Shipwreck

March 15, 2014 by 10 Comments

If you’ve been browsing the Xbox Live Indie Game marketplace, there’s a chance you might have noticed a fairly convincing Zelda clone pop-up over the last month. That is, if you can see past the dozen or so Flappy Bird clones littering the new releases. Then again, you might have missed it. After all, it has box art that looks like this:

Insert Tom Hanks and/or Gilligan's Island joke here.

Insert Tom Hanks and/or Gilligan’s Island joke here.

And it has a name that isn’t likely to inspire thoughts of the game whose legacy it tries so very hard to invoke. Shipwreck? Seriously? Still, it caught my attention, even though I’m not all teary-eyed nostalgic over Zelda. Chances are, it meant more to your childhood than it did mine. Don’t get me wrong. I love the series. Link Between Worlds was my favorite game of 2013, which I’m just as shocked by as anyone else. And I admit, the thought of a really good Zelda clone had me a bit excited. But it was all for not. My rule is, if I like a game 50.1% more than I dislike it, it gets my seal of approval. Shipwreck hovers around 40%. Maybe 45%. Close, but no cigar.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The idea is, you’re a chick whose ship crashes and you have to gather four magical elements and defeat a ghost inside a lighthouse so that you can get a new ship and return home. The graphical style, sword-swinging animation, and castaway theme of the game is clearly aimed after Link’s Awakening, which I’ve always felt was one of the more overrated Zeldas. Still a solid game, mind you, but just not all that. Shipwreck still does a good job of emulating the feel of it. But then some glaring flaws pop up.

Credit where it's due: it looks the part.

Credit where it’s due: it looks the part.

For starters, the overworld has no enemies in it. For real. You just wander from place to place, looking for the next dungeon. There’s also no hidden caves, secret passageways, or surprises of any sorts. It’s an empty, sprawling, lifeless world. That worked in a game like Shadow of the Colossus (which mind you, still had SOME collectables, like the fruit or lizard tails), but in a 2D Zelda style game? It’s just so boring. Given the fact that Zeldas have been based around secret doors from the very start of the franchise, neglecting to include them in a Zelda tribute seems to miss the point of the series entirely.

There’s also not many items to collect. I got a shield (which you have to equip and activate, just like in Link’s Awakening), a crossbow, a lantern, and a pick-axe. That’s it. The game’s dungeons (one starter, four “gather the holy trinkets”, and one finale) don’t contain special items that you need to solve puzzles or advance further. Really, the more you play Shipwreck, the less tributey this Zelda tribute feels. It’s missing so many key elements of the formula, with only the boring stuff that anyone can do left in. It would be like if at Shaquille O’Neal’s hall of fame induction, they left out his four championships and focused on Kazaam and his free-throw shooting. Why would you even do that? And why would you leave the best parts of Zelda out of a Zelda tribute?

It does a lot of other fundamental stuff wrong. There’s no overworld map. The enemies “blink” when they take damage and don’t recoil enough. They also all seem to take two shots to kill. Except the boring bosses, which are spongy as hell. Oh, and you know how in some Zelda games, in order to get to where you’re supposed to go in a dungeon, you have to fall through the floor? Yea, Shipwreck does that too. Only in Shipwreck, you take damage for it. What a horrible idea! And why the FUCK does it only use two equip buttons when there are four face buttons on an Xbox controller? No, it doesn’t matter if you’re paying tribute to a two-button game. Not using all the resources at your disposal is just obnoxious.

The first boss is a giant crab monster. Of course it is.

The first boss is a giant crab monster. Of course it is.

Yes, Shipwreck does a lot of things right. I like how, instead of enemies dropping hearts (even when you have full health), they drop apples that you can save and use later. Now that’s a good idea. I liked the desert dungeon. And…….. well actually that’s the only stuff that really stood out to me. Everything else never got brutally awful or anything, but Shipwreck was bland and boring from the start and never really picks up steam. It will find an audience because it looks Zeldaish enough to warrant a purchase. I’m also not this game’s target audience, and I’m sure children of the 80s will probably enjoy this a lot more than I did. But, taken on its own merit, Shipwreck is just a dull video game experience. And taken as a Zelda clone? No secrets. No clever puzzles oriented around items found in dungeons. All that’s really left is the combat and some aspects of dungeon exploration, and even those are quite a bit off. Let Shipwreck be a lesson to everyone: when paying tribute to your favorite childhood classic, looking the part should take a back seat to feeling the part. Shipwreck is to Zelda what Lucky Charms would be without the marshmallows.

xboxboxartShipwreck was developed by Brushfire Games

$2.99 really did enjoy the desert dungeon quite a bit in the making of this review.

My amigo Tim Hurley really disagrees with me on this one. Read his review.

Filed under XBLIG / Creators Collection Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

South Park: The Stick of Truth

March 12, 2014 by 5 Comments

This should be relatively spoiler free, but a few plot points kind of have to be discussed.

No, it’s not an indie. But I sort of have to write this review and eat a plate full of crow. From the moment Trey Parker and Matt Stone took the stage of E3 a while back, I said there was no chance in hell that South Park: The Stick of Truth would be a decent, worthwhile title. I was just going off the property’s track record. South Park on Nintendo 64 and especially the PlayStation? Horrible. South Park Rally? Possibly the worst kart-racer ever. Chef’s Luv Shack? Possibly the worst quiz and/or minigame collection ever. The Tower Defense game? Well, I never really got around to it, but it mostly got a bunch of 7s out of 10s, which as we all know, is critic speak for “Worst thing since Hitler.” (By the way, I’m pretty sure that joke will get me banned in Germany) Hell, there was a fairly hyped Scott Tenorman based game that ultimately was a mediocre platformer. I think my doubts about how Stick of Truth would turn out were completely justified. If all you’ve ever shit out are turds, only someone delusional would expect the next turd to be a solid gold nugget.

I was wrong. South Park: The Stick of Truth is incredible. In fact, dare I say, it sets a new standard for licensed video games. In other news, crow has never been so delicious. Now, there are about a quagillion reviews of this out there, so I’m not going to waste time talking about the fun (though sometimes too button-mashy) combat mechanics, or how the fart mechanics are the only thing I really disliked about the game. Well, besides a laundry list of glitches and game hangs. That kind of stuff was to be expected anyway. The game is made by Obsidian Entertainment. That’s like putting a big banner on the box art saying “this shit will not work right for at least the first six to twelve months, not that it matters because you sheep will buy it anyway!” Hey, guilty as charged. And also, baaaaaaaaaaa.

You'll notice that the main character is a guy in all the pictures. That's because there is no option to select a girl. Do you know why there is no option? Because it didn't fit into the narrative the creators wanted to tell. I'm just pointing that out because a few weeks ago, the Big Bullshit Fake Outrage of the Day© was people whining because some upcoming free-to-play Capcom MMO would not include the option to play as a girl. Butthurt was felt across the land. I guess people thought that as a vagina-owner, I should be outraged as well. I wasn't. Which again proved that I'm a self-hating Uncle Tom that should voluntarily disenfranchise myself because obviously not being able to play as a girl in a free-to-play MMO will lead to girls being walled up in the tower and fed through a slit in the wall. That's another reason I loved Stick of Truth: because the same people whining about that game were delighted by how this turned out. The hypocrisy was too delicious to not point out, which just made them matter. Yea, it's okay to have a double standard when you're dealing with a property you love. But actually pointing out that double standard? Bad form!

