Castle Invasion, Life of Pixel (Second Chance with the Chick), and Super Skull Smash GO!

February 28, 2013 by 3 Comments

I figured it’s time for another kick at the PlayStation Mobile can.  While my previous efforts to didn’t turn up any original games that I could point to and say “see, PlayStation Mobile is off to a decent start”, I figure it’s worth a second look.  At least it would be, if games weren’t priced like this.

PSM Store 2

Or like this.

PSM Store 3

Or this.

PSM Store 1

Okay.  Just to be clear, you guys want people to actually buy your games, right?  And you also realize that you’re on PlayStation Vita, where a PlayStation Plus subscription can net you AAA games for free?  Or where standard discounts can get you some really great games for around that price?  Hell, you’re also competing directly with Android phones, where you can get some of the best games of this generation for $0.99 or less.  You should make some effort to be competitive.  You already have no demos, making your games high-risk to consumers.  Why make them so out-of-bounds high risk that nobody in their right mind would take a chance on them?  I would gladly fork over $3 for what looks like an FMV fishing game, because that sort of quirky weird shit is right up my ally.  $5?  That would be a tough sell for actual fans of FMV fishing games, which is a large and robust fanbase to alienate.

So instead, I grabbed Castle Invasion for a measly 49 cents.  And I definitely got what I paid for.  Simple concept: shoot dudes before they reach the castle wall.  Gallery shooters like this are a bit relicy (that’s a word as of right now), but I figure there’s all kinds of neat twists developers can slap on them.  Not here.  Dudes run at you, and you shoot them.  Stronger dudes run at you.  You shoot them.  Faster dudes run at you.  You shoot them.  Sometimes you use arrows, sometimes you use spears that can penetrate multiple enemies, but otherwise it’s the same shit over and over again and it’s boring.  Not only that, but it had a tendency to crash.  Spring for the extra penny and sink your money in a gumball.  The flavor will last about 90 seconds, which makes that a longer-term investment than Castle Invasion.

Castle Invasion. The most excited thing since buttered toast. Which I don't find to be particularly exciting.

Castle Invasion. The most excited thing since buttered toast. Which I don’t find to be particularly exciting.

Up next was Life of Pixel ($1.99), which has been patched.  I played it last month, and found the graphics to be authentic, but the control was sketchy and the level design focused a little too much on leap-of-faith gameplay.  That’s mostly fixed now.  Controls are silky smooth, double jumping never failed, the frame-rate never dropped, and some of those leaps-of-faith are now a thing of memory.  Some.  There were a few sections of the game where you simply have to leap blindly and hope for the best.  Some call this “trial and error.”  Bullshit.  The “trial” part suggests you have a fighting chance.  Blind luck is not a fighting chance.  It’s fucking blind luck, and there’s still a lot of it in Life of Pixel.  I call this “gotcha gameplay.”  And I’m sick of it.  It pops up too much on the indie scene.  Yea, I know games used to be like this, but that doesn’t mean they still have to be.  And I’ve got a solution.

I’ve arranged for every indie development kit, across all platforms, to come bundled with a man named Roberto.  Now, Roberto will pretty much stay out of your way.  Just leave some bread and something to drink out for him, but otherwise you shouldn’t notice him.  Unless you start to put “GOTCHA!” moments into your game.  Unavoidable deaths, blind leaps, hidden traps that are impossible to see or avoid, etc.  When you attempt this, Roberto will come out of hiding, place a pot on your head, and bang the pot sixteen times with a five-pound, stainless-steel soup ladle.  After this, he’ll remove the pot, look you in your now vacant, concussed eyes, and scream “GOTCHA!”  Then he’ll slink back into the shadows and allow you to undo the mess you just made of your game.  I think this idea is a good one.

I fucking HATED HATED HATED this level of Life of Pixel, which featured more blind jumps than Lighthouse International's annual hurdles race.

I fucking HATED HATED HATED this level of Life of Pixel, which featured more blind jumps than LensCrafter’s annual hurdles race.

