Well, here we are. It seems like only yesterday I sat comfortably in the lobby of my grandma's condo in Florida, twinkly eyed and full of energy, playing 0xCELERATOR. For all the good and all the bad, 2013 has definitely been the most emotionally jam-packed year of my life. This blog was one of the only things that gave 2013 some much needed stability. To me, this was the most meaningful project I've undertaken to date. Thank you all so much for contributing to it.
I couldn't leave so unceremoniously after leaving you guys hanging for as long as I did, so I prepared a little surprise for you. It's not much, but I hope it leaves a bit of an impression.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th5jo_8j7GA
Thanks again, guys. Here's to an even better 2014.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Monday, December 16, 2013
WHAT THE HELL, DIGIPEN?
Okay, so today the DigiPen Game Gallery underwent a major design overhaul. The list looks a lot more aesthetically pleasing now, so that's nice, but there's one major problem...what was it again? Oh yeah I have no idea where all the games are. There were 2 games left on the old list that I was going to review today before moving onto the games I missed over the course of this year. I searched for both of them and found neither. So now, I don't know what to do. As damning as this may be to me, I might have to take another short hiatus. I don't see how I can continue until I make a plan to conquer this newest obstacle. Stay tuned.
This blog was going to last for two more weeks, DigiPen. TWO MORE WEEKS! You couldn't have waited until 2014 to completely alter your website?
This blog was going to last for two more weeks, DigiPen. TWO MORE WEEKS! You couldn't have waited until 2014 to completely alter your website?
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Feets of Fury and Protista (Or, How I Learned to Write Nothing and Still Make Progress)
This is not really a typical review post. Instead, it's going to end up being one of those updates that consist of me whining for 2 or 3 paragraphs. I did try to play both of the games in the title, but neither of them worked. With Feets of Fury, it was the same situation as Connection Established. All I can show you is a video. Unlike Connection Established, though, Feets of Fury didn't feature their youtube video on their game's webpage, so instead of linking you to the game itself, I'm just going to link the youtube video. The video makes the game look like a fun, fast-paced platformer kind of like A Flipping Good Time, but again, I wasn't able to play it, so I can't say.
Protista was a bit more of an interesting adventure. I knew this was going to be an interesting adventure when the thumbnail featured not a screenshot taken from the game, but a picture of some guy playing the game...on his Nintendo DS. I personally don't own a DS, and even if I did, I would have no idea how to put a file I found on the internet into a DS cartridge...or whatever. Instead, I found a DS Emulator and tried to use that (so yeah, my hard drive is even more pissed at me than usual), but even after I did that, I couldn't get the game to work. It starts up fine, but the game has no sound and barely responds to any of my input. When a reviewer says a game is "unplayable," they usually mean that the game is just incredibly frustrating to play, but Protista is literally unable to be played, at least on the emulator I was using. Frankly, I have neither the time nor the patience to experiment with different kinds of emulators, so I'm just going to consider both of today's games broken. Ironically, I still managed to write more today than I have for games that actually worked in the past...not sure whether that says more about me as a writer or certain DigiPen students as game designers...
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay functional
Links
With incredible Speeds I'm Moving my Feets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zjyduEK0EM
I Miss Biology Class: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=436
Protista was a bit more of an interesting adventure. I knew this was going to be an interesting adventure when the thumbnail featured not a screenshot taken from the game, but a picture of some guy playing the game...on his Nintendo DS. I personally don't own a DS, and even if I did, I would have no idea how to put a file I found on the internet into a DS cartridge...or whatever. Instead, I found a DS Emulator and tried to use that (so yeah, my hard drive is even more pissed at me than usual), but even after I did that, I couldn't get the game to work. It starts up fine, but the game has no sound and barely responds to any of my input. When a reviewer says a game is "unplayable," they usually mean that the game is just incredibly frustrating to play, but Protista is literally unable to be played, at least on the emulator I was using. Frankly, I have neither the time nor the patience to experiment with different kinds of emulators, so I'm just going to consider both of today's games broken. Ironically, I still managed to write more today than I have for games that actually worked in the past...not sure whether that says more about me as a writer or certain DigiPen students as game designers...