You’ll notice that the main character is a guy in all the pictures. That’s because there is no option to select a girl. Do you know why there is no option? Because it didn’t fit into the story the creators wanted to tell. I’m just pointing that out because a few weeks ago, the Big Bullshit Fake Outrage of the Day© was people whining because some upcoming free-to-play Capcom MMO would not include the option to play as a girl. Butthurt was felt across the land. I guess people thought that as a vagina-owner, I should be outraged as well. I wasn’t. I pointed out that not every game has a story that a female lead-character can fit comfortably into. I guess this proved that I’m a self-hating anti-feminist that should voluntarily disenfranchise myself because obviously not being able to play as a girl in a free-to-play MMO will lead to women being walled up in the tower and fed through a slit in the wall. That’s another reason why I loved Stick of Truth: because the same people whining about that game were delighted by how this one turned out. The hypocrisy was too delicious to not point out, which just made them madder. “Um, weren’t you one of those guys (and it is almost always guys) who was whining about that Capcom MMO not having girls in it just a couple weeks ago?” “Well that’s different. This is South Park. Girls can’t fit into the story as easily!” “Weird, that’s the same argument I used for why not every game can have a girl character and you told me I was wrong. How come it’s okay for South Park but not okay for a company whom their every move you whine about?” “HOW DARE YOU POINT OUT MY DOUBLE STANDARDS! BAD FORM! BOOOOO!” By the way, tongue firmly in cheek the whole time. I just found humor in the whole situation. I guess getting outraged over the lack of mandatory, uninspired female characters in games is serious business.

Stick of Truth feels like it could be an episode of South Park. Hell, if you cut out all the exploration and battles, what’s left would probably be an episode long. Two-parter tops. That’s fine. There’s enough gags between the main narrative to keep you laughing your ass off from start to finish. It’s unquestionably a fan service, but it never feels condescending about it, like some of the more well-liked television or movies turned into games do. Some of the bits feel like they’re shoe-horned at first, like a section involving Al Gore and ManBearPig. It felt tacked on and kind of hokey at first. Then the joke paid off in such a satisfying and unconventional way that I wanted to high-five the developers through the television screen.

I also owe a big thank you Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and all the guys who worked on this game (including former XBLIG developer Roby Atadero, creator of Spoids. Ha, there, I tied this to Xbox Live Indie Games. I’m still an indie Goddess). Because of them, I realized I’m nowhere near as desensitized as I thought I was. A section based around Planned Parenthood squashed any lingering doubts about that. I played that part with my mouth gaping open, eyes blank in stunned awe, with a knowing awareness that I’m officially going to Hell now. After digesting it………. probably the wrong word considering that I think I threw up three times in between fits of laughter………. I put down the controller and spent the next hour actively wondering how on Earth this game skated by with only an M rating.

Oh, and in the “wow, this is awkward” department, my staunch Catholic mother walked in during a scene in which I was performing an abortion. Granted, there was no scene she could have walked in on that wouldn’t have resulted in a priceless look. But I’m still grateful she walked in there. Because it was so glorious. That “every suspicion I’ve had about my daughter is true” look. Sadly, I’m not as quick-witted as people think I am. If I had been, I would have said “if you think this is bad, you should see it when you’re using Kinect!”

The only part of Stick of Truth I truly loathed was the cut-scenes where you learn to fart. Because if you screw them up, you have to listen to the long, dull, repetitive, dialog all over again. It blows.

The only part of Stick of Truth I truly loathed was the cut-scenes where you learn to fart. Because if you screw them up, you have to listen to the long, dull, repetitive, dialog all over again. It blows.

By the way, for my European and Australian readers, I guess we are supposed to pretend that abortions aren’t a thing and that if you find any humor in them at all, your countries will fall into anarchy or something like that. So if you laughed at the above story, for God’s sake, don’t tell anyone. I will not be held responsible for your respective collapses into moral bankruptcy.

South Park isn’t a perfect game, but I dare say, it’s a perfect use of an IP. Some of the stuff ran a bit too long. The Canadian section was funny for about five seconds. Then it kept going and refused to fucking end. You know, sort of like every single unfunny episode based around Canada on the show. And South Park also does that thing that nobody likes where there are collectables in a game, but some of them you only have one shot at, and if you miss them, you can’t get them later. South Park isn’t the only game guilty of this, but it stings a little more here because such TLC was put into it. This felt like something made by people who love games for people who love games. Whenever that’s the case, those awful, always bitched-about problems always seem more damning.

And yea, I have to go back on my word and bring up all the fucking glitches. They really start to pop up over the last hour of the game. I had a few game-killing hangs, where it would enter a load screen and never leave it. There is a practical fix to this, in that you can get past it just by switching which secondary character you’re using. But it seems fairly common, in that most of the people I’ve talked with have encountered it. I also had a hang while in a, ahem, “cave” in the final level of the game. Then one immediately following that. Then in the final boss battle, some of the secondary character abilities caused the animation to lag, which made correctly using those abilities a bit fickle.

By the way, this is your fault. Yes, you. And you too. All of you. If you guys wouldn’t whine like babies whenever a hyped game gets delayed (which is typically done to make sure shit like this doesn’t happen), games wouldn’t come out like this. I saw it with Grand Theft Auto V too. “Waaaaaa! They delayed GTA V! It won’t be out when I thought it would be out and I will have nothing better to do for months! A pox on your studio!” Then it did come out, but GTA Online wasn’t ready yet, and a lot of people absolutely shit a brick over it. South Park had a few delays, then was set to come out in December. It got delayed again, and everyone farted. It could have probably stood a few more months of play-testing, but given how you guys farted over the last delay, I can’t really blame them for putting it out like this. It’s basically what you asked for.

Pictured: an average gamer upon learning of a small delay in a game's release date.

Pictured: an average gamer upon learning of a small delay in a game’s release date.

But, South Park: The Stick of Truth is still an awesome video game. The best adaption of a television show I’ve seen. Possibly just the best adaption, period. I’ve heard arguments that it’s actually Escape From Butcher Bay (yea, but the movie sucked), Spider-Man 2 (ugh, try playing it today), or one of the Arkham games (okay, yeah, those were pretty good. Well, at least the first two were). Nah. South Park is the best because it feels like you’re playing the show. There’s no seams or stitches to be seen. The plot, writing, and voice acting all feel like it fits into the South Park universe, as opposed to being a video game built around it. Those Arkham games feel like video games based around Batman. The Stick of Truth simply is the South Park we all know and love. And it is so very, very wrong. You guys are sick fucks, you know that?

South Park LogoSouth Park: The Stick of Truth was developed by Obsidian Entertainment

IGC_Approved$59.99 said an episode of the show where the boys fight over making and indie game is a no-brainer in the making of this review.

South Park: The Stick of Truth is Chick-Approved.

Filed under PC Reviews, PlayStation Reviews, Xbox Live Arcade Reviews Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Rad Raygun

March 6, 2014 by 3 Comments

When people mock the 80s, they tend to mock synthesizers, tall hair, and movie montages. When games mock the 80s, they joke about how we accepted a lot of shit when it came to video games. Strangely enough, it’s not all that common for games to mock the other big event from the 80s, apart from New Coke of course. By that, I mean the Cold War. Finally someone has stepped up to the plate. Enter Rad Raygun.

I previously hadn’t read up on the game much other than to see that it looked like a Mega Man clone. I haven’t played one of those since Vintage Hero so I was ready to give it a shot.

After a few minutes, it was clear that I was wrong in that it isn’t a Mega Man clone but more of a Mega Man-inspired game. It has some similarities in that you’re a robot with a blaster and that it’s a platformer with boss battles at the end of each stage, but there are many differences that make this title stand apart.

White House Down!

White House Down!

In this trek through 198X, you are Ray Raygun, a robot on a mission to bringing the war Soviets have started back to Russia after they attacked Washington DC. In your adventure which takes you to the Berlin Wall, Chernobyl’s nuclear plant, and the Kremlin, you’ll encounter the cutest little Soviet robots and missiles to destroy in this light-hearted look at the Cold War.

Setting itself apart from Mega Man, rather than copying the abilities of the bosses you defeat, you gain abilities as you find them on the ground such as a slide maneuver to sneak under things, a mid-air moonwalk that allows you to cross gaps, and an aimable cannon shot that helps you reach enemies placed at an angle your blaster has trouble reaching.

Poking fun at the 80s era of video games is a tried and true method to get a few laughs. Right away you’re treated to a joke about how enemies will reappear the instant you backtrack even a few pixels. While typically annoying in the games it’s mocking, it’s not a big deal here because none of the enemies are overly difficult and serves its purpose as an amusing quirk.

