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Michael Scarpelli: 9
Pany Haritatos: 9
Coby Utter: 9
Russ Carroll: 9
# 2 |
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Strong Bad's Cool Game for
Attractive People, Homestar Ruiner
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| 8.5 |
| COMBINED SCORE |
Michael Scarpelli: 10
There's almost nothing I can say as a critic about SBCGfAP. If you love Homestar Runner, and dammit you should, then you will love this. All your characters are there, they look great, they move great, they sound great. The writing is funny and very clearly authentic Homestar Runner quality. The interface is clean and useable and feels totally part of the world.
I often say that it's the little touches that make a game great, and that's the case here. From your ability to scribble locations on a hand-drawn location map in whatever spot you please, to the totally optional and totally in-character ability to prank call people when you stumble upon a mobile phone, to the super sweet Teen Grrrl Squad mini-game… it's all here. You can interact with this world in a very complete way and that is the crux of any great adventure game. Telltale Games, for the win. Sewiouswy.
Pany Haritatos: 8
Episode 1 of the Strong Bad game is a really well designed adventure game with great visuals, top notch audio and excellent writing. The beauty of this game is in the flawless execution by Telltale Games, who are obviously experts at the genre. I've never been a die-hard Strong Bad fan, but this game still kept me chuckling and interested enough to keep playing. I'd say this is an instant buy if you're a Strong Bad fan, but its worth taking a look at even if you've only ever casually dabbled with the internet phenomenon. The amount of polish applied here is staggering. The only reasons not to give this game a try is if you don't like adventure games, or if you don't like Strong Bad.
Coby Utter: 8
Telltale Games has become synonymous with humor-laden adventure games. SBCGfAP takes all of the great elements from
their previous Sam and Max games and infuses them with the even more offbeat humor of Homestar Runner to create a
compelling and hilarious game. The core mechanics here are the standard fare; you'll visit different locations, collecting
items, meeting people and solving puzzles to keep progressing. Fortunately, Telltale has these mechanics mastered, and the
game surprisingly doesn't get stale quickly, although I personally yearn for some more innovation here.
If you are familiar with the Homestar Runner universe, then the game's humor will be right up your alley. If not,
there will probably be some things that don't make a whole lot of sense, but the majority of the material is transparent
enough to get new initiates cracking up. The humor definitely drives the game, and stays fresh and funny for all of the 3
hours of gameplay. SBCGfAP is not mind-blowing, but it is an extremely solid and well-polished adventure game laced with
laughs.
Russ Carroll: 8
Here is a game where the score is pointless. I don't even know what it means. As a huge fan of Strong Bad, I savored Homestar Ruiner, the first episode of this new series from episodic masters Telltale Games.
It was everything I could have
hoped for. I enjoyed the Sam & Max games, but was more focused on finishing than on exploring. With Homestar Ruiner, I
explored every nook and cranny simply because it was so rewarding. The humor is spot-on to the website, which is to say
it's fantastic. There is even a fun little exercise of making your own Teen Girl Squad comics.
The only negative side
was that the story started to drag a bit about half way through after Homestar lost the race and his girlfriend, but it
quickly picked up and I soon myself giggling again. It's a solid 2 hour play through with about 3 hours of content and
worth every penny. If you're not a Homestar fan you'll miss half the humor in getting to know the characters, but if you
are a Homestar fan, then you couldn't possibly be disappointed.
Atomic Worm
(freeware)
by Charlie Dog Games
| 7.0 |
| COMBINED SCORE |
Michael Scarpelli: 7
Atomic Worm is a fresh take on the fairly old
"snake" style casual game. In a snake game, the gamer simply tries to guide a snake around obstacles to eat pellets to gain points and advance levels. Each pellet eaten causes the snake to grow longer, and it cannot loop back upon itself. Simple, classic stuff. AtomicWorm takes this formula and blows it up.
The goal is to create groupings of three or more of the various "pellet" types that will appear on the board. Chaining long groups together will get you big points as your snake grows… breaking a combo that you have going will also break the grouped items away from your snake's tail, keeping your snake a manageable length. Fail to make combos and your snake will begin to get out of hand as the pellets just pile up.
Throw onto this a groovy directional mouse-control scheme (don't even bother with keyboard controls, they're hideous), Tron-ish graphics, complex level layout and enemy obstacles added into the mix and AtomicWork is manic fun. However, the harder the game gets, the touchier you realize the controls are, and this can get a little frustrating, but it's all part of the challenge of an arcade-style game. And it's free!
