Infectonator

February 19, 2013 by 4 Comments

Where have I been the last two days? Well, I’ve been working, hanging out with Brian, going to church (that’s right, Indie Gamer Chick goes to church), and while I’m doing all that, I’ve been utterly hooked on an iPhone title named Infectonator. Day and night for the last 48 hours. And it’s all Brian’s fault. He bugged me for a while, saying “I found this game on my phone that’s really fun and pretty addictive and I think if you liked that OMG-Zombies!, you’ll really like this.” Spot on he was, although on reflection, he might have been looking for a way to get a break from me. If so, another point for him, the crafty bastard. Infectonator is an utterly addictive time sink, sort of like OMG-Zombies! on steroids.

And it’s free.

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Really, this scene could have been done without the zombies. Make a game called “Black Friday” and instead of unleashing a virus, you throw the year’s hot Christmas item into a crowd of people. Would probably have a bigger body count too.

Oh sure, the game offers you a chance to pay cash in lieu of grinding, but I never found it necessary. I didn’t really play it totally non-stop. In truth, I put about six hours and change into Infectonator this weekend, but it felt longer. In a good way. The concept here is the opposite of OMG-Zombies! Instead of trying to exterminate the undead, you’re trying to create them, and wipe out humanity in the process. In the beginning, you’re given a single dose of a virus. Tapping the screen, you place the virus near humans, causing them to turn into zombies. They run around and kill humans, who may or may not turn into zombies. Every time you kill a person, you get coins that you can spend on upgrades, new zombie classes (that’s classes of zombies, not classes on zombies, but I think I’m onto something there if you’re short on game ideas), or special powers. Unlike some games like this, even the smallest upgrades feel like they make progress, which makes the gameplay very rewarding. An average game will take you about two hours to play-through.

I can sum up how potently addictive Infectonator is by saying that I played through it four times. Do you know how many games I’ve ever played through four times before this? None. Never once. Nor have I ever played through a game even three times. At most, I’ll play through a game once on one difficulty and once on a harder difficulty, then move on to something else. For whatever reason, I had trouble putting down Infectonator. A second play-through became a third. Then I realized I still hadn’t played the game with the super power-ups, so I saved up my cash in the third play-through and rolled it over to the fourth, immediately bought the super power-ups, and then beat the game a fourth time. I will admit, by this point, I wasn’t really having fun.

The first time around? Sublime. You couldn’t wipe the smile off my face (or the time-sink-induced drool from my mouth) with a jackhammer and dynamite. The second time around, I was waiting for “harder” mode to be, you know, harder, and it never came. But I was still having a good time. The third time around, I was just playing to save money to see how over-powered the super power-ups were. The fourth time, I was shaking my head at how easy the game was now that my virus spreader was passing through people and walls. Not only that, but I had so much money saved up (over $500,000) that I was also fully able to upgrade the amount of directions the virus spread in and beef up my zombies to the point that they were practically indestructible. I’ve always said I enjoy abusing leveling up systems, but I think I took it to a new extreme here and consequently ruined a game I had been having a damn good time with.  I’m ashamed of myself, I really am.

This scene is begging to be made into a movie. Just don't fuck it up by making the star Jack Black or Will Ferrell.

This scene is begging to be made into a movie. Just don’t fuck it up by making the star Jack Black or Will Ferrell.

My only other complaints are the typical ones associated with iPhone games. Infectonator crashed every single time that I tried to “report” my score. The way they implemented Game Center support is among the worst I’ve ever seen on an iPhone title.  Infectonator also bogged down several times. Never once did I have a problem on my first play through, but each subsequent game had slow-down issues. Plus I seriously question whether “hard” mode actually was hard, considering that I beat the game with fewer upgrades on my third play-through then I did the first time. I also found the endless mode to be quite dull. Of course, all these complaints are slightly muted by the fact that Infectonator is free. Free is a good price. Considering how horrible the values for Infectonator’s micro-transactions are ($9.99 nets you 100,000 gold coins, which isn’t enough for even one of those super power-ups that only works in one play-through), I wonder why they didn’t just slap a $0.99 price tag on their game? Maybe indie gaming really is a race to the bottom. If that’s the case, the guys behind this game strapped anvils to their backs and flung themselves down the Mariana Trench. No word on whether they waved to James Cameron on the way down. Or maybe they turned him into a zombie while they were at it.

I still enthusiastically recommend Infectonator. It’s free on iOS and Android. Are you one of those troglodytes that doesn’t have a phone? Well then you can play it for free online too. If I ranked non-XBLIGs on my Leaderboard, Infectonator would be somewhere near the top. It’s a glorious little time sink that does what any good time sink does: ruin your fucking life.

InfectonatorIGC_ApprovedInfectonator was developed by Toge Productions

Infectonator is Chick Approved.