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay functional
Links
With incredible Speeds I'm Moving my Feets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zjyduEK0EM
I Miss Biology Class: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=436
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Connection Established (kinda) and Contrive
The download link for Connection Established didn't work, so I'm only going to be reviewing Contrive. for all it's worth, though, the link I'll post for Connection Established has a youtube video that showcases the game, so at least you can get a little taste of what it's like.
Contrive, while it doesn't advertise itself this way (thankfully) is one of those "poetic experience" type games. The exclusion of these two words from the game's description makes me want to pass over the game's narrative, but do I really want to let the description of a game, let alone a single noun phrase therein, determine the content of my entire review? No, I'm just going to review the game as if it didn't have a description, like I usually do.
The game is a series of puzzle-based levels with a short screen with some textual dialogue in between each. It's sort of like Braid in that way. The text tries to give some exposition about the plot of the game, but ends up just sounding like the ravings of a lunatic. I understand that that's the entire point and that the narrative is not supposed to be completely comprehensible at first glance, but I've always given narrative structures like that a sour look. Braid's story was complete gobbledygook (Seriously, Blogger? You're not going to put a squiggly line under that one? Okay...) as well, but it got away with it because the other elements of the game (gameplay, music, visual style, etc) all conveyed the feelings that the story was supposed to bring. You didn't need to understand the story. In Contrive, though, I feel like they made a perfectly fine puzzle platformer and then decided to add a deep, convoluted story that had nothing to do with the mechanics. The flow of time was a major theme in Braid's story as well as its mechanics, but I didn't see any of that consistency in Contrive. Then again, I only played through Contrive once, and I had to play Braid like 5 times before I understood it, so maybe the comparison is unfair. Good lord this is a long paragraph...
Let's talk about the gameplay then. The levels all consist of blocks, with each block containing platforms. Before the platforms can be traversed, though, the blocks need to be rotated a certain way. Imagine a regular succession of platforms, and then slice it into equal squares with a pizza cutter and rotate each individual square. That's what a level of Contrive looks like.
For a puzzle game, the gameplay is relatively straightforward. I never really had to think about which platforms to rotate which way, because the levels are designed so linearly. If you just keep going without even thinking about the level as a whole and just rotate the blocks when you get to the little rotatory cube that allows you to manipulate the level, you'll pretty much get it every time. A dummy block here and there wouldn't hurt. As long as it's a puzzle game, try to stump me!
So without the mental engagement of a puzzle game or the physical engagement of a platformer, a game like Contrive falls pretty flat. It's one of those games that didn't do anything wrong but didn't do anything particularly right either. Maybe give it a shot if you're bored, but for the most part I'd say there's nothing to see here.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay contrived
Links
Connection very much NOT established: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26726
Is a cute lil bunnymouse adventure: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26725
Contrive, while it doesn't advertise itself this way (thankfully) is one of those "poetic experience" type games. The exclusion of these two words from the game's description makes me want to pass over the game's narrative, but do I really want to let the description of a game, let alone a single noun phrase therein, determine the content of my entire review? No, I'm just going to review the game as if it didn't have a description, like I usually do.
The game is a series of puzzle-based levels with a short screen with some textual dialogue in between each. It's sort of like Braid in that way. The text tries to give some exposition about the plot of the game, but ends up just sounding like the ravings of a lunatic. I understand that that's the entire point and that the narrative is not supposed to be completely comprehensible at first glance, but I've always given narrative structures like that a sour look. Braid's story was complete gobbledygook (Seriously, Blogger? You're not going to put a squiggly line under that one? Okay...) as well, but it got away with it because the other elements of the game (gameplay, music, visual style, etc) all conveyed the feelings that the story was supposed to bring. You didn't need to understand the story. In Contrive, though, I feel like they made a perfectly fine puzzle platformer and then decided to add a deep, convoluted story that had nothing to do with the mechanics. The flow of time was a major theme in Braid's story as well as its mechanics, but I didn't see any of that consistency in Contrive. Then again, I only played through Contrive once, and I had to play Braid like 5 times before I understood it, so maybe the comparison is unfair. Good lord this is a long paragraph...
Let's talk about the gameplay then. The levels all consist of blocks, with each block containing platforms. Before the platforms can be traversed, though, the blocks need to be rotated a certain way. Imagine a regular succession of platforms, and then slice it into equal squares with a pizza cutter and rotate each individual square. That's what a level of Contrive looks like.
