Indie Game Review Panel [June Edition]
(brought you in part by The Illustrious Panel [TIP])

After nearly 12 months without a panel, GameTunnel brings back one of its favorite features with the incredible return of our illustrious panel. June was a fantastic month for indie gaming with Everyday Shooter finally making its way to the PC and that Penny Arcade game making people remember indie games exist. Those are just 2 of the 10 games covered in our June panel that ranges from the prehistoric past to the freakish future. Grab a chair and get ready to do some reading as The Illustrious Panel opines away on what is new in the world of Independent gaming.

# 1

Everyday Shooter

($9.99)
by Queasy Games

Website

9.0

COMBINED SCORE

Michael Scarpelli: 8

Everyday Shooter can be pretty succinctly summed up as being groovy. It's a geometric shooter, similar to something like Geometry Wars, but it has a unique sort of melodic element to it akin to shooters like Rez. I'll �"splain. There is a super groovy soundtrack that the game is played to. As you go along, though, each hit you score on the enemy makes another little note, adding a little sub-symphony to the soundtrack of the game. For as hectic as the action can get on-screen, the music makes everything feel very soothing. There seem to be a tasty number of unlockables for the game, too, which is a great way to keep gamers coming back to what is otherwise a fairly standard shooter, gameplay-wise. Though, I don't know that I'll ever get tired of combo-ing enemies into gigantic chain reaction explosions.

Pany Haritatos: 9

This is an amazing game that is experienced as much as it is played. The combination of the pulsing visuals and the dynamic music draws you in and makes it very easy to forget about the rest of the world. I'm not especially good at shooters and don't usually like them, which is a testament to the quality inside Everyday Shooter. This is one of those games every gamer needs to play, if only to have something to reference in the middle of a heated "games as art" debate. The gameplay is enjoyable, the music and sound effects mesmerizing, and the graphics are dynamic and visceral. Play this game now.

Russ Carroll: 10

Everyday Shooter is a simple game that feels more like a creative experience than the destructive shooter that it claims to be. The colorful and simple graphics are ever changing and reacting to your every move, and the simple music is always being altered and modified through the notes added by your dieing foes. The game is impressively deep behind a simple exterior, tantalizing you with possibility of what could have been if you'd perhaps tried another path or maybe let the enemy grow just a bit stronger before you began the combo of destruction that killed it. The sense of bringing things to life and growing them forth into new beings is simply fantastic, as is the soundtrack that backs the game. Ranging from soulful yearnings reminiscent of Pink Floyd to more electric guitar play, the sound continually drives the journey of discovery forward, and it's one that every gamer should take.

# 2

Droid Assault

($9.95)
by Puppy Games

	Website
	Download

8.0

COMBINED SCORE

Michael Scarpelli: 9

Clearly, we're being spoiled. Puppy Games is, yet again, another rock solid developer. No one does retro chic like Puppy Games. No one. They consistently manage to deliver fresh and exciting flavors for old school gaming. In Droid Assault, the standard shooter gets turned on its ear with a great little gimmick that drastically changes the way you play. You're a lowly, lonely droid. You can shoot a little, you can take a little damage. But you can also spend transfer points and take over other robots, adding them one by one to an ever-growing army of allies. Which robots to spend your transfer points on and which to take as your bruisers into combat quickly becomes a delicate exercise in balance. This game stresses me out in all the right ways.

Pany Haritatos: 8

Droid Assault is a blast to play. Just about every presentational aspect of the game oozes with quality and style. The music and sound effects are great, with a special nod to the garbled female loudspeaker announcement at the start of each level. The UI and graphics are equally as appealing. It was hard to come up with gripes for this game. I sometimes had problems distinguishing the different robots in the middle of a heated battle, but this is the only real issue I experienced. Droid Assault is good fun, and you should give it a whirl.

Russ Carroll: 7

Droid Assault is a fairly unique game. You control a robot, attempting to capture or destroy the robots running amuck in the warehouse. Destroying them is done with your robot's weapon (aiming with the mouse and firing with the left-mouse button). Taking control of the robots is done by using the right-mouse button. It's an action-strategy game at heart, as you have limited transfer points that can be used to take control of the other robots. Droid Assault is a cool concept and one that is wonderfully addicting as you keep leaping from super-cool robot to super-cooler robot adding more robots to your army. Of course, it's pretty jarring when your coolest robot gets terminated by the computer, and that happens fairly regularly. I found the game really difficult, and with no ability to restart on higher levels, my enjoyment of the title was cut short as replaying the early levels the fourth time around wasn't especially exciting.

# 2 (tied)

Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness

($19.99)
by Hothead Games

Website

8.0

COMBINED SCORE

Michael Scarpelli: 10

I'll preface this by telling you that I am a dyed in the wool Penny Arcade fanboy. I have a signed poster in my office. I read the site regularly, I buy the books, I visit them at Comic-Con. That having been said, I'm not a fan for blind reasons. I am a studied gamer, and Penny Arcade knows games. I am a trained writer, and Penny Arcade knows words. I am a funny dude, and Penny Arcade is hilarious. They've spent years making comics about games and gaming culture, and now Mike Krahulik (the art), Jerry Holkins (the words) and Hothead Games have put their money where their mouths are.