Filed under iPhone and iPad Reviews Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Centipede (PlayStation Home Arcade), Centipede & Millipede (XBLA), Centipede Origins (iOS), and Bad Caterpillar (XBLIG)

February 16, 2013 by 10 Comments

Probably the biggest misconception about me as a gamer is that I’m anti-retro or anti-old games. I’m not. I’m simply of the opinion that some games age better than others. I wouldn’t want to play Space Invaders or Pac-Man as they existed back in the day. I’m perfectly fine with modern remakes of them, like Space Invaders Extreme or Pac-Man Championship Edition. On the other hand, some of those older games have aged pretty gracefully. Centipede is one such game. In fact, it’s one of the few golden age coin-ops that I feel blends in perfectly with the current generation. Its twitchy, fast-paced gameplay lends itself perfectly to ten minute portable sessions. It released recently on the Vita’s Home Arcade platform, and I snagged it for $1.49 in preparation for today’s review. That’s about what I would have spent to last 15 minutes on the coin-op if I had been alive in 1983. Did I mention I really suck at it?

Centipede on PlayStation Home Arcade (Vita)

Centipede on PlayStation Home Arcade (Vita)

So what do I think of Home Arcade? Um, hmmmm.. you know, in the four years its been around, I never have really used PlayStation Home too much. I would rather just be able to launch games straight off my Vita’s dashboard without having to open Home Arcade. The interface is clunky and half the time I’ll be stabbing the ever-loving shit out of the “your games” button and nothing happens. Having said that, the prices are pretty good ($1.49 each) and it has the advantage of being portable and on the coolest gaming gizmo in years. I don’t even have Home installed on my PS3, and I don’t plan on it, but you don’t need it to use Home Arcade. I can’t speak for the rest of the games (get back to me the next time an Asteroids clone hits XBLIG) but Centipede controls well. I guess you can’t ask for more. Which is a good thing, because what you get is a bare-bones port of the arcade original. They could have thrown in ports of the Atari home versions, but hey, it’s called making a lazy dollar.

I picked up Centipede on Vita because I wanted to compare it to Bad Caterpillar, a new Xbox Live Indie Game from Kris Steele. I like Kris, but the dude fucking aggravates me to no end. His games always have something glaringly off about them. Volchaos would have been fun if the movement physics weren’t so damn loose. The same goes for Hypership: Out of Control on XBLIG. If a gnat so much as farts in the direction of the analog stick, it sends your ship flying. In a game that involves lining up your character to shoot smaller targets, precision control is kind of needed. Hypership is actually sublime on iPhone, and very addictive. Of course, that has the advantage of having drag-the-ship touch controls for extra-accurate firing. His track record of acceptable controls on XBLIG is about as good as THQ’s record with bankruptcy avoidance. Considering that Bad Caterpillar looked really close to Centipede, a game which requires precision movement so much that the arcade original used a trackball, I braced for the worst.

Bad Caterpillar on Xbox Live Indie Games.

Bad Caterpillar on Xbox Live Indie Games.

As it turns out, my worries were misplaced. Bad Caterpillar handles pretty well. Not perfect. No joystick-based Centipede can possibly be perfect. But, I can honestly say that it plays better than any other version of Centipede I played today. That’s a lot of versions. For the sake of comparison, I also bought Centipede & Millipede, a 2-for-1 Xbox Live Arcade port of the arcade games. Movement for these is too loose to be acceptable. I’ve always had a difficult time in Centipede lining up shots correctly, especially when the last segments of the Centipede are near the bottom of the screen. That’s not a huge problem in Bad Caterpillar.  It’s a fucking chore in the XBLA arcade ports. If it was any looser, it would hang out on dimly-lit street corners and be considered a bio-hazard.

The "evolved" version of Centipede & Millipede on Xbox Live Arcade.

The “evolved” version of Centipede & Millipede on Xbox Live Arcade.

The biggest disappointment with the XBLA ports (besides the awful controls) is how the “modern” versions are really just the same old Centipede with some new (re: 15 year-old) special effects added. On the flip side, Bad Caterpillar looks old, but it features some nifty new ideas such as power-ups and bombs. Should probably clear this up: by new, I meant “new for Centipede.” My problem here is that they don’t get spit out often enough. I played full games where the item drops were nothing but points. The game should go nuts with them. I mean, I can already play a Centipede-like game that doesn’t offer power-ups. It’s called Centipede.

Centipede Origins on iPhone.

Centipede Origins on iPhone.

I guess I should bring up that I also played the iOS update, called Centipede Origins. It’s a micro-transaction oriented shooter that tries to controls like Kris Steele’s Hypership does on iPhone. But I found the drag-the-shooter controls to be too glitchy, with the cursor being unable to keep up with my finger, even as I dragged it slowly across the screen. Only played it for like five minutes, would never want to play it again. I also dug around and found my copy of Centipede for the Sega Dreamcast, but decided against spending any time digging around for the actual machine to play it on. Honestly, I’m all Centipeded out. So what are my thoughts? Well, the Vita version is a worthy use of money for a solid portable version of a masterpiece. The iOS version is just about the worst thing to happen to iPhone since Siri. The XBLA ports of Centipede & Millipede come across like quick, effortless cash-ins and should be avoided like the clap. Finally, the XBLIG update Bad Caterpillar is actually a decent game with a few problems. The moths are unfair, there’s no online leaderboards, and the heavy metal soundtrack is so out-of-place. It would be like going to Ozzfest to listen to country music. But I do recommend it, because it’s the best (and cheapest) version of Centipede you’ll get on your Xbox. Kind of sad that an XBLIG port made by a guy I consider to be a bit of a twat completely slays the official versions of Centipede. Just kidding, Kris.