There is a fun nod to Tetris while inside the Kremlin where you can actually play the classic game in order to, I assume, gain bonuses to your power-ups. I only assume because while it is a cute nod, unless I’m missing something, controls for this mini-game were brutally difficult in that every few seconds, a piece would fall in a certain location depending on where your character was on the board and which direction he faced. If you want a piece to fall where you are standing, you’re out of luck for there is little you can do to get out-of-the-way before the piece comes crashing down. It would have been nice if the player could control when the piece fell rather than let it be a timed event since a game like Tetris requires careful placement of blocks.

The levels are laid out in a fashion along the same vein of Mega Man with a few key differences.

The game makes it a point to simulate the way stages, as in Mega Man, would “scroll” when you reach the border of an area, but it forgets one thing. Enemies and enemy attacks that occur during the scroll should be forgotten by the game and disappear. Something so seemingly minor in text here comes off as quite an annoyance while playing. I encountered a few areas where an enemy was able to fire homing missiles at me off-screen and I would have to flail about to avoid the attacks.

A Tetris minigame found in Moscow.

A Tetris minigame found in Moscow.

While there is never a dull moment in fighting off the sheer number of baddies in Mega Man, many of the areas in this game are devoid of any life at all. These areas are purely for aesthetic reasons such as, “A cooling tower is tall so we will make it tall in our video game.” This is all fine and dandy but give me something to shoot! No one wants to walk through an empty game where they’re encouraged to kill all the things and there are no things.

I encountered a few bugs along the way but nothing game-breaking and not really worth mentioning other than one that was a bit strange. If backtracking and you cross back through one of the “scroll” areas and were hit while the game scrolled, crossing back through that scroll would cause you to take damage again, even if there were no longer enemies there. While I did die to this once, the game is easy enough and lives are plentiful that it wasn’t anything more than a small annoyance.

It may seem like I’m picking on a number of things here but actually, I had a lot of fun with this title and children of the 80s and those with a little knowledge about the global politics of the era will laugh at the nice touches the devs added to make this title stand out. It’s a cute homage to the time of my youth that, for the most part, does what it tried to do well.

At its cheap price ($1), this is a fun title that you can finish in a short amount of time and I highly recommend it. Between the Tetris area mentioned above, Matryoshka Sputniks, and a lone red balloon floating, there was plenty to make me giggle with delight.

title

Rad Raygun was developed by Trufun Entertainment.

IGTlogo-01For 36 rubles, you can pick up this game and beat up Soviet-era commies with capitalism.

Rad Raygun has been awarded the Indie Gamer Team Seal of Approval.

Filed under PC Reviews, XBLIG / Creators Collection Tagged with , , , , , ,

Wind-Up Knight

March 5, 2014 by Leave a comment

Wind-Up Knight is a pretty decent game, and Ouya is in short supply of those. I figured I should say that in the first sentence of this review since I have a lot of not-so-nice things to say about it. It’s yet another take on BIT.TRIP RUNNER, a game so frequently cloned that it’s posed to be a genre in and of itself. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Gamers really need to remove the corks from their blowholes regarding the issue. Popular games get cloned. They have since the dawn of time. Some people seem to think indies shouldn’t be subjected to this, out of respect or something.

Heh.

Haha.

WAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Oh God. Good times.

Annoying marketing covering the game's pictures? Yep, it's a mobile port.

Annoying marketing covering the game’s pictures? Yep, it’s a mobile port.

Seriously, what planet are you guys from? All forms of entertainment are based on the principle of monkey see, monkey do. And in the case of indie games being copied, it really doesn’t bother me because this is how genres get established. In the case of Ouya, BIT.TRIP isn’t on here. Never mind that there probably isn’t a single person on the planet who owns a Ouya but doesn’t own a platform that you can find RUNNER on somewhere. That’s not the point. Personally, I think it’s cool that a reasonably good facsimile of RUNNER is on the little indie box. Cool in the same way that someone with one of those fully functional Optimus Prime cosplay costumes is, the ones that make you stare in awe and wonder “how the fuck did he make that out of caulking and used paper towel tubes?”

Not that Wind-Up Knight tries to copy BIT.TRIP entirely. To its credit, it really does try to be something more. Unfortunately, “more” involves micro-transaction oriented upgrades. Yes, you can earn the cash to get these over the course of the game, and maybe most players will do better at it than I did. I’m a busy person, and I was trying to fly through Wind-Up Knight as quickly as possible. Hell, I completely forgot about the upgrades until there were only a few levels left. At which point I bought a sword that shoots a beam out that kills enemies quite far from you. I guess my forgetfulness was lucky in this case, because that sword pretty much stripped more than half the difficulty out of the game. I call this the “scissors on a tube of toothpaste effect.” But, if I hadn’t forgotten about the upgrades and had at any point purchased anything, I almost certainly would never have owned that sword unless I paid extra for it. It makes it feel like a free-to-play mobile game, which it in fact is.

Wind-Up Knight’s biggest problem, besides doing that thing most decent Ouya games seem to do where the seams from the game’s mobile roots stick out like a sore thumb, is the difficulty curve. Too often, a moderately challenging stage is immediately followed up by multiple levels that could be generously described as a cakewalk. (By the way, that term has meant “something incredibly easy” since the 1860s. Who even knew they had cake back then?)

Is wall jumping really something worth advertising? It's so commonplace these days it would be like having a car advertise that it comes with wheels.

Is wall jumping really something worth advertising? It’s so commonplace these days it would be like having a car advertise that it comes with wheels.

Or maybe not. Until the 47th level (of 48 total), I absolutely flew through Wind-Up Knight, which is weird because I got off to a rough start over the first ten or so levels. The same thing happened to me with BIT.TRIP RUNNER 2. I have to consider the possibility that I just got really good at it. Then it took me a few days to finish level 47, though a combination of seizures and having my annoying boyfriend around might have had something to do with that. Funny enough, once I beat that stage, I cleared the final level on my third attempt. Sadly, it was unquestionably easier, and only serves as the final stage because the graphical backdrop is more climatic. Sigh.

Oh, and in the really petty complaint department, I have a policy at Indie Gamer Chick that I pay for all the games and avoid demos. The Ouya obviously isn’t a system suited for this, even though you can now purchase a game without the mandatory play through. So I purchased Wind-Up Knight for $7.99. After finishing the first book, it gave me the option to purchase it for $4.99. I don’t know why, but that really pissed me off. It’s like punishing me for buying it earlier than expected. A lot of games do this, and trust me developers, it always annoys the consumers. Stop doing this.

Maybe my counting is off, because I only noticed 48 stages. Meh, whatever. I got an ending screen and thus I'm satisified. I mean, the ending screen then wouldn't go away. It was laid on top of the menu. The menu still worked under it though. It's weird, but I've had that happen at least a dozen times over the course of Indie Gamer Chick.

Maybe my counting is off, because I only noticed 48 stages. Meh, whatever. I got an ending screen and thus I’m satisfied. I mean, the ending screen then wouldn’t go away. It was laid on top of the menu. The menu still worked under it though. It’s weird, but I’ve had that happen at least a dozen times over the course of Indie Gamer Chick.

You know what though? I would be lying if I said I didn’t really enjoy Wind-Up Knight a lot from start to finish. It’s a pretty satisfying game. With a PlayStation 3 pad, the controls were responsive, the graphics worked, the level design was mostly good (unavoidable GOTCHA! style traps don’t appear until the very end of the game), and there’s plenty of extra challenges to extend the gameplay. Where Wind-Up Knight falters most is in personality. Or, more specifically, not having any. Characters are bland, writing is bland, levels look bland, weapons look bland, the music is bland, and the sound effects are bland. It’s almost tiring in how joyless the atmosphere is. Wind-Up Knight was inspired by BIT.TRIP RUNNER, but the inspiration begins and ends with gameplay. It has none of the charm or quirkiness of BIT.TRIP, which is one of the major attractions of that franchise. The developers at Robot Invader are making a sequel, and if they take away only one thing from this review, I hope it’s this: have more fun making it. I can always tell when developers were too serious when developing a game, and I suspect that’s what went wrong with Wind-Up Knight. So please, pull the sticks out of your asses and put them where they belong: up Ben Kuchera’s ass.

windupWind-Up Knight was developed by Robot Invader

$7.99 (Grumble) said Robot Invader could make me feel less butt-hurt over that extra $3 I spent by donating the difference to Autism Speaks in the making of this review.