Despite Life of Pixel being my inspiration for the Roberto Policy, I have to say that the game is vastly improved.  By that, I mean it’s playable, and hey, even a little fun.  They even included a soundtrack that, gasp, somewhat matches the classic gaming eras that were the inspiration in the first place.  I mean, it was downright boneheaded to not include such soundtracks in the first place, but I’ll let it slide.  I did just give the team at Super Icon  multiple instances of brain damage by testing the Roberto Policy on them.  They deserve a break.  They also deserve an Indie Gamer Chick Seal of Approval.  They took a shitty, broken game and made it fun.  That’s a sign of a developer with true talent, and I salute them for it.

Roberto, pot their head one last time.  Just out of principle for making me eat my words.

Finally, Super Skull Smash GO!  It’s a retro-style puzzle-platformer that was priced at $3.29 last week, but it’s down to $2.79 this week.  Is that a good price for it?  Hmmmmm not really.  I can get better games on my iPhone or on XBLIG that offer more play value at half the price.  Is it a bad game?  Not at all.  You play as a dude who has to hop on skeletons, grab their skulls, and smash them against a giant, golden cross.  Glad to see Yale’s fraternal initiation turn into a full-fledged video game.

Super Skull Smash GO

I would call the graphics fossilized, but considering Super Skull Smash GO! stars a bunch of skeletons, I’m guessing that was the point.

Despite the primitive graphics, Super Skull Smash GO! is a fairly clever puzzler that keeps throwing new twists in until the end.  Having said that, the collision detection is too sensitive, and the jumping physics are a little heavy.  By far the biggest thing I had to struggle with was jumping through narrow corridors and repeatedly fucking up because the spot you can jump from or to is so small and unforgiving.  Plus, lining up a skull to throw at just the right height can also be troublesome.  The game seems to have issues with following parameters.  I’m not going to be too hard on it for that.  I can relate.  I have the ankle monitor to prove it.

I still recommend it, because it’s a fun little game with puzzle design unlike anything I’ve ever played.  And hey, I’ve now found two original PlayStation Mobile games that are priced to afford and worth your time to play.  It’s a step in the right direction.  I do wish developers would be smarter about how they market their games.  That overhead airplane fighter game thing above, Blue Skies.  For all I know, it might be a good game.  It looks like it’s based on some classic games that a lot of people would be interested in.  You know, the type of games you can routinely buy on platforms like PSN, XBLA, and Virtual Console for under $7?  This is one of those “what were they thinking?” moments.  Without the benefit of demos (and hell, most PSM games don’t even bother with trailers on YouTube), all PSM games are a risk to consumers.  How many people will take a $7 for one game risk when the same $7 can net them multiple games, some of which they’re bound to like.  I got two pretty decent games in Super Skull Smash GO! and Life of Pixel for $5.28.  That’s $1.71 less than the risk of buying Blue Skies and hating it.  Fuck that.  That kind of money buys a lot of gumballs.

Super Skull Smash GO! and Life of Pixel are Chick Approved

IGC_Approved

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Procrastinating Squirrel (Updated)

February 23, 2013 by 12 Comments

Procrastinating Squirrel put up a fight when I first downloaded it.  From the moment I booted it up, the game started skipping like a DVD that got into a fight with a belt sander.  Thus it was rendered completely unplayable.  I made a video so that others could feel my pain.

After publishing the original piece, I got word from a few players that they didn’t have problems.  Curious, I switched consoles, then switched which storage device I was saving my progress to.  While it didn’t run perfectly, the experience was vastly improved and thus I could write a full and proper review.  Of course, in a way I already did that.  Procrastinating Squirrel is essentially Miner Dig Deep, only not as deep.  Miner Dig Shallow perhaps?  Miner Dig Less Deep?  Miner Scratch the Surface?

Oak Nuts. It's what you call crazy people that live in Oakland.

Oak Nuts. It’s what you call crazy people that live in Oakland.