xboxboxartIGC_ApprovedBad Caterpillar was developed by Fun Infused Games (80 Microsoft Points don’t think Kris is a bit of a twat)

Centipede & Millipede were developed by Stainless Games Ltd. (340 Microsoft Points think throttle monkey sounds like something found in the Kama Sutra)

Centipede Origins was developed by Atari (Free, except all the stuff that cost money in it)

Centipede on PlayStation Home Arcade was developed by Atari ($1.49)

Bad Caterpillar and Centipede on PlayStation Home Arcade are Chick Approved, and Bad Caterpillar is ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.

Filed under iPhone and iPad Reviews, PlayStation Reviews, Retro Reviews, XBLIG / Creators Collection, Xbox Live Arcade Reviews Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Clear Vision and Clear Vision 2

February 9, 2013 by 5 Comments

Last year, I tried for a while to write a review of Clear Vision, a sickeningly addictive iPhone title that I ultimately didn’t write about.  Part of that is the game is fairly one-dimensional, takes only thirty minutes to beat, and I feel that praising a game that involves violently assassinating unsuspecting victims will get me listed on some type of government watch list.  Since then, a teeny tiny bit of DLC was released for the original, and this month a sequel hit, and I can’t turn it down.

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So here’s the concept: there’s a world of stick figures, and you’re an assassin for hire.  Someone will slip a request for murder under your door.  You then murder that person.  Rinse and repeat around twenty or so times each game.  Murders are typically done with a rifle, but occasionally you’ll interrogate someone in a car crusher, or make a murder look like an accident.  At the start of each game, you simply line the person up in your sight and fire.  Later, you have to account for distance and wind resistance.  It’s the same thing over and over again, but it never gets old.  In fact, the splatter of blood and slumping body are pretty dang satisfying to watch and an indication of a job well done.

Hold on.  A self-realization and reflection moment just overcame me.

I make no apologies for the fact that I had a good time playing these games.  I would have had a better time, if not for some glaring technical issues.  No matter which iDevice I was using, both games tended to crash.  Last year, the original Clear Vision, at times, crashed nearly every mission.  This year, Clear Vision 2 not only crashed on both my new iPhone and iPod, but would also have the occasionally stunted-frame rate that would require me to completely exit out of the game and reboot it.  Obviously this can be patched out, since I had to go through the original Clear Vision all the way from the fucking beginning just to play a measly five-minutes worth of DLC, and the game never once failed.  Crashes are not infrequent on iOS, for whatever reason.  This is one of the major reasons why I quit reviewing iPhone games.  On Apple platforms, even major titles (your GTAs, Dead Spaces, and Angry Birds) crash if you so much as attempt to play them.  I can’t really complain about indies doing so frequently.  But it craps up the play experience.  Clear Vision 2 was one of the worst offenders of this ever.  I counted it out: the game had seven hard crashes and four instances of game-killing frame rate issues on my fifth gen iPhone alone, plus several more while attempting it on my iPod.  Not even XBLIG puts up this big a fight when you attempt to use it.

I fucking HATED this minigame in the sequel. It took me about twenty tries to get it right. I felt like an ignoramus.

I fucking HATED this mini-game in the sequel. It took me about twenty tries to get it right. I felt like an ignoramus.

If you can get past the crashes, Clear Vision is fun.  You need both parts to get the full story, but they will only run you a combined $1.98.  You can also play half of the first game (or fifth game, depending on how you look at it) for free online.  Though there’s probably no harm in waiting a year to pick up Clear Vision 2, or at least waiting long enough for all the bugs to be cleaned up.  I do recommend both, but remember something before each time you pull the trigger: stick figure dudes have stick figure families too.

Clear VisionClear Vision and Clear Vision 2 were developed by DPFlashes Studios

IGC_Approved$0.99 each widowed and orphaned more stick figures than drunks running over street signs in the making of this review. 

Clear Vision is Chick Approved. Clear Vision 2 will be once they patch up all the technical issues.

Filed under iPhone and iPad Reviews Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Impossible Game

June 24, 2012 by 6 Comments

The Impossible Game is, as of this writing, the biggest selling Xbox Live Indie Game of all-time that isn’t a Minecraft clone. It’s a punisher, sure, but since you can’t improvise anything and every jump you have to make is predetermined, it’s more akin to trying to ace a Guitar Hero song set on expert. I’m not really into those kind of games, and my early experience playing the demo of this long before I founded Indie Gamer Chick left me feeling self-mutilatious. And no, I don’t care if that’s not really a word. It is now.