IGC_ApprovedWind-Up Knight is Chick-Approved and ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard. I also played the iOS and Android ports, and they also are Chick-Approved. Levels 13 through 48 can be unlocked for 1,200 “notes” (in-game currency) or $1.99 for each pack of 12. Go with the Ouya version if that’s an option.

Filed under Android Reviews, iPhone and iPad Reviews, Ouya Review Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Gunslugs

February 21, 2014 by 5 Comments

If I waited until I was good at Gunslugs to write this review, it would basically never go up. Roguelikes are just not something I’m good at. I get accused all the time of disliking certain games only because of my lack of skill with them. Instead of wasting time defending myself, I’ve taken to waving Spelunky back-and-forth with one hand while flipping the bird with the other. I *suck* at Spelunky. I’m fucking terrible at it. And yet, it’s the only game I’ve played for review at Indie Gamer Chick that I play every single day, especially since they added Daily Challenges to the console and handheld ports. Mind you, my skill level is still nowhere near being classified as “respectable.” But I love it.

Or, a more recent example would be Don’t Starve. I put a lot of time into Don’t Starve, fulling expecting to review it here. While I liked it.. a lot.. I was so bad at it (as people who watched me play it on Indie Gamer Chick TV will testify to) that I didn’t experience 90% of the content. I still play it and plan on being good at it some day. But, considering how little of the game I’ve as of yet seen, reviewing it now seems somehow unfair. I typically have no problem slamming bad games that I don’t make it far into. I’ve never yet encountered a game that was bad or boring for the opening hours suddenly become worth playing. On the other hand, I’ve played a LOT of good games that went bad later on, and for all I know, Don’t Starve is ready to jump shark on me.

Okay, okay, I'll start talking about Gunslugs now. Yeesh. Impatient much?

Okay, okay, I’ll start talking about Gunslugs now. Yeesh. Impatient much?

There’s really no worry of that happening with Gunslugs. It is what it is: a fun, quirky, simple, and charming roguelike-like shooter. Think Contra or Metal Slug, only with a lifebar instead of one-hit-kills. Oh, and the graphics are ultra-cute 8-bit fare. I’m kind of over the whole “cutesy graphics juxtaposing FUCK YOU levels of difficulty” thing, which is about as common in gaming these days as the ability to jump is, but at least Gunslugs does it well. I can’t stress enough how tough this game gets. I’ve had multiple instances of where I thought I was having a good run only for some cunt with a flamethrower to jump out and drain my health almost instantly, resulting in me screaming unintelligible gibberish that my boyfriend believes translates to “I’m appalled that you would ambush me in such an unbecoming, ungentlemanly manner and I wish to state my displeasure over the situation.”

He’s wrong. I’m trying to say “fuck you, you fucking fucker!” but I get choked up on my own rage.

But, the formula works. Difficult enough to be addictive, like loading a Pez-dispenser. Gunslugs is genuinely fun. It’s not perfect by any means. Like any randomly-generated game, not every run is equally as fun or rewarding. Or fair, for that matter. Gunslugs has all kinds of quirky ideas, like being able to enter levels modeled after Game Boy stuff. But the problem is, that all costs coins. Just now, as I was writing this section, the first randomly generated level asked for 50 coins to enter an “art school” minigame thing. The problem is, I had just started. I couldn’t have possibly had 50 coins by that point. So I went off to murder some enemies, all of whom liberally drop money, ammo, and health refills. By time I had the 50 coins, the door to the art thing was locked. Shit like that happens constantly in Gunslugs, and it’s infuriating.

The random weapon drops often lack “oomph” too. I kept getting stuff like the double gun, which allows you to shoot in both directions. Sounds great, except 90% of the enemies you encounter are in front of you, and thus shooting behind you is about as useful as a snorkel is for exploring the Mariana Trench. The ratio of double-guns to anything else was about 10 of them for any other item. When the most boring item is far and away the most common pick-up, it lessens the entertainment value of the game.

Enjoy this screencap, because I died attempting to take it. Paid 75 coins for it. This job sucks sometimes.

Enjoy this screencap, because I died attempting to take it. Paid 75 coins for it. This job sucks sometimes.

Basically, every problem I have can boil down to the random-generation engine not being refined enough. On one stage, I was able to get a bottle of alcohol (a spendy 25-coin purchase), which makes everything move in slow-motion. “FINALLY!” I screamed. Sure, it had a limited timer, but at least I would be able to put that bad-boy to good use while it lasted. Unfortunately, I got this at the very end of a level. As in, the exit was right next to the building I got it from. As I hopped in the escape helicopter, I watched in fucking horror as the power-meter for it instantly disappeared. No, what remained did NOT carry over to the next level. Sigh. What a dick this game is.

Gunslugs is a lot of fun, in the same way hanging out with one of those whack jobs that blows up bullfrogs for giggles can be. But, unlike a game like Spelunky, it lacks a certain intelligence in design. Not that Spelunky is a genius or anything. Anyone who has seen the damsel stuck in ten feet of solid rock when you’ve almost certainly not had a chance to collect enough bombs to get to him or her can attest to that. Gunslugs is too dumb though. Not so dumb that I would say “skip it.” Fuck that. At $2.49 ($1.99 with PS+ discount), it’s one of the best steals in gaming at this point in 2014. But I feel they had something special going here, and blew it by being too lax in how the computer can spit out the layout. And I’m not saying that because it would make Gunslugs easier. The difference in difficulty fixing all this stuff would result in is negligible. No, I’m saying all this because it would make Gunslugs more fun. That’s what you guys are supposed to be doing. Entertain us. I’m ranking Gunslugs as the 68th best indie I’ve reviewed as of this writing, and that’s somehow disappointing to me. It should have been better. It *deserved* to be better. Instead, Gunslugs is like one of those prodigies that by all rights should be lecturing at Harvard but instead is flipping burgers.

GunslugsGunslugs was developed by OrangePixel

$1.99 with PlayStation Plus discount ($2.49 normal price) shot a man just to see him die in the making of this review.

Gunslugs is also Chick-Approved on Ouya ($2.99 there). The best version to get is the Vita version. Cheaper and portable.

IGC_ApprovedGunslugs is Chick-Approved and ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard

*Note: only the PlayStation Vita port is approved here. The iPhone/Android versions are horrendous, like any game that features on-screen digital control schemes. Can we all agree those suck and abolish the fucking things?

Filed under Ouya Review, PlayStation Reviews Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

One Million Views and Counting

February 18, 2014 by 2 Comments

Today, 963 days after I began this journey, Indie Gamer Chick passed one million lifetime views. It’s a milestone I never dreamed about when I started doing this stuff in July of 2011. I remember those first ten days where I was pulling in ten views a day. Then a single game developer contacted me, and I couldn’t believe it. Then someone noticed me on Google and told the Xbox Live Indie Game community. Before I knew it, people who had never heard of me wanted to talk to me just to talk to me. Developers of major triple-A titles that I grew up playing were following me on Twitter, asking me my opinions on gaming, telling their friends they had met me. What the heck is wrong with these people?

I’m going to level with you guys: I’ve lost my way, and I recognize that now. Indie Gamer Chick gained a following when my focus was on smaller indies on unappreciated platforms. For two years, my focus was on Xbox Live Indie Games, a platform where even developers who created really, really good games would be lucky if they made $1,000 on their art. I thought the way to grow Indie Gamer Chick was to spread out to larger titles. I wasn’t trying to sell you guys out. The XBLIG community had started to break apart, seeking fame and fortune on other platforms, and I was trying my luck at that too.

Although I will continue to keep my eye on bigger indies, reviewing the heavy-hitters of our community at least a couple of times a month, I’m going back to my roots. You’ll see a lot more reviews on platforms like Xbox Live Indie Games, Ouya, and PlayStation Mobile. And yes, I’m starting PC reviews in March, just as soon as my two new gaming computers are done being speced out.

Oh, and I assure you, this has nothing to do with indies taking forever to really lay stake to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U. No sir.