How about Toddlers Dig Deep?  Because this stripped down version of one of my former Top-10 XBLIGs is pretty much that.  Miner Dig Deep, sans strategy or most dangers.  Fewer upgrades.  Fewer things to mine.  The boulders are still there and can still cause you to scream curse words you forgot you knew, but that’s the only thing that can kill you.  There’s no need to worry about digging too many tunnels that could cave in, because the game is presented from a top-down view.  That’s the one advantage Squirrel has over Miner: you can mine in any direction.  Every other aspect is less than what is already offered in Miner Dig Deep.  There’s no positive outlook on that.  People who haven’t played Miner would be better served skipping this and playing that.  People who have played Miner can only find Squirrel to be an inferior, watered-down clone.  I kept waiting for the game to present some kind of hook to change things up, and finished it still waiting.  While I still was practically hypnotized by the prospect of digging up new materials, those moments are few and far between.  It even ends significantly faster than Miner Dig Deep.  Miner Dig Deep left me wanting more.  Procrastinating Squirrel left me disappointed, and recommending it would be nuts.

Thirty minutes staring at the screen and that’s the best pun I could figure to go out on.  I knew I should have written this sooner, instead of waiting for the Oscars to end.  That’s what I get for procrastinating.

xboxboxartProcrastinating Squirrel was developed by Daivuk

80 Microsoft Points wondered why every single pet squirrel is named “Penny” in the making of this review?

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Pester

February 23, 2013 by 2 Comments

I suck at space shooters.  I’ve spent the last two years establishing this fact on this very blog.  While I try to claim neutrality towards all genres, that’s obviously a bit of a stretch.  Some I like more than others, with shmups typically being “the others.”  I’ve just never been able to get into them.  Which kind of sucks for the hard-working XBLIG community, because even ones that earn near universal praise (like Aeternum) don’t do anything for me.  It seems like the best they can hope for out of me is “I wouldn’t rather be dead than play this.”

Am I the only one who thinks that bullet hell screens always look like those abstract painting made by just splattering a blank canvas with paint?

Am I the only one who thinks that bullet hell screens always look like those abstract painting made by just splattering a blank canvas with paint?

On that note, I wouldn’t rather be dead than play Pester.  Congratulations to the team at Flump Studios for doing as good as you could do with this genre in relationship to me.  I was able to get through the full hour Brian forces me to play these games (“out of fairness” he says, the goody two-shoes prick) without wondering if I’ll be locked up in the nuthouse for choosing to hurl myself through a plate-glass window to get out of it.  And, while I wasn’t like wowed by the experience or anything, I wasn’t bored.  It’s nothing new though.  You’re a ship.  There are enemies.  Enemies fire a whole lot of bullets at you, and you fire a whole lot of bullets back.  I’ve always kind of wondered about the economics of bullet hells.  Presumably if enemies are firing plasma rounds at you with projectiles the size of small ships, that stuff has got to cost money.  You would think they would fire a little more accurately.  Conserve ammo, instead of seeing you, going crazy, and firing bullets in every direction including behind them.  Or hell, since we’re dealing futuristic space warfare, you would think an enemy force that can employ thousands of ships to take out one single rinky-dinky little adversary could figure out how to do weapons that instantaneously destroy whatever they’re targeting the moment the fire button is pressed without giving them a chance to dodge out-of-the-way.  What kind of morons do they have running these evil empires?

Anyway, it’s basic space shooter shit with some neat graphic filters added, and not a whole lot more.  I played for a while and realized quickly that I was every bit as shitty at playing Pester as I am at every other game of this godforsaken genre.  But the screen wasn’t so spammed with bullets that it was demoralizing or anything.  Then something funny happened.  At one point, I turned to Brian and said “honestly, I’m not having a blast or anything, but there’s nothing really wrong with this one.”  Within ten seconds of me saying this, the game decided to give me stuff to complain about.   I’m not saying this for comic effect.  This really happened.  First, I was fighting a boss that throws giant swords at you and died.  That’s not the bad part.  The bad part is when I blinked back into existence, the game spawned one of the sword bullets into the same space I respawned into and insta-killed me.  The sword wasn’t there at that moment. It just appeared.  A bizarre glitch I’m guessing, but it’s so weird that it happened right after I told my boyfriend I had nothing to complain about.  As if the game heard me and said “nothing to complain about?  Bitch, I’ll give you something to complain about.”