For a puzzle game, the gameplay is relatively straightforward. I never really had to think about which platforms to rotate which way, because the levels are designed so linearly. If you just keep going without even thinking about the level as a whole and just rotate the blocks when you get to the little rotatory cube that allows you to manipulate the level, you'll pretty much get it every time. A dummy block here and there wouldn't hurt. As long as it's a puzzle game, try to stump me!
So without the mental engagement of a puzzle game or the physical engagement of a platformer, a game like Contrive falls pretty flat. It's one of those games that didn't do anything wrong but didn't do anything particularly right either. Maybe give it a shot if you're bored, but for the most part I'd say there's nothing to see here.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay contrived
Links
Connection very much NOT established: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26726
Is a cute lil bunnymouse adventure: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26725
Friday, December 13, 2013
Abyss and Aurora
Well, here we go again. I think I figured out why these 8 games are at the end of the list and so egregiously out of alphabetical order. Whereas the other games on the list were all ".exe" files (whether real or not real), Abyss and Aurora were both ".msi" files. Well jinkies, guys, I think we solved the mystery.
Remembering some older posts of mine, I realized that I seem to have a strange attraction to "ball games." From Aescher to Leshy, whenever the protagonist is a spherical object traversing a world of geometric peril, I seem to be sold. That said, it may come as no surprise that Abyss gets my recommendation.
I can, however, say that Abyss is my favorite of the "ball games" that I've played, so I'm not just enamored with it for its nature. The game sold me with it's amazing controls. The common problem with "ball games," which I definitely mentioned in one of my reviews...maybe Leshy's (yay professionalism), is that the momentum always seems out to get you. In Abyss, while the physics may be a bit wonky at times, they are perfectly tuned to give the player maximum control over their character.
Abyss is careful not to overstay its welcome. It only has 3 levels, each of which introduce and explore a new mechanic. In the first level, you're just learning how to play. In the second, a spring power is introduced. In the third, an ice power. If you need more elaboration to understand the game...well, good. Go play it yourself and find out. That way I have to write less and Abyss gets closer to the attention it deserves. Win-win. My point is that the game is perfectly paced.
Basically Everything in this game is expertly done. The levels are designed to be manageable but challenging and always fun (with the exception of the very last section, which involves a lot of waiting...and I don't like waiting). The iteration time between failure and retrial is wicked fast, and the game just feels great to play.
So, yeah, that's all I can really say about Abyss. It's good enough to get my seal of approval. Go play it. Now, let's dive into Aurora.
This is a very interesting game that's very hard for me to describe. The super abridged version is that you can control 2 or 3 cannons, which you use to shoot moving targets on the screen. You can also shoot randomly spawning powerups for bonus points, upgraded weapons, etc.
The aesthetic can only be described as trippy. The bright yet calm red and blue meld together in a way that draws you into the experience, and the immersive music seals the deal. Add onto that the very active gameplay and you've got yourself one heck of a sense of flow.
The targets move along fixed rails, so the real challenge in the game is lining up your line of fire with the rail that your target is travelling along in order to maximize your chance at hitting it. Either that or you can just get really good at timing your shots and just try to fire one round after another without worrying about lining up your shots optimally. Both strategies have their advantages and disadvantages.
The biggest downside to this game is that, after playing through it, I still have no idea how half of it works. My opinion on game design like this wavers a tad (I have lauded games like Dark Souls for allowing the player to complete the game without experiencing a good portion of it), but I feel like when you are able to utterly destroy the AI opponent without even knowing what one of your 3 primary buttons does, or why you keep stealing a hundred points from your opponent, then maybe the game has flawed conveyance. I guess I can't fault the game too much for that last thing because it's literally the first thing mentioned in the tutorial, which I was too stubborn to look at before I played. This entire paragraph is a very minor gripe, to be honest.
The bottom line is that Aurora is immersive and intense. I only wish that the game explained itself a bit better and that the AI was a bit more of a challenge, but the experience was still very fun. Now, do I give this game my seal of approval too? Am I just getting way too generous? See, I'm not sure. Abyss got the seal of approval, yet I didn't have as much fun with that game as I did with Aurora. On the other hand, Abyss didn't have as many flaws, so from a technical perspective, it's the better game. I guess up until now, my seal of approval has been mostly reserved for games whose flaws, if they even existed, were negligible, and why would I change the formula halfway through my last month of writing? Sorry, Aurora. You still get a hearty recommendation from me, but Abyss is the only one walking home with the seal today.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay psychedelic.
