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
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
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
Smiley Face all Over the Place
What can I say about Smiley Face all Over the Place? Well, It's a top-down Asteroids-ey shooter wherein you play as one of three very different stereotypical characters (kind of like in the "Zombies" mode of Call of Duty: Black Ops but without all the chemistry that made it worth putting up with their nonsense), each with different weapons, to take down hoards of triangles, squares, and one of those beach duck things from Super Mario Sunshine.
The characters are all designed fairly well. Their "bombs" all serve their purpose in a team situation; there's the shield, the buff and the destroyer. The 2 player mode is integrated well, too. At any time, you can simply press enter to have player 2 join. Of course, he will be controlled by the arrow keys, so he will be immediately hindered with the inability to move diagonally, but he also gets the mouse, which is much better for aiming than the "IJKL" keys. I imagine it works well that way. After all, I can't think of any way to avoid the arrow keys in this case, so giving the poor sap who got stuck with them a different advantage balances out the gameplay interestingly.
On the subject of balance, though, solo players will find that there's not much of it. One of the character's descriptions is that he is, quote, "BLOODY AWESOME," so the game is pretty much telling you outright who's the man to choose. Granted, I didn't try playing with the blue man who shoots arrows everywhere except where you aimed, but I think it's fair to take a character with that description out of the running.
The game looks fine, I guess. Nothing much to comment about on the aesthetics, but that still leaves the burning question: is it fun or interesting? Well, there's a bit of the former to be had, at least. Slow movement speed is a thorn in my side as always, and there are pretty much only two strategies in this game: circle strafe around the enemies and blast them to Valhalla or don't and die.
I haven't yet beaten the duckbill circle of death in the fifth wave, so at least this game has given me a reason to keep playing. All-in-all, it's a game. Yeah. One of those. That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay smiley
Links
pretty faces and smiley places: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24634
The characters are all designed fairly well. Their "bombs" all serve their purpose in a team situation; there's the shield, the buff and the destroyer. The 2 player mode is integrated well, too. At any time, you can simply press enter to have player 2 join. Of course, he will be controlled by the arrow keys, so he will be immediately hindered with the inability to move diagonally, but he also gets the mouse, which is much better for aiming than the "IJKL" keys. I imagine it works well that way. After all, I can't think of any way to avoid the arrow keys in this case, so giving the poor sap who got stuck with them a different advantage balances out the gameplay interestingly.
On the subject of balance, though, solo players will find that there's not much of it. One of the character's descriptions is that he is, quote, "BLOODY AWESOME," so the game is pretty much telling you outright who's the man to choose. Granted, I didn't try playing with the blue man who shoots arrows everywhere except where you aimed, but I think it's fair to take a character with that description out of the running.
The game looks fine, I guess. Nothing much to comment about on the aesthetics, but that still leaves the burning question: is it fun or interesting? Well, there's a bit of the former to be had, at least. Slow movement speed is a thorn in my side as always, and there are pretty much only two strategies in this game: circle strafe around the enemies and blast them to Valhalla or don't and die.
I haven't yet beaten the duckbill circle of death in the fifth wave, so at least this game has given me a reason to keep playing. All-in-all, it's a game. Yeah. One of those. That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay smiley
Links
pretty faces and smiley places: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24634
Monday, September 2, 2013
Slug 'Em Up
What is it with snails these days, anyway? This game came out during the 2010-2011 academic year, which I bet is around the time production started on Turbo. What is so fascinating about the idea of duct taping machine guns and v8 engines to snail shells? Back in my day, the most complicated you could get with the creatures is to have them say "meow," and that's the way we liked it.
In all seriousness, though, Slug 'Em Up is a 3D third person shooter but with snails. That's about as complicated as it gets, really, and you know what? I love it. Why not snails? Why do terrorists and CTU keep stealing the spotlight? To me, there are 4 points to this game really worth talking about, 2 good and two bad, which is basically every reviewer's dream. I'm suitably excited, so let's get this show on the road.