The response over the last two and a half years from the community has been nothing short of miraculous. It’s changed my life in ways you can’t believe. It’s made my parents so very proud of me, and it’s given me a level of self-respect and confidence that I never knew I was capable of having. Saying “thank you” simply doesn’t sound strong enough for what I feel towards you all, but it will have to do. Thank you so very much. I love you all.

-Cathy

February 18, 2014.

Filed under Editorials

MushRoom Bounce!

February 17, 2014 by 4 Comments

Ouya’s biggest problem is it has a lot of games that sound like they’ll be fun and look just fine when you’re browsing the marketplace. Then you actually get them and you realize they’re, if not awful, bland and uninspired. MushRoom Bounce! looked decent and sounded unique. It didn’t take too long after booting it up to figure out that it’s actually pretty boring.

Pretty much anything movable can be pocketed, though the points don't seem worth the effort.

Pretty much anything movable can be pocketed, though the points don’t seem worth the effort.

There’s been games like this. You take various mushrooms or “interactive” objects and push them into holes (sort of like billiards) for points. Once you’ve pocketed all the mushrooms, the stage is cleared and you move on. I guess it’s kind of similar to Namco’s 1985 coin-op/compilation seat-warmer Motos, only with no sense of danger and a lot less polish. And although there’s not a whole lot technically wrong with it, MushRoom Bounce! is just plain not fun. That makes it kind of tough to talk about.

I guess I can focus on how the physics doesn’t always seem stable. To hit stuff, you simply walk into it. This one time, a mushroom was on the edge of one of the holes. I walked straight into it from the right side. In theory, this should have immediately pocketed the mushroom. Instead, it flew straight upwards. It was baffling. Not that this was a regular thing, but there was more than one instant where a mushroom seemed to take an unexplained irregular bounce. Other times, I would see the mushrooms get stuck in corners, or stuck behind objects, or lose all momentum for seemingly no reason. Controls are slightly clunky, which makes aiming a bit of a chore. Then again, since the game has no real sense of tension or ways to fail, the game feels more like a chore-simulator so I guess that’s appropriate.

A bigger problem is the menus themselves. I went to customize the PlayStation 3 controller I was using, but none of my actions with the controller while attempting this seemed to correspond to what was happening in the menu, and I was ultimately locked completely out of the game. Until I restarted my Ouya at least. I’m not just picking on the developers of MushRoom Bounce here, either. Bad menus have been a recurring theme during my adventures in Indie Land. Surely you guys that are making these games have yourselves played games at some point. And, when I go to the developers to ask them what happened, it typically boils down to “I never really checked them because I didn’t think they were important.”  That’s not the case with MushRoom Bounce, by the way. I haven’t talked with the devs since they requested the review. But for God’s sake, check the damn things before you send the game out.

I didn't play this far. I got to level 20 before I couldn't take any more. I think the premium levels don't start until a little bit after that, meaning I totally threw away a dollar. I could have gotten an over-sized novelty gumball or fed a starving African child for a week. My teeth thank you, Two Squid Games. The starving African child might not.

I didn’t play this far. I got to level 20 before I couldn’t take any more. I think the premium levels don’t start until a little bit after that, meaning I totally threw away a dollar. I could have gotten an over-sized novelty gumball or fed a starving African child for a week. My teeth thank you, Two Squid Games. The starving African child might not.

Despite what people might think, based on my reputation, I always look for positive things to say about games I review. I couldn’t come up with anything for MushRoom Bounce, besides the fact that it might be an okay title for very, very young children. There’s just no point to it. You can go for high scores on the online leaderboards, but with gameplay this tedious, why bother? You have items to shake things up, but there’s no limit on them, and thus I stuck to laying out large bombs and letting physics take over, then tapping in anything that wasn’t pocketed by the explosions. Maybe if this had been multiplayer, it might have been more tolerable. As is, it’s like playing Hungry-Hungry Hippos by yourself. As someone who was one of those sad kids that played Hungry-Hungry-Hippos by herself, I assure you, that’s about as fun as it sounds like. Which is to say, not at all.

Mushroom bounce logoMushRoom Bounce! was developed by Two Squid Games

$0.99 said doing mushrooms has never been so dull in the making of this review.

*Note, the video makes it look like there might be a multiplayer mode, but if there is on the Ouya version, I couldn’t find it, and we looked.

Filed under Ouya Review Tagged with , , , , , ,

Aqua Kitty: Milk Mine Defender (PC Version)

February 13, 2014 by Leave a comment

For new Indie Gamer Chick fans, meet Miko, aka Sabriel, the next Indie Gamer Chick. Heir to my throne. A passionate and talented gamer, and one of my dearest friends. Follow her on Twitter. 

The world’s milk supplies are running out, and the cats must do something or suffer from the loss of their most precious resource. In a bold, some would say crazy, maneuver, they are taking to the depths of the ocean to mine for milk and save the world.

aquakitty01Ridiculous story, yes, but this arcade shooter is fun to play. Covered by the Indie Gamer Chick herself last July, she describes it perfectly in that it’s a Defender clone both in waves of enemies, a radar to show you where the action is off-camera. And protecting ur mans from being taken away. Here you’re attacked by waves of mechanical enemies who are trying to take you out and trying make off with kitties who are manning (kittying?) the milk pumps that lay at the bottom of the ocean. Once you complete a stage, you’ll head to the map screen which records your high scores and allows you some freedom as to which area you head to next.

aquakitty03There are two game modes: 1) one where your upgrades are automatic after each stage and can restart from the same stage if you die; and 2) one where you are able to choose your upgrade as you collect power-ups within stages but start over from the beginning if you die. I spent some time with both and discovered that I don’t prefer one over the other; each has its place and is fun in its own ways.

In later stages, enemies come at you at a very fast pace which leads to pure chaos. You are, however, rewarded if you can make combos with careful use of explosive fish to blow up enemies. The higher of a chain you can make, the more points you’re rewarded with, and larger chains have the added side effect of making your life easier as you take out massive amounts of enemies at once.

I really love the chiptune music in this game and have even been listening to it outside of the game. You can find the music on SoundCloud here if you’d like to have a listen: https://soundcloud.com/electriccafe/sets/aqua-kitty-milk-mine-defender

aquakitty02This is where I normally rail on some annoying, horrible mechanic that was designed purely to piss me off. I’ve got nothing, really. I like this game a lot, and it’s a great homage the SNES era. The graphics are pretty, the music is awesome, and it felt appropriately difficult on its own merit rather than me fighting the system. I’ve got little but praise for this game and felt it worth the price.

Time and game allowing, I’ve also decided to start recording and posting videos of me playing the games I review as well. If you’re so inclined, you can watch me playing here: Miko playing Aqua Kitty – Milk Mine Defender

Out for PC, 360, and PS Vita, Aqua Kitty—Milk Mine Defender is a cute little arcade shooter that is too good to pass up.

kittylogo

Aqua Kitty—Milk Mine Defender was developed by Tikipod.

IGTlogo-01The game costs $6 to $7 on a multitude of platforms, and I just wrote an article about milk pumps without talking about boobs.

Aqua Kitty is the first game to earn both a Seal of Quality from Miko and Cathy. Congratulations to Tikipod!

This is for Hypership. For Abduction Action! Plus, picture Sweetie with pock marks on her face, blood dripping out of her nose, the stench of death on her, with skulls and crossbones all around the edges saying "not approved for any use besides enhanced interrogation."

The first Miko-Cathy double sealed game!

Filed under PC Reviews Tagged with , , , , ,

The Indie Ego

February 8, 2014 by 33 Comments

The Wrong Image

Since starting Indie Gamer Chick on July 1, 2011, I’ve met literally thousands of people involved in indie game development. Typically, they are the coolest men and women on the planet. The type of people I would want to be friends with. Humble and grateful, eager to please and excited by the prospect of improvement. They strive to be better. They relish the thought of being the underdog. They wow me with their intelligence and awe me with their creativity. They inspire me to be better at what I do. And I’m not talking about two or three standouts. I’m talking the overwhelming majority of the community.

So, why does a perception that indies are aloof, pompous, self-indulgent, out-of-touch, thin-skinned, egotistical fart-sniffers exist?

