Words
Inspired a bit by Mr. Ginn's fresh blogging efforts, I'll be writing original posts on RRC again very soon. Expect a mix of articles, short thoughts, and references to my writing on other websites. Hooray!
February 24, 2012
March 11, 2011
What I'm up to
Words
Hello readers!
I haven't been posting new articles here lately, because I can't really re-post the articles I've been writing these days. If you want to continue reading my work, you can find my endless flood of words at GameZone.com.
Hello readers!
I haven't been posting new articles here lately, because I can't really re-post the articles I've been writing these days. If you want to continue reading my work, you can find my endless flood of words at GameZone.com.
December 17, 2010
More Human Than Human - Videodrone Episode 5
Podcast
We're sliding from enemy to enemy this week as we talk about games we love... that no one else loves. In the first part of this two-part special, we form a very lonely club in honor of these hated gems. This week Joe and David are joined by special guest Michael Budassi, who is immortal.
Click to Listen
Highlights include: Earth Defense Force 2017, German-style wheat beer, Too Human and Silicon Knights, forklifts, Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, and Pleasure!
Click to Listen
Highlights include: Earth Defense Force 2017, German-style wheat beer, Too Human and Silicon Knights, forklifts, Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, and Pleasure!
Shank, or a Look Inside the Mind of a 15-Year Old Boy
Review
Originally posted at: http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2010/08/30/shank-review/
If The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is 2D Ninja Gaiden, Shank is 2D God of War. It’s a pretty game with flashy combat and moments of badassery that come at the expense of precision. The fighting game pedigree that carried over into those aforementioned games (and even the more recent God of War games) is a bit lacking here. As a result, it’s all too often that Shank (the protagonist) seems to slip from your control like a wet bar of soap.
That wouldn’t be a problem if the game was all flash with no substance, but the AI enemies don’t mess around. They attack in mobs, exploiting any moment of weakness with a barrage of bullets or a quick stab from behind. The challenge is welcome, but Shank’s easily punished repertoire of combos is not. Sometimes he just tries too hard to be cool, and as a result ends up shooting bullets in the air at enemies that aren’t there or failing to block while he finishes a flashy combo.
If The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is 2D Ninja Gaiden, Shank is 2D God of War. It’s a pretty game with flashy combat and moments of badassery that come at the expense of precision. The fighting game pedigree that carried over into those aforementioned games (and even the more recent God of War games) is a bit lacking here. As a result, it’s all too often that Shank (the protagonist) seems to slip from your control like a wet bar of soap.
That wouldn’t be a problem if the game was all flash with no substance, but the AI enemies don’t mess around. They attack in mobs, exploiting any moment of weakness with a barrage of bullets or a quick stab from behind. The challenge is welcome, but Shank’s easily punished repertoire of combos is not. Sometimes he just tries too hard to be cool, and as a result ends up shooting bullets in the air at enemies that aren’t there or failing to block while he finishes a flashy combo.
November 14, 2010
Yes, I Am The First Moron To Be Hospitalized By Kinect
Commentary
Well, this is embarrassing...
A few years ago my kneecap popped out quite suddenly and unexpectedly while drinking with some friends at Barcade in Brooklyn. It wasn't just a little popped out either - when I fell to the floor, collapsed against a nearby Tapper cabinet, I assumed my leg had just mysteriously broken. Whatever was going on, all I could tell was that something was jutting out of my leg by several inches.
An ambulance ride and two hours of agony later, a doctor popped my kneecap back in and sent me home limping, swollen, but relatively fine. My hope was that it would never happen again.
Fast forward to about a week ago. Kinect came out and Dance Central looked awesome - I had to get one. I ordered it from Amazon and it arrived a couple days later. Kinect Adventures got boring pretty quickly and the dashboard was a disappointment, but Dance Central ended up being everything I hoped for. I loved it so much I started playing it every chance I got, twisting and contorting that knee for hours on end - I probably had this coming.
A few years ago my kneecap popped out quite suddenly and unexpectedly while drinking with some friends at Barcade in Brooklyn. It wasn't just a little popped out either - when I fell to the floor, collapsed against a nearby Tapper cabinet, I assumed my leg had just mysteriously broken. Whatever was going on, all I could tell was that something was jutting out of my leg by several inches.
An ambulance ride and two hours of agony later, a doctor popped my kneecap back in and sent me home limping, swollen, but relatively fine. My hope was that it would never happen again.
Fast forward to about a week ago. Kinect came out and Dance Central looked awesome - I had to get one. I ordered it from Amazon and it arrived a couple days later. Kinect Adventures got boring pretty quickly and the dashboard was a disappointment, but Dance Central ended up being everything I hoped for. I loved it so much I started playing it every chance I got, twisting and contorting that knee for hours on end - I probably had this coming.
November 2, 2010
Explosionade - Indie Game Spotlight (Xbox 360)
Indie Game Spotlight
Explosionade is the latest from Mommy's Best Games, the developers of Weapon of Choice and Shoot 1Up. That's a pedigree that demands at least a download of the trial, and I'm happy to report it's worth your buck as well.
Quick aside - I just have to say how much I love seeing the developers of great indie games sticking to XBLIG, hopefully gaining a following, and continuing to put out game after game. After sifting through one student project or zombie massage cash-in too many, I can look at the Mommy's Best, Ska Studios, or radianGames logos and know I'm in for a treat.
Quick aside - I just have to say how much I love seeing the developers of great indie games sticking to XBLIG, hopefully gaining a following, and continuing to put out game after game. After sifting through one student project or zombie massage cash-in too many, I can look at the Mommy's Best, Ska Studios, or radianGames logos and know I'm in for a treat.
October 24, 2010
Beat Hazard - Indie Game Spotlight (Xbox 360)
Indie Game Spotlight
Beat Hazard is a fascinating game - if you can get it working. Before I start talking about the game itself, it's important to address the simple-to-nightmarish process of getting it to recognize your music collection. Beat Hazard is a twin-stick shooter that syncs the action to your own music, requiring you to set up some kind of streaming solution between your computer and Xbox. I've known people who have literally never been able to get this working, and that's not really the game's fault, but it's something to keep in mind before you get started.
The effort is worth it though, at least it was for me. Once I finally got everything synced up and found songs that didn't lock up the game (a serious issue that is the game's fault), I entered a kind of synaesthetic nirvana. The excitement of Beat Hazard is, as you can imagine, largely dependent on the kinds of songs you play. Dynamic music seems to work best – songs with a build-up of intensity into a climax tend to give the game a nice difficulty ramp, so my prog metal collection tended to play rather nicely with the game.