And Pester kept being a shithead to me after that.  I played three straight rounds where the game never once spawned an upgrade for my ship’s guns.  It spawned plenty of speed-ups and bombs, but no gun upgrades.  It was fucking strange, because they had been plentiful before.  Not that it really mattered.  Gun upgrades or not, I still made it about the same length as I always did, which was between wave 7 and wave 10.  Yea, I really suck at this shit.  So I booted up Tempus mode, where lives are replaced by time.  When you shoot enemies, instead of them dropping coins, they drop clocks that add one second to a timer.  When you die, you lose ten seconds.  The game goes until you run out of time.  Okay, fine.  Question: where the fuck is the timer?  I couldn’t see it.  Otherwise, it’s the same game with the same enemy layouts.  You can also adjust the difficulty, and add extra challenges if you’re a masochist, like controlling two ships at once.  I didn’t try it myself.  I barely have the coordination to tie my shoelaces without breaking my neck in the process.  I don’t need a game to tell me I’m an embarrassment to humanity.  I already know it.

A spaceship that fires globs of space jizz on you. Sure. Why not?

A spaceship that fires globs of space jizz on you. Sure. Why not?

Really, Pester isn’t bad or anything.  And the sword bit I mentioned above was a one-off thing.  I guess I kind of, sort of recommend it.  A little bit.  I’m not sure if that’s because I genuinely enjoyed it based on merit, or if I genuinely enjoyed it because Brian got such amusement out of my pitiful lack of shmup talent.  Either way, I had something vaguely resembling a good time playing it, and had the sense to turn it off before I got bored.  Having said that, it’s not an ambitious title.  This shit has been done before and Pester offers nothing new.  Nothing.  At best, it shows competence in making a functioning, mildly entertaining game that closely resembles about a thousand other games.  I’m not against playing them, but I want to see a different angle on them.  There’s got to be a wealth of unexplored twists for bullet hells.  I mean come on, you guys are indie developers.  You’re supposed to buck the norm.  Be weird for the sake of being weird.  Dance to the beat of a different drummer.  When games like this fill out the cliché checklist with such determination, it’s kind of sad.  Not as sad as watching me play games like this must be, but still pretty sad.

xboxboxartIGC_ApprovedPester was developed by Flump Studios

80 Microsoft Points made a fortune selling ammunition to an evil galactic empire in the making of this review. 

Pester is Chick Approved and ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.  Barely.  

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Ascent of Kings

February 21, 2013 by 1 Comment

Ascent of the Kings comes from the developer of Quiet, Please!, the 2D platforming/point-and-click mash-up I played last April.  The fingerprints of the developer are all over this one too.  Same art style, same silliness, and same bite-sized game length.  It took me just over thirty-minutes to beat Quiet, Please!  For Ascent of Kings, which is a Metroidvania type of platformer, it took me about twenty minutes to become king and another twenty-five minutes to find all 12 hidden shrines.  So, forty-five minutes total of gameplay.  At this pace, Nostatic Software’s next game might stretch to a full hour.  Not that it needs to.  I’ve enjoyed games that lasted as little as ten minutes.  It’s crazy how spending 600 days immersed in the indie gaming scene alters your perception on how long a game should be.  I’m fairly certain I’m now in a state of mind where I could approve a game that lasts one minute, as long as it’s the best damn one minute I’ve had since I lost my virginity.

A Boy and his Blob?

A Boy and his Blob?

So the idea is, the king has died, and in order to determine the new king, all possible suitors (which seems to consist of four brothers that live in a small cottage, still better than what England faces sometime in the next twenty years) have to hop around on platforms and reach a small shrine that bestows upon that person the power to rule.  The father of these kids, apparently a bit of a dick, only gives each of the older brothers one special tool that can help them reach the summit and become king.  But their hearts don’t seem quite into it.  They pull such bullshit excuses as “ouch, sprained my wrist” or “twisted my ankle” like they’re trying to get out of jury duty.  The youngest brother, aka you, collects their tools, allowing him to double jump, climb vines, and fire slingshots.  You know, the kind of tools found in a real world monarchy litmus test.  Psssssh, diplomacy?  Economics?  Fuck that shit.  That’s for democracies.

