schoolwork, although there's plenty of that.  Suffice it to say my life is keeping me from writing.  I'll do whatever I can to meet the deadline, but the way things are going now...

Don't say I didn't warn you.  Again, I'll try my absolute best, but sometimes that's just not enough.  Sorry.

As for what's happening in the short term, I don't know.  Stay tuned but don't hold your breath.

VeNix

...I'm so tired.

Since I only have like two things to say about VeNix, I'm going to waste some space up here with an analogy.  Imagine you're baking a cake for a party.  You really want to impress the people at this party, so you spend hours making the batter as sweet, succulent and decadent as you possibly can.  After what seems like an eternity of toiling over a mixer and waiting for the damn thing to bake, you finally come up with an absolutely heavenly cake.  Then, your friends come through the door, take one look at your cake and say, "where's the frosting?"  That's VeNix in a nutshell.

VeNix is a vehicular homicide simulator kind of like Twisted Metal but a lot slower.  You can choose between 4 different cars, each being different enough from each other to keep gameplay interesting.  All things considered, the gameplay is fine.  Nothing to complain about except for minor things.  For example, one of the levels has way too many obstacles strewn about it that the camera always manages to get stuck behind.

The two things I had a problem with are the narrative and the sound design.  First, I'll talk about the latter because my criticism of it is short:  there is none.  By now, most gamers and film-goers are mature enough to realize that you don't always need background music, but silence should probably be avoided unless it's driving a point.  Let's use my latest obsessoin, Dark Souls, as an example.  There are only a few tracks of bgm in that entire game, but when they're not playing, the game is still full of ambient effects and hit sounds.  VeNix leaves you with an empty feeling.   You want your ears to be occupied by something other than the annoying sound of the gray alien's special attack that he just spams over and over and over and over...

Sorry, got lost in myself there.  Let's talk about the narrative, now.  Look, I'm not expecting that every game on this list has a good story, or even just a story.  You can have a game just for the sake of being a game.  But narrative comprises more than just story.  Setting is an important part of a consistent game experience.  Twin Gates, for example, wouldn't keep me coming back to it as often as it does if it didn't have the ancient Greek aesthetic.  Anyways, VeNix seems to be going for some kind of "save the galaxy" plot, but all of the battles take place in some dude's bathroom or living room or something.  A bit more consistency would have been nice...

That's all I got for today.  Until next time, stay tiny

Links
Venix Down, 500gil: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=469

Vektor Space

Remember Tron?  Well I certainly don't.  I guess I'm a bit young...it shames me to admit that I only just recently saw the Matrix.  Anyways, apart from that dude on Youtube and the fact that Daft Punk infuriates me, the only thing I can think of when someone says Tron is the lightbike.  Whoever came up with that either dropped a lot of acid, was a genius, or both.  One of the things that made it so unique and fun to play was the 90 degree turn mechanic.  I wondered what would happen if you just made a game about lightbikes but let them turn fluidly...then I played Vektor Space.

Vektor Space isn't quite as unforgiving as some other lightbike games I've played.  You can run into somebody's trail once and not die, for instance, but run into two or the wall and its game over. Another innovation that makes this unique from your typical Tron clone is that the vehicles have stats, so you can go for either the tank that can run into three walls in a row without harm or the speed demon who expertly weaves in and out of other peoples' trails.

While I appreciate that Vektor Space added its own flavor to an old classic, I don't think the fluid turning mechanic really helped it all that much.  After all, one of the most fun parts of the old lightbike games is that you can charge right for the wall but turn at the last second to get a tactical edge on the poor sap who was following you.  If you want to try that strategy in Vektor Space, you're going to have to possess incredible precision to ride the round wall while turning in a tighter circle.  I wouldn't really have a problem with it if I thought it added more to the game, but it really just feels like it was added for the sake of uniqueness.

While the core mechanic might not serve the game to the best of its ability, I still think Vektor Assault is a damn fun game.  The artistic design is wonderful, the game feel is great, and there's enough variety to make this one of the few games on this list I'll return to when I'm bored.  This one gets my seal of approval.

Links
Sector Lace: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=538

Vectron Assault

Vectron Assault is apparently a callback to the good old days of arcade FPS games with vector graphics, which apparently means they just didn't bother to color stuff in.  Whether or not such a golden age actually existed, I'm too young to know, but if Vectron Assault is an accurate representation of that time, I'm glad I missed it.

seeing a game described as a callback to a time I've never experienced pets me in an awkward situation.  All of the problems that I had with the game might have been deliberately put there to reinforce the old timey aesthetic.  But you know what? That didn't make it any less infuriating, so I'm going to talk about them anyway.

Far and away the most annoying thing about this game is the level design.  The walls all have this weird effect that makes it seem like there's an opening around the corner, but such a thing never exists.  This is especially infuriating when you can see the enemies with less than accelerated AI trying to shoot you through the translucent walls.  almost half of my playtime was spent circling around the same 5 square feet trying to find a piece of wall i could go through until I realized that the opening I looked for was on the exact opposite side of the level.  Try to visualize that: the game lead me to one side of the level and then told me to backtrack through the area I had already cleared in order to progress.  That's like, the first thing they tell you not to do in game design 101, isn't it?

Other than that, the only thing worth noting is the control, which makes the came feel like a weird hybrid of Battletanx and Forsaken 64.  The position of the mouse in relation to the center of the screen acts sort of like a joystick, if that makes sense.  The farther your cursor is to one side, the faster you will turn to that side.  This kind of control could work in a fullscreen game, so I guess I have nothing to complain about, but I usually play these games in windows if I have the opportunity, so my cursor was flying off the edge, leaving me motionless, way more often than I would have liked.

Well that's all I got for today.  Final Verdict: nice try, but I'll stick with The Shaman Engines.  Until next time, stay retro

Links
Graphics of Magnitude and Direction: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=1420