Pany Haritatos: 7
An intriguing take on Snake, Atomic Worm combines an old game mechanic with some fun new ideas and the result in a compelling puzzlish action game. Rather impressively, the developer actually managed to squeeze some semblance of a match-3 experience in here as well. The graphics are decent but forgettable. The level design ranges from fun, like the rotating ones, to sometimes frustrating, like the ones that constantly change scale. The unique mouse-controlled movement took a little getting used to, but it works well once you master it. The audio is not great, but it is not bad either. The game successfully evokes some amount of atmosphere with its aesthetic choices. The game is fun, unique and free, so it certainly is worth a spin.
Coby Utter: 8
Atomic Worm is a whole lot of twist on the classic snake gameplay. Take the basic collect the item and grow without
intersecting yourself concept, add several different collectable types and a pseudo-match 3 mechanic, throw in some
rotating, distorting, varied levels with glowing neon graphics and you can see where Atomic Worm really adds tons of
unique elements to a simple game concept to form something new and engaging. It may seem like too many separate ideas have
been combined to form something complex or unapproachable, but Atomic Worm's streamlined gameplay keeps it simple and yet
has enough depth to provide a lot of fun.
At first, the mechanic to choose your path by moving around your mouse feels unnatural, especially when the levels
first begin rotating and distorting. After a few levels, however, the mechanic clicked and from that point on there was
just a simple but fun puzzle-light game to be had. The only other detractor would be the lack of effective sound effects
and the music which really didn't fit in with the vibe the gameplay was giving off.
Russ Carroll: 6
Atomic Worm has minimalist visual and simple play that work pretty well together. The game is snake on rails with icons
that you pick up as you move around the board. The goal is to make consecutive matches of 3. Making a match of 3 removes
all of that icon type from your tail, even if the items aren't consecutive.
It's fun for a couple of levels, but then the
mechanic starts to break down as the play is fast, but selecting which route you are going to take is imprecise (now I know
why worms move slowly!). I died a lot, each time sure it wasn't my fault, and after trying all interface options I
decided the mouse is the best way to play, but despite an hour of playing I
never mastered it and left frustrated at not being able to better enjoy what
otherwise seems like a pretty
interesting game.
Smugglers 4
($29.95)
by Niels Bauer Games
| 6.5 |
| COMBINED SCORE |
Michael Scarpelli: 6
Smugglers is a solid bit of space trading and combat gaming, but it's just not really for me. The game gives you the chance to make your fortune in space as a trader, smuggler, military officer, pirate and more… but in the end everything comes down to traveling to a planet, taking a mission (each class has the same mission types available – so you could be a pirate on military patrol for pirates) and then collecting some money. Rinse. Repeat.
It's not that the action is not well presented or easy to perform, it's more that I can turn my brain on autopilot and play the game. Combat is a simple repetition of a series of actions over and over again, trading is a simple repetition of actions over and over again, and the same is true of each mission you undertake. There's just not enough action or variance in methodology to keep me focused. Not to mention that it takes quite a bit of blowing up various ships before you can upgrade beyond the base ship classes. The jump of 20,000 credits for a ship up to 200,000 is a steep one with the rewards being what they are in-game.
Basically, my problems with Smugglers are the same I had with the much-touted EVE Online – you can play it how you want, but no matter how you want to play it, it takes forever.
Pany Haritatos: 7
Smugglers 4 is very similar to games like TradeWinds and TradeWars, though it is single-player. I like these types of games so I found myself quite enjoying Smugglers 4. The game has its flaws, but, for the most part, it provides an enjoyable and engaging experience. The user interface in the game is a little overwhelming at first, but luckily there is a thorough but painless tutorial that gives you a high level overview of the most important actions in the game. The graphics are decent and the audio is forgettable but not in a bad way. The game universe is quite expansive and there is a lot going on at any particular time which really contributes to the feeling that you are just a small part of a large dynamic environment. I found the turn-based combat with action queues to be unique and enjoyable, though not entirely perfect. It seemed impractical to follow the merchant or bounty hunter path, as the illegal trading business seemed to offer, by far, the quickest way to accumulate wealth and buy the tools to defend it. It's nothing revolutionary, but Smugglers 4 is a great space trading simulation with excellent execution.