As a game, what can I say?  It’s alright.  The movement physics are a bit loose and the double-jump sometimes didn’t seem to work.  Level design is very basic, no frills, no surprises.  There’s one section that features a timed jumping puzzle, and I hate that if I get to the top and screw up, I have to wait any amount of time before hitting the button to start over.  But, the game is so brief that you can’t really get bored with it, and it ends long before any amount of frustration over the various control foibles can settle in.  I guess what I’m trying to say is I had a decent enough time playing Ascent of Kings to say it’s worth a buck.  It’s not the most enthusiastic recommendation, but hey, it’s not the most ambitious game!  One hand washes the other!

xboxboxartIGC_ApprovedAscent of Kings was developed by Nostatic Software

80 Microsoft Points were joking about the one minute thing.  Brian has way more stamina than that in the making of this review.

Ascent of Kings is Chick Approved and has ascended the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.

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Scribendus

January 22, 2013 by 1 Comment

Did you know that when they tested the first atomic bomb, those involved took bets on what they thought might happen?  Mostly it was about the amount of kilotons the explosion would be, but there were also side bets such as whether or not it would kill all present, cause the fault line to collapse, knock the Earth off its axis, or blow up the entire planet.  I’m not sure how the winner would have collected if the last option had won out, but it’s true and well documented, and only some of those bets were tongue-in-cheek.  Smart guys who, truth be told, had no fucking clue what would happen.  With some experiments, you can’t know until you push the button.

screen4

Scribendus attempts to combine Scrabble and Tetris.  I’m sure this has been attempted before (someone steered me in the direction of a Tetris-craze era title called Wordtris) but I’ve never played one.  It’s a concept that seems like it should work, but in this case, it doesn’t.  The idea is two letters at a time drop from the ceiling and you have to stack them in a way that forms a word.  You can build a word (minimum four letters) diagonally, horizontally, or vertically.   The problem of course, is being given two random letters at a time doesn’t leave you a whole lot of room for strategy or versatility.  I consider myself pretty dang good at word games, but I couldn’t make Scribendus work for me.  The only strategy that seemed to work was trying to build one decent sized (six letter or so) word across the bottom and stacking all other blocks on the side, but even this didn’t work.  I got my best score by completely ignoring the letters all together and just stacking the blocks randomly, spacing the vowels apart from each other.  Using this technique, I scored big points and multiple combos.  And I don’t even know what words I made.

I can’t really slam Scribendus too much.  It looks good, sounds good, and controls good.  It feels to me like a worthy experiment that failed.  That will happen in the land of indies.  While my enthusiastic fans might want to me to shred every game that isn’t good, now might be a good time to remind readers that it’s okay to try something new and not have it succeed.  Sometimes you can’t know if something will work until you create it and market it.  Look at Lexiv, the Scrabble-meets-Sim City game.  That could have just as well been a disaster too.  I admire creator Dave Turka for giving it a try.  His particular Manhattan Project simply failed to detonate, and now he become derp, destroyer of words.

xboxboxartScribendus was developed by Pygmalion’s Box

80 Microsoft Points noted that a man named Isidor Isaac Rabi won the Trinity test betting pool with a guess of 18 kilotons (actual explosion was 18.6 kilotons) in the making of this review.  His opponents overbid, allowing him to take both showcases. 

 

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Platformer from Hell and Little Acorns Deluxe

January 20, 2013 by 9 Comments

Platformer from Hell comes from Hoosier Games, a group of academics from Indiana.  I know, I know.  Academics?  In Indiana?  I went “Hah!” too, but upon further research, they do have institutes of higher learning there.  I’m not sure what is considered higher learning in Indiana.  “Cow Tipping 101” or “Why you can’t pork your sister” I would imagine are on the agenda.  I’m kidding of course.  Actually, I’m quite friendly with project manager Derrick Fuchs (I hope that’s pronounced the way I think it is) and I ranked their previous effort, Warp Shooter, on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.  It was flawed but functional and fun.  I applauded their efforts and looked forward to their next game.  Which is here.  And it sucks.  A lot.

Where's Waldo? causes less squinting.

Where’s Waldo? causes less squinting.