The effort is worth it though, at least it was for me. Once I finally got everything synced up and found songs that didn't lock up the game (a serious issue that is the game's fault), I entered a kind of synaesthetic nirvana. The excitement of Beat Hazard is, as you can imagine, largely dependent on the kinds of songs you play. Dynamic music seems to work best – songs with a build-up of intensity into a climax tend to give the game a nice difficulty ramp, so my prog metal collection tended to play rather nicely with the game.
October 22, 2010
Castlevania: Harmony of Despair - Castlevania Anonymous Meets Here
Review
Originally posted at: http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2010/08/11/castlevania-harmony-of-despair-review/
Before you look at the score at the bottom of this page, consider this simple calculation – for every player less than six that you play Castlevania: Harmony of Despair with, subtract a point. By yourself? Forget it. Even with two or three players it’s not quite there. But get 5 or 6 players together and the trek through Dracula’s castle becomes a riotously good time.
That’s because Harmony of Despair actively goes against the grain of modern game design to craft a unique cooperative experience. The game does little to teach you its rules, but they’re never so obtuse that you can’t put your heads together and figure it out. The game reinforces comradery at every turn, something you can’t experience by yourself.
Harmony of Despair’s design is a patchwork of concepts from various Castlevanias. The game’s five heroes come from different games in the series, and each has a unique set of quirks. Everyone has a mix of close-range attacks, magic projectiles, and double-jumps, but what they focus on and how they get stronger ranges wildly. Characters like Soma and Alucard use a shop to pay their way to better weapons; meanwhile Jonathan uses special attacks to level up his whip.
Before you look at the score at the bottom of this page, consider this simple calculation – for every player less than six that you play Castlevania: Harmony of Despair with, subtract a point. By yourself? Forget it. Even with two or three players it’s not quite there. But get 5 or 6 players together and the trek through Dracula’s castle becomes a riotously good time.
That’s because Harmony of Despair actively goes against the grain of modern game design to craft a unique cooperative experience. The game does little to teach you its rules, but they’re never so obtuse that you can’t put your heads together and figure it out. The game reinforces comradery at every turn, something you can’t experience by yourself.
Harmony of Despair’s design is a patchwork of concepts from various Castlevanias. The game’s five heroes come from different games in the series, and each has a unique set of quirks. Everyone has a mix of close-range attacks, magic projectiles, and double-jumps, but what they focus on and how they get stronger ranges wildly. Characters like Soma and Alucard use a shop to pay their way to better weapons; meanwhile Jonathan uses special attacks to level up his whip.
Sin & Punishment: Star Successor: review
Review
Originally posted at: http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2010/08/25/sin-punishment-star-successor-review/
At one point in Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, your buddy is suspended over a rising pit of lava by a reptilian guinea pig. In another level, you travel the desert to fight a sand-lion and a sand-bird that morph together into a sand-lion-bird. You’ll even journey through someone’s dreams of ancient Japan and eventually make a trek into space because, honestly, that’s really the only place left to go.
Treasure’s latest is nuts, and if not for the fact that they’ve been making psychotic shooter games for nearly two decades, this would almost seem like a last hurrah for the company. After all, they’ve been making incredibly niche games for longer than any studio should logically get away with.
Sin & Punishment drips with creativity – so much so, you rarely know how you’ll be playing it from one moment to the next. At the core is a 3D rail-shooter a la Panzer Dragoon or Rez, but that doesn’t stop the game from turning into a bullet-hell shooter or a side-scrolling beat ‘em up at random moments. And in true Treasure style, the game is bursting at the seams with boss fights – creative encounters that make up for ample checkpoints with concentrated bursts of incredible challenge.
There’s so much packed in that it almost collapses under its own weight. The rail-shooting sections alone are so good that the constant divergences can get kind of annoying. If you’ve ever played the Gears of War games, they suffer from a similar design. Just like those games, all-too-often it’s the weird vehicle section or punishing boss fight that stops you in your tracks, and not the core gameplay.
At the same time this also means the game is a lot longer than most shoot ‘em up style games. On the normal difficulty it can take around six hours, and even if you breeze through it there’s solid leaderboard support and a harder difficulty level. It’s the kind of game designed to be played over and over for high scores. After you complete levels, you can play them individually for practice and for attempts to top the leaderboard.
Like the best Wii games, it’s hard to imagine playing this one with anything but the Wii remote and nunchuk combo. The feeling of simultaneously dancing around bullets and quickly snapping your aim around the screen is liberating. Sure, you could play with a standard controller, but you wouldn’t want to.
Unlike the best Wii games, the two-player mode is a bit lacking. The second player is little more than an extra reticle that can shoot independentally of the first player. It’s almost as superficial as the two-player mode in Super Mario Galaxy, which was intended for younger siblings or inexperienced players.
What it lacks in multiplayer options it makes up with lots of playstyle customization. As mentioned, the game supports standard controllers like the Gamecube and Classic pads, and if you insist on using them there’s options for customizing layout and sensitivity. Additionally, each of the two characters handle differently. Isa, the boy, uses shots that require more accuracy, complemented by a large bomb attack. Meanwhile, Kachi, the girl/strange monster, or demon, or something (it’s not really clear) has a lock-on ability and Panzer Dragoon-style lasers.
The point is, if you’re into these kinds of arcade-style shoot ‘em ups, Sin & Punishment is surprisingly robust compared to most of its contemporaries, including many of Treasure’s own games.
In terms of presentation, Sin & Punishment is a bit lacking. While the game is sharply rendered with lots of enemies, the color palette is a bit too washed out. Treasure has gone for this style before, with Ikaruga, but the black/white mechanic of that game allowed them to use it to better effect. Here it just makes the world feel unnecessarily bland, especially in context to the absurd situations you get into.
The story is even worse. It’s old hat for Treasure at this point, as they’ve never been much for telling good stories, or even ones that make a lick of sense. But it’s just kind of annoying – everything you need to know happens within the context of the action, and it’d be better if they just tossed the storyline altogether. The cutscenes are minimal, but they just feel like a waste when the best part is the absurdity of the moment-to-moment set-pieces.
What makes this game memorable isn’t the words coming out of the characters mouths. What makes it memorable is the interactive ride it takes you on. The game is at its best when you’re bouncing between fighting hand-to-hand, riding a hover-bike, and playing soccer with incoming missiles one after the other.
Sin & Punishment has some issues, but honestly if you’re in for a Treasure game you probably know this by now. Flaws and all, it still stands as an excellent example of the rail-shooter genre, and that’s saying a lot. There aren’t a ton of these things, and if you happen to have fond memories of Panzer Dragoon or Rez, Treasure’s latest is sure to give you some warm, fuzzy nostalgia.