Links
Ab-Yes: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18581
Awrawrooo: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26727
Remembering some older posts of mine, I realized that I seem to have a strange attraction to "ball games." From Aescher to Leshy, whenever the protagonist is a spherical object traversing a world of geometric peril, I seem to be sold. That said, it may come as no surprise that Abyss gets my recommendation.
I can, however, say that Abyss is my favorite of the "ball games" that I've played, so I'm not just enamored with it for its nature. The game sold me with it's amazing controls. The common problem with "ball games," which I definitely mentioned in one of my reviews...maybe Leshy's (yay professionalism), is that the momentum always seems out to get you. In Abyss, while the physics may be a bit wonky at times, they are perfectly tuned to give the player maximum control over their character.
Abyss is careful not to overstay its welcome. It only has 3 levels, each of which introduce and explore a new mechanic. In the first level, you're just learning how to play. In the second, a spring power is introduced. In the third, an ice power. If you need more elaboration to understand the game...well, good. Go play it yourself and find out. That way I have to write less and Abyss gets closer to the attention it deserves. Win-win. My point is that the game is perfectly paced.
Basically Everything in this game is expertly done. The levels are designed to be manageable but challenging and always fun (with the exception of the very last section, which involves a lot of waiting...and I don't like waiting). The iteration time between failure and retrial is wicked fast, and the game just feels great to play.
So, yeah, that's all I can really say about Abyss. It's good enough to get my seal of approval. Go play it. Now, let's dive into Aurora.
This is a very interesting game that's very hard for me to describe. The super abridged version is that you can control 2 or 3 cannons, which you use to shoot moving targets on the screen. You can also shoot randomly spawning powerups for bonus points, upgraded weapons, etc.
The aesthetic can only be described as trippy. The bright yet calm red and blue meld together in a way that draws you into the experience, and the immersive music seals the deal. Add onto that the very active gameplay and you've got yourself one heck of a sense of flow.
The targets move along fixed rails, so the real challenge in the game is lining up your line of fire with the rail that your target is travelling along in order to maximize your chance at hitting it. Either that or you can just get really good at timing your shots and just try to fire one round after another without worrying about lining up your shots optimally. Both strategies have their advantages and disadvantages.
The biggest downside to this game is that, after playing through it, I still have no idea how half of it works. My opinion on game design like this wavers a tad (I have lauded games like Dark Souls for allowing the player to complete the game without experiencing a good portion of it), but I feel like when you are able to utterly destroy the AI opponent without even knowing what one of your 3 primary buttons does, or why you keep stealing a hundred points from your opponent, then maybe the game has flawed conveyance. I guess I can't fault the game too much for that last thing because it's literally the first thing mentioned in the tutorial, which I was too stubborn to look at before I played. This entire paragraph is a very minor gripe, to be honest.
The bottom line is that Aurora is immersive and intense. I only wish that the game explained itself a bit better and that the AI was a bit more of a challenge, but the experience was still very fun. Now, do I give this game my seal of approval too? Am I just getting way too generous? See, I'm not sure. Abyss got the seal of approval, yet I didn't have as much fun with that game as I did with Aurora. On the other hand, Abyss didn't have as many flaws, so from a technical perspective, it's the better game. I guess up until now, my seal of approval has been mostly reserved for games whose flaws, if they even existed, were negligible, and why would I change the formula halfway through my last month of writing? Sorry, Aurora. You still get a hearty recommendation from me, but Abyss is the only one walking home with the seal today.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay psychedelic.
Links
Ab-Yes: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18581
Awrawrooo: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26727
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Zombie Hut and Zombie Pancake Attack
Well, look what we have here. What better way to end the alphabet than with two zombie shooters? Well, I can think of a few...don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that the DigiPen gods have taken pity on my poor, tired soul with two entertaining yet insubstantial romps through pewpew town, it's just that having my review of two separate games inevitably take less than a page doesn't do much for my self esteem. Oh well, we play the cards we're dealt.