It’s a punisher, of course.  But it’s one of those tedious, excruciating punishers where dying and restarting levels is more of a chore than an acceptable part of the gameplay.  This is partially because levels are overly large and pathways to victory are sprawling, convoluted nightmares.  A good punisher, if there is such a thing (there is) should be fast paced and frequent deaths need to be handled in a way that doesn’t make them feel like a chore.  Well, Platformer from Hell feels like a chore, with me cast in the role of Cinderella and bad jumping physics and boring level design co-starring as the wicked step-sisters.

And then there’s the graphics.  The characters and some of the traps in Platformer from Hell are practically microscopic.  I have a TV large enough to double as King Kong’s monocle, and yet the star of the game is a teeny-tiny little spec of pixels that vaguely resembles a person.  Although this does allow you to see more of the stage and plan out which routes you’ll take faster, the drawback is you’ll suffer eye-strain and end up needing a monocle yourself.  Another problem with the graphics is sometimes the background is overly bloomy and it drowns out the ability to properly see the hazards, especially spikes.  Ultimately, it’s a game that’s intent is to frustrate and anger players, not entertain.  Derrick noted to me that any faults with the game are his fault, not his team of students.  Duly noted.  That’s why I’m teaching the next lesson, which will be “how to tar and feather a fellow human being.”  Alright guys, we’ll need 5 old feather pillows and some tar, or honey if no tar can be found.  Trust me, this will be fun.

Actually, a better lesson could probably be learned from Little Acorns Deluxe by Team Pesky.  It’s a platformer that does ramp up in challenge, but in a natural way that gives players room to grow instead of throwing them straight into the deep end on their first day of swimming lessons.  Here you play as the patriarch of a family of chipmunks.  No, not Dave Seville.  An actual chipmunk, who must go through stages collecting acorns for winter stock-up.  At first, Little Acorns might seem a tad bit on the easy side.  Enemies don’t really kill you.  They just turn you green and slow you down.  The only way to die is to drown in water, but that doesn’t show up too often.  The real challenge is the time limit in each stage, but it’s fairly generous.  As you go along, you’re given new abilities like a rope to swing on special platforms or crash through bricks with.  It’s alright.  I guess.

It’s never really too difficult.  I never had to repeat a stage more than once.  Part of that is Little Acorns got its start as a Windows Phone game.  You can’t really ramp up difficulty too much in a phone game, where players have to spend the majority of the time fighting the crappy digital-controls.  With a proper controller, the game plays relatively smoothly.  I found the rope physics to be somewhat goofy, but not a deal breaker.

screen3

Why I’m having a hard time getting excited is Little Acorns is a little on the dull side.  Whether you’re gathering acorns or rounding up your children, the game never really feels original or engaging.  There’s no real original hook to sink you into the experience, and no storyline or big twists in the gameplay to keep you going once you’ve started.  Not that games need such devices, but they go a long way on the indie scene.  Little Acorns is not outstanding on the grounds that it does not stand out.  It is a decent, solid game that will give you four to six hours of platforming that you’ll be satisfied with once it’s over and forget all about in a day or two.  The reason I reviewed it here is because the contrast between it and Platformer from Hell couldn’t be more jarring.  One game gathers up all the nuts and isolates them in a cold, hollow place.  The other is a game about chipmunks.

xboxboxart1IGC_ApprovedPlatformer from Hell was developed by Hoosier Games

Little Acorns Deluxe was developed by Team Pesky

80 Microsoft Points each can’t tell their squirrels from their chipmunks in the making of this review.

Little Acorns Deluxe is Chick Approved and ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.  If I was a rodent, I would be a Chickmunk. 

Gameplay footage courtesy of Aaron the Splazer.

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Storage Warfare

January 16, 2013 by 1 Comment

I had never seen Storage Wars on A&E before I picked up Storage Warfare on XBLIG yesterday.  I got it because the concept seemed weird and different.  When I tweeted that this was the next game up for review, I had a few people ask questions like “is there an annoying guy who screams “YEAAAAAH” when he bids?”  Mostly people just bitched about how this was obviously a lazy attempt to capitalize on a semi-popular, semi-obscure cable-based reality television show.  Obviously schlock like Storage Warfare will usher in the fall of gaming as we know it, rendering all previous games obsolete, and burying your Zeldas, Metal Gears, and Skyrims under a mountain of games based on Dog the Bounty Hunter or Honey Boo Boo.