At one point in Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, your buddy is suspended over a rising pit of lava by a reptilian guinea pig. In another level, you travel the desert to fight a sand-lion and a sand-bird that morph together into a sand-lion-bird. You’ll even journey through someone’s dreams of ancient Japan and eventually make a trek into space because, honestly, that’s really the only place left to go.
Treasure’s latest is nuts, and if not for the fact that they’ve been making psychotic shooter games for nearly two decades, this would almost seem like a last hurrah for the company. After all, they’ve been making incredibly niche games for longer than any studio should logically get away with.
Sin & Punishment drips with creativity – so much so, you rarely know how you’ll be playing it from one moment to the next. At the core is a 3D rail-shooter a la Panzer Dragoon or Rez, but that doesn’t stop the game from turning into a bullet-hell shooter or a side-scrolling beat ‘em up at random moments. And in true Treasure style, the game is bursting at the seams with boss fights – creative encounters that make up for ample checkpoints with concentrated bursts of incredible challenge.
There’s so much packed in that it almost collapses under its own weight. The rail-shooting sections alone are so good that the constant divergences can get kind of annoying. If you’ve ever played the Gears of War games, they suffer from a similar design. Just like those games, all-too-often it’s the weird vehicle section or punishing boss fight that stops you in your tracks, and not the core gameplay.
At the same time this also means the game is a lot longer than most shoot ‘em up style games. On the normal difficulty it can take around six hours, and even if you breeze through it there’s solid leaderboard support and a harder difficulty level. It’s the kind of game designed to be played over and over for high scores. After you complete levels, you can play them individually for practice and for attempts to top the leaderboard.
Like the best Wii games, it’s hard to imagine playing this one with anything but the Wii remote and nunchuk combo. The feeling of simultaneously dancing around bullets and quickly snapping your aim around the screen is liberating. Sure, you could play with a standard controller, but you wouldn’t want to.
Unlike the best Wii games, the two-player mode is a bit lacking. The second player is little more than an extra reticle that can shoot independentally of the first player. It’s almost as superficial as the two-player mode in Super Mario Galaxy, which was intended for younger siblings or inexperienced players.
What it lacks in multiplayer options it makes up with lots of playstyle customization. As mentioned, the game supports standard controllers like the Gamecube and Classic pads, and if you insist on using them there’s options for customizing layout and sensitivity. Additionally, each of the two characters handle differently. Isa, the boy, uses shots that require more accuracy, complemented by a large bomb attack. Meanwhile, Kachi, the girl/strange monster, or demon, or something (it’s not really clear) has a lock-on ability and Panzer Dragoon-style lasers.
The point is, if you’re into these kinds of arcade-style shoot ‘em ups, Sin & Punishment is surprisingly robust compared to most of its contemporaries, including many of Treasure’s own games.
In terms of presentation, Sin & Punishment is a bit lacking. While the game is sharply rendered with lots of enemies, the color palette is a bit too washed out. Treasure has gone for this style before, with Ikaruga, but the black/white mechanic of that game allowed them to use it to better effect. Here it just makes the world feel unnecessarily bland, especially in context to the absurd situations you get into.
The story is even worse. It’s old hat for Treasure at this point, as they’ve never been much for telling good stories, or even ones that make a lick of sense. But it’s just kind of annoying – everything you need to know happens within the context of the action, and it’d be better if they just tossed the storyline altogether. The cutscenes are minimal, but they just feel like a waste when the best part is the absurdity of the moment-to-moment set-pieces.
What makes this game memorable isn’t the words coming out of the characters mouths. What makes it memorable is the interactive ride it takes you on. The game is at its best when you’re bouncing between fighting hand-to-hand, riding a hover-bike, and playing soccer with incoming missiles one after the other.
Sin & Punishment has some issues, but honestly if you’re in for a Treasure game you probably know this by now. Flaws and all, it still stands as an excellent example of the rail-shooter genre, and that’s saying a lot. There aren’t a ton of these things, and if you happen to have fond memories of Panzer Dragoon or Rez, Treasure’s latest is sure to give you some warm, fuzzy nostalgia.
August 29, 2010
Apple Jack - Indie Game Spotlight (Xbox 360)
Indie Game Spotlight
There are a lot of simple 2D platformers on Xbox Live Indies. Some of them attempt to be artsy, some toss in unique puzzle elements, and some just try to be hard as hell. But the common denominator amongst almost all of them is how amateur they feel - the jumping physics are off, the graphics are flat, and the level design is sloppy.
I get whiffs of these problems playing Apple Jack, but the game is often too fun, challenging, and charming for me to care. Yeah, the jumping feels a bit off (it's certainly not Mario) and the art has that flat, amateurish style that's so common in the indie space, but it's also a huge game with clever puzzles, awesome music, and quirky British sensibilities.
Apple Jack is presumably a fine English chap with an apple for a head. He explores strange worlds named after counties in England, running, jumping, and grabbing enemies from atop their heads a la Mario 2. Most enemies are color-coded, and the goal is to match same-colored enemies, tossing them at each other to finish them off.
The game will have you tossing washing machines at pigs in skirts and dodging owls that shoot laser beams, chaining your attacks for a coin bonus. The one really cool effect in the game is when you get a really high combo and hundreds of coins shoot out and fill the entire screen. Going for a high score almost feels like trying to break the game, but it never happens.
Apple Jack's one hundred levels are sure to keep you busy for a while too. Some of them are really tough, coming from the N+ or 'Splosion Man school of level design. If you liked those games, you'll probably enjoy this.
Even at its toughest, Apple Jack is a joy to play thanks to a beautiful acoustic guitar soundtrack. There's some surprisingly heartfelt compositions, and yet they mesh well with the quirky visuals. The challenge can be a bit uneven in spots (a level in the first world has one of the hardest puzzles in the game), but it's hard to get mad at a game that's so goddamn quaint.
For a dollar, Apple Jack is probably the best deal on XBLIG. The amount of quality content here could easily qualify it for the $3 or $5 bracket. Hell, with a bit more polish, this could have been a great Xbox Live Arcade game. Absolutely check it out.
Download on the Xbox Live Marketplace
I get whiffs of these problems playing Apple Jack, but the game is often too fun, challenging, and charming for me to care. Yeah, the jumping feels a bit off (it's certainly not Mario) and the art has that flat, amateurish style that's so common in the indie space, but it's also a huge game with clever puzzles, awesome music, and quirky British sensibilities.
Apple Jack is presumably a fine English chap with an apple for a head. He explores strange worlds named after counties in England, running, jumping, and grabbing enemies from atop their heads a la Mario 2. Most enemies are color-coded, and the goal is to match same-colored enemies, tossing them at each other to finish them off.