This game is the first in a episodic game arc, and I think it is a superb title. It's a RPG/Adventure-game hybrid with a pretty impressive attention to the finer points of gaming. Sure, it looks great, with character and location designs by Krahulik himself and a deliciously twisted storyline crafted lovingly by writing demi-god Jerry.

Underneath this coat of paint, though, is a really well-crafted gaming experience. Nearly everything you click on in the game will give you a different amusing message about what that item is. There's hidden art, hidden music and on and on.

Even combat in the game represents a wealth of features. Fighting is a sort of action-based RPG experience. Actions can be taken as soon as a set time period has passed, and enemy attacks can be blocked with a well-timed smack of the spacebar. When you're fighting with a party of three against 6 enemies, this is a frantic formula. Characters have upgradeable weapons, special attacks that level up, group combo attacks and the ability to earn overkill bonus damage for using those attacks just right. Oh, and you have NPC attacks to call upon and a full complement of combat items to employ.

All in all, this is a rich, relatively lengthy and carefully crafted bit of gaming. Penny Arcade likely know that some measure of their now ubiquitous reputation rests on the performance of this game. So, they didn't hold out. They gave their fans what they, likely, would want out of a game themselves. And that's a beautiful thing.

Pany Haritatos: 8

In the interests of full disclosure, I am unabashedly a Penny Arcade fan boy. I did my best to stay objective, but I thought it was best to make that clear. That being said, OTRSPODE1 actually exceeded my expectations, which is a rare occurrence. My favorite part of this game was the dialogue, followed by the comic book panels. Obviously these are the things I like most about the Penny Arcade comics, which to me means that the game is a success. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really enjoyed the gameplay as well. The turn-based(ish) combat implementation was a refreshing twist on a perhaps overused mechanic and one that definitely kept me pinned to the screen during combat. It took me a little while to really "get" the combat, but once I did I enjoyed it thoroughly. My least favorite part of this game had to be some of the "repeat X" type quests. They were varied enough to keep it from being a significant drawback, however, but the experience isn't completely hunky dory. The game is the right length for the price, and altogether a great bargain. Even if you're not a Penny Arcade fan, chances are you'll still have a blast playing through this game.

Russ Carroll: 6

I really have no idea how to score this game, so if you are considering getting it, you should probably throw my score out. Despite often enjoying the comic strip and blog at PA, I was repulsed by the game.

OTRSPODE1 is an action RPG that does some nice things (thankfully you won't find yourself spending half the time traveling back and forth between areas) and some pretty standard things (you'll often return to the same areas you've already been before because somehow it has changed and/or you missed something). Like Penny-Arcade, the writing it is often crude and occasionally poignant and the mix is both off-setting and inviting. I personally found the story to lack a certain punch and the off-color humor pushed me over the edge into a monologue rant about the difference between mature and juvenile. (the game is rated M)

In the end, I thought Rainslick followed the same ground as a lot of RPG games, plucking good ideas from many and putting them together in a game that is solid if not spectacular. Without the PA name and low-brow humor, I don't know if it would get much attention.

# 4

Larva Mortus

($19.95)
by Rake in Grass

	Website
	Download PC
	Download Mac

7.7

COMBINED SCORE

Michael Scarpelli: 7

Rake in Grass is another developer that I'm learning I can set my watch and warrant on. Larva Mortus is, if not spectacular gaming, totally solid gaming. Top-down shooter action delivered in juicy, bite-sized morsels. Nothing is terribly complex about the game, but it's well executed. Levels are randomly generated, which always helps with the replay value, and it's super easy to pick up and play a couple of levels during whatever break you can find in the day, and that's pretty nice. Because of the top-down formula, though, your options for gameplay are wander room to room and shoot things or… that's it. If you love it right off, the hits just keep on coming. If you hated it, though, it's a one note song, so you'll hate all of it.

Pany Haritatos: 8

I was pleasantly surprised by Larva Mortus. The gameplay is fairly standard top-down shooter. While the graphics are decent, the music and story were instrumental in pulling me into this game. The developer spent a lot of effort creating the overall horror theme, with usually great results. At first I found the story boards to be a little campy, but as the story pulled me in, they somehow added to the charm of the game as a whole. The RPG character progression mixed with random level generation went a long way to keep the game fresh. If you like top down shooters with some possessed humans and undead thrown into the mix, I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy Larva Mortus.

Russ Carroll: 8

If you turn on Larva Mortus hoping for a fantastic shooter ala Zombie Shooter or Crimsonland, you're going to be horribly disappointed. The game is far more slow and methodical in its approach, it's more strategy than action. Billed as a horror game, it's about as scary as pixels can be, which is to say not very. If you don't have an issue with those two points you should definitely check the game out. The story is interesting and the levels are redesigned randomly each time you play them, giving Larva a lot of good replay value that doesn't feel punishing when you get killed. The game has some RPG tendencies, allowing you to improve your character's abilities in ways that really do matter to the game play. Honestly, I really liked Larva Mortus once I got past wanting it to be a blast-a-thon. My score of the game kept going up as I played it more and more during the month. Once you 'get it,' Larva Mortus has got a unique feel to its action that is very satisfying.

# 5