Zombie Hut is the one that I really don't have much to say about. It's a standard top-down zombie shooter wherein you have to deliver 30 (I think) pizzas before they get cold, all the while dodging and shooting impatient zombies who want their hapless delivery boy in 30 minutes or less. Apart from your gun, you are armed only with medkits, grenades, and energy drinks which make you go faster, all of which are scattered about the level.
While the grenade is kind of fun to use, it's not nearly as effective as your gun, which tears through zombies like the guillotine of Hephaestus through butter. The medkits are standard, though you'll never need to use them if you just make an effort to pass by the hospital when your health gets low. The only truly useful item is the energy drink, without which you might as well just sprinkle pepperoni on yourself and lie in wait of your inevitable demise. With the energy drink in hand, though, the game becomes almost insultingly easy. The only real threat is if you play like a fool and run yourself into a dead end, but even if that happens, you will probably have such a stockpile of grenades, bullets, and medkits that any number of zombies will crumble before your might like ants in a typhoon.
Ok, so maybe I had more to say about that game than I thought...regardless, whatever feelings my intro "paragraph" conveyed are probably similar to the ones you'll feel after playing Zombie Hut. Not wholly satisfied, but still entertained.
Now then, let's get to Zombie Pancake Attack. If this game had a marketing department, every member in it would deserve to be hunted down and sentenced to a hundred years of exile. The game advertises itself as a "tower defense" game, and the little thumbnail thing makes it look like it was thrown together in an hour by a dude who has an elementary knowledge of C++ and MSPaint.
Despite the horrible job this game did at selling itself to me, I was actually very entertained by Zombie Pancake Attack. Calling this game "tower defense" is like calling The Godfather an "Italian family drama." Yeah, I guess that's technically accurate, but it's a severe undersell. The only tower you're defending is yourself (and I guess the occasional townsperson), but you don't defend them by erecting automated turrets that fire at nauseatingly infrequent fixed intervals, you just shoot things!
You have two guns, a syrup gun and a plate gun. You first have to douse your pancake adversaries in syrup, and then you can shoot a plate at them to teleport them into oblivion. This is probably where the game derives its "strategy" name, but really all it boils down to is holding both the right and left mouse buttons and pointing at whatever you want to go away.
The game has three regular levels and two boss levels. The differences in kinda among the three levels keep the game as engaging as shooting pancakes can be. Yeah, the visual style is a little bland, but I find it at least charming, and it never took me out of the experience. The sound direction is spot on, and the gameplay is solid. My only real critique is that the game was as thought-provoking as it was challenging. That is to say, not at all. The only time I felt challenged was during the final boss, and that's just because I forgot I could move with A and D and was tanking unnecessary damage for the first half of the fight.
And that's it. Just like that, I can say I've powered through the DigiPen Game Gallery A-Z. Of course, you all know that my work is far from over. For some reason, there are still a few games out of alphabetical order after this, and then I want to go back and retry all the games that were added over the course of this year. It's going to be a fun couple of weeks, ain't it...
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay delicious
Links
Zombietime USA: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26148
Buttermilk Doomsday: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18534
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Zero Frontier and Zombie Farm
Zero Frontier is exactly what I like to see in a game. It's an original concept with a suitable narrative and competent game mechanics. Oops, I totally just wrote the last sentence of the review first, didn't I? Well, now that you know my opinion on Zero Frontier, let me substantiate it a bit.
The premise is that you are a lone astronaut who has come across an abandoned space station and must explore it (in a top-down omnidirectional fashion) in order to find an energy core that you can use to power your ship and bring yourself to safety. Now, as you all know, in space, no one can hear you walk...that's because there's no gravity, so you can't walk. Instead, you have to propel yourself using a self-refilling fire extinguisher type thing with RMB.
This mechanic was a bit annoying for me because I've been using my trackpad ever since my mouse ran out of battery and I was too lazy to run to the store to buy some AAAs. It's usually not too much of a problem, but playing games that heavily involve both the right and left mouse buttons is a tad annoying, especially when RMB is the predominant button. Can't really blame anyone but myself for this, though...just thought it deserved to be mentioned.
The gameplay gets an A+ from me. Yeah, momentum mechanics tend to be a bit infuriating to work with, but this game pulls it off as well as I think is possible. What really sells it is that the levels are designed in a way that's conducive to rocketing yourself across the room uncontrollably every now and again, but that will punish you for not thinking out your next move.