The game will have you tossing washing machines at pigs in skirts and dodging owls that shoot laser beams, chaining your attacks for a coin bonus. The one really cool effect in the game is when you get a really high combo and hundreds of coins shoot out and fill the entire screen. Going for a high score almost feels like trying to break the game, but it never happens.
Apple Jack's one hundred levels are sure to keep you busy for a while too. Some of them are really tough, coming from the N+ or 'Splosion Man school of level design. If you liked those games, you'll probably enjoy this.
Even at its toughest, Apple Jack is a joy to play thanks to a beautiful acoustic guitar soundtrack. There's some surprisingly heartfelt compositions, and yet they mesh well with the quirky visuals. The challenge can be a bit uneven in spots (a level in the first world has one of the hardest puzzles in the game), but it's hard to get mad at a game that's so goddamn quaint.
For a dollar, Apple Jack is probably the best deal on XBLIG. The amount of quality content here could easily qualify it for the $3 or $5 bracket. Hell, with a bit more polish, this could have been a great Xbox Live Arcade game. Absolutely check it out.
Download on the Xbox Live Marketplace
August 18, 2010
Hydro Thunder Hurricane - A Soulless Sequel
Review
Originally Posted at: http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2010/07/26/hydro-thunder-hurricane-review/
Can a racing game have soul? The genre certainly fights an uphill battle. With emotionless heaps of metal zipping around tracks devoid of human life, there’s not a lot of room for charm. Yet you can feel it every time you get a takedown in Burnout or dodge and weave through a dozen opponents in Blur.
A racing game’s soul comes from the thrill of speed, the challenge of your competition, or the satisfaction of a well-taken turn. In arcade-style games, it can come from outlandish, Bruckheimer-esque moments, an impossibly-long powerslide, or a mile-high jump.
That said, Hydro Thunder Hurricane could use a little soul-searching. An update of the 1999 arcade boat-racing game Hydro Thunder, Hurricane attempts to recreate the thrill of that original in a downloadable XBLA release, with mixed results.
Hurricane starts off on the right foot. The first race event takes place on Lake Powell, a canyon river with huge waterfalls, cave short-cuts, and a maniacal helicopter dropping bombs into the water. If you’ve played the previous Hydro Thunder then you should know the story – collect as much boost power-ups as possible and attempt to rocket around the track from beginning to end. It’s as much about chaining boosts as it is about winning the race.
In this respect, Hydro Thunder Hurricane nails it. Most of the tracks are well-designed, with several different paths, tricky jumps, and strategically placed power-ups that will satiate any speed addicts. The overriding issue is that almost every thing else about the game attempts to undermine this simple thrill.
The first culprit is the game’s single-player mode. Beyond the 8 standard races, the event structure is heavily in favour of the gimmicky Ring Master and Gauntlet modes. Ring Master is similar to a slalom event, requiring you to navigate carefully through rings or suffer crippling time penalties. The sensation is akin to threading a needle repeatedly. Gauntlet suffers the same issue, as explosive barrels are strategically placed around the track to kill you any time you try to have fun. With these two events taking up at least two-thirds of the single-player game, there’s little fun to be had here.
Multiplayer focuses on racing, which is good, but one questionable design decision manages to strip away a lot of the enjoyment. Boost power-ups that would usually give you a fixed amount of boost now give you a variable amount based on your position among the other racers. The result is that being in first place is a miserable experience – you’re always running dry on boost, and everyone behind you is having fun and catching up. It’s an especially odd decision considering that the game already allows you to draft behind your opponents from a great distance.
Hurricane’s gameplay is so unfulfilling that it throws the fun of the original into question. Perhaps this was just a case of rose-tinted lenses? No, the original Hydro Thunder is actually a much faster game, with much more whimsical, unrealistic controls that gave it the soul this current version is lacking.
There are a few tweaks that could be made, especially on the multiplayer front, that could salvage Hydro Thunder Hurricane. There’s a solid backbone of fun at the core of this game – something brilliant that you can find in those initial single-player races – but developer Vector Unit doesn’t give it room to breathe, crushing the fun under the weight of a soulless, unpleasant experience that’s hard to recommend.
Originally Posted at: http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2010/07/26/hydro-thunder-hurricane-review/
A racing game’s soul comes from the thrill of speed, the challenge of your competition, or the satisfaction of a well-taken turn. In arcade-style games, it can come from outlandish, Bruckheimer-esque moments, an impossibly-long powerslide, or a mile-high jump.
That said, Hydro Thunder Hurricane could use a little soul-searching. An update of the 1999 arcade boat-racing game Hydro Thunder, Hurricane attempts to recreate the thrill of that original in a downloadable XBLA release, with mixed results.
Hurricane starts off on the right foot. The first race event takes place on Lake Powell, a canyon river with huge waterfalls, cave short-cuts, and a maniacal helicopter dropping bombs into the water. If you’ve played the previous Hydro Thunder then you should know the story – collect as much boost power-ups as possible and attempt to rocket around the track from beginning to end. It’s as much about chaining boosts as it is about winning the race.
In this respect, Hydro Thunder Hurricane nails it. Most of the tracks are well-designed, with several different paths, tricky jumps, and strategically placed power-ups that will satiate any speed addicts. The overriding issue is that almost every thing else about the game attempts to undermine this simple thrill.
The first culprit is the game’s single-player mode. Beyond the 8 standard races, the event structure is heavily in favour of the gimmicky Ring Master and Gauntlet modes. Ring Master is similar to a slalom event, requiring you to navigate carefully through rings or suffer crippling time penalties. The sensation is akin to threading a needle repeatedly. Gauntlet suffers the same issue, as explosive barrels are strategically placed around the track to kill you any time you try to have fun. With these two events taking up at least two-thirds of the single-player game, there’s little fun to be had here.
Multiplayer focuses on racing, which is good, but one questionable design decision manages to strip away a lot of the enjoyment. Boost power-ups that would usually give you a fixed amount of boost now give you a variable amount based on your position among the other racers. The result is that being in first place is a miserable experience – you’re always running dry on boost, and everyone behind you is having fun and catching up. It’s an especially odd decision considering that the game already allows you to draft behind your opponents from a great distance.
Hurricane’s gameplay is so unfulfilling that it throws the fun of the original into question. Perhaps this was just a case of rose-tinted lenses? No, the original Hydro Thunder is actually a much faster game, with much more whimsical, unrealistic controls that gave it the soul this current version is lacking.