Coby Utter: 6
Smugglers 4 is a space exploration/adventure game with a focus on galactic economics. You can buy and sell goods
(hopefully for a profit!), take part in combat missions, and try to expand your influence throughout the cosmos across
several different missions throughout the game. At first, the game seems very limited in scope, as you simply engage in a
lot of trading between galactic outposts and planets, trying to build cash for upgrades. However, after you've managed to
get through the first part of the game your options open up a good bit with a variety of missions to partake in.
Visually, Smugglers 4 leaves much to be desired. Everything is extremely low resolution and static; space has never
felt so dead. Even the battles are only sparsely animated, with few effects, and an overall drudging pace. I always look
forward to the space battles in games like this, but in Smugglers 4 case, I couldn't wait to get back to the trading. The
trading is good, the universe is large, but beyond that, Smugglers 4 isn't too compelling.
Russ Carroll: 7
I was a huge fan of
Smugglers 3. It just seemed to open the universe up to you
to endless options and opportunities.
Smugglers 4 has some of the same feeling, but it's brought down to Earth with a sensation of tediousness. The battles,
even after optimizing them in options, are slow and are the equivalent of grind in RPGs...old RPGs. They lack
excitement and most of the time I was just waiting/wanting for them to be over.
The trading also seems like it isn't
optimized as it seems like you should be able to much more easily determine what is useful to trade (perhaps by
color-coding things) and what is not. As well, having to click on each item in
the trading list, instead of say using the arrow keys, makes a
slow process that much slower. There is still a lot of cool things in the game like building up your own amazing
ship and crew as you become known across the universe, and you can play it your way from star captain
extraordinaire, trader
or criminal, but it still didn't grab me like number 3 did.
The Magic Toy Chest
($19.95)
by Graduate Games
| 6.5 |
| COMBINED SCORE |
Michael Scarpelli: 6
The first thing that Magic Toy Chest will do is assault you with lights and sound. The game is garish and loud – but that's pretty much the point. It's a game about being a kid and cleaning up a kid's room. It doesn't help the game feel any less chaotic, though.
Each level revolves around the notion of the Magic Toy Chest, which must be filled with requisite toys before the level can be passed. You get these toys in the box by utilizing even more toys as tools to get the job done. Teddy bears can be wrecking balls, baseballs help shove things along a plane, dart guns act as long distance triggers, wiffle ball bats are bridges and so on.
Looking at everything can be overwhelming at first, but you quickly realize that the more options, the more there is to do, the more gameplay there is to consume, the better the experience is overall. However, the game is also filled with odd, buggy behaviors which sort of counterbalance the sandbox nature of the puzzle solving presented. It's great to have options for how to get things done, but if solutions don't work as they're intended to, it sort of breaks the entire formula.
Pany Haritatos: 7
Magic Toy Chest is probably the best 2D physics-based contraption game out there. It is also the first contraption game I've genuinely enjoyed since The Incredible Machine. The game is not without its flaws, however. They are significant enough to keep this game from being a truly engaging experience. I really hope the developer can address some of these issues, because with a little bit of attention, I feel like Magic Toy Chest could be truly brilliant. The biggest issue with Magic Toy Chest has to be the graphics. The 16-color graphics of The Incredible Machine look gorgeous next to the uninspired and seemingly half-finished graphics in Magic Toy Chest. The busy backgrounds hurt the experience by making it difficult to pick up on important elements in some of the more complicated levels. The game also has bugs. More than a few times, the simulation broke and objects would not behave according to their traditional rules. The bugs are fairly prevalent in the game, like the jittering rest state of most disturbed objects, or the incorrect clock readings. Generally speaking, though, they don't detract enough from the experience to keep it from being fun, which is a testament to the clever physical interactivity and level design work that has gone into this game. Magic Toy Chest is a fun all-ages game, with some genuinely interesting physics based puzzles, making it a must play for anyone who enjoys games of this type.
Coby Utter: 6
In the Magic Toy Chest, you have one very simple goal: to get several toys into the toy chest by using other toys to
jumpstart a chain of physics based collisions and reactions. The fun comes in as you watch the different toys careen down
slopes, bounce of each other and the environment, hopefully coming to rest in the chest. The game has a pick-up-and-play
approachability that bodes well for it, but several issues hurt the overall playing experience.
The graphics are very simplistic, often unattractive, and occasionally bland. Paired with an uninspiring soundtrack,
the presentation is sub-par. The real problems, however, are the occasional glitches in the physics which break the
immersion, and the feeling that most of the puzzles have only one path that will lead to the solution. Part of the fun in
a physics game is exploring the interactions of objects to solve each problem in a variety of ways, but despite most of my
varied attempts, a single solution was often all that could be found.