I'll start off with the bad stuff because I kinda want to end this review on a high note (which is not something I usually do, so that should already speak volumes of my opinion on this game). First off, why on Earth would anyone think it's a good idea to limit the input on a third person shooter exclusively to the keyboard? This is what the mouse does best, aiming and clicking. Instead, we have to deal with the notoriously finicky arrow keys, so good luck trying to turn to the left and shoot at the same time. What bugs me most is that you can only use two weapons at a time, and guess how many buttons a mouse has on it?
The second thing that bugged me, though to a much lesser extent, was how the game went about conveying its controls. Normally, when I complain about conveyance, I complain that a game holds my hand too tightly and is so terrified that I may have recently undergone a full frontal lobotomy that it has to explain every last detail to me in a way that doesn't allow me to spread my creative wings and fly into a few brick walls. In this game, however, it's the exact opposite. Here, you're not given enough indication of how the mechanics work. I played three full matches before I realized that the little snail things that follow you are in fact your ammunition, which I guess makes sense for that one weapon that makes one of them grow to a gigantic size and crush your enemies, but how exactly does one take two slug creatures and convert it into a bomb in less than a second? A simple picture of a snail next to the number underneath the weapon denoting how much ammo one round eats up would have gone a long way for me, and that's just one example. It's not a huge problem, as I had a firm enough grasp on the controls to be competitive in the second round, but still. Just because too heavily conveying your mechanics is bad doesn't mean you get to forget the idea of conveyance as a whole.
All right, now for the good stuff. Unfortunately, since I'm such a hypercritical little snark biscuit, these paragraphs won't be nearly as long as the previous two, but that doesn't mean I didn't value these qualities as much as I resented the others. As I said, I want to end this review on a high note because I'm so impressed by the game.
First off, the visual design. High poly count? check. stylized characters and world? check. Loads of bright, pastel colors to keep everything looking interesting? check. Characters leave a little trail of goop behind them, which is not only cute and fun to look at, but is a tremendous help when seeking out your enemies? check. This game is definitely up there for the best visual design of any game on this list. It's no Nitronic Rush, mind you, but I think it could nuzzle itself safely somewhere in the back end of the top 10.
Second off, the gameplay. What's not to love? The weapons are all very well designed and extremely satisfying to use and, more importantly, to have used on you. Blowing someone across the map would swiftly lose its appeal if it weren't just as fun to be blown across the map yourself. This game demands just the right amount of diligence in order to not get your slimy rear handed to you, and if you disagree, you can just modify the number of opponents to chance the difficulty in an impactful way.
Long story short, this game is good. Great, even. It definitely earns my seal of approval. Nice work, guys. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay salient.
Links
Squishy Vengeance: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24673
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Short Circuit and Skip Lancer
Yeah, you can probably tell by looking at the title that there's at least one review today that's going to be rather anemic. I've always held that a critic should never be forced to contrive things to say for the purpose of meeting a certain length, but one sentence reviews just aren't fair to the reader, and I'm afraid I only have one sentence worth of review for Short Circuit. That sentence is "It's a tower defense game." I find myself feeling now a very similar emotion to the one I felt when my father asked me to discuss the tastes of 3 different wines when I was in my early teens. To me, they all tasted like grape juice gone bad, but there was apparently a wide discrepancy in the tastes that I just couldn't discern. If you've played any tower defense game on Newgrounds.com, you've played Short Circuit. It's probably a fine tower defense game, but to me, that's like saying it's not a badly prepared bowl of piss and vinegar.
So now let's get into the main course: Skip Lancer. I was delighted to see that Skip Lancer took a few cues from Starfox 64, which is the first runner up in my personal "best games of all time" list. Unfortunately, Skip Lancer seems to think that the best part about Starfox 64 was when it sort of resembled Superman 64, and decided to cook us up the former game from a different angle, but with a very generous portion of the latter game's strangely odorous garnish.
Alright enough with the food analogies. I'm making myself hungry. Skip Lancer is one of those "great premise, poor execution" kinds of games. There are a variety of levels, each testing a slightly different skill, which juice the game mechanics until they are nothing but rinds and you, the player, are left with a nice, tall glass of deliciousness...Damn it!
What I'm trying to say is that the foundation for Skip Lancer couldn't be better. My personal favorite level is the final boss, which is a lesson in absolute frustration, but never stops being fun because of its low iteration time and high-adrenaline gameplay. The game only really soils itself in the control aspect.