Well, because a small handful of indie game developers are aloof, pompous, self-indulgent, out-of-touch, thin-skinned, egotistical fart sniffers. From my experience, they’re not at all representative of your typical indie dev. They represent a stereotype that I find damaging to the community I love, so I figure I should try to eliminate this mindset.

The first developer who contacted me was the developer of this, A Hard Game Without Zombies. My review was not a positive one. Developer MasterGroke took it with grace and humility. It was a sign of things to come. After 500 reviews, only five developers ever showed a lack of grace in handling it. Read the types of reviews I write and then ask yourself if the indie perception is accurate.

The first developer who contacted me was the creator of this, A Hard Game Without Zombies. My review was not a positive one. Developer MasterGroke took it with grace and humility. It was a sign of things to come. After 500 reviews, only five developers ever showed a lack of grace in handling it. Read the types of reviews I write and then ask yourself if the indie perception is accurate.

You Don’t Get Me

Any creative medium will attract personalities that have no concept of humility. It’s the nature of artistic expression. You see it in movies, television, stage, music, and modern art. Indies have been around since the dawn of games, but it’s only recently that mainstream attention and ease of distribution have become prevalent. So now, you see a lot more people with that artsy, pretentious, “nobody gets me” personality. Thanks to Indie Game: The Movie, many people believe the scene is dominated by this type of character.  It’s not. Most indie game developers are humble and friendly. I wish more people watching that had come away saying “man, those Super Meat Boy guys were awesome!” instead of focusing on the developers who were, for a lack of a better term, unlikable.

The indie scene has grown a few prominent stars. Some of them are, by most accounts, really cool guys. I’ve heard a lot of people tell me Minecraft creator Notch is a good dude. I’m pretty good friends with Thomas Was Alone developer Mike Bithell. He’s one of the nicest guys I know. As for Notch, while he might have eccentricities, he certainly doesn’t carry himself like he’s better than anyone or that people don’t fundamentally “get him” or his artistic vision.

There was some scuttlebutt over Braid when it was released. It was a hugely critically acclaimed game. It was probably my favorite indie that I had played before I was Indie Gamer Chick. But developer Jonathan Blow wasn’t happy with the feedback, because he felt reviewers and critics didn’t get what he was aiming for, either reading too much into it or not enough. Jonathan Blow does a lot of great things for indie developers and is a wonderful advocate for the community. Unfortunately, the way he handled the reception of Braid made him come across as incredibly pretentious. Because of his visibility, that’s done a lot of damage to the image of indie game developers.

People are going to have different interpretations of your work, reading into it all kinds of things you never imagined while you were developing it. Lord of the Rings creator J. R. R. Tolkien spent most of his twilight years shooting down any and all theories on what Lord of the Rings might be a social commentary on. Nuclear weapons? Class warfare? Race relations? He had none of that in mind. “I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence” he often said.

Sooooooo...... you're telling me Braid isn't an allegory for the East-Asian industrial revolution?

Sooooooo…… you’re telling me Braid isn’t an allegory for the East-Asian industrial revolution?

So when you put your work out there, be ready for people to not experience it exactly how you envisioned. When this happens, have a laugh over it. If their misinterpretation has had a positive effect on their life or outlook, why would you want to shoot that down? Most developers understand this. The few that don’t, that get very possessive of their vision, they’re the ones that bring the whole community down. I roll my eyes at a lot of attempts at gaming as art, but I’m just one person. I know people who were genuinely moved by Datura, which I hated. Many of my fans read a lot more into Limbo than I did, to the point that I went back to play it, actively searching for a way to see it the way they did. The thing is, they’re not wrong, and neither am I. Art interpretation is always in the eye of the beholder. As a developer, once your game is out on the market, you’re not the beholder anymore, and you have to accept that.

The Indie Bubble

Many of the more image-damaging indie developers live in what I call the “Indie Bubble.” It’s a bubble almost completely removed from the world you and I live in.  Where developers can imagine a world where their insecurities can be addressed without having to incorporate things like “reality” or “facts” into it. Unfortunately, the Indie Bubble still has access to Twitter or blogs, meaning their delusions get exposed to a group of people who live in what is known as the “real world.” And the people living in the real world are so not ready to play along with their fantasies.

Earlier this week, while discussing the economic problems of the Wii U (as I did two weeks ago in this editorial), a developer from within the Indie Bubble told me that indies could, no, WOULD, save the Wii U. I responded by saying that indies can’t move consoles. Indie Bubble developer responded by saying he knew people who had bought a Vita just for the indies on it. I responded by pointing out that the Vita isn’t exactly the most successful game machine out there. In fact, it’s doing quite poorly. More over, if indies could significantly move consoles, the Ouya would be a runaway success right now, instead of being, well, the Ouya.

Remind me: how is indie-centric console Ouya doing?

Remind me: how is indie-centric console Ouya doing?

The developer responded by saying I was coming across as anti-indie. Not because I said I hate indies, or that indies are crap, or that most indie games suck. No, I had committed the sin of being realistic. Also, it’s hard to convey exactly what I meant in 140 characters. Yes, there are people out there who will buy game machines just to play the indies. Most of these people stick to PCs, where the majority of high-quality indie games are at. On the console side of things, those who are primarily looking for indies will simply not be statistically significant. Anecdotal evidence of “I know people who bought a Vita just to play indies” doesn’t mean that’s how most of the world works. Especially when you and the people you hang out with are in the bubble.

Journey was probably the most critically acclaimed game of 2012. It’s my all-time favorite PlayStation 3 game. The most common response to my review of it was “man, I wish I had a PS3!” Not “I’m going to run out and buy a PS3.” Journey simply didn’t move consoles. It didn’t when it was bundled with Flower and Flow and released on disc. Indies just plain aren’t good at that. Blockbusters move consoles. Indies are a wonderful side dish. They serve to provide content that is not on-trend, so that gamers of all stripes have something for them on a gaming device. The indies that get promotional effort from the manufactures often tend to be released outside of peak-seasons, assuring top-quality content year-round. So indies serve a function. I would dare say, indies are essential to the modern console business model. There’s no need to boost your egos and placate your insecurities by making absurd claims like “indies move consoles.” That makes you sound like a lunatic.

Absurd claims are a running theme with the fringe Indie Bubble crowd. Another one I got this week was “all games come from indies.” I responded simply with “Madden?” The developer’s response: “Never heard of it.” That’s the Indie Bubble. And the Indie Bubble is the most dangerous thing the community’s image faces. “Never heard of it.” Oh please. See, there’s nothing wrong with being proud of being in the indie community. But when you’re not grounded in reality, it makes you tough to root for.

Just to quickly clear up the “all games come from indies thing”, the first video game console was developed and funded by a defense contractor. Video games evolved from people within the military industrial complex. The man behind it, Ralph Baer, was meticulous in his methods, making sure every little detail was profitable and patentable. When Atari came out with Pong, his company successfully sued Atari, who ended up a licensee. By signing the license, Atari assured that the military contractor would stomp their competition with great zeal, protecting their patent. Does this sound indie to you? Because it doesn’t to me. I bring this all up because, when I called out the theory that all games are inspired or come from indies for the bullshit that it is, they typically reach back to the origins of gaming, when a model railroad club designed the first PC game during recreational lab hours. If you have to reach that far back to make your point, you have a weak argument.

"I thought Braid was talkin' about me!"

“I thought Braid was talkin’ about me!”

The ultimate asinine statement is “Indies are the only REAL artists in gaming.” It’s a shitty attitude to have, and it completely undermines your own contributions to gaming, because it makes you guys look like beret-wearing. art-house assholes. The kind of people nobody likes, that nobody wants to see succeed. Chances are, if you work in the game industry, you’re a creative person. Even the most design-by-committee titles like Call of Duty or Gears of War are built by people who do their best to put their personal touch on their work. Indies have built an “us versus them” mentality that shouldn’t exist. You’re all artists. Don’t allow the freedom you have as an indie developer turn you into an elitist.

With Fans Like You..