Russ Carroll: 7
There are moments of The Magic Toy Chest that I really like. After all, it's a physics based puzzler, not too far removed
from such gems as Crayon Physics and
Bridge Construction Set.
However, there are some issues that get in the way of it
being all that it can be. The first is the delay when restarting a level. In physics based games, you often have to
start over, but when you restart in TMTC, you are taken out of the level, it reloads, and then you go back in. The
process doesn't take long, 3-5 seconds at most, but it's a frustrating delay when your level was only 30 seconds long
[editor's note: the developer said that this is an issue that they are working on, which certainly would impact the
game if/when it is corrected].
Another issue, connected to the restart, is the inability to make minor changes. If you decide you
want to try again, keeping everything you'd set up, but then moving one item slightly, you'll find you have a totally reset level where you have to start over
from scratch. I prefer being able to make small changes to my plan.
And that's it, the game is otherwise pretty
interesting and fun, not quite
Armadillo Run or Crayon Physics, but if you dig physics-based puzzlers it's worth checking
out, there aren't a lot of games like this out there and it is a winning formula.
Eternity's Child
($4.99)
by Luc Bernard, SilverSphereStudios
| 6.3 |
| COMBINED SCORE |
Michael Scarpelli: 5
There has been a great deal of press surrounding Eternity's Child, and most of it has been decidedly bad. I'd like to say it's all nothing but soap opera drama, and much of it is, but it all stems from the fact that Eternity's Child is a game with some core problems.
The game has a marvelous graphical style that is very rich and instantly appealing and cleverly realized character models with hip, gothy outfits. However, as soon as you see the game in motion, it becomes a fairly jarring experience. Background and foreground and some planes of viewing in between them all seem to move independent of one another, making the game a pretty confusing piece of work to look at. This is exacerbated by the quirky platform placement and the tendency for what you want to land on to look remarkably like everything else in the background.
The platformer controls feel a little loose. Coupling this with the visual aspect gets you a platformer that is trickier to play than it seems. Having a second character (who does all the shooting) trail alongside your main character (who does all the movement) is a fun idea conceptually, but in practice it just sort of busies up the screen while you're moving about. It's very difficult to maneuver and dodge enemy fire because you're focusing on the placement of the character that is shooting at things, but that's not the character that can be hurt by enemy fire. Enemies are dumb as well, sitting still while you snipe them at the edge of the screen, only attacking you when you're in their trigger area for major enemies, or dogging you all through an entire level for the smaller ones.
All in all, Eternity's Child is likely just an acquired taste. If you love the visuals enough to overlook the so-so gameplay and level design, then more power to you… but there's as much to love as there is to hate here.
Pany Haritatos: 6
Eternity's Child is one of the prettiest games I've played this year. It is simply gorgeous. Even the somewhat disorienting parallax effect fails to detract from the intricate, stylized characters and animations. The rest of the game doesn't really live up to the great possibilities created by the graphics. The story seems like it could be interesting, but once you drop into the first level, all of that disappears and quickly becomes a
"You need to find X gems." The gameplay isn't up to snuff and the worst culprit is the controls. The control responsiveness is not tight enough. Jumps generally go to two heights, and which of the two you will reach seems almost random. You'll miss a lot of jumps that you thought you could easily make, but for whatever reason, this time your character jumped short. The problem is that for most of the levels, a missed jump means a lost life. Given the high cost of a missed jump, the firing mechanic adds more hurt to the overall experience. Even for a relatively hardcore gamer like myself, I found it really difficult to track flying targets while simultaneously dodging the ones that had gotten too close all the while avoiding a fall that would most likely result in instant death. You quickly learn that the best way to engage most targets is from far away while sitting still. Being that the enemies have virtually no interesting behaviors at all, they let you. Combat devolves into an uninteresting barrier to level progression. Hunting for gems in this environment ends up becoming a real pain. I found myself constantly wishing I was playing Knytt with its gentle hints about the location of my next goal. Instead I had to play through some of the levels a few times just to figure out where I might have overlooked one of the possible gem locations. There were several other design choices that hurt rather than helped the overall experience, but they were minor compared to ones I already mentioned. Bad controls and poor design choices make it impossible to recommend this gorgeous game.
Coby Utter: 7
Aesthetically, Eternity's Child is truly remarkable. There is an immense amount of detail in the world, and the
visual execution is stupendous. There are layers heaped upon layers of parallax, everything moves or sways and feels
alive, although the purposefully jilted animations are just too awkward to feel natural. The music also elicits awe and
wonder, and combined with the art, the game has a huge audio-visual impact.