There are a few tweaks that could be made, especially on the multiplayer front, that could salvage Hydro Thunder Hurricane. There’s a solid backbone of fun at the core of this game – something brilliant that you can find in those initial single-player races – but developer Vector Unit doesn’t give it room to breathe, crushing the fun under the weight of a soulless, unpleasant experience that’s hard to recommend.
August 10, 2010
Limbo is Short, Brilliant
Review
Originally posted at: http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2010/07/22/limbo-review/
Limbo doesn’t justify its worth the way that most games do. “Replay value”, “unlockables”, and “online multiplayer” are concepts absent from its vocabulary. Yes, it does carry the few odd secrets that are worth seeking out, but ultimately Limbo tries to win you over with sheer elegance.
Bereft of filler, nearly every moment of Limbo is unique and beautiful. You are a boy. You walk left, right, jump, or grab your way through a dark, gloomy world. You are looking for someone, but the game never says who. Limbo never actually says anything – it simply exists and leaves you to interpret its meaning.
From dark forests and caves to flooding factories and mysterious villages, Limbo’s world is stunning. Thanks to the silhouette style, depth-of-field effects, and smart use of greyscale, there’s really nothing like it. This is a game that will look beautiful forever – it’s a graphically timeless work of art.
There are no tutorials or hints, but they’re not needed. You’ll discover everything through experimentation. The poking and prodding at Limbo’s rules will often lead to painful death for your character, but it only sets you back a few steps. Limbo will challenge you but it will rarely, if ever, frustrate.
Constant checkpoints help, but what keeps the more challenging moments of Limbo enjoyable are the controls and the feel of the world. Your actions and interactions are judged by the best realistic physics to ever grace a 2D platformer. You’ll never question a missed jump, and beyond some of the game’s lessons of danger there are no cheap deaths to be found. It’s both modern and sophisticated, while carrying a polish comparable to Super Mario Bros.
The puzzle design is often on par with other XBLA platform-puzzlers like Braid and P.B. Winterbottom, but Limbo stumps its audience without any gimmicks. You don’t acquire special powers, you just interact. The game’s physics handle the rest, giving Limbo a natural, logical feeling that’s almost indescribable.
Taken at face value, Limbo is essentially one extended, beautiful puzzle. Whether the story goes beyond that is really up to the player, but there’s a mood to the game that’s hard to deny. Limbo is dark – borderline disturbing – with death scenes that subtly rival games that actually show realistic gore. Fog, thunderstorms, derelict buildings, and danger at every turn keep the experience unsettling and oppressive throughout. The emotions Limbo evokes are simple ones, just as Limbo itself is ultimately a simple game.
If there’s one thing wrong with Limbo, it’s that it takes its simple elegance a bit too far. Forget price-point and hour-count – Limbo’s ideas simply feel underutilized. The ending comes abruptly, and it’s unfortunate to burn through such polished gameplay so quickly. There are a few secrets, and some of them are incredibly tricky to find, but it’s not enough. It almost seems like the developers ran out of ideas.
The short time you’ll spend with Limbo is magical. It’s a smart game that makes you feel smarter for playing it. It offers control and feel that may be a new watermark for the genre. It’s an experience that demands the attention of every gamer – if only it tried harder to keep that attention.
Originally posted at: http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2010/07/22/limbo-review/
Bereft of filler, nearly every moment of Limbo is unique and beautiful. You are a boy. You walk left, right, jump, or grab your way through a dark, gloomy world. You are looking for someone, but the game never says who. Limbo never actually says anything – it simply exists and leaves you to interpret its meaning.
From dark forests and caves to flooding factories and mysterious villages, Limbo’s world is stunning. Thanks to the silhouette style, depth-of-field effects, and smart use of greyscale, there’s really nothing like it. This is a game that will look beautiful forever – it’s a graphically timeless work of art.
There are no tutorials or hints, but they’re not needed. You’ll discover everything through experimentation. The poking and prodding at Limbo’s rules will often lead to painful death for your character, but it only sets you back a few steps. Limbo will challenge you but it will rarely, if ever, frustrate.
Constant checkpoints help, but what keeps the more challenging moments of Limbo enjoyable are the controls and the feel of the world. Your actions and interactions are judged by the best realistic physics to ever grace a 2D platformer. You’ll never question a missed jump, and beyond some of the game’s lessons of danger there are no cheap deaths to be found. It’s both modern and sophisticated, while carrying a polish comparable to Super Mario Bros.
The puzzle design is often on par with other XBLA platform-puzzlers like Braid and P.B. Winterbottom, but Limbo stumps its audience without any gimmicks. You don’t acquire special powers, you just interact. The game’s physics handle the rest, giving Limbo a natural, logical feeling that’s almost indescribable.
Taken at face value, Limbo is essentially one extended, beautiful puzzle. Whether the story goes beyond that is really up to the player, but there’s a mood to the game that’s hard to deny. Limbo is dark – borderline disturbing – with death scenes that subtly rival games that actually show realistic gore. Fog, thunderstorms, derelict buildings, and danger at every turn keep the experience unsettling and oppressive throughout. The emotions Limbo evokes are simple ones, just as Limbo itself is ultimately a simple game.
If there’s one thing wrong with Limbo, it’s that it takes its simple elegance a bit too far. Forget price-point and hour-count – Limbo’s ideas simply feel underutilized. The ending comes abruptly, and it’s unfortunate to burn through such polished gameplay so quickly. There are a few secrets, and some of them are incredibly tricky to find, but it’s not enough. It almost seems like the developers ran out of ideas.
The short time you’ll spend with Limbo is magical. It’s a smart game that makes you feel smarter for playing it. It offers control and feel that may be a new watermark for the genre. It’s an experience that demands the attention of every gamer – if only it tried harder to keep that attention.
August 9, 2010
Nier is Weird Even by Japan's Standards
Review
Originally posted at: http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2010/07/12/nier-catchup-review/
Nier is a strange, flawed, and fascinating game. It’s an action-RPG that could only come from Japan – with strange characters (a talking book and a girl whose bare ass is almost always in sight), some heavy melodrama, and the kind of slow burn that’s becoming ubiquitous with games from Square Enix.
Though the pacing isn’t nearly as offensive as it was in Final Fantasy XIII, Nier’s plot doesn’t coalesce until about halfway through the game. Until then, it’s riding on the promise of a twist, with a curious intro that places the hero and his sick daughter in a present-day apocalypse. Fast-forward 1300 hundred years later and the hero is seemingly still alive, still trying to save his sick daughter, and carving out a meager existence in a small farm town.
The town is constantly threatened by shades, creatures of darkness that lurk at the boundaries of the village and serve as something for you to beat up. As the game proper begins, you’re tasked with a few simple quests and fights. You’re encouraged to take odd jobs around town, and if you don’t catch on to their triviality, you may find yourself grinding out dozens of fetch-quests MMO-style.