I’m guessing anybody that has hung around the XBLIG scene has probably at least played the demo for Impossible Game. Until last month, that was my only experience with it. Now that I officially do not play demos, I sprung for the full version, with the intent of catching up to all the top-selling games. The first thing I noticed about it? How clunky the jump button is. It’s slow. There seems to be a slight delay in the game’s reaction time. In a game that requires perfect precision with no room for error, I found the control scheme unacceptable. I found it baffling that this was a top game. #3 all-time selling and #10 in total rank.

Part of the problem is the only way to jump is with the A button. None of the other face buttons are used at all. What it could have used was jumping mapped to the bumpers. The least resistant buttons should have had jumping on them, which would have allowed for quicker actions and smoother play. Alas, it was not to be. I said to myself “the idea for this game isn’t bad or anything. If only there was a platform that did not have clunky buttons and inputs were almost completely instantaneous. Too bad such a device is purely hypothetical.” And while I was doing this, Brian was waving my iPhone at me. Weeks later, I figured out why he was doing so.

So I bought Impossible Game on iPhone, and it worked just swell. First off, the layout of the level is completely different from the Xbox version, which is a nice touch. There’s no “push here” area. You can pretty much push anywhere there isn’t some kind of overlay to cause the cube to jump. There was no delay in the jumping, leaving the only challenge as the actual challenge the game is meant to have. Fancy that. I still wasn’t convinced the game was anything special. You jump a cube over spikes. It scrolls quickly. You need to memorize the layout. Whoopee do. Then I noticed that over an hour has passed. Okay, so maybe it’s a little addictive.

This was back in late April. Since then, the Impossible Game has factored into my bathroom time, smoke breaks, TV watching, waiting rooms, and traffic jams. Every time I made it one space closer than my previous best, I would check the stat bar to see what percentage of the first stage (we’re only talking the first of five stages here) was finished. Finally today, after 603 total attempts (it keeps track), I fucking did it. I beat it. I beat a shallow, one-dimensional, total time-sink of a game. Brian asked me if all the time I had put into it was worth it just to get this:

Totally.

The Impossible Game on Xbox 360 and iPhone was developed by FlukeDude

80 Microsoft Points and $0.99 said this is the biggest case of false advertising since the Neverending Story in the making of this review.

My intent had to go without placing any practice flags down, but I slipped at one point. Damnit all, oh well.

Filed under iPhone and iPad Reviews, XBLIG / Creators Collection Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Lumi

March 15, 2012 by 15 Comments

Welcome to the first installment of Kairi’s Katch-Up Thursdays.  The results were tallied and the clear favorite of the first vote was the 2010 Dream-Build-Play winner Lumi by Kydos Studios.

I hate you guys.

And obviously the feeling is mutual, because anyone with love in their hearts would not subject anyone to the sheer torture that is Lumi.  I’m guessing it won the vote for the same reason that it won Dream-Build-Play: it looks good, and to most idiots, that’s all that matters.  Game play be damned, if the graphics are pretty, we’ll line up to buy it and then spend hours convincing ourselves that we didn’t just waste perfectly good cash.  I bought both the Xbox Live Indie Game version and the port to iOS, so I’m doubly dumb.  Full of more DERP than a “Bring Back Knight Rider” convention am I.

I get it guys. It's got good graphics. Who cares? The game SUCKS!

At first, I figured Lumi would be a generic 90s style mascot platformer.  You play as what looks like a premature, still semi-embryonic Pikachu thingie that has to save his species and the world when a race of invaders steals all the light.  Your Pika-thingie has the ability to create red and blue electric currents that cling to various spots on the screen.  Red will cling to red and repel from blue and vice-versa.  Sounds great, except that you have to press a different button for each.  Blue is done with the left trigger and red with the right one.  This is an unintuitive nightmare the likes of which you can’t believe.

But I didn’t really care all that much over the first few levels.  They were nice and breezy.  You just had to collect a few fireflies, load them into a couple arks, restore light to the stage, and move on.  Easy peasy.  But then you start encountering water traps, enemies that fire projectiles that kill you in one shot, and magnet platforms that fade in and out of existence.  Oh dears, Lumi is a punisher.

The juxtaposition of bright, beautiful, child-friendly graphics and tough-as-nails level design was completely out of left field, even though a few of my fans warned me about it.  After the first couple levels, I didn’t believe them.  Bunch of liars they must have been.  Well, there’s egg on my face.  Lumi gets so brutally difficult that it’s almost like it started its period.  But once again, we have to examine why its difficult.  Is it the level design?  The enemies?  Not really.  The fault clearly lies in the control scheme.  Using the magnetic red/blue powers to launch yourself from floating platform to floating platform is frustrating, because there’s so much you need to keep track of.  What colors point you in what directions, what buttons you need to press, and when do you then hit the opposite button to repel you to towards the next area.  This is like asking someone to take their driver’s license test while practicing sword-swallowing.  You know it’s a bad idea before you even start.  Surely someone at Kydos had played a video game at some point in their life and recognized the control scheme was unacceptable.