If only the actual game could have kept up its end of the bargain, EC would be great. Unfortunately, the gameplay
lives in the shadow of its big brothers: The Art and Sound. EC is a very average platformer, and actually suffers from
some issues that put a serious damper on the overall playing experience of the game. You have two characters, although
they only have the combined functionality of one entity, which run, jump, and shoot at hordes of enemies who lack much
intelligence. Between the perilous jumps, swarms of enemies, and loose controls that simply never feel right, you should
expect to die a lot of frustrating deaths.
The amazing presentation, excellent soundtrack, and the inclusion of a level editor help buoy the game, which
doesn't come close to greatness, but can provide an entertaining hour or two for the most persevering.
Russ Carroll: 7
EC is a hard game to review. It's received ripping critiques, some of them deserved, which makes it hard to go in with
high expectations. Like a movie that you've only heard bad things about, this may have made it easier for my expectations
to be met with Eternity's Child.
And why wouldn't they be met? I mean let's be honest. The game is beautiful with
wonderfully Burton-esque visuals and an eerie Elfman-esque soundtrack to match. Wandering around the world of Eternity's Child is a visual
treat. But it has moments of being a nightmare. However, I want to stress here that they are moments.
The play control takes a
lot of getting used to and the game's levels seem to be created with no goal other than to punish your poor plat-forming
skills. I found it difficult in that regard, but no more difficult than say SMB2 on the NES (the weird US version, not
the level-editor explosion Japanese version). The bigger problem I had was dealing with huge levels where I had to find
gems, but often missed them and couldn't circle back to get them. For the patient platformer, there is goodness to be
found, but if you lack patience don't tempt your control-throwing arm.
Despite what some may have said, EC certainly isn't the disaster it is made out to be, not by a long
shot. However, it feels like it is brushing up against greatness only to have its wings burned and that makes the
short-comings feel all the more painful.
Dizzy and The Other Side
(freeware)
by Alexandru Simion
| 5.8 |
| COMBINED SCORE |
Michael Scarpelli: 7
So… I don't know if I'm dating myself too much here, but I'm just old enough to remember having played the Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy on the original NES. This PC freeware version is a faithful homage, right down the super-pixelated graphics.
It's great to see a game filled with involved level design and based on the joy of exploration, because really that's what you needed to make a solid game back then. Otherwise, what did you have? You didn't have great sound or graphics or whiz-bang action… you needed gameplay. And it's all still here in this tribute game… but also there are all the bits of this style of gaming that were a hassle: archaic controls, graphics that can sometimes be confusing and just all around simplicity.
However, I love me some retro and this is a game that is supremely easy to pick up and jump around in. Plus: freeware. Bonus.
Pany Haritatos: 4
If I wanted to play games that felt like they were made 20 years ago, Dizzy and the Other Side would not be my pick. The reality is that games have evolved through the years, and, for the most part, this has resulted in games that are enjoyed every day by a wider audience of people. Dizzy appears to be created for a very particular audience with a very particular taste. I do not fall into that tight niche in any sort of way and I make no apologies. My context as a reviewer is that this game was released in 2008 and is therefore treated like any other game I am asked to review. I did not really enjoy any part of my experience with Dizzy. The graphics are old. They are not retro or stylized, they are just old. The controls are good enough, but I want to be able to control my jumps mid-air, and I also don't want to roll (and wake up dizzy) every second time I jump. The game world is to be too unforgiving. It is very easy to take accidental damage by an in-game object that until a second ago appeared to be a harmless background element. Generally speaking, a misstep like that can cost you half your life, and in a game of this length, that's a relatively high penalty for what should not even be considered a mistake. Several of the puzzles were obscure enough that I only managed to solve them through trial and error (not even online FAQs were helpful all the time). I really can't see this game as being enjoyable for anyone but fans of the Dizzy series.
Coby Utter: 6
Being unfamiliar with Dizzy, it was quite interesting to find not only a fan game, but also a small development
community (and framework called DizzyAge) to create games in this universe. Dizzy and The Other Side is a
retro-platformer with old school graphics and charm. The gameplay is very much standard fare, but the universe Dizzy is
set in, and the characters that populate it, are actually significantly more fleshed out than a lot of other similar
games.
Since Dizzy is a fan made game and based on similar technology, the audio-visuals hark back to a long lost time.