The regular levels are reasonably fun. enemies, obstacles, and pickups are all placed in such a way that promotes a natural progression of thought->action->failure->rethought->reward. This is not a game that you'll be able to breeze through in your first try. It's going to take you a couple attempts. I know some people don't like this kind of gameplay, so caveat emptor (er...download-or). I, however, find this to be among the most engaging structures for play a game can employ. That's part of the reason I've got 125 hours (and counting) clocked in Dark Souls.
What really made me love this game, though, were the boss rooms. The bosses themselves are standard large circular enemies that shoot projectiles in all 8 (or maybe like 12? I didn't count) directions, but the rooms are beautifully designed from start to finish. The second you step foot...er...float...into one, you're greeted by a stockpile of ammo and health and a change in the normal, semi-calming music to a more lively track that gets you ready for an intense fight that the game is sure to deliver.
I actually didn't get to finish this game because the second boss room was a bit too sadistic for me to complete in time to not fail my Calculus test tomorrow, but for all the failed attempts at completing it, I never once lost the motivation to continue...perhaps everyday school and work environments can learn a thing or two from games like this. Ah, but now I'm overstepping my bounds and dipping into Extra Credits' territory, so I'll move onto game #2.
It's rare that I stop playing a game before it has, in any meaningful sense, begun. As you all know by now, though, I am of the unbending opinion that a game should not be given any breaks just because it's being played for the purpose of a review. If a professional reviewer found the beginning of a game so appalling that he or she had no motivation to continue, I would graciously accept the poor review with the caveat "I didn't play the whole thing." Heck, that policy would probably saved me a few hundred dollars over the years in bad purchases. That's exactly what happened with Zombie Farm.
What hurts the most is that I'm pretty sure Zombie Farm had the potential to be decent. The 3D art, while nothing by today's standards, had that Crazy Cross kind of appeal and definitely handles colors responsibly. Once I learned what to do, I'm sure the game would have flowed perfectly and kept me entertained for as long as I requested of it...but getting to that stage would be so infuriating and tedious that frankly, it's just not worth your time.
The game starts with a bat, who was one voice-over away from being Navi 2.0, swirling gleefully around your head and telling you in the form of a dialogue box the basic background and controls of the game...and when I say "basic," I use that word loosely. Even if I were okay with the idea of text-box based exposition (which I'm very much not), I would still say that this much superfluous text is nothing short of erroneous. Thinking your game's narrative is so brilliant that it deserves more than half a minute of the player's time to be spent reading instead of playing is even more pretentious than the wording in my last sentence.
After that, I walked around the overworld with little to no idea where the hell I was going until I came upon the character I was supposed to talk to. Oh, goody! More dialogue. I was told to pay a visit to the local shop, which I could distinguish between the other identical buildings that had no function in the game whatsoever because the shop would be highlighted when I walked near it. So then I spent a little time awkwardly dragging myself across any house-like building I could find until the game popped me back into the starting room and gave me a big ol' "Thanks for trying." After this, I was mildly (read, "wildly") agitated, but not enough so to prevent me from trying to amend my perfectly justified mistakes. So I pressed the action button to restart, and was greeted by my good friend Batthew (not joking. That's the name they went with) explaining the game to me all over again. First with a sigh and then with a partially yelled "nope!" I exited the game, never to be booted up again.
Maybe, just maybe, if the game had employed design choices that made actually playing the game the least bit rewarding, I would be able to forgive the terrible conveyance. But there are no background sounds, the gameplay is unengaging as all hell at startup, and what am I putting myself through all of this for anyways? A glorified RTS? That's what it seems like...No thanks.
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay zombified.
Links
Whoosh Kapow Fun: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26035
None of the above: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=508
The premise is that you are a lone astronaut who has come across an abandoned space station and must explore it (in a top-down omnidirectional fashion) in order to find an energy core that you can use to power your ship and bring yourself to safety. Now, as you all know, in space, no one can hear you walk...that's because there's no gravity, so you can't walk. Instead, you have to propel yourself using a self-refilling fire extinguisher type thing with RMB.