Criticism is subjective, and not all my reviews are popular. A recent trend I’ve had to deal with is, when someone disagrees with one of my reviews, I’m called a “Call of Duty player.” For fans that have entered the Indie Bubble, this has become the ultimate insult. It’s like “Yo Momma” for people who love the scent of their own flatulence. This idea that people who play indies shouldn’t play mainstream games is so damaging to the community. Gaming is a big tent. Indie games should tackle issues that mainstream games can’t possibly do, but the community at large should be welcoming to gamers of all stripes. When the hardcore, indies-only crowd starts using games like Call of Duty or Gear of War or Halo as pejorative insults, they’re telling people “you’re not welcome at our party.” That’s bad for developers, because the hardcore fans are making their work less accessible. Would you want to be part of a community populated by people who regard the games that inspired you to buy your console with contempt? Of course, like developers, the majority of hardcore indie game fans are not assholes. They don’t consider the act of playing a game like Madden to be an affront to the scene. But for those in the bubble, they would rather see games sell less than have people like me, who enjoy all aspects of gaming, from being part of their community. When I reviewed NES Remix, someone outright called me an enemy of indie gaming. When I said that review brought all kinds of attention to my blog from non-indie fans, who then were exposed to an entire different crop of games as a result, the person responded with “I don’t care.”

Back in 2012, when Halo 4 was released, I spent a few weeks inviting my fans to play with me and my friends online. Those living in the Indie Bubble, especially non-developer indie fans, were hugely insulted that someone called “Indie Gamer Chick” would play such a game while actively promoting the scene. I have done similar events with indie games, and a big problem with those is getting participants. Indie games typically fill specific niches. When myself, my fellow XBLIG critics, and the developers at Milkstone Games had a little impromptu Little Racers STREET event, we had trouble filling all the spots. Even though we were actively giving away free copies of the game to get enough players in. When Brian and I were looking for fans of Terraria to trade items with, finding interested parties was shockingly difficult. For Halo, the moment I said “anyone want to play?” I had a queue that lasted for days. I was able to expose more people to indies just from the ease of access Halo offered than I would have literally handing out free copies of an indie game.

Little Racers STREET supports up to twelve players online. Even bribing people to play, we only had seven or eight at most at any given time.

Little Racers STREET supports up to twelve players online. Even bribing people to play, we only had seven or eight at most at any given time.

But, because I was preaching the gospel of indies from a Halo pulpit, I was the enemy. People were calling me things like “fraud” or “poser” simply because I was playing Halo. If there’s one thing I hope people take away from this piece, it’s that those inside the Indie Bubble don’t speak for the community. The majority of indie fans and developers are amazing people who welcome newcomers to the scene with open arms. It’s one of the few online communities where newcomers are so readily accepted. Those fans who want us filthy mainstream game players to stand clear? They’re not part of the indie community. They’re in their own world. The difference between their side and the side I’m on? My side wants them, and everyone, to be a part of our community. The more, the merrier. Indie fans who say things like “go play Call of Duty” are essentially telling the millions of Call of Duty players that them and their money are something indie developers can do without. On behalf of the indie developers who you did not consult when saying that, kindly shut the fuck up, please.

In Conclusion

There is no such thing as the “Indie Ego.” The majority of indie developers are down to Earth and humble, while indie fans are normal gamers just looking for ideas off the beaten path. I wish the perception of the scene was more in line with reality. Yes, some developers are egotists who insult fans, throw tantrums, and sniff their own farts. Yes, some indie fans are obnoxious, elitist, uptight dorks. But they are not the standard bearers for indies, and gamers need to know that.

Indie gaming doesn’t breed these kind of personalities. Some people are just born to be douchebags. While I was catching shit from those in the Indie Bubble, an indie music critic fan of mine told me “welcome to my world.” An independent film-maker friend of mine said “you could change “console” to “studio” and publish this as critique on the indie movie scene.”

A friend of mine took a look at an early draft of this editorial and hypothesized that success is a factor in “the Indie Ego” perception. It’s been known to change people. You’ll notice that a lot of the guys I would label as being type-A personality developers, IE the kind that are most in need of a good slap across the face, are the ones that are typically the most successful. It’s been suggested to me that my positive experience with the community is in large part because most of my developer friends haven’t had a large level of fame or recognition.

I don’t think its true. When you see a developer meltdown over a bad review or people talking shit on his game in the Steam forums, success has nothing to do with that. I’ve had developers who have never caught a whiff of success threaten me with lawsuits or try to organize a Reddit mob to “get me.” Some people are just not capable of handling the type of feedback you receive when you’re a creative person. That’s why some developers laugh and tell disarming jokes when they’re accused of being a hipster, while others declare that they’re cancelling their next game, like a bratty eight-year-old taking their ball and going home. It’s very unfortunate that, in such situations, the response from those outside the community is “well, that’s indies for you.”

No. The correct term is “that’s assholes for you.”

I heard someone say this week "I wish more developers were like (Thomas Was Alone creator) Mike Bithell." Um, dude. Most developers are. He's an amazing human being, like most indie devs. If most indies were more like Phil Fish, I wouldn't be doing this.

I heard someone say this week “I wish more developers were like (Thomas Was Alone creator) Mike Bithell.” Um, dude. Most developers are. He’s an amazing human being, like most indie devs. If most indies were more like Phil Fish, I wouldn’t be doing this. Hell, there wouldn’t be an indie scene.

So, if you’re a true fan of indies, make sure you set the record straight whenever you get the chance. Indies are not about elitism or self-glorification. They’re about freedom of creative expression. They’re about childhood dreams realized. Indies are community-oriented, helpful to a fault, and anxious to excite fans of all shapes and sizes. That is the real indie community, where you’ll find most fans and developers. Those other guys? They’re in the Indie Bubble. They might tell you they speak for the community, but they don’t. They claim to love indies, but their behavior does not show that. They insult those they perceive as “not indie enough.” They have no tolerance for anyone who doesn’t interpret their world view. And they willfully drive away new people from the scene. Guys, you’re not helping. I know you’re not capable of realizing that, but I figure I should try. Indies need a thriving, growing community to succeed. You guys are essentially advocating indie obsolesce. If you’re in the bubble, you need to quietly reflect on if that’s the community you want to be a part of. And while you reflect, crack a window or something, because the lack of oxygen in the bubble seems to be affecting your brains.

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Adam’s Venture: Chronicles

February 6, 2014 by Leave a comment

Cathy’s notes on Adam’s Venture

I’m supposed to be taking notes when I game for reviews now. Stupid brain. It used to soak up information like a sponge. Now it soaks up information like, I dunno, a washcloth or something. Stuff still clings, but it gets wrung out whenever I have a seizure. Now I have to write down everything like a fucking savage. And what is my first game I’m doing under this primitive system? Some piece of shit religious game that feels like it fell out of a time warp from 1999. Oh, and get this, it’s called Adam’s Venture. The only problem is, the character is called Adam Venture. It’s Adam Venture’s Venture. Works for me. My name is Cathy Vice. Cigarettes are my vice. They’re Cathy Vice’s Vice. I should use that in the review. It’s fucking clever.

9:18 AM: Okay, well let’s just fire this fucker up. Yes, I’m aware that this game autosaves. What kind of idiot just randomly turns off their console when a little circle-thing is spinning in the corner, indicating that the game is saving? Oh shit, Judge Judy is on. A…….. oops.

10:11AM: All system errors are now fixed. Stupid short attention span. Now I feel like an idiot. Later today, I’ll go on Twitter and get all preachy and self-righteous about Nintendo or how much cooler I am than everyone else. That always cheers me up. Okay, onto the game.

Da nanana, nu nu nuuuuuuuu. Da-nana, nah nu nah nah nah.

Da nanana, nu nu nuuuuuuuu. Da-nana, nah nu nah nah nah.

10:30AM: Ugh. I can’t believe they still make games like this. The character moves like he’s shit his pants. He jumps like he’s liquid-shit his pants and it’s seeping through his underwear. Dude, I have epilepsy. Been there, buddy. I’ll save my own panty-oopsie stuff for later, when I say something stupid on Twitter and need to get sympathy. Suckers. So easy to manipulate.