Some people really enjoy these retro styled games, but others will likely be less impressed. The one thing that prevented
me from really enjoying the game was the controls which are pretty tight, but in a clunky kind of way. I'm sure they are
meant to be true to the original, but I wish that the game would've kept the retro styling and updated to a more fluid and
robust control system. Beyond that there aren't many major flaws, but Dizzy was missing the hook to keep me truly engaged.
I'm sure Dizzy fans or even retro-platformer fans will get a lot of enjoyment out of the game, and being free is always a
great thing.
Russ Carroll: 6
Dizzy and tos is a nice little diversion from another era. It's pixel art where the pixels are so large you can identify
each one.
I played for awhile kind of digging the retro theme for awhile and then starting to remember why it's a good
thing that this era is behind us. The controls are a little shaky, which leads to some difficulty in jumping and it is
certainly possible to get yourself stuck with no way out. Definitely worth the price of the download (free) and worth
playing around with a little bit if you dig that retro look.
Martians Vs. Robots
($9.95)
by Tommy Twisters
| 5.5 |
| COMBINED SCORE |
Michael Scarpelli: 7
Terrific title. Funky game. MvR really needs to have a set of instructions or a tutorial bundled in with the application. Playing the arcade mode just drops you into the middle of a bizarre sort of cage match. There is an enemy to fight and asteroids to blast. Easy enough.
However, your goal each level to the next is vague. I think I'm supposed to keep shooting things… maybe? You can research new ship technology, something that increases as you progress, and that adds a level of customization to your play which is nice. You also collect small sort of crystals as you go… but I had no idea why until I went on-line (turns out it fuels your research).
The difficulty jumps up quite a bit after 5 or 6 levels in and then MvR turns into a bit more of a fun, run and gun arena shooter sort of a game... but that's pretty much all it ever is. It's still super funky, and I'm still not too sure what I'm working towards, but I am enjoying the trip.
Pany Haritatos: 4
Martians vs. Robots left me wanting more, but not in a good way. The main issue with this game is that the de facto gameplay involves the collection of dropped space junk. Each level begins with you fighting some bad guys for a few seconds, and then it is succeeded by several minutes of flying around blowing up asteroids and collecting the points that drop. Old school asteroids with fun 3d graphics? Not quite. The controls leave very little room for strategic or tactical play. Any attempt to do anything other than point at the target and do more damage than you receive, results in defeat. Once everything dangerous is killed you literally just hunt down the remaining asteroids, destroy them all, and then pick up everything that drops. You can't go to the next level until this clean up task is completed or the timer runs out. Every level. Over and over. If it sounds like a chore, it is. I sunk several hours into this game hoping things would pick up. The upgraded weapons and ships do add a tiny bit of variety, but it never encourages you to do anything other than point and shoot, followed by the tedious asteroid clean up. There is a game waiting here to be made, but as it stands, this is little more than a tech demo showing off some really basic, really tedious core mechanics.
Coby Utter: 4
Martians vs. Robots tries to be a ramped up version of asteroids with several new additions like weapon types and
ships, but fails in actually being fun. From a technical perspective, the implementation is actually solid: the controls
worked as they should, there was no slowdown, and there is even a multiplayer mode (which I unfortunately was not able to
play.) From the art side, we have the same story; everything is ok. There is nothing totally horrendous and nothing
inspiring. It is all just very neutral. The problems all stem from the design, where asteroids are semi-invincible, space
doesn't wrap, and there aren't clear-cut goals to finish a level, only a timer.
There are some funny things like asteroids with guns mounted on them, and there are a decent amount of enemy types,
but the few inventive design decisions cannot rescue the game from the boredom that will occur beyond the first few
levels.
Russ Carroll: 7
I played through the first 10 levels of MvR wondering just when I would get a good weapon. I waited and waited and
finally went back to the main menu looking for a "How to Play" or "Help" option, sure I was missing something.
Finding
nothing, I went to the control options and noted that among the many keys you could press to do things, 'F' would take you
to research. I tried it and was immediately killed as going to research doesn't actually pause the game, it keeps
on playing
behind the research screen.
I tried again and was able to start researching something. Unfortunately I didn't get any
kind of bonus for playing 10 levels before doing research, in fact I got an error instead and had to start over.
Starting over, I
researched all the way! Beyond a total lack of explaining how to play the game, MvR also suffers from a lack of balance
in your weapons and upgrades. The first ship is horrible, but the first weapon is about as good as anything you can get.