This mechanic was a bit annoying for me because I've been using my trackpad ever since my mouse ran out of battery and I was too lazy to run to the store to buy some AAAs. It's usually not too much of a problem, but playing games that heavily involve both the right and left mouse buttons is a tad annoying, especially when RMB is the predominant button. Can't really blame anyone but myself for this, though...just thought it deserved to be mentioned.
The gameplay gets an A+ from me. Yeah, momentum mechanics tend to be a bit infuriating to work with, but this game pulls it off as well as I think is possible. What really sells it is that the levels are designed in a way that's conducive to rocketing yourself across the room uncontrollably every now and again, but that will punish you for not thinking out your next move.
The regular levels are reasonably fun. enemies, obstacles, and pickups are all placed in such a way that promotes a natural progression of thought->action->failure->rethought->reward. This is not a game that you'll be able to breeze through in your first try. It's going to take you a couple attempts. I know some people don't like this kind of gameplay, so caveat emptor (er...download-or). I, however, find this to be among the most engaging structures for play a game can employ. That's part of the reason I've got 125 hours (and counting) clocked in Dark Souls.
What really made me love this game, though, were the boss rooms. The bosses themselves are standard large circular enemies that shoot projectiles in all 8 (or maybe like 12? I didn't count) directions, but the rooms are beautifully designed from start to finish. The second you step foot...er...float...into one, you're greeted by a stockpile of ammo and health and a change in the normal, semi-calming music to a more lively track that gets you ready for an intense fight that the game is sure to deliver.
I actually didn't get to finish this game because the second boss room was a bit too sadistic for me to complete in time to not fail my Calculus test tomorrow, but for all the failed attempts at completing it, I never once lost the motivation to continue...perhaps everyday school and work environments can learn a thing or two from games like this. Ah, but now I'm overstepping my bounds and dipping into Extra Credits' territory, so I'll move onto game #2.
It's rare that I stop playing a game before it has, in any meaningful sense, begun. As you all know by now, though, I am of the unbending opinion that a game should not be given any breaks just because it's being played for the purpose of a review. If a professional reviewer found the beginning of a game so appalling that he or she had no motivation to continue, I would graciously accept the poor review with the caveat "I didn't play the whole thing." Heck, that policy would probably saved me a few hundred dollars over the years in bad purchases. That's exactly what happened with Zombie Farm.
What hurts the most is that I'm pretty sure Zombie Farm had the potential to be decent. The 3D art, while nothing by today's standards, had that Crazy Cross kind of appeal and definitely handles colors responsibly. Once I learned what to do, I'm sure the game would have flowed perfectly and kept me entertained for as long as I requested of it...but getting to that stage would be so infuriating and tedious that frankly, it's just not worth your time.
The game starts with a bat, who was one voice-over away from being Navi 2.0, swirling gleefully around your head and telling you in the form of a dialogue box the basic background and controls of the game...and when I say "basic," I use that word loosely. Even if I were okay with the idea of text-box based exposition (which I'm very much not), I would still say that this much superfluous text is nothing short of erroneous. Thinking your game's narrative is so brilliant that it deserves more than half a minute of the player's time to be spent reading instead of playing is even more pretentious than the wording in my last sentence.
After that, I walked around the overworld with little to no idea where the hell I was going until I came upon the character I was supposed to talk to. Oh, goody! More dialogue. I was told to pay a visit to the local shop, which I could distinguish between the other identical buildings that had no function in the game whatsoever because the shop would be highlighted when I walked near it. So then I spent a little time awkwardly dragging myself across any house-like building I could find until the game popped me back into the starting room and gave me a big ol' "Thanks for trying." After this, I was mildly (read, "wildly") agitated, but not enough so to prevent me from trying to amend my perfectly justified mistakes. So I pressed the action button to restart, and was greeted by my good friend Batthew (not joking. That's the name they went with) explaining the game to me all over again. First with a sigh and then with a partially yelled "nope!" I exited the game, never to be booted up again.
Maybe, just maybe, if the game had employed design choices that made actually playing the game the least bit rewarding, I would be able to forgive the terrible conveyance. But there are no background sounds, the gameplay is unengaging as all hell at startup, and what am I putting myself through all of this for anyways? A glorified RTS? That's what it seems like...No thanks.
That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay zombified.
Links
Whoosh Kapow Fun: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26035
None of the above: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=508
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