12:15AM: Adam’s Venture is trying to do the Indiana Jones thing. In fact, it reminds me a lot of Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. Which was an alright game back in 1999, when I was stupid. All kids are stupid. I was STOOPID stupid. I watched Big Bad BeetleBorgs. Oh, set a reminder to bring that up on Twitter at some point, preferably when someone talks about their superior 80s shows. Even though I found their shows better, I will stand my ground and insist my shows were better. Hell, the retweets I get for mentioning BeetleBorgs will up my geek cred and probably land me at least six new followers.

Anyway, the set pieces are nice. It really does kind of feel like I’m exploring a vast, abandoned, booby-trapped cavern. If not for the Dreamcast-era graphics, I might be positively immersed right now. Oh, and I’m now being followed by an evil cloud-monster-thing that reminds me of Dark Heart from Care Bears II. But it only shows up in cut scenes. There’s no enemies or combat. It’s just about getting from point A to point B by solving rudimentary math and logic puzzles. It’s really linear, so it’s almost impossible to get lost. In a way, I appreciate that. But it all comes back to those controls. It’s like the designers of this game went into full-on panic mode as the millennium neared and locked themselves in a fucking bunker for fourteen years to escape the Y2K fallout. Then they spent the next fourteen years kicking themselves for not hanging the “We’re in here, Jesus!” sign that they had lovingly quilted and figured the rapture had passed by without them being saved . Then, one day, they emerged, blurry-eyed, and discovered the world hadn’t ended. After the initial disappointment, and trying to figure out their cover story for why they only waited two weeks to cannibalize their buddy Harry when they had plenty of rations, they tried their hand at game making. They had a PlayStation 1 and a copy of Tomb Raider and Legacy of Kain to play endlessly to pass the time, and that shit was so cutting edge that there was NO WAY the format was improved over the last fifty-six seasons. Oh, and this is a religious game, so stick a snarky “what a surprise, a religious game that disproves the theory of evolution” quip in the review. Maybe too obvious and lazy a joke, but fuck it, I’ve got shit to do today.

12:20PM: Brian just pointed out to me that I, in fact, don’t have anything to do today. Whatever. You know what? Fuck him. No sex for him tonight.

The settings are the best part of the game. A lot of care went into them. It makes it look like the game will be exhilarating. It's not. It's very slow paced.

The settings are the best part of the game. A lot of care went into them. It makes it look like the game will be exhilarating. It’s not. It’s very slow-paced.

1:15PM: There’s really not enough story to sink my teeth into. Just lots of vague religious stuff. Some of the puzzles involve arranging three lines of scripture in the correct order. I’ll bring up that I’m actually a practicing Catholic here, even though I don’t actually believe that shit. Just hedging my bets, in case when I repent on my deathbed God sees my fingers crossed. Still though, it’s not horrible or offensive. A little old-fashioned, but then again, so is religion. You know what? Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this will win my seal of approval after all.

1:16PM: OMG, fuck this game. Fuck it in its mouth with a hepatitis-laced rusty scrub brush.  It has timed environmental puzzles. And the timer is too short. For this one puzzle, you have to light two torches, climb a rope ladder, jump up on a platform, and duck under a door before one of the torches goes out and it closes. Why that sucks is, lighting the torches is done via context sensitivity. Simply pressing the button doesn’t light the torch. When you do press it, the game takes over movement and gingerly stumbles back and forth until the character is locked into place. Then, it slowly lowers your torch into the torch you’re trying to light. This whole thing DOES NOT STOP THE TIMER, which wouldn’t be an issue if there is only one torch. But, because there’s two, if you don’t hit the button in the very small space that is lined up most ideally, you’re going to watch while the game operates your character like it’s trying to not break a nail.  Mind you, even if you do it correctly, you still have to line up correctly with the ladder, get up it fast enough, then get to the ledge and jump on it. Jumping on it isn’t smooth either. In the very first part of the game that required you to jump, I had to try five times to jump up a ledge that was about six inches off the ground. This is not a game designed with dexterity or speed in mind. I spent forty minutes trying to get this room correct. I was convinced I was doing it wrong and looked for an item or something else I was missing. I can’t believe this made it through play testing without the poor sap playing throwing down his controller in disgust and converting to Scientology. Suddenly, the whole religious thing makes sense. By the time this room was over, I was praying. “Please God, don’t let there be another room like that.”

2:04PM: There was another room like that. This one had four torches that seemed to have even shorter timers. They were all spread out in the corner of a large room. The only thing I had to do was light the torches. No other hoops to jump through. It took me another thirty-minutes to do it, just because of the animation thing. It felt like one of those plate-spinning gags, only it would be like if the plate spinner had to tie his shoelaces before spinning the plate more. 

2:35PM: I’m finally done with Adam Venture’s Venture. Well that was short and…………

2:36PM: Shit. I forgot this is a compilation of a game that had been released episodically on PC. Well, I’m done. I can’t take anymore. If they patch the torch thing, which I’m sure can only be done by increasing the timer on the torches or stopping the timer while the auto-animation is going, I’ll come back to it. I don’t even know if there are going to be more rooms like that, but the fear of it is stronger than my fear of cigar-smoking clowns. Damn that Are You Afraid of the Dark? show. Twenty years later and I still have nightmares. Those sections really were the only things remotely challenging, but not in a good way. I’ll wrap up the review by reenforcing that Adam’s Venture Chronicles is far from horrible, but it really is too old-fashioned for anyone expecting a game released in 2014 to have control-sensibilities from the last ten years. Maybe this would have been a terrific game in 1999. But it’s not 1999. 

Seriously, Vertigo Games. Patch those timed-puzzles and I think I would be ready to award this my Seal of Approval. Also, you guys need to flog yourselves with a cat o' nine tails for committing such a sin in the first place.

Seriously, Vertigo Games. Patch those timed-puzzles and I think I would be ready to award this my Seal of Approval. Also, you guys need to flog yourselves with a cat o’ nine tails for committing such a sin in the first place.

I bet if I had been a kid when this came out, Mommy and Daddy would have gotten this for me. I mean, assuming they could find out about it. How do you find out about games of this nature, anyway? The religious aspects of the Adam’s Venture Chronicles aren’t even mentioned on its PSN profile. Imagine if a militantly secular family accidentally bought this. It seems like it wouldn’t go over well. More over, to not boast of the nature of the game itself defies the scriptures. Timothy 2:15 tells us “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” Of course, it also tells us to kill every mouthy child, homosexual, or person who works on a Sunday. Grand Theft Auto isn’t this bloodthirsty. But it would be facetious if I put that in the review, even if the liberals who read me would lap it up. In truth, if parents only want their kids playing games of this nature, the kids life wouldn’t be ruined by Adam’s Venture. It’s mostly only a bad game because it’s so outdated in the way it’s executed. Had this controlled like Tomb Raider 2013 did, it wouldn’t have been amazing or anything, but I probably would have liked it a lot more. Hmmm, executed wrong. I should probably work in some kind of really inappropriate joke here. Something involving Jesus and an electric chair or something.

Now for the crappy part: I have to turn these notes into a review. I could just post them like this, lazy as it would be. But then people would realize I’m an aloof, pompous, self-indulgent, self-righteous, stuck-up bitch, instead of the awesome crusader for indie developers people think I am. Hey, wait a second. I’m a game critic. I’m SUPPOSED to be those things.  And…. published.

Adam's LogoAdam’s Venture: Chronicles was developed by Vertigo Games

$9.59 with PlayStation Plus discount ($11.99 MSRP) probably didn’t stick to the concept behind this review well enough in the making of this review.

There are two Vertigo Games as far as I can tell. One of them should consider changing their name to avoid market confusion. The link above points to the guys behind Adam’s Venture. But these guys are also Vertigo Games. It’s an uninspired name anyway.

A review copy of Adam’s Venture: Chronicles was provided to Indie Gamer Chick by publisher Playlogic before the game’s scheduled release on February 4, 2014. At Indie Gamer Chick, all games reviewed are paid for in full by the writer. Upon the release of the game, Cathy provided a $20 PSN card to a friend who purchased the game. The friend has a PlayStation Plus subscription, meaning the purchase price was $9.59. For more on this policy, check out our FAQ.

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