Altogether it's pretty fun, though repetitive, and definitely worth a look at $9.95, just don't expect
Starscape!
Full Metal Soccer
($12.50)
by QuantiCode
| 5.0 |
| COMBINED SCORE |
Michael Scarpelli: 6
FMS is an on-line, multiplayer game of soccer, played by teams that are driving tanks. There's pretty much zero that's not terrific about that idea in concept. It's a game everyone knows, and you don't get much more extreme than tanks.
I logged in and the game looks great and controls smoothly. Controlling the ball with a grappling beam and your cannon is, of course, tricky, but is something you'll get into pretty quickly.
I might give the game a higher score, but there's never anyone online to play with. Pany and I organized a 1v1, but I schooled him so hard his grandchildren will remember the lessons he learned that day. Sure, maybe that was because he couldn't get a connection that wasn't laggy, but the important thing to note is that I won 8-0.
Full Metal Soccer is a game that would be more fun the more people there are to play it with. Getting a big match up with a couple of teammates as bruisers and a couple a ball-handlers would probably be great fun… but again… there's never been anyone to play with short of Pany, and we've covered how that went.
Pany Haritatos: n/s
If I had to score Full Metal Soccer, the score would be low. The game is multiplayer-only, and that's a huge problem when there is no community to play against. Getting a game going was only possible by scheduling time with other reviewers. That's a bad thing. What's worse is the game experience that ensued: 15 minutes of lag the likes I have rarely experienced. The game was completely unplayable and I suffered two humiliating defeats. The developer absolutely has to do two things. The first is client-side controls! Use prediction or interpolation or whatever fancy latency hiding trick you can come up with, but even if I have the worst connection in the world, at least let me look around! The second is put in some bots. I believe this is on the development plan, but the reality is the game should not have been released without them or some other form of single-player mode. There's some potential here, but this game is not ready for prime time.
Coby Utter: 4
Combining slow-turning, massive tanks with the agile and quick sport of soccer seemed like a conundrum to me when I
first looked into Full Metal Soccer. It turns out that the execution of this idea has led to a game that will leave you
screaming at the controls or sick from the fast and choppy camera. FMS is an online soccer game where you control a tank
with a cannon and a tractor beam that can draw the ball near as you attempt to â"outmaneuver' your opponents and score
goals. It is really hard to call anything you do in FMS a maneuver, as the tanks are so â"tanky' that trying to get around
other tanks is like trying to get an elephant to slalom ski. I typically reverted to the â"shoot and ram' tactics tanks are
known for, but this didn't lead to a very fulfilling soccer experience, and even then, defense seemed more luck than
anything.
The final problem with FMS is that finding a game proved very difficult. After multiple attempts to find a game, I
finally had to set up a schedule with some other reviewers to actually play a game (I couldn't find any options to enable
bots). Thankfully you can just drive around the arena yourself when no others are present for some practice, but I'm not
sure FMS is a game where practice will actually help that much. .
Russ Carroll: 5
I'm not sure this is a bad game, but I am sure that there is no-one playing it, and if you are a multiplayer only online
game and no-one is playing you, that's just not a good sign. Of course other than Orbz back in the day, most of my online
indie game experience has been an empty lobby.
Full Metal Soccer is a versus game combining tanks and soccer. It's part
death match, part soccer (and that's redundant in some parts of the world). You try to score by getting your ball in the
opponents goal by either guiding it with your tank or using projectiles to bounce it your way (notably, that's
really hard!). There's no bots (though I understand they're coming) or offline mode, but I
managed to play a few games with one of the other reviewers.
After playing I can only think that combining a tough to maneuver tank with a
finesse sport like Soccer isn't the best idea. It was a somewhat fun exercise, but the graphics brought on the only
challenge I faced. It was my old nemesis - motion sickness! Give it a try and maybe you'll find someone to play against
and enjoy it, but it wasn't for me.
Stentor Attack
($9.95)
by Hibou
| 4.5 |
| COMBINED SCORE |
Michael Scarpelli: 5
I'm giving Stentor Attack a 5 because while it doesn't do much, but what it does do, it does well enough. Stentor takes your .ogg and .mp3 files (you're out of luck iTunes-ers, mp4 is no go) and turns them into a sort of UFO attack protection game. There is a big UFO that launches lasers down at a little town. The lasers fire from a location on the ship that corresponds to the spot on a keyboard where the played note in the song would originate from. You then take your other, smaller UFO, surrounded by a shield you can shape (why would you ever not shape it to be the long rectangle to cover more ground?) and try to absorb lasers from the big ship to protect the little town. The more lasers you absorb, the higher your score. Voila.