I guess that means the guys behind Storage Warfare must be especially diabolical, seeing how it’s been on iPhone and Android long before it’s XBLIG release yesterday.  Not content to toil in obscurity on iPhone, they had to port to XBLIG, where their title is certain to sell at least 73 copies.  Greedy bastards.

screen2

Who in their right mind would keep a safe with stacks of cash in a storage locker? Wouldn’t that cash have been put to better use by, I dunno, using the cash to pay off the debt to the facility so that they didn’t auction off your shit?

In all seriousness, who gives a shit what the game is based on?  Is it fun should be the big question, which oddly enough, only one person out of twenty asked.  Everyone else moaned in disappointment like they just got done having fellatio performed on them by a dust buster with a broken motor.  Shouldn’t the “is it fun?” question trump all?  I’m open to a game based on pretty much any TV show, as long as it’s fun.  Dead serious.  It could be a game based on PBS’s Charlie Rose Show and I would slap my seal of approval on it if I had fun playing it.  So is Storage Warfare fun?  Kinda.

The concept is you have one year to make as great a profit as possible by bidding on storage lockers.  You start with $1,500 in seed money.  Every month, there’s three auctions, each with three lockers to bid on, and each has a different level of wealth associated with it.  The first auction every month is a skid row style storage unit, the second is the middle class one, and the third is the ritzy one.  You don’t actually get to inspect the items beforehand.  Instead, you see a graphical representation of what is found in each unit.  You bid on the whole locker, not individual items.  If you win, you get to see what you’ve won, and it tallies whether you turned a profit or lost money.  After you’ve completed one full year (36 auctions, 108 total lockers to bid on) the amount of money you have left is ranked on a local-only leaderboard.  That’s the whole game.

I like the idea and I had fun here, but the concept certainly doesn’t go as far as it should.  Among other problems, there’s not a huge variety in items.  Barely halfway through the “year” and I had seen off all but two or three items on the checklist.  Of course, the phone version has had a couple stand-alone expansions, which I’m sure will make their way to XBLIG sooner or later.  A bigger problem is how much luck factors into things.  I tried to play the game smart and cool, passing on some auctions that I felt were getting bid-up by the AI too much.  I finished the year with a profit of about $20,000.  And then I fetched my dear mommy, a fan of the source material, to let her have a go at it.  Unlike me, she bid on EVERY SINGLE LOCKER.  And she won.  She beat me by about $5,000, even though she employed nothing remotely resembling strategy or skill.  I hate that bitch.

It kind of turns Storage Warfare into a video scratch-off ticket.  No skill needed, success is totally based on chance.  The best strategy seems to be figuring out what the average bid the AI opponents will top out at and trying to hit just under that mark on your first bid.  But even then, you’re at the mercy of dumb luck.  Plus, the gameplay is shallow and the replay value is too limited.  Not to mention they missed out on an obvious local-only multiplayer mode where friends and family bid against each-other.  Even my Mom questioned why they didn’t include that.  It’s such a no-brainer that someone without a brain couldn’t understand why such a mode is not included.

I guess comic/guitar/

I guess comic/guitar/samurai sword/Rembrandt collectors have trouble paying their bills.

For all those reasons, I should have probably hated Storage Warfare.  But I didn’t.  It takes about a half-hour or so to run through an entire year and I had fun with it.  Once it was done, I wouldn’t want to play it again, but I don’t feel I wasted my dollar.  What’s here is limited, but undeniable enjoyable.  They probably could go a lot further.  My mother noted that the show (which has an official game on Facebook) is more about conflicts and possibly artificial drama than the actual auctions, none of which is really present here.  Maybe they could make a deeper, character-driven RPG-like experience, but they didn’t.  Storage Warfare is the perfect poster-child for casual gaming: a shallow, stupid time sink that you’ll ultimately ask others to join you with, like some kind of cult indoctrination.

xboxboxartStorage Warfare was developed by 24KT Studios

IGC_Approved80 Microsoft Points noted that a Charlie Rose game could be okay if they did it L.A. Noire style in the making of this review. 