It’s hard not to feel like some lunatic errand boy. As your daughter slowly dies, you’re out hunting sheep, gathering seeds, or fishing. While completing dumb quests can be satisfying for some, you’re best off skipping as much of Nier’s optional content as possible. If not, you may find yourself burning out before the game even gets started.
Following the main plot, Nier takes you through dungeons, open fields, and towns that wouldn’t be out of place in a Zelda game. But it’s more than an action-RPG, going out of its way to bend genres at every turn. As the story and cast of characters get rolling, and that opening twist is left on the table, it’s the wild turns in the moment-to-moment gameplay that keep Nier enjoyable.
When you aren’t running around killing monsters from a third-person perspective, you’re 2D platforming, twin-stick shooting, text-adventuring, and more. Each diversion is a loving nod to the genre it tackles, often including cute references to classic games. While these moments aren’t as good as the games they reference, they’re still elegantly implemented. The control scheme never changes in service of these moments, so they feel like a bit of variety rather than a cheap gimmick.
Nier’s story features what may be gaming’s ultimate rag-tag bunch. The best of them is Grimoire Weiss, a floating, talking book who seems to be channelling a cartoonish Alan Rickman. When a character or situation seems a bit dumb, Weiss is there to make fun of it with his pompous, nasally hilarious accent. Along with him is Kainé, a pissy, trucker-mouthed, lingerie-wearing bit of Japanese fan-service that Weiss is all too happy to call a “hussy” at every turn. Then there’s you, the hero (technically his name is Nier, but you can name him whatever you want) – he’s a big dumb oaf, endearing to the core, and he always has the simplest solution to any situation.
Their journey is filled with drama, heartbreak, weirdness, and heroism. When it’s all said and done, and you get your answers (with a dash of cliché, but satisfying where it counts), the credits will roll, but Nier isn’t quite over. In one of the more brilliant bits of game storytelling, Nier allows players to start a new game from just about where the story really starts to pick up. With the player now aware of how it all ends, the game fills in the blanks, giving some shocking insight into the characters and their motivations.
If it were just a proclivity toward pointless fetch quests keeping Nier down, it’d be an instant classic. The creativity shown in the gameplay and storyline are undeniable, but bad design decisions and a clearly limited budget stifle its greatness. The presentation can be a mess at times, with the voice-acting cutting out in favor of text dialogue at seemingly random intervals. This is especially bad since the characters just stand there when they talk, so there’s nothing to get their emotions across. And it’s even more disappointing when you consider that, aside from a few awkward lines here and there, the voice-acting is fantastic.
Nier’s graphics are a tough call. They’re a bit plain with flat textures covering the land, simplistic enemy designs, and very little in the way of modern effects. Still the look is clean, and the blown-out sunlight gives the world a unique charm that may still leave you immersed. Not to mention the soundtrack which, while repetitive at times, is often beautiful enough to fill in the blanks your eyes are seeing.
Lastly, for all the cool attempts at variety Nier makes, its base combat is extremely shallow. So shallow, in fact, that it gives up on challenging you towards the end. Some of the later boss enemies can be dispatched in a handful of strikes. It feels a bit disingenuous considering the hardcore pedigree Nier consistently references, but it also might be for the better. While Nier plays like Zelda, it’s not nearly as polished. The fact that the block button is nearly useless, or that it’s too easy to miss your enemies could have been disastrously frustrating if the game was too difficult.
For the most part, it seems the developers were aware of the game’s flaws. They didn’t exactly fix them, but they made them as inoffensive as possible. Nier is always enjoyable, even when it isn’t exactly firing on all cylinders. Propelled by a unique, absurd, and heartfelt story, great characters, and clever gameplay nods, it’s a game that a lot of people are going to fall in love with.
Originally posted at: http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2010/07/12/nier-catchup-review/
Though the pacing isn’t nearly as offensive as it was in Final Fantasy XIII, Nier’s plot doesn’t coalesce until about halfway through the game. Until then, it’s riding on the promise of a twist, with a curious intro that places the hero and his sick daughter in a present-day apocalypse. Fast-forward 1300 hundred years later and the hero is seemingly still alive, still trying to save his sick daughter, and carving out a meager existence in a small farm town.
The town is constantly threatened by shades, creatures of darkness that lurk at the boundaries of the village and serve as something for you to beat up. As the game proper begins, you’re tasked with a few simple quests and fights. You’re encouraged to take odd jobs around town, and if you don’t catch on to their triviality, you may find yourself grinding out dozens of fetch-quests MMO-style.
It’s hard not to feel like some lunatic errand boy. As your daughter slowly dies, you’re out hunting sheep, gathering seeds, or fishing. While completing dumb quests can be satisfying for some, you’re best off skipping as much of Nier’s optional content as possible. If not, you may find yourself burning out before the game even gets started.
Following the main plot, Nier takes you through dungeons, open fields, and towns that wouldn’t be out of place in a Zelda game. But it’s more than an action-RPG, going out of its way to bend genres at every turn. As the story and cast of characters get rolling, and that opening twist is left on the table, it’s the wild turns in the moment-to-moment gameplay that keep Nier enjoyable.
When you aren’t running around killing monsters from a third-person perspective, you’re 2D platforming, twin-stick shooting, text-adventuring, and more. Each diversion is a loving nod to the genre it tackles, often including cute references to classic games. While these moments aren’t as good as the games they reference, they’re still elegantly implemented. The control scheme never changes in service of these moments, so they feel like a bit of variety rather than a cheap gimmick.
Nier’s story features what may be gaming’s ultimate rag-tag bunch. The best of them is Grimoire Weiss, a floating, talking book who seems to be channelling a cartoonish Alan Rickman. When a character or situation seems a bit dumb, Weiss is there to make fun of it with his pompous, nasally hilarious accent. Along with him is Kainé, a pissy, trucker-mouthed, lingerie-wearing bit of Japanese fan-service that Weiss is all too happy to call a “hussy” at every turn. Then there’s you, the hero (technically his name is Nier, but you can name him whatever you want) – he’s a big dumb oaf, endearing to the core, and he always has the simplest solution to any situation.
Their journey is filled with drama, heartbreak, weirdness, and heroism. When it’s all said and done, and you get your answers (with a dash of cliché, but satisfying where it counts), the credits will roll, but Nier isn’t quite over. In one of the more brilliant bits of game storytelling, Nier allows players to start a new game from just about where the story really starts to pick up. With the player now aware of how it all ends, the game fills in the blanks, giving some shocking insight into the characters and their motivations.
If it were just a proclivity toward pointless fetch quests keeping Nier down, it’d be an instant classic. The creativity shown in the gameplay and storyline are undeniable, but bad design decisions and a clearly limited budget stifle its greatness. The presentation can be a mess at times, with the voice-acting cutting out in favor of text dialogue at seemingly random intervals. This is especially bad since the characters just stand there when they talk, so there’s nothing to get their emotions across. And it’s even more disappointing when you consider that, aside from a few awkward lines here and there, the voice-acting is fantastic.
Nier’s graphics are a tough call. They’re a bit plain with flat textures covering the land, simplistic enemy designs, and very little in the way of modern effects. Still the look is clean, and the blown-out sunlight gives the world a unique charm that may still leave you immersed. Not to mention the soundtrack which, while repetitive at times, is often beautiful enough to fill in the blanks your eyes are seeing.
Lastly, for all the cool attempts at variety Nier makes, its base combat is extremely shallow. So shallow, in fact, that it gives up on challenging you towards the end. Some of the later boss enemies can be dispatched in a handful of strikes. It feels a bit disingenuous considering the hardcore pedigree Nier consistently references, but it also might be for the better. While Nier plays like Zelda, it’s not nearly as polished. The fact that the block button is nearly useless, or that it’s too easy to miss your enemies could have been disastrously frustrating if the game was too difficult.
For the most part, it seems the developers were aware of the game’s flaws. They didn’t exactly fix them, but they made them as inoffensive as possible. Nier is always enjoyable, even when it isn’t exactly firing on all cylinders. Propelled by a unique, absurd, and heartfelt story, great characters, and clever gameplay nods, it’s a game that a lot of people are going to fall in love with.
Blur - Don't Play Alone
Review
Originally posted at: http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2010/06/07/blur-review/
What is a good multiplayer game worth? It’s a surprisingly difficult question. Online gaming has shifted our values in profound ways. Is a game with multiplayer a better investment than one without? Does a game with a forgettable multiplayer mode deserve the same criticism as a game with poor single-player content? How do you judge an online game on its merits when player depopulation or dwindling developer support can make it unplayable? These are questions that make Blur, Bizarre Creations’ online-centric racing game, so difficult to review.
It’s easy to make a call on something like Halo or Call of Duty, which offer something for everyone, online or off, and guarantee a stable player-base for several years. But even then, we need only look back to 2005′s Splinter Cell :Chaos Theory, a robust classic that’s been neutered thanks to a loss of online support. And if your game of choice isn’t successful? Forget it – the boatload of vacant online games far outnumbers the handful of wildly successful ones.
These concerns are relevant because Blur’s online multiplayer is what makes it so completely brilliant, and because that multiplayer may already be dwindling.
As an offline game, Blur is completely average – almost poor by Bizarre Creation’s own standards. The house that made Project Gotham Racing and Geometry Wars has more or less crafted a mix of the two – a high-quality racing game with a fireworks display of weapons and power-ups. The side-effect of this diabolical union is a need for chaos that only human opponents can provide.
Competing with AI in Blur is much like it is in a fighting game. Not only is it a pain, but it bears no resemblance to human competition. Playing against the AI will actually make you worse at the game.
This is alleviated somewhat by some clever events beyond the standard racing and a pile of additional challenges under the hood. Checkpoint races have you collecting nitro and time extension icons all along the track, boosting to the next checkpoint before time runs out. Destruction events require you to gun down mobs of slower, weaker cars, taking out as many as you can. Additionally, every event has a high score to crack and special challenges strewn across the track. Succeeding in all of this nets you lights (which unlock additional events), and fans (which unlock new cars). The game does an excellent job of giving a sense of progress – you’re always on the cusp of completing another challenge. In fact, if Blur’s single-player was simply a collection of fun challenges, without the AI races, it’d probably be a lot more fun than it is.
That said, you shouldn’t even consider Blur if you’re not planning to take it online. There are tons of other, better, single-player racing games. Where Blur excels is in its online multiplayer races.
Blur has been pegged as a more realistic take on Mario Kart, but that’s only half the story. Its driving model is on par with the best arcade racers and cornering is as much a part of the game as managing your power-ups. Those power-ups, of which you can hold up to three at a time, provide far more strategy than you may be used to. Blur isn’t a compromise of gameplay systems, it’s damn-near two games in one.
The result is a pretty intense learning curve and a skill-ceiling that even the best players haven’t found yet. Don’t be surprised if it takes five hours before you start winning races, or even coming close. Competition is stiff, and the game’s Modern Warfare-style progression system is as much a way to reward you as it is a signal of the kind of game you’re getting into. But unlike that game, where losing can be a nightmare, fighting for 19th place can be just as enjoyable as hanging on to the lead.
It’s almost as if the game is matchmaking as you race. The mix of weapons, defensive maneuvers, and the natural distribution of cars on the track tends to divide players into pockets of skill. With so many cars, you’re rarely left in the dust, and more often too concerned with the opponents immediately in front and behind you to worry about first place.
That the game is constantly rewarding you with new cars, abilities, and challenges only diminishes the importance of winning. In Blur, you’re always winning because you’re always getting better, you’re always being rewarded, and you’re always having fun doing it.
Once the game clicks though – once you’re bobbing and weaving between hails of lightning, attacking and counter-attacking in equal measure – Blur truly becomes something else. What’s initially exciting about Blur is the total chaos and information overload. Everything is exploding – cars are shooting lasers at each other – it’s total madness. But after a while the chaos begins to take shape. It’s an almost transcendental experience, much like Geometry Wars, where you enter a higher plane of concentration.
This is where Blur is at its best. Sure there’s a ton of other online modes, including fun distractions like a car-combat mode and races without power-ups; but it’s the pure 20-player races that make the game what it is.
The overriding problem with Blur is the current state of its online community. Its quality is absolutely dependent on a population that currently hovers around 2000 players on the Xbox 360 version, and even less on PS3 and PC. So what is Blur worth? In an ideal world, the online experience alone would vault the game into classic status among arcade racing fans. But as it stands, some day, perhaps much sooner than we hope, Blur will be little more than a happy memory. Should you check it out anyway? Absolutely. Just don’t say we didn’t warn you.
What is a good multiplayer game worth? It’s a surprisingly difficult question. Online gaming has shifted our values in profound ways. Is a game with multiplayer a better investment than one without? Does a game with a forgettable multiplayer mode deserve the same criticism as a game with poor single-player content? How do you judge an online game on its merits when player depopulation or dwindling developer support can make it unplayable? These are questions that make Blur, Bizarre Creations’ online-centric racing game, so difficult to review.
It’s easy to make a call on something like Halo or Call of Duty, which offer something for everyone, online or off, and guarantee a stable player-base for several years. But even then, we need only look back to 2005′s Splinter Cell :Chaos Theory, a robust classic that’s been neutered thanks to a loss of online support. And if your game of choice isn’t successful? Forget it – the boatload of vacant online games far outnumbers the handful of wildly successful ones.
These concerns are relevant because Blur’s online multiplayer is what makes it so completely brilliant, and because that multiplayer may already be dwindling.
As an offline game, Blur is completely average – almost poor by Bizarre Creation’s own standards. The house that made Project Gotham Racing and Geometry Wars has more or less crafted a mix of the two – a high-quality racing game with a fireworks display of weapons and power-ups. The side-effect of this diabolical union is a need for chaos that only human opponents can provide.
Competing with AI in Blur is much like it is in a fighting game. Not only is it a pain, but it bears no resemblance to human competition. Playing against the AI will actually make you worse at the game.
This is alleviated somewhat by some clever events beyond the standard racing and a pile of additional challenges under the hood. Checkpoint races have you collecting nitro and time extension icons all along the track, boosting to the next checkpoint before time runs out. Destruction events require you to gun down mobs of slower, weaker cars, taking out as many as you can. Additionally, every event has a high score to crack and special challenges strewn across the track. Succeeding in all of this nets you lights (which unlock additional events), and fans (which unlock new cars). The game does an excellent job of giving a sense of progress – you’re always on the cusp of completing another challenge. In fact, if Blur’s single-player was simply a collection of fun challenges, without the AI races, it’d probably be a lot more fun than it is.
That said, you shouldn’t even consider Blur if you’re not planning to take it online. There are tons of other, better, single-player racing games. Where Blur excels is in its online multiplayer races.
Blur has been pegged as a more realistic take on Mario Kart, but that’s only half the story. Its driving model is on par with the best arcade racers and cornering is as much a part of the game as managing your power-ups. Those power-ups, of which you can hold up to three at a time, provide far more strategy than you may be used to. Blur isn’t a compromise of gameplay systems, it’s damn-near two games in one.
The result is a pretty intense learning curve and a skill-ceiling that even the best players haven’t found yet. Don’t be surprised if it takes five hours before you start winning races, or even coming close. Competition is stiff, and the game’s Modern Warfare-style progression system is as much a way to reward you as it is a signal of the kind of game you’re getting into. But unlike that game, where losing can be a nightmare, fighting for 19th place can be just as enjoyable as hanging on to the lead.
It’s almost as if the game is matchmaking as you race. The mix of weapons, defensive maneuvers, and the natural distribution of cars on the track tends to divide players into pockets of skill. With so many cars, you’re rarely left in the dust, and more often too concerned with the opponents immediately in front and behind you to worry about first place.
That the game is constantly rewarding you with new cars, abilities, and challenges only diminishes the importance of winning. In Blur, you’re always winning because you’re always getting better, you’re always being rewarded, and you’re always having fun doing it.
Once the game clicks though – once you’re bobbing and weaving between hails of lightning, attacking and counter-attacking in equal measure – Blur truly becomes something else. What’s initially exciting about Blur is the total chaos and information overload. Everything is exploding – cars are shooting lasers at each other – it’s total madness. But after a while the chaos begins to take shape. It’s an almost transcendental experience, much like Geometry Wars, where you enter a higher plane of concentration.
This is where Blur is at its best. Sure there’s a ton of other online modes, including fun distractions like a car-combat mode and races without power-ups; but it’s the pure 20-player races that make the game what it is.
The overriding problem with Blur is the current state of its online community. Its quality is absolutely dependent on a population that currently hovers around 2000 players on the Xbox 360 version, and even less on PS3 and PC. So what is Blur worth? In an ideal world, the online experience alone would vault the game into classic status among arcade racing fans. But as it stands, some day, perhaps much sooner than we hope, Blur will be little more than a happy memory. Should you check it out anyway? Absolutely. Just don’t say we didn’t warn you.
August 2, 2010
Exelinya Burst - Indie Game Spotlight (Xbox 360)
Indie Game Spotlight
Exelinya Burst is but one in a long series of Xbox Live Indie games out of DK Alpla, a Japanese developer that has made one strangely compelling indie game after another. Each one typically centers around a simple, but engaging concept, repeated over and over through the course of 50-100 levels. They're well-made, fun, but ultimately nothing ground-breaking. Exelinya Burst isn't exactly ground-breaking either, but it's unique in its ability to be nearly indescribable.
Throughout my time with the game I found myself searching desperately for a purpose, a goal, or winning condition. I think I found it, as I did manage to improve and make it to level 45 - an improvement of maybe a few seconds over my previous high point of level 37. Yes, you can complete several levels over the course of seconds. My pro-tip: jam the A-button maniacally until the entire screen blows up.
You control a little anime witch-girl armed with a grappling hook. The play area suddenly begins to fill with turnips and beets, which explode on impact when grabbed and tossed. Eventually a boss shows up - a giant plate of Tiramisu which must be dispatched quickly in order to gain a bit of extra time. Make it that far (not a difficult task), and more beets and turnips appear, followed by another plate of Tiramisu. This escalation of vegetables and desserts moves exponentially until the entire screen is exploding in a fireworks display of high-yield explosive foodstuffs.
I'm not entirely sure what compelled me to share this game with you, other than the fact that I played it. It is a game that exists for some reason, and my previous descriptions haven't necessarily made a case for it. Either way, I had a fun enough time losing my mind for an hour that it justified the single dollar I paid.
Download on the Xbox Live Marketplace
Throughout my time with the game I found myself searching desperately for a purpose, a goal, or winning condition. I think I found it, as I did manage to improve and make it to level 45 - an improvement of maybe a few seconds over my previous high point of level 37. Yes, you can complete several levels over the course of seconds. My pro-tip: jam the A-button maniacally until the entire screen blows up.
You control a little anime witch-girl armed with a grappling hook. The play area suddenly begins to fill with turnips and beets, which explode on impact when grabbed and tossed. Eventually a boss shows up - a giant plate of Tiramisu which must be dispatched quickly in order to gain a bit of extra time. Make it that far (not a difficult task), and more beets and turnips appear, followed by another plate of Tiramisu. This escalation of vegetables and desserts moves exponentially until the entire screen is exploding in a fireworks display of high-yield explosive foodstuffs.
I'm not entirely sure what compelled me to share this game with you, other than the fact that I played it. It is a game that exists for some reason, and my previous descriptions haven't necessarily made a case for it. Either way, I had a fun enough time losing my mind for an hour that it justified the single dollar I paid.
Download on the Xbox Live Marketplace
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