As bad as the Xbox version is, the iOS port is even worse.  And it really pains me to say that, because one major flaw in the console version is fixed: the whole “separate colors” thing.  On iPhone, you tap the screen and it sucks you into whatever is the closest platform.  It’s such a no-brainer of a design choice that I feel like I should sarcastically type DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, but I’m too classy for that.  Unfortunately, movement is controlled with one of those fake iOS joystick things they map to the corner of the screen.  They suck.  I call them “Joyshits.”  I don’t care what anyone says: those fucking things never work, they are not accurate, and they need to be abolished by any means necessary.  I don’t care if we have to pull eggheads off of curing cancer to do it.  Joyshits have got to go.

On iPhone, I made it to the first level that its possible to die on.  And trust me, I sure realized it.  At least on Xbox, if I push the analog stick to the right, the fucking dude moves right.  Here, if I try to push right, I’m just as likely to not be pressing anything at all because my thumb is not properly lined up.  And NO, I’m not going to buy some peripheral that lets you suction-cup an actual joystick to the screen.  It would be like surgically grafting a tumor onto it.  Can’t we all just accept that not every game belongs on iPhone?  I know those precious iBucks are tempting to make a play for, but do the right thing.  If your game requires the precision of a control stick, you should probably put it on a platform that HAS A FUCKING CONTROL STICK!

The iOS port. I seriously doubt anyone has actually beaten it.

My overall Lumi experience ended during the first boss encounter.  Some giant rhino-bug thingie started chasing me through a forest and I had to make a run for it.  The stage is laid out like a hopping puzzle, sort of like the boss encounters in Super Meat Boy.  Only that game had something resembling responsive controls.  In Lumi, you cannot afford a single wasted second or misstep.  One mistake and you will have to start over.  After at least a dozen tries at this, I came to two realizations.  First, I was having no fun at all and hadn’t since I started Lumi.  Second, I must have really pissed you guys off something fierce for THIS pile of shit to win the vote.  Rage quit, console off, controller thrown, and you guys are now officially on my shit list.  I hold grudges, and I will remember this.  Pay back will be mine.  Oh yes.  I have plenty of free time and access to Africanized Bees.  Be afraid.

Lumi was developed Kydos Studio

240 Microsoft Points and $0.99 think Lumi is really just run-off of aborted Pikachus in the making of this review.

Don’t forget to vote for next week’s game on Twitter.  Votes earn you a place in a drawing for 1600 Microsoft Points.  Check the original post for a list of games you can choose from. 

Thanks to Michael Wilson for the banner.

Filed under iPhone and iPad Reviews, XBLIG / Creators Collection Tagged with

The Simpsons Arcade Game

February 7, 2012 by 35 Comments

Bart’s shirt is the wrong color. Sideshow Bob helps him instead of tries to kill him. 99.9% of all the characters established in the canon don’t show up. All the enemies are completely generic characters. None of the bosses outside of Mr. Burns and Smithers are from the TV series. The whole game is just a reskinned version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that some guys at Konami probably threw together in a weekend. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the best Simpsons game ever. Only it’s not. It fucking sucks, but you should already know that.

And yes, I’m aware that the wrestler guy that’s the first boss was actually from the episode where Bart tries to jump Springfield Gorge on his skateboard. The bear doesn’t count, because it’s actually just one of the generic guys in a bear suit. I’m also aware that the game originally came out in 1991 and that I shouldn’t be so nit-picky about those things. To that I say this: fuck you. The Simpsons Arcade Game is a fossil that should have been left in the tar pits of non-release obscurity.

Remember that episode where the family started brawling with quintuplet accountants riding teacups?

Don’t look at me that way. I’m not attacking your childhood or raping your memories. That’s a George Lucas move. I’m not even saying the Simpsons was a bad game for back in the day. Hey, it was either play the Simpsons Arcade or, like, go outside and exercise or something. Psssh, what kind of loser would do that?

What I am saying is maybe those memories are better left where they are. The Simpsons Arcade Game, much like Ninja Turtles or X-Men, has not exactly aged well. Let’s face it, it’s a relic. And not one of those good, Sean Connery type ones. As much as the concept of it baffles me, I can almost understand going back and playing stuff like Final Fantasy VII for the twentieth time. I think there should be mandatory castration for anyone who does so (not that they’ll ever actually use those parts, but you can never be too cautious), but I can almost understand it. But an arcade brawler that was, quite frankly, a lazily produced reskin of an existing game designed to sucker lunch money out of children?  Why would you want to go back and play that?

And yet, since the announcement of it a few weeks ago, teenagers of the early 90s are going gaga. I had never actually played the Simpsons Arcade Game, outside of one attempt at a Pizza Hut when I was like six years old. The joystick was broken and I couldn’t move to the right, which is one of only two requirements the game actually has. I got my quarter back and thought nothing of it until I heard the announcement. I planned to ignore it, but it came free with a Playstation Plus account and I’ve never turned down a chance to troll you retro nerds before, so why start now?

I think the appeal in the Simpsons Arcade Game is the same as Sonic CD: it was the “lost game” in the series. It never got a home console port due to some licensing issues and thus it became a legend. As teenagers grew older and their minds became more polluted with various drugs, alcohol, children of their own, and all the Simpsons gaming crapola that has come out since then, those memories of the Simpsons Arcade Game became pretty fuckin’ sweet.