Storage Warfare is Chick Approved and ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.  YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

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Arcade of Neon

January 5, 2013 by 2 Comments

Other than a really annoying soundtrack, Arcade of Neon seems like it would have fit right at home on the Atari 2600.  This is one of those “dodge most everything, except the stuff you’re not supposed to dodge” games.  It’s loaded with play modes and can be addictive in a hypnotic “am I really having fun or am I being brainwashed into buying products I don’t need” kind of way.  It reminds me of my parents while they watch the Vampire Diaries.  Yes, my parents, ages 63 and 44, watch the Vampire Diaries.  Shame of my life, obviously.

It's not much to look at, but really, it can be fun.

It’s not much to look at, but really, it can be fun.

The concept is you’re a circle that has to dodge other circles.  Alternatively, you can absorb like-colored circles for points.  In the main mode of play, switching which color you are is handled with the face buttons and their corresponding colors.  So Y would be white, X is black, B is like a dark grey.. hey wait a second.  Oh, that’s right.  I have one of those controllers.  Well if you have a normal controller, you can look down for reference.  For whatever reason, my brain refused to retain that Green = A.  The other colors I could use fine, but for whatever reason my personal wiring refused to allow me to adjust to green with quick reflexes.  There’s probably some complex reason for that, but I’ll just save everyone some time and say that I’m an idiot.

There’s a ton of modes here that change-up the formula, including a game that I think was funded by SPECTRE with the aim of creating the ultimate weapon of boredom.  It’s like Pong, only it’s single player, you can’t possibly hit the ball past the computer, and the object is to keep returning the volleys.  Sometimes when the AI hits the ball back, it changes color, and you have to match the color with your paddle.  The problem is, the paddles are huge and the ball NEVER GETS FASTER!  I played it for like ten minutes and it was the most excruciatingly boring ten minutes of my entire life.  That’s not hyperbolic.  I’m dead serious.  We need to get scientists off the Hadron Collider and have them study this thing.  It’s the most remarkably bad game mode I’ve ever seen in my entire life and after ten minutes I was temporarily insane from it.  I set off a small fire in my office and had an extended conversation with my coffee table.  How does anyone come up with a game like this in 2013?

Avoid having sharp objects within reaching distance when attempting to play the Pong mode.

Avoid having sharp objects within reaching distance when attempting to play the Pong mode.

The rest of Arcade of Neon isn’t nearly that bad.  In fact, it’s a perfectly acceptable waste of a few minutes and at times fun.  But there’s a couple gigantic problems here.  There are ten modes of play available, but only one hi-score slot is present.  This is one of the biggest brain farts I’ve seen from a developer in a while.  Ten unique modes, one hi-score space that they all share together.  It’s really disappointing because I know the developer reads me and I figured I at least had enough influence (ha!) to make people second-guess such no-brainer choices.  Apparently he got no feedback from people saying “you know, if there’s ten unique game modes, people might want to know what their best score in each mode is.”  I’m so pissed about this that I’m banning him from further game development until he writes “I will use my head for something other than a hat rack” 100 times on a blackboard.  I don’t think I actually have that authority, but I don’t know if he knows that.

Another problem is I sort of already played a game that’s very similar to this, called Dot Dash Episode 1.  Although Arcade of Neon offers more play modes and a larger variety of objectives, Dot Dash had better graphics and play control for the same price.  Considering that Dot Dash barely landed a spot on the Leaderboard, I guess Arcade of Neon ought to miss the cut.   But my only real criteria is having fun, and I did have fun with Arcade of Neon.  I’m into twitchy arcade-style games, and it offers that.  It offers that in a no-frills, shitty package that doesn’t even offer more than one hi-score spot for ten modes of play, which I can’t stress enough is about as dumb as asking a narcotics officer for directions to the nearest opium den.  So yea, I guess I do very, very, very mildly recommend Arcade of Neon.  Just not the Pong mode.  Seriously, don’t touch that thing.  Don’t even think about it.  The Chinese are replacing their infamous water torture with it.  True story.

IGC_ApprovedxboxboxