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Game Reviews, Games

Infini (PC) Review

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Developer: Barnaque | Publisher: Nakana.io || Overall: 8.5/10

Overview:

Infini is probably the strangest, most psychedelic puzzle game to ever be created. Let’s just say there’s a lot of weird shit that happens in here, folks. I really didn’t expect any of what I played and it kept getting weirder and… “better” as I went along. The puzzles are all competently designed, and feel like they’re from a different era; heck, a different universe even. Everything about it is a throwback to early 2000’s GameMaker games where its just one guy doing everything and somehow being able to put it all together.

The story is basically about a bunch of personified “Ideas” interacting with each other. Hope, the main character, is trying to escape Infinity and go back to Reality. All of it is very abstract and I don’t understand half of what anyone is saying or doing. As you get more clues of explanation, going back and watching the story scenes might help make more sense of it all. The game begins with a naked man skydiving out of a large rectangular prism with elephant legs, so it doesn’t pull any punches on what to expect. There are multiple references to something vaguely called “The Incident,” which brings an allure of mystery to the story.

Graphics:

The graphics/art are definitely a very distinctive aspect for this title. While not everything looks “appealing” to the eye, it is all essentially working together in such a way that makes it look like some sort of weird, animated experimental film. So much so, that if there were a movie with all of these elements in it, it would probably garner a much more invigorating response from myself since I’m infinitely (pun intended) more interested in the lore and story than the puzzles.

Sound:

Yet another aspect of the game that exceeds itself. The soundtrack is almost too good for this game — if it weren’t specifically made for it. Each level has its own mood and the music is unique and even shifts throughout the stages in each level. A lesser game would maybe have 5 or 6 songs total and re-use them regardless of what was going on in the story. Since you’ll be retrying stages over and over as you figure them out, the music is such an important part for keeping at it.

Gameplay:

At its basic level, the game is a puzzle game. Each level has about 10 or more stages. The puzzles themselves aren’t too crazy or ridiculous (other than the background art), but the mechanics you’ll use to solve the puzzles are varied and interesting. There are some similarities throughout the levels, but most have a unique challenge or aspect that keeps the gameplay fresh.

The general idea for the puzzles is that you are constantly falling and eventually want to get to a “ring” (or maybe it is a portal). How you get there is impacted by the layout of the barriers, and the mechanics introduced for that level. Mechanics range from multiple 2D planes, rotating, flying, falling slower, swimming, etc. One of the biggest constants will be using the borders of the screen to reach the other side of the screen, almost like a wormhole. When zooming is introduced, these borders change dramatically and you have more control over where you appear on the map. You’ll have to do some layman’s quantum mechanics to figure out how to get through some of the levels.

Eventually, you’ll also find special objects that open up new stages or unlock extras in a “bonus” type of area. You’ll collect letters from these special objects and read stuff in this bonus room, so it is an overarching goal to replay stages to find these objects if you didn’t get them the first time around. Luckily, you don’t need to play from start to finish to save your progress in this regard, you can just pick and choose the stage and quit after you complete the single stage.

Crappiest Part:

So, it’s hard to really shit on this game, but the crappiest part is definitely how if you get stuck on a level, there’s no way to look up a guide to get through it. It is a new game, but also, not many people are playing it. So, it can get frustrating if you are banging your head against a wall for 999,999,999 attempts. The game does open up a bit as you progress, so you don’t necessarily have to linearly complete each level, but it will be the main way to unlock shit. You’ll be able to quit and come back later, at least.

Conclusion:

No need to take drugs before you play — you’ll gain an effective high just from the sights and sounds. You’ll see some shit, and your brain will flip around in its skull with all of the space/time bending puzzles. A lot of it won’t make sense as you’re doing it, but you’ll somehow figure it out if you keep at it.

Game Reviews, Games

Super Mutant Alien Assault (PC) Review

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Developer: Cybernate | Publisher: Surprise Attack Games || Overall: 8.5/10

Super Mutant Alien Assault (SMAA) bears no shame in calling itself a clone of “Super Crate Box.”  Fortunately for SMAA, I never heard of (nor played) the game it is a clone of, so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt when it says that’s what it is.  Now, aside from the gasping in the back corners of the room by those who cannot fathom that someone does not know the “smash hit” Super Crate Box, I say nay nay, good sir.  I heard of it now, and Super Mutant Alien Assault appeals to me on its face much more than whatever that other thing is.  Plus, I like clones because it reminds me of one of my favorite Schwarzenegger movies, The 6th Day.

“You should clone yourself.  So you can go fuck yourself.” (Paraphrased quote from The 6th Day)

SMAA is a platforming shooter that constrains you in one small level.  Each level contains a particular objective that must be completed before proceeding to the next, along the way massacring as many aliens as you need to.  SMAA, at its core, rides on the “roguelite” wave, but only wades in just a bit.  Power-ups are collected, but don’t endlessly stack — you have a limited amount of slots available for special abilities, weapons, and defenses.  Your character isn’t going to get crazy combinations of power-ups, but most of what you use will be swapped for something else that drops.  This forces you to work on a constantly changing strategy throughout your gameplay, rather than sticking with “what works” for as long as you can.  On top of it all, health can be very hard to come by, which makes the game quite a bit unforgiving.  Friendly-fire is also a thing here, so you’ll have to be careful where you chuck your explosives, just in case it bounces back in your general direction.

Level designs and objectives are randomized, but there is a set amount of maps that cycle within each “Galaxy,” which is a set of four levels.  There are no procedurally-generated maps, and objectives will only appear on particular levels designed for that objective.  This doesn’t detract from the enjoyment but it can get a bit stale depending on how long you decide to play in one go.  Objectives include moving an item from Point A to Point B or releasing a build-up of pressure on multiple points on the map.  It is important to get the objective done as fast as possible, as enemies will gain strength the longer you stay in a level.  A level will always require you to clear whatever enemies remain once the objective is fulfilled, so the path of least resistance will not be rewarded in the slightest.

Game unlocks occur as you complete more levels.  Each time you clear a stage you gain a token that sets you along the path to the next automatic unlock.  As you unlock more weaponry/items you’ll also unlock more enemies to have fun with — although this seems more like a punishment when it happens.  It would have been nicer to see enemies unlocked in a different progression, such as number of enemies killed or if a particular boss was cleared.

“Kinda takes the fun out of living, doesn’t it?”

When you actually get into the gameplay it can be quite frantic and most of it is satisfying.  Each level is equipped with its own configuration of Weapon/Explosive vending machines that randomly equip you with one of the weapons you have unlocked so far.  Explosions are by far the most fulfilling thing about the game and it’s a lot of fun to be able to blow the aliens up with a well-timed grenade or cluster bomb.  Some of the normal weaponry is not as exciting, such as the dual submachine guns and the AK47, but the minigun, sniper rifle, and grenade launcher are fun to wield.  My favorite by far is the pogo stick that explodes things you jump on top of — it would have been great if this was more the kind of thing you saw in the game, but instead it is the outlier.  Your weaponry/explosives all have a set number of charges, so you’ll be needing to re-equip yourself as soon as you use up your ammo, which means you’ll get a random item and change your strategy to effectively use your new combination.  Each level also grants you new power-ups in crates to fill out your other ability slots, such as Special Abilities and Defenses.

Special Abilities are fun to use and varied, despite the fact they aren’t able to be used that much due to needing to collect Special Ammo.  Special Ammo drops when you defeat empowered monsters that stick around for a while on the map, and you have to run over the green squares that are dropped before they expire.  This may not always be possible.  Special Abilities and Defenses (that are free to use) include but are not limited to a pillar of energy, pushbacks, running fast, and bullet time.  Defenses don’t damage enemies, but not all Special Abilities deal damage either.

The art is nice and attention is paid to the aliens and levels.  The art style reminds me of old Windows 3.1-era games (not that far removed from DOS games) with a 90’s retro-futuristic design.  The game also runs like a dream 95% of the time, except when you enter hyperdrive when that objective comes around.  The frame lag is helped if you turn off the Screen Shake in the options, but is still apparent even after turning it off — I’m unsure if this is actually intended or not, though, since it “snaps out” of the frame lag as soon as you exit the hyperdrive sequence.  It unfortunately gets pretty annoying when you experience it for the umpteenth time.   The music is all high-energy EDM/Dubstep/electro music and depending on your personal tastes may either be enjoyable or create misery.  It all matches the tempo of the game, but I was somewhere in the middle of the scale with the arrangement.  After about an hour of gameplay, I muted the music and opted for some of my own with the sound effects still on top.

“Doesn’t anybody die any more?”

The game feels a bit bare-bones when you realize that the progression is tied to unlocking weapons through a small number of levels.  Three Galaxies of four levels account for a total of twelve stages, each Galaxy cycling from its own small pool of levels/unlocked bosses.  By design, you’ll be retrying the game over and over since death is inevitable.  Each Galaxy has their own color scheme and set of levels to cycle through, and the game lets you begin on either of the three galaxies you like once you’ve beaten the previous boss level.  To unlock a higher difficulty level you have to start from the first Galaxy and go all the way to the last without dying — which can be quite a task depending on your skills.  Familiarizing yourself with the levels that cycle within a chosen Galaxy is the only way you’ll be able to get through it all in one go.

Super Mutant Alien Assault essentially appeals to those who look for a challenge in their games.  A lot of gameplay comes from perfecting your skills and attempting to get through as many levels as possible before dying and resetting.  The assortment of weapons are fun, keep you on your toes, and as you unlock more powerful weapons and abilities, you’re bound to get further at some point.  However, the biggest buff isn’t a tangible item in the game, it’s your own perseverance to try again and again and again and again….

Super Mutant Alien Assault is available now on Steam for $7.99, currently discounted by 20% from $9.99.

Game Reviews, Games

BAN (PC) Review

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Overview

The game BAN has a strange title for so many reasons. One I can think of is that this game should have a BAN slapped on it for being completely crap. All you do is play a crap drawing of a person and shoot what looks like a monster by frantically pushing CTRL. You then die and think hmmmmmm that was fun and then you think how did I get that score.  The gameplay is so minimal but then again what do you expect from PG Games.

Graphics

A stick with a head and a head for a monster well okay long story short there a pile of shit the was no effort in this area.

Sounds

Nothing but a crappy sound track, which is very annoying and is probably why the game is so dam big. I would personally prefer hearing someone straining when having a crap.

Gameplay

It’s all down to button bashing and is well very boring, it is so boring this can be called a medical breakthrough, a fast and effective sleeping drug with no side effects.

Crappiest Part

Well all you really have to do is read the review but I would have to say the graphics they look like a 3 year old drew them.

Overall

Am I allowed to give 0? If not then I will have to give it a 1/10 just for the fact it has no good features.

If I ever find the download for this game, I will post it.

Game Reviews, Games

Schuyler Hunt (PC) Review

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Game by EEs.  Made with Game Maker.  No download is available — if it ever does become available, it will be uploaded.

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Overview:

Some old company called Schuyler & Sons closed for some spooky reason, and you think that there is money hidden within the old joint.

Schuyler Hunt is a point and click adventure, which is rarely seen in the Game Maker community. It even has a little inventory system! Is this tale scary enough to warrant playing? Let’s find out!

Graphics:

Though the pictures were randomly picked from an image search and colored black and white, they go incredibly well together and make this fictional place seem real. The rooms you go through have an eerie feeling to them, and make you expect for something to jump out at you at any moment. However, the few hand-drawn sprites that are in the game are incredibly terrible. Everything that was drawn looks like it was concocted in MS Paint in a matter of seconds and really lessens the creepy atmosphere. Also, the maker of this game’s first language is not English and it shows, as frequent misspellings and unintelligible notes litter a large part of the game. Still though, the backgrounds do a pretty good job of immersing you into the game.

Sound:

The music in Schuyler Hunt is very well done and adds a lot to the already creepy atmosphere. The game features no sound effects, but this gives it sort of a charm, as adding a lot of sounds may ruin immersion.

Gameplay:

You point and click just like any other point and click adventure, only when you click on an item that can be picked up, it automatically puts it into your inventory. Left clicking on certain things will either give you a short description of it or place it into your inventory. Right clicking on your inventory will give you a description of the item and can be pretty handy if you’re unsure of what to do with it. Right clicking on notes will show you what is written on them, though almost all of the notes in the game are completely useless and make no sense.

Crappiest Part:

Definitely definitely definitely the hand-drawn graphics. If any effort at all would’ve been put into them, the quality of the game would’ve multiplied. But the way that they are, the game looks very amateur and sometimes ridiculous.

Overall Score:

Schuyler Hunt is a pretty smart game that focuses more on atmosphere than anything. My gripes are that the game could’ve been a little longer, it could’ve had better spelling (although the reason for the misspellings is understandable), the notes mostly make no sense, and most of all the drawn graphics are just flat out terrible. This game could obviously have been better, but it is a fun game that sucked me in the whole time. That’s something I can hardly ever say for a Game Maker game.

8.5/10

Game Reviews, Games

War Against U.S. Terror, The (PC) Review

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Developer: Paul Cartwright

  The War Against U.S. Terror (PC) (2.0 MiB, 1,670 hits)

Game by Paul Cartwright, made with Game Maker.

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Overview:

The War Against U.S. Terror is probably the only Game Maker game made to make a political statement. But don’t hate it because it tries to be anti-American. Hate it because its so fucking hard. There’s millions of planes and units that the U.S. has against your own terrorist fighter plane, and believe me you’re going to die in real life before you ever beat all the levels in this game. The main point in the game is to help terrorists fight off the U.S. in all the major wars/battles/confrontations of the last 50 years or so, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. A few that are probably soon to come are tossed in as well, like Iran, North Korea, and Indonesia.

Graphics:

The graphics are good. The planes look pretty good, and its kind of funny how obvious it makes the planes to be owned by the USA, because there’s a huge “USA” printed across most of the planes. The only bad things I would say in this game, graphics-wise, would be the unrealistic red balls being shot out of the planes (but that makes it so you can see them), and the badly drawn infantry barreling out of the little forts that have a big “USA” on top of it. (It may as well be a big target, if you ask me…)

Sound:

The sound is very good. There’s a lot of explosions and gun firing. It might be a bad thing to play loud while there’s other members of your family in the house, because they’ll feel like they’re in a badly sampled war zone.

Gameplay:

The gameplay is the same as you would see in any other plane-killing-millions-of-units games, like 1942.

Crappiest part:

The crappiest part is how the menus and the commands are not very user-friendly. Instead of pressing “enter” on the menu screen to go to the option you selected, its the space bar. And when you press escape, you have to press “y” (for yes) to abort a mission, when there are no choices represented (like a thing saying Y/N?). These really are not hard things to fix, and is probably just a preference of the creator to do these weird things that are out of the norm, and needlessly complicated.

Overall Score:

This game is cool, and is definitely one of the better games I’ve seen made with Game Maker. Its very smooth, everything is blended well, and is made with a sense of humor (for example, the level descriptions). The tagline for this game is: Terrorists of the World, Unite!

9/10.

  The War Against U.S. Terror (PC) (2.0 MiB, 1,670 hits)

Game by Paul Cartwright, made with Game Maker.

Game Reviews, Games

Urisoft Monopoly (PC) Review

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Developer: Urisoft

  Urisoft Monopoly (PC) (708.3 KiB, 1,593 hits)

Game by Urisoft, made with Game Maker.

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Overview:

This is a recreation of the ever-popular Monopoly game. Instead of fake places like Monopoly has, this Monopoly has real countries (yay). So I can buy India for like 750 dollars. Ain’t that swell?

Graphics:

There’s no effort in making any thing. The only thing that is original is the board.

Sound:

There’s no sound. This is kind of bad, because it gets really boring after a while, with no music to shake your ass to while buying the countries of the world.

Gameplay:

Long and boring. You can’t trade property, buy houses, or nearly 3/4 the things you are able to do in Monopoly. And when you go to Free Parking, you lose 3 turns. Its free parking, why the hell would I have to stay there for three turns?! FREE PARKING IS GOOD, AND YOU PARK THERE CAUSE ITS FREE GODDAMITTT!

Crappiest Part:

The boringness of the game.

Overall Score:

When you get down to it, this game is just boring. There’s no way to trade your properties to other people or computers, like it is in the Monopoly games, so that makes it kind of limited to only two things you can do: roll your dice to move and pay money.

5/10

  Urisoft Monopoly (PC) (708.3 KiB, 1,593 hits)

Game by Urisoft, made with Game Maker.

Game Reviews, Games

Sexiest Hand II, The (PC) Review

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Developer: Jazzuo Games

  The Sexiest Hand II (PC) (4.8 MiB, 1,729 hits)

Game by Jazzuo Games, made with Game Maker.

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Overview:

If you’re wondering what happened to The Sexiest Hand 1, then let this be known to all that have been subjugated by the censor Gods: This is actually built on top of it, and it has it included basically. This is an imporved Sexiest Hand, with more levels and junk.

Graphics:

The drawings are original, except for the soccer ball. And I can’t really tell what that U shaped thing is. A pot?

Sound:

The sound is excellent. It boasts an original soundtrack made by the game creator himself. If you haven’t heard the title screen song, you should download it just to listen to it.

Gameplay:

The gameplay is pretty annoying. I can’t seem to get the hang of the mouse thing, and its almost a 1/1200235000433461“133 chance that you’ll get it in the u pot. But the more you play, you kind of want to play more because you want to get the damn ball into the damn pot thing.

Crappiest Part:

The crappy part is probably how it is kind of not fun. The file size is also really big because of the music.

Overall Score:

The game isn’t a very fun game, but I love the soundtrack, and I have to give a lot of points for it. Without the mustic it probably would have gotten a 3, but it gets a

7/10

  The Sexiest Hand II (PC) (4.8 MiB, 1,729 hits)

Game by Jazzuo Games, made with Game Maker.

And if you want to checkout the first Sexiest Hand:

  The Sexiest Hand (2.6 MiB, 1,573 hits)

Game by Jazzuo, made with Game Maker.

Game Reviews, Games

Table Top Soccer (PC) Review

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Developer: Global Software

  Table Top Soccer (PC) (1.1 MiB, 1,616 hits)

Game by Global Software, made with Game Maker.

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Overview:

This game takes ordinary table top soccer and makes it ordinary table top soccer…on your computer!

Graphics:

Nothing special here, but nothing special is really needed to pull off this game.

Sound:

The sound effects makes it feel like your at a real table top soccer field…which isn’t really….possible… It does get annoying after a while when the crowd keeps cheering after a score (especially when its for the other team 6 times in a row)

Gameplay:

This game is actually fairly fun, and is very good for a table top soccer game. Its not good to use only one hand for this game, as you may have delayed reactions sometimes, telling which finger to either press a, z or the space bar (which are close together), so its best to use a and z with you left hand and use the space with your right hand.

Crappiest Part:

What my score usually is at the end of the game (2 minutes long):

(I’m red)

Overall Score:

This delightful game is put very well together, and runs smoothly. Table Top Soccer on your computer will help us on our way to not having to play anything in real life ever again! I give it a:

8/10

  Table Top Soccer (PC) (1.1 MiB, 1,616 hits)

Game by Global Software, made with Game Maker.

Game Reviews, Games

Super Carrot (PC) Review

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Developer: Urisoft

  Super Carrot (PC) (2.8 MiB, 1,620 hits)

Game by Urisoft, made with Game Maker.

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Overview:

You are Super Carrot. Super Carrot is a really cool character and this game, coming from Urisoft, is really good compared to the other games this guy has made. Super Carrot starts out in Iraq, and he’s out to make ketchup out of all the tomatos, jump over boiling oil, and run over retractable spikes.

Graphics:

The graphics aren’t very special, but at least they’re mostly original.

Sound:

The music is pretty good, but the sound effects are really good…except for repetitive gun shot noise. Super Carrot sounds like a surfer, and he says all these cool things like “no respect!” or “see ya later alligator, wah!” and “die you mutha!” and “ya’ll die in hell!” and “I feel good!” and “I’m dead!”

Gameplay:

Simple enough. Space jumps and Ctrl shoots the magnum. You have to kill tomatos to get through the level and jump over boiling oil as well. Its sorta funny that Iraq just leaves their oil out like, y’know…and they put boards into the oil so you can jump across it, and its really hard to do that…yeah…

Crappiest Part:

The crappiest part would be how I can’t get past the retractable spikes in the 2nd level.

Overall Score:

This game is swell! This is probably Urisoft’s best game…ever… 8/10.

  Super Carrot (PC) (2.8 MiB, 1,620 hits)

Game by Urisoft, made with Game Maker.

Game Reviews, Games

Sticktra 2 (PC) Review

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Developer: Smoking Monkey Software

  Sticktra 2 (PC) (1.3 MiB, 1,573 hits)

Game by Smoking Monkey Software, made with Game Maker.

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Overview:

Sticktra 2 is the sequel to the ever-boring yet slightly originallic (original-like, or containing a somewhat original characteristic) Sticktra. So, now you may ask, what has improved in this game? Well, a lot HAS improved…but with its newly implemented improvements, come even more problems.

Graphics:

The graphics are basically the same as the last game. This time there’s a few new things, but they really didn’t take much time to draw.

Sound:

The sound has definitely improved, mainly because the sound effects for the weaponry are gone. There is no real need for them, and they were just too distracting anyhow. The music is good, and there’s also a little ring that you hear when you get a diamond.

Gameplay:

The gameplay is the same as the last one, except this time there’s different weapons. So that means you can hit your space bar in different patterns! Hooray! The point of the whole game I suppose is to get some diamonds so you can horde them up and then give to your dragon back at home that lives in a mountain in your backyard to guard them all. There’s also one new move that I’ve noticed. Wall climbing. Isn’t THAT special?

Crappiest Part:

Probably the crappiest part now is how there’s not much really having you enjoy playing the game. There’s no story, there’s no anything. You just go from room to room killing more and more stupid enemies till you get to the end of the level and go on to the next one. Booooring. After a while there’s really no fun in killing enemies, even with the different weaponry you can choose from, and you’ll just want to run through the levels to get to the next one. Sort of like the first one, but for a completely opposite reason. The first one was too hard, the second one was too easy.

Overall Score:

The game has not improved very much. If some of the sprites were polished, and maybe if there were interesting backgrounds to look at, it would have been more enjoyable.

4/10.

  Sticktra 2 (PC) (1.3 MiB, 1,573 hits)

Game by Smoking Monkey Software, made with Game Maker.

Games, Game Reviews

Sticktra (PC) Review

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Developer: Smoking Monkey Software

  Sticktra (PC) (2.0 MiB, 1,578 hits)

Game by Smoking Monkey Software, made with Game Maker.

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Overview:

Sticktra is a game that gives you too much information about things you really don’t want to know. Other than that, its not much of a game, because the game is too god damn hard to beat conventionally. So you have to run. Run through each level, and hopefully not die before you get to the end. Sure you can shoot your stupid gun, but what’s the use? It takes 100 bullets to kill a stupid bat.

Graphics:

The graphics are actually not good at all, but since there was a theme, it didn’t look absolutely horrible. It wasn’t that bad.

Sound:

The gunshots are really annoying, but you can avoid them all together, because they don’t help you while you’re running through the level.

Gameplay:

Run, jump, shoot…boring…

Crappiest Part:

How there’s so many fucking enemies. I mean come on. It takes a million bullets to kill one of them, and then you have another million enemies to shoot. So that’s like a billion bullets. You only start out with 700 or something anyhow. If it took less bullets to kill the enemies, it would have been better, because you’d actually kill the enemies instead of running past them

Overall Score:

The game has nothing good or interesting about it. The only thing I like though, is the theme of everything being poorly drawn, and having no real time involved in coloring them. The game does run well though.

2/10.

  Sticktra (PC) (2.0 MiB, 1,578 hits)

Game by Smoking Monkey Software, made with Game Maker.

Game Reviews, Games

Stranded in Space (PC) Review

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Developer: Xedas Kbrea

  Stranded in Space (PC) (6.4 MiB, 1,274 hits)

Game by Xedas Kbrea, made with Game Maker.

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Overview:

Oh no. You’re stranded in space. Well, you’re in for an adventurous not-so-much-an-actual-adventure adventure kind of game. Let me explain what that means. Actually, figure it out yourself.

This is an adventure in space, and you blow up ships owned by these hostile aliens called the Iren, and you travel around by use of black holes and by some chance you always come out in some place where there’s either Iren, or a command ship owned by another alien race that is being attacked by the Iren. Hoopidoo.

Graphics:

They’re ok. They look decent at least, and have a sort of style to them that makes all the ships look shiny. All the different race’s ships are all based on a combination of a different shape and color for each one. Its easy to recognize who is who. There really isn’t any point to any alien races except the Iren, if you ask me. They don’t do anything special, and you don’t see them more than once each. There’s 2 friendly ones, by the way.

Sound:

The sound is alright. There’s a sort of annoying pulsing going around in the background for some reason. But you can learn how to ignore it after a few missions, because by the time you’re in the 3rd mission or so, you’ll be wondering “why am I playing this game?” too much to actually remember about the pulsing sound.

Gameplay:

The gameplay is alright. I didn’t like the “sliding” effect the ships get after you release the direction you want to go. It was hard to actually come to a complete stop or change directions easily. If the “sliding” was put down a little bit, and the ships actually stopped soon after you let go of the arrow keys, it would have given a better feeling to the gameplay.

Throughout the game, there are only 3 chances to upgrade your ship and how many wingmen you have with you. After you beat the game, you are allowed to have cheats (hooray). But I couldn’t figure out how to use the freaking cheats because it seemed like they didn’t work for whatever reason, even though I was pressing shift.

There is one level that is kind of cool, in which the purple aliens (the Tyrin) fight the Iren, and both their command ships are there. Yeah…

Crappiest Part:

The crappiest part of the game is the unrewarding end. After you save some ship that is supposedly yours from the Iren, they just say to go through the last black hole because it supposedly goes home. Then you get to play through the whole game again, with cheats. Who wants to go home when you can be stranded in space AGAIN? I also thought it was unneccessary to have a huge bar thing for your own health and shields. If that information were right next to your ship, like your allies have them, you would be able to see more of the screen. The radar box was fine where it was though.

The crappiest part of the GAMEPLAY is the fucking stupid speech box. Every time one of your wingmen kills and enemy, it pops up a blue box that covers up a corner of the screen. The box gets in the way a lot, and you have to press A constantly so you can get rid of it. There’s no option to turn it off, unfortunately, and it really does take away from the game experience, because you have to see these stupid wingmen saying the same corny things over and over.

All the wingmen say things like this throughout the whole game, over and over:

“Hey there’s another black hole over there, why don’t we just go in there, and hopefully we’ll appear in another area of the universe that has more Iren for us to blow the shit out of then repeat over and over!”

“W00T I’m GAY”

“Another one down! In my pants! I just took a shit in my pants!”

“Oh fuck me, I’m dead. But hey, I respawned again!”

They’re stupid. I almost wanted to sell off all my allies so I didn’t have to put up with their shit anymore, but then I would have lost the game.

Overall Score:

This game is ok. It seemed like it was rushed a bit, and could have been better if there were some actual story, more levels, and no talking wingmen. Once you do beat the game though, you can severely kick some ass through the whole game again. It sends you to a level where an infinite amount of enemies come out, so you can blow the shit out of them as long as you want. I will most likely never play this game again.

8/10

  Stranded in Space (PC) (6.4 MiB, 1,274 hits)

Game by Xedas Kbrea, made with Game Maker.

Game Reviews, Games

Spoon Page (PC) Review

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Developer: Darthlupi

  Spoon Page (PC) (5.0 MiB, 1,694 hits)

Game by darthlupi, made with Game Maker.

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Overview:

This is a shoot’em up side scroller game with some very interesting elements to it. This is obviously a very long game, and is very good because of the quality of the gameplay and the length of it. This is a half-funny half-serious (actually a little more on the funny side) kind of game, and is full of randomness (only in the speech). There’s not a strong story to move it along, but its still good enough to have you play.

Graphics:

The graphics are excellent for this kind of game. You can tell that all the graphics are original except the flames and blowing up things. There was a lot of effort put into the backgrounds as well.

Sound:

The music is good and the sound effects are ok.

Gameplay:

The game plays with the arrow keys and your mouse. There’s a lot of things to this game to play, and a lot of levels to have fun in. There’s also a money thing, where you get money for destroying things, and you buy upgrades with the money. This makes you want to destroy everything in the level so you can get more money to buy stuff.

Crappiest Part:

The guy moves kind of slow when you’re not using the rocket booster, and also it takes a lot of money to get to the next weapon, but I guess that’s a part of the difficulty.

Overall Score:

Despite the odd naming of this game, which has nothing to do with the actual game (as far as I’ve played anyway), unless there’s a giant spoon in a book you have to beat as the boss, this game is a lot of fun and with a save feature, you can continue your quest thing that you’re doing for many weeks to come.

10/10

  Spoon Page (PC) (5.0 MiB, 1,694 hits)

Game by darthlupi, made with Game Maker.

Game Reviews, Games

Speed Cookie 2 (PC) Review

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Developer: Stenners

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Overview:

Just like Speed Cookie. It’s pacman but you go fast (speed) and it has nothing to do with cookies (cookie) get it? Speed Cookie. The point of the game is to get to the star thing without hitting the monster things. By the way, some help files just crack me up, so i put a lot of stuff from this one in here.

Background Story (from the help file):

“After Speed Cookie escaped from monster isle he was captured and was put into a lab for experiments. Speed Cookie then was made to drink a potion wich made him flash colours now hes pissed and wants revenge. He bit the mad scientist Speed Cookie then got thrown to the floor and then the mad scientists dog cud went to eat him he then took it away from the dog but the dog was crazy to get him. The scientist was intreeged and was thinking maybe was the taste of speed cookie that the dog wanted to eat him so much. So he rubbed speed cookie with a cloth and the gave it to the dog the dog ate the cloth as qucik as it got given to him. He then started to talk about speed cookie being killed for him to extract the dna and to make him dog food.One night Speed Cookie tried to escape but was confrunted by huge bacteria all of wich are menercinig and trying to stop Speed Cookie. Can you help him escape from the biological lab or will he be dicepeepted and made as new dog food.”

Graphics:

The pac man flashes all the time… I don’t know if thats better or worse than just yellow… I’m gonna say worse cause it’s annoying… sort of.

Sound:

Well… I don’t remember any… lets see… ok there’s two sounds. The first is the cookie exploding sound in the intro (thats the only time I saw cookies..) and the “ugh!” sound when you hit the star. According to the help file, “You have to guide speed cookie to the warp star why dose he say uegh you ask he hates the taste lodged into his mouth.”

Gameplay:

It’s pretty hard to avoid the monsters or “bacteria” as he calls them… I have to put another quote in here about the monsters, “Sucjh as the bacteria from the first game and the all new pain haiting bacterai when he hits the wall he slows down but after a while he flips and gose faster then before.”

Crappiest Part:

How it doesn’t “Snap to a grid” and the monsters act kinda screwy.

Overall Score:

It was a good effort I guess.. I think it needs a better idea, but I liked how he puts all this backstory into a stupid game of avoiding monsters.. I also noticed that there weren’t any “fake exits” to the levels like in the first one… oh well maybe I didn’t play long enough.

4/10

Game Reviews, Games

Speed Cookie (PC) Review

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Developer: Stenners

  Speed Cookie (PC) (1.3 MiB, 1,589 hits)

Game by Stenners, made with Game Maker.

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Overview:

Let me tell you right now. If Pac-Man were gay, and he had to go through portals to get to the next stupid level, this is that game. There are no cookies in this game, but there is one thing in the title that is true. Speed. The speed that I want to press the escape button on my keyboard so I don’t have to play this game anymore.

Graphics:

All the sprites were ripped from a Pac-Man game, except the “cut scene,” “title screen,” and the “background.” The title screen and the “cut scene” thing were actually funny, because of how stupid it looked. This is the strongest point of the game.

Sound:

I like the music a lot. It definitely sets the mood for a “Pac-Man in space with ghosts he can’t kill and has a million and 2 lives and has to get to a stupid portal to go to the next level” kind of game.

Gameplay:

Just like Pac-Man except there’s no maze things….and the ghosts go really fast, so its really just chance/luck that you even get to the portal when you even get to it. When you get to like the 5th level or something, you can’t go any farther because the portal doesn’t work so you can’t really beat the game…stupid.

Crappiest Part:

I’d have to say it was the whole idea….

Overall Score:

Its not fun, and its really a wonder why anyone would make such a game like this, and be happy with the final product. Better luck next Pac-Man game, I’d say. There was good drawing though (on the stuff that was original). I give it a:

3/10

  Speed Cookie (PC) (1.3 MiB, 1,589 hits)

Game by Stenners, made with Game Maker.