Remember that episode where the Simpsons dropped acid and fought a giant bowling ball?

I promise you, the Simpsons Arcade Game is not as good as you remember it. I know this because I’ve yet to hear a single person tell me that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Reshelled was as good as they remember it. And at least that one had updated its graphics. They couldn’t even bother with that here. This is a lazy port of a lazy game, and you can tell it was produced early in the show’s run. The character models are way off, the voices are off, and the game is forced to use so many generic characters because the cast of millions the show currently uses wasn’t established yet.

So here’s a wild idea: if they had the rights to make this game, why couldn’t they have produced an updated port to go with it? Leave the original game intact so that people could see how horrible it is, and then throw them something newer, using all the crazy space-age technology that leprechauns have given us over the last twenty years?

Actually, EA did a port of the Simpsons Arcade Game for iOS. I have it, and I tried to play through it, but it’s fucking impossible. This is mostly due to the fact that it uses one of those God-awful fake joysticks-and-button layouts that is about as accurate as a dart player that injected his hands with Novocaine. But imagine if they had ported that over to consoles. I mean, that game actually has characters from the series. You fight Chief Wiggum, Mayor Quimby, and various other fan favorites. It might not be the exact same game as your childhood fantasy, but it actually might be better. You know, if you could control it.

Or, even better, build an entirely new game modeled after the original arcade title, but replace all the generic baddies with random characters from the series that you fight only once, locations based on the series that actually look like they might have appeared on the series (Moe’s Tavern is a quarter-mile long casino. Who knew?), and add some modern twists. Use Castle Crashers as the basis for it. Leveling up, a variety of weapons, branched paths, hidden items, and so on, and so on. Why settle for something that was designed to steal your money as a child? Don’t you deserve better? Well, no. I suppose you don’t. If you actually gave away $10 for this piece of shit, ay caramba, there is no helping you.

The Simpsons Arcade Game was developed by Konami

Going off the math of how many free games and discounts I’ve gotten with my Playstation Plus account, approximately $0.38 was spent playing Teenage Reskinned Ninja Simpsons in the making of this review. TOO MUCH!

The Simpsons Arcade for iOS was developed by EA and costs $0.99. For God’s sake, do not buy it. 

Filed under iPhone and iPad Reviews, PlayStation Reviews, Retro Reviews, Xbox Live Arcade Reviews Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Hollow Grounds

January 24, 2012 by 1 Comment

Hollow Grounds is about a suicidal cartographer who decides the best way to map the interior of the planet is to dive head-first down it.  This is one of those iPhone that controls entirely using the gyroscopic technology.  To play, you have to spin your iPhone around to steer him through a series of 25 caves.  To pass a cave, you have to meet minimum requirements associated with speed, item collection, and super special item collection.  Well, allegedly.  There were a few times that I barely picked up any items, missed all the super gems, and spent the majority of the stage braining myself against the wall and I still would get a passing grade.  In fact, through the first 14 stages I only failed once and that’s because I paused the game.  As it turns out, pausing doesn’t really stop the action.  It just slows it down.  I don’t know if this is supposed to be a hidden cheat or just a programming brain fart.

Actually, Hollow Grounds is full of cerebral flatulence.  The game is all about quick reflexes, and yet there are stars scattered throughout the stage that you are encouraged to get.  Your dude travels fairly fast, so missing some of them is inevitable.  The only way to overcome this is memorizing the stage, but that will probably be tricky on account of all the stages looking nearly identical.  All you have to go by is the occasional light beam, but in over an hour of play time I swear I never really noticed them on account of my dude free-falling a couple hundred miles an hour.

The level design also gets a little far-fetched around the 15th cave.  Before this, I was barely able to keep up with the sharp bends on the track.  Starting in level 15 it has you doing loopity-loops and figure-eights.  Given the speed your guy falls, I swear this is less a game and more like a conspiracy from Apple to cause you to drop and break your phone.  The game expects every one of its players to have the dexterity of one of those greasy Italian guys who spin pizza dough on their finger tips.

I admit, I did have a teeny tiny bit of fun with Hollow Grounds, but it needs a lot of work.  I know the idea is the game is set in a cave, but the drab visuals were kind of downer, and the game speed is way too fast for what it expects of you as the player.  I think children are more likely to be amused by the spinning stuff, so if you have kids and a desire for a crack across your iPhone screen, give Hollow Grounds a chance.  It will be a good way to soften them up to the idea of a hollow Earth.  That way, when you go to feed them to the Morlocks, they won’t suspect a thing.

Hollow Grounds was developed by Full! Color! Planet!

99¢ fed their sister to a CHUD in the making of this review.

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Hypership Out of Control (iOS) and Hypership Still Out of Control (XBLIG)

January 21, 2012 by 12 Comments

I think the thing that disappointed me most about VolChaos is that I know Fun Infused Games has talent.  I know this because I was hooked on Hypership Out of Control for the iPhone and iPad.  If that doesn’t impress you, it should.  If there’s one genre I dislike more than anything else, its vertical space shooters.  Yet Hypership was fast-paced, twitchy, high-score based, and loads of fun.

The idea is that you’re a ship with a hyperdrive set permanently in the “on” position.  With no way to brake, you have to clear gates and shoot any debris in your way, all while scrolling forward at break-neck speed.  There are some items that will slow you down, but for the most part you have to rely on quick reflexes and digital dexterity to survive.  You have a cannon but it fires automatically, so all you have  to worry about is using your finger to slide your ship back and forth.

Hypership on iOS is THE Hypershit!

There’s online leaderboards and multiple modes of play.  Usually when a game like this hits, one or more of the modes are total stinkers.  Here, every mode has its merits.  “Hardcore” mode is exactly the same as normal, except you only have one life, creating an awesome sense of tension.  In “Coin Down” the coins you collect on the course act as your fuel.  In SuperSpeed, you take the role of an albino hamster who is strapped to a rocket car and attempts to beat the land speed record for a rodent on the Bonneville Salt Flats, the previous record holder being Richard Hammond.  Actually, it’s just normal mode with more speed.  But I’m sure I just gave someone an idea for a bitchin’ new game.

Hypership on iPhone (or iPad if you’re a snoot) is one of the few games I’ve come across that I don’t have a whole lot of complain about.  Thankfully a vastly inferior port was just launched on Xbox Live Indie Games that I can gleefully murder.  Well I guess technically the iPhone version is the port while the new XBLIG game is a remake of the original.  It’s called Hypership Still Out of Control, and it actively sucks with all the might of a whirlpool stuck inside a black hole.

Hypership Still Out of Control has all the play modes of the iOS version, and even includes local multiplayer.  But I found the game nearly unplayable because it lacks the precision of touch control that I had grown so accustomed to on my iPhone.  Regardless of whether you’re using the D-pad or the analog stick, movement is too loose.  This is a major problem when trying to navigate past gates with narrow openings.  The whole point of the game is that your ship is moving at unreasonably dangerous speeds, so anything less than absolute flawless control is simply not going to cut it.

Another thing that I had grown fond of on the iOS port was not having to do anything to make the ship fire.  On iPhone, the ship never stops firing.  It’s pretty convenient because there’s never really a point where you won’t want it to be shooting.  On XBLIG, you have to manually fire.  It’s not really a deal breaker, because lots of games do that.  I guess it’s matter of comfort.  It’s like going from laying on a comfy mattress made of clouds to laying on a bed of nails.

Local multiplayer would be fun if the controls weren’t so loose.

And finally, there’s no online leaderboards.  Yea, the only option on XBLIG is ghettoized peer-to-peer ones that are hard to implement, but the only reason to own this game is to try posting high scores.  There’s actually an explanation screen where it’s explained that it wasn’t worth the effort and you should buy the iOS or Windows Phone 7 (ha, as if) ports if you’re into this sort of thing.  So I’ll just go by the same advice the developers themselves gave.  If you have a dollar to spare, there are few things as fun or addictive at that price as Hypership out of Control for iPhone/iPad/iPod/iPacemaker (coming in October).  If, however, you only have XBLIG, you might as well spend those 80 points on a shinny new sombrero for your avatar because Hypership on it is Hyper-shit. I knew I could work that line in there somewhere.

Hypership out of Control and Hypership Still Out of Control were developed by Fun Infused Games

IGC_Approved99¢ and 80 Microsoft Points heard Apple fanboys are now eating bacon three meals a day in anticipation of the iPacemaker in the making of this review.

Hypership Out of Control is also available for Windows Phone for $0.99 or free with ads.  These versions are unverified by Indie Gamer Chick.  The iOS version is Chick Approved.  The XBLIG version is not. 

Filed under iPhone and iPad Reviews, XBLIG / Creators Collection Tagged with

Sunny Seeds

January 14, 2012 by 2 Comments

One of the reasons I generally avoid doing iPhone reviews is because you never know what price a game will be from day-to-day.  I got Sunny Seeds for free today, but it’s one of those games that comes in both free and paid versions.  The one I got would normally cost you some form of money.  I’m not sure how much.  99 cents I’m guessing.  I probably would have never paid for it, but IGN put it in their daily update and I figured “why not?”  Even though I absolutely hate crossword puzzles, Sudoku, Minesweeper, and other math-based games.  It’s almost serendipity that I downloaded Sunny Seeds, because I fucking love it.

In Sunny Seeds, you have a grid of numbers that you have to clear.  You remove two numbers at a time.  To do so, the numbers have to be touching each other, or have no numbers between them.  They also have to either match each-other or add up to 10.  For example, you can clear 1 and 9, or 4 and 4, but not 6 and 5.

Wow, does that ever sound boring.  But it’s not.  It’s highly addictive and surprisingly rewarding.  In my first play-through, it took me nearly an hour to clear the board of numbers.  Once you’re past the learning curve, time will fly by while your brain progressively gets more wired to spot those matches.  You can also shuffle the numbers by rotating your iPhone 90° at a time, opening up new matches.  New tiles spawn every few seconds, but once you’ve eliminated a number completely from the board, it never returns.