Much like in Starfox 64, you can do certain aerial tricks (boost, somersault, brake, barrel roll, etc), but doing so eats up your trick meter, which can only be replenished by running into balloons. The problem is that many of these tricks, braking in particular, take up so much trick energy with so little result that they barely seem worth it; yet it leaves me with the terrible feeling that if I would just torture myself for long enough to learn how to use these terribly implemented mechanics, I would have a much easier time meeting the merciless level completion requirements.
It also doesn't help that good ol' Skip apparently decided to down a few bottles of Captain Morgan before taking flight, because his responses to your commands are so incredibly delayed. Someone set the inertia way, WAY too high. I'm not sure how accurate a depiction of aerial mechanics this is, but it's about as fun as playing Starfox 64 with a controller with broken joystick and jelly beans instead of buttons.
The final nail in the coffin, however, is the hit detection on the rings. Sometimes I'll fly straight through the middle of the bastards only to have them linger there and taunt me with "missed me missed me now you gotta kiss me." Dealing with these rings is like dealing with that kid on the playground who always refused to admit that you landed a perfect shot on him with your invisible gun. "You missed," he would say. No I did not miss, you obnoxious snotsack, and this time I have FRAPS to prove it!
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay sober.
Links
Short Attention Span: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26146
Crip Dancer: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=407
So now let's get into the main course: Skip Lancer. I was delighted to see that Skip Lancer took a few cues from Starfox 64, which is the first runner up in my personal "best games of all time" list. Unfortunately, Skip Lancer seems to think that the best part about Starfox 64 was when it sort of resembled Superman 64, and decided to cook us up the former game from a different angle, but with a very generous portion of the latter game's strangely odorous garnish.
Alright enough with the food analogies. I'm making myself hungry. Skip Lancer is one of those "great premise, poor execution" kinds of games. There are a variety of levels, each testing a slightly different skill, which juice the game mechanics until they are nothing but rinds and you, the player, are left with a nice, tall glass of deliciousness...Damn it!
What I'm trying to say is that the foundation for Skip Lancer couldn't be better. My personal favorite level is the final boss, which is a lesson in absolute frustration, but never stops being fun because of its low iteration time and high-adrenaline gameplay. The game only really soils itself in the control aspect.
Much like in Starfox 64, you can do certain aerial tricks (boost, somersault, brake, barrel roll, etc), but doing so eats up your trick meter, which can only be replenished by running into balloons. The problem is that many of these tricks, braking in particular, take up so much trick energy with so little result that they barely seem worth it; yet it leaves me with the terrible feeling that if I would just torture myself for long enough to learn how to use these terribly implemented mechanics, I would have a much easier time meeting the merciless level completion requirements.
It also doesn't help that good ol' Skip apparently decided to down a few bottles of Captain Morgan before taking flight, because his responses to your commands are so incredibly delayed. Someone set the inertia way, WAY too high. I'm not sure how accurate a depiction of aerial mechanics this is, but it's about as fun as playing Starfox 64 with a controller with broken joystick and jelly beans instead of buttons.
The final nail in the coffin, however, is the hit detection on the rings. Sometimes I'll fly straight through the middle of the bastards only to have them linger there and taunt me with "missed me missed me now you gotta kiss me." Dealing with these rings is like dealing with that kid on the playground who always refused to admit that you landed a perfect shot on him with your invisible gun. "You missed," he would say. No I did not miss, you obnoxious snotsack, and this time I have FRAPS to prove it!
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay sober.
Links
Short Attention Span: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26146
Crip Dancer: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=407
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Shoot 2 Kill
Shoot 2 Kill, as the name may suggest, is a shoot 'em up game. More specifically, a side-scrolling shoot 'em up. This is normally the time I compare the game I'm reviewing to Mega Man to appease the little critic in my head who says that any decent review will highlight a game's faults and strong points by comparing it to a popular title everyone can relate to, but you know what? no. I'm not going to do that, because that would imply, at least to some extent, that Shoot 2 Kill was trying to be Mega Man in the first place.
Plenty of games on this list have marketed themselves as "unique," but very few have actually earned that title. Shoot 2 Kill is one of the few, the proud, the games that make blasting through enemies with a zappy thing in space interesting and original.
Time for a pop quiz, ladies and gentlemen. Since we're talking about Mega Man, one of the most distinguished game franchises out there, how did that game make itself so original? Answer: by introducing a new mechanic that people hadn't seen before, namely stealing the boss enemies' powers for use in later levels. Mega Man X distinguished itself with much different mechanics, namely wall-jumping and dashing, but it still used new mechanics to make itself unique. Shoot 2 Kill understands that, so instead of putting all its energy into bells and whistles that make the game seem unique, like that triple-orb system in Shattered Core, that didn't in any meaningful way change how the game was played, it devised a new and interesting mechanic that the player constantly utilizes to clear the level. That mechanic is "blinking," much like the ever proprietary mechanic from Dishonored, but here it's used for 2D side-scrolling platforming.
All things considered, the rest of the game is kinda substandard. Shooting enemies feels about as rewarding as wiping piss off a toilet seat; probably because while you're laboring away at an enemy with your weapon, you're tanking damage from the million other enemies on screen that you'd rather blink to and slice with your far more powerful sword, so really the game is more of a hack 'n' slash than a shoot 'em up. Although, some of the powerups for the gun do make it quite fun to use, especially the rocket launcher, which tears up everything in its path in a way that makes you feel like you're a demigod.
When all is said and done, zipping around the levels and slashing at enemies until they die is a very enjoyable experience. The enemies and bosses are varied enough to keep gameplay interesting. The game doesn't look or sound half bad, either. There are a few things that bug me, like why your character only moves at a speed that can be accurately described as "moseying along," which isn't really appropriate for the setting. The main issue, though, is how impossible it is to dodge enemy fire, especially when you drop into the tractor beam of an enemy you couldn't see. So yeah. The game really is just reduced to blinking and slashing, with the occasional boom boom. If that sounds fun to you, give it a go, but if you're more into the challenging shoot 'em up like Contra, which feeds your sense of accomplishment in addition to your primitive desire to see things blow up, rather than just relying on the latter, then maybe this one isn't for you.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay stimulating.
Links
shoot to kill...now keep shooting...almost...there ya go: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25995
Plenty of games on this list have marketed themselves as "unique," but very few have actually earned that title. Shoot 2 Kill is one of the few, the proud, the games that make blasting through enemies with a zappy thing in space interesting and original.
Time for a pop quiz, ladies and gentlemen. Since we're talking about Mega Man, one of the most distinguished game franchises out there, how did that game make itself so original? Answer: by introducing a new mechanic that people hadn't seen before, namely stealing the boss enemies' powers for use in later levels. Mega Man X distinguished itself with much different mechanics, namely wall-jumping and dashing, but it still used new mechanics to make itself unique. Shoot 2 Kill understands that, so instead of putting all its energy into bells and whistles that make the game seem unique, like that triple-orb system in Shattered Core, that didn't in any meaningful way change how the game was played, it devised a new and interesting mechanic that the player constantly utilizes to clear the level. That mechanic is "blinking," much like the ever proprietary mechanic from Dishonored, but here it's used for 2D side-scrolling platforming.
All things considered, the rest of the game is kinda substandard. Shooting enemies feels about as rewarding as wiping piss off a toilet seat; probably because while you're laboring away at an enemy with your weapon, you're tanking damage from the million other enemies on screen that you'd rather blink to and slice with your far more powerful sword, so really the game is more of a hack 'n' slash than a shoot 'em up. Although, some of the powerups for the gun do make it quite fun to use, especially the rocket launcher, which tears up everything in its path in a way that makes you feel like you're a demigod.
When all is said and done, zipping around the levels and slashing at enemies until they die is a very enjoyable experience. The enemies and bosses are varied enough to keep gameplay interesting. The game doesn't look or sound half bad, either. There are a few things that bug me, like why your character only moves at a speed that can be accurately described as "moseying along," which isn't really appropriate for the setting. The main issue, though, is how impossible it is to dodge enemy fire, especially when you drop into the tractor beam of an enemy you couldn't see. So yeah. The game really is just reduced to blinking and slashing, with the occasional boom boom. If that sounds fun to you, give it a go, but if you're more into the challenging shoot 'em up like Contra, which feeds your sense of accomplishment in addition to your primitive desire to see things blow up, rather than just relying on the latter, then maybe this one isn't for you.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay stimulating.
Links
shoot to kill...now keep shooting...almost...there ya go: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25995
Friday, August 30, 2013
Shoot on Sight
Games are art. That's a phrase that a lot of people like to plunge into a conversation, propelled by their undying passion for the medium. When presenting their cases in the inevitable newly formed debate, gamers will often cite such works as Braid, which uses plenty of literary devices to present a narrative in such a way that would make high school English teachers wet their trousers with pretentious bouts of intellectual superiority. Many might think that if I were to use a game on this list to make a case that the video game is just as legitimate as any other kind of narrative experience, I would examine a game like Oniro, a game that perfectly nailed the whole "narrative" part and delivered a story which almost moved me to tears, all the while explaining itself through its mechanics and never becoming dull or repetitive.
Yes, it is true, that games like this have a significant role in the distinguishing of video games as a form of art, but such arguments tend to ignore the mindless adrenaline drips...the games that sell like hotcakes during Christmastime. What about the shooter that makes no attempt to tell a story or utilize any kind of arbitrarily named literary device? Should those be lumped into the same category as pornography under the title "things that make you feel good but you should probably keep to yourself?" I don't think so. I think there's just as much value to be had in a mindless but fun experience, and there's certainly enough opportunity for the developers to show their skill, which is what art is by definition.
And show off skill the developers of Shoot on Sight did. Not so much in the visual design department nor in the gameplay balancing department, but the game certainly feels great to play. It's a third-person shooter wherein you are armed with a pea shooter and a nuclear warhead launcher with infinite ammo and quick reload times...guess which one you'll be using most of the time.
Yes, the secondary weapon is quite hideously overpowered, but not so much that it breaks the game completely. You can still have a lot of fun while limiting yourself to the peashooter, and the upgrades for it will keep gameplay fun and varied. What it does do, however, is make the game a bit too easy. Once you learn how to catch enemies within the insta-kill blast radius of your secondary weapon, your own splash damage is pretty much the only thing that threatens you. There are little suicide bomber enemies that can take a good chunk off you if you're not careful, but your health regenerates fairly quickly, so all it takes is a little safe playing before you're ready to start jumping around lobbing pocket rockets at anything that moves.
And is that a bad thing? Absolutely not. In my book, this game is a success. It set out with the goal of providing a fun and addicting (in the good way) experience, and that's exactly what it is. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay trigger-happy.
Links
Kill all sons o' bitches: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=1423
Yes, it is true, that games like this have a significant role in the distinguishing of video games as a form of art, but such arguments tend to ignore the mindless adrenaline drips...the games that sell like hotcakes during Christmastime. What about the shooter that makes no attempt to tell a story or utilize any kind of arbitrarily named literary device? Should those be lumped into the same category as pornography under the title "things that make you feel good but you should probably keep to yourself?" I don't think so. I think there's just as much value to be had in a mindless but fun experience, and there's certainly enough opportunity for the developers to show their skill, which is what art is by definition.
And show off skill the developers of Shoot on Sight did. Not so much in the visual design department nor in the gameplay balancing department, but the game certainly feels great to play. It's a third-person shooter wherein you are armed with a pea shooter and a nuclear warhead launcher with infinite ammo and quick reload times...guess which one you'll be using most of the time.
Yes, the secondary weapon is quite hideously overpowered, but not so much that it breaks the game completely. You can still have a lot of fun while limiting yourself to the peashooter, and the upgrades for it will keep gameplay fun and varied. What it does do, however, is make the game a bit too easy. Once you learn how to catch enemies within the insta-kill blast radius of your secondary weapon, your own splash damage is pretty much the only thing that threatens you. There are little suicide bomber enemies that can take a good chunk off you if you're not careful, but your health regenerates fairly quickly, so all it takes is a little safe playing before you're ready to start jumping around lobbing pocket rockets at anything that moves.
And is that a bad thing? Absolutely not. In my book, this game is a success. It set out with the goal of providing a fun and addicting (in the good way) experience, and that's exactly what it is. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay trigger-happy.
Links
Kill all sons o' bitches: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=1423
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