That's it. The game never changes, just the music. The graphics are bright and clear, but are nothing too special. The music is as good as your music is, but with only mp3 and ogg supported, fans of digital download stores will be increasingly bereft.
It's an amusing distraction that does what it set out to do, but it doesn't do anything else.
Pany Haritatos: 4
The premise of Stentor Attack is pretty cool. Give it an MP3 and, based on the melody, you'll play a reverse Space Invaders game where you try to stop the attacking Stentor from damaging your houses by absorbing its beams with your moveable shield. The reality is this doesn't amount to much more than what feels like an interactive music visualizer because the game lacks any tangible depth. If the goal of the game is to get the best score possible, then simply whipping the mouse back and forth wildly is the most effective strategy at absorbing beams. The graphics in the game are minimalist, but still pretty charming. I particularly enjoyed the bouncing house animation. Music wise, this game really should ship with a few of its own MP3s included. I don't actually have any MP3s (thank you Pandora!) so I had to find some before I could play this game. This game is fun for the first minute, but after your second or third song, I'm pretty sure you'll be done with it. If you want something mindless to do while you listen to your music, there are better things to do than play Stentor Attack.
Coby Utter: 4
Stentor Attack is very difficult for me to review. When I first booted up the game I was confused. After things
made a bit of sense I was amused, but shortly after that I was left asking the question Where's the game here?
To play Stentor Attack, you need to have the game read in an mp3 (or ogg) file from your music library. The game
then creates a level based on the song, where beams will fall from a UFO in tempo with the music, and you must prevent
these beams from reaching the bottom of the screen by blocking them with your mouse-controlled translucent box. Fail to do
so and your village will be destroyed. Interfacing with the player's music library is a nice way to create a custom
experience, as well as add a lot of replayability, but for me, there was little urge to play much further than a few
songs. The core of this problem is that there isn't an overarching cohesive experience where you can feel progress. Stentor Attack is a novel distraction, but not much more.
Russ Carroll: 5
Stentor Attack is a simple music game using your music to create attack patterns for a big alien ship. Your goal is to
block their perplexing musical attacks, keeping the houses below safe from your Weird 'Al' Yankovic collection.
You can
change the speed of the game play, which I found nice as both 'slow' and 'normal' were strangely
nauseating for me as I
focused on the shots hitting my protective shield. 'Fast' was quick enough to keep my eyes above my defensive ship, which
was nice. Still, the game got old pretty quickly, I didn't find it as fun as
Audiosurf or
Music Catch.
|
Archibald's Adventures Hollow Ground Laxius Force Multiwinia |
Now Boarding Optimus Apparatus Strange Attractors 2 |
Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People: Episode 2 T.W.T.P.B. Zatikon |
The
Illustrious Panel:
Michael
Scarpelli
Michael Scarpelli has been a writer for both GameTunnel and Inside
Mac Games (equal love to Mac and PC, indie and AAA) for a couple
of years now. On top of that, he has also been behind the writing on
Gamedozer.com and some of the
game that have come out of that fine web establishment. Michael is
also looking to the release of
Academagia, the first offering from his fledgling company, Black
Chicken Studios.
Pany
Haritatos
Panayoti Haritatos spends too much of his life thinking about games.
He enjoys game development, particularly Flash games, and recently
started gamepoetry.com as a
blog focused on that topic. You can find out more about his Flash
development company at
urbansquall.com.
Coby
Utter
Between professional DS development and indie PC development, Coby is
constantly on the lookout for great games of all shapes and sizes. He
is also interested in open source tools to further the indie
community, and from time to time pretends to care about politics. His
mantra is "Fun Games are Law".
Russ Carroll - Game Tunnel
Game Tunnel's Editor-In-Chief, Russell founded GT in 2002 as the
first website dedicated to reviews of Independent
Video Games, and he's been actively reviewing Indie games ever since. In addition to running Game Tunnel he currently
works as a Game Producer for Reflexive Entertainment.
|
Scoring Scale: |
||||||||||
|
| Game of the Month | ||
 |
The Spirit Engine 2 |
|
| Award Winners This Month: | ||
 Average score of 9+ |
Average score of 8+ |
Average score of 7+ |
| The Spirit Engine 2 |
Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Homestar Ruiner |
Atomic Worm |
By: The Illustrious Panel
Posted: Tuesday September 23, 2008
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