Look, I get that nobody comes here expecting me to dish out verbal blowjobs to games, but I can’t really think of anything bad to say about Sunny Seeds.  As of this writing, you can still snag it for free off the App Store.  If it goes up to 99 cents, you should still grab it.  It’s a really good time passer.  I guess I can gripe about the name.  I don’t get why it’s called Sunny Seeds when it has nothing to do with suns, seedings, or any related images those two words might invoke.  That, or it’s a joke that is way over my head.  If it’s a gag, bad call.  Sunny Seeds is a great game, but it’s saddled with an absolutely horrible name.  Usually if a joke needs explaining, it’s not funny.  It’s what I call the “David Spade” rule.

Sunny Seeds was developed by Duksel

No money was spent sweeping the clouds away in the making of this review.

Filed under iPhone and iPad Reviews

Flick Home Run

January 7, 2012 by 2 Comments

So I go to work the other day and everyone at the office is talking about what their score is on some silly iPhone game called Flick Home Run.  The age range of people playing this game was kind of impressive.  My father, who is what I would call a causal gamer, is 63.  Along with him, two of my partners, Chris and Kevin were playing as well.  Chris is 43 and I think he has a console or two.  On the other hand, Kevin is 66 and in my four years working with him I’ve never heard him once talk about doing anything for recreation.  Side note: remind me to look into what brand of stick he has up his ass, so that I can invest in it.  It works well.

Yea! Fuck home run! Oh..

I’m not exactly a baseball fan, but I decided to give it a try.  As it turns out, Flick Home Run ! isn’t really about baseball.  It’s a casual game where a ball is pitched to you and you try to hit it out of the park.  Okay, that sounds exactly like a baseball game.  But there’s no base running, fielding, or any of that boring garbage.  I guess it’s like home run derby.  You put your finger on the left side of the screen and the ball gets pitched.  You then slide your finger at the ball in way you think will hit a homer.  You get points for every foot the ball travels, plus bonus points if it hits any balloons.  Instead of a set number of pitches, you have a lifebar that decreases with every pitch.  You get life back based on the distance you hit each ball.  You lose extra health if you swing and miss, or hit a foul ball, perhaps in tribute of the North Korean Olympic baseball team.

Each different kind of pitch is represented by a cutely drawn face.  You don’t know what kind of pitch is coming until it crosses a line on the screen.  Well actually, that’s not entirely true, but I think that’s what they were trying for.  Anyway, if you hit the ball before it crosses that line, it’s an automatic out and you lose health.  You can use a power-up to sneak a peek at the kind of pitch coming.  There are also special multiplier balls that get thrown at you randomly, which double or triple the value of your swing.

I had fun at first Flick Home Run, because it’s a very likable pick-up-and-play casual game.  But then little annoyances started to irk me.  As you play, you earn experience points.  When you level up, you can upgrade one of three things.  Naturally the game does not explain any of these three things in the slightest.  I hate it when games do that.  Flick Home Run actually has a pretty decent help screen that explains the various rules of the game in detail, except what each of the upgrades do.  The first one is power.  I guess that’s self-explanatory.  Muscle up and hit the balls further.  Which is fine, except the very first pitch I got the very first time I played the game, I knocked the ball out of the stadium and into the parking lot.  That’s actually not as far as you can hit it, but still, it seems like my finger was strong enough as it was.

The second upgrade purports to effect the bat’s accuracy.  I did upgrade this several times and noticed zero improvement in accuracy.  Actually, it kind of got worse.  I hardly ever hit a foul ball before I started upgrading this.  But then I noticed that the more I leveled accuracy up, the more foul balls I hit.  I found out that my father and Chris experienced the same thing, and apparently several others online have as well.  I think this officially makes this the worst upgrade in the history of gaming.

The third one makes more sense.  You get more peeks at the upcoming pitches.  You start with three, but you can get more.  It’s still not all that useful.  After you’ve played the game for a while you can tell what kind of pitch is coming at you by the way it starts and react accordingly.  Since your finger has to start in the same spot, there’s not a lot you can do.  After an hour or so I never needed to use the peek again.

I suspected early on that the game had more to do with luck than skill.  There seemed to be no solid method I could use to hit a home run.  I would slide my finger and whatever happened rarely seemed relevant to the placement of my finger on the screen or what angle I hit the ball on.  The only thing that seemed to change was leveling up slowed to a crawl.  As I already pointed out, that didn’t bug me too much because my upgrades either made no difference or made the game worse.  So I guess it’s fitting that the developer is charging people outrageous price of 99 cents to upgrade any one stat, or $9.99 to upgrade all three by five levels.  Out-fucking-rageous.  Overall, Flick Home Run was fun for a few minutes, but it quickly grew boring.  I can’t believe this game is currently sitting high on the best-sellers list.  Not that those are barometers for quality.  I mean, there’s a Transformers movie and two Pirates of the Caribbean movies on the all time highest grossing films list.  It’s enough to make you cry tears of blood, and I don’t think Kotex makes anything to help with that.

Flick Home Run was developed by Infinity Pocket

99 cents were busted for using finger steroids in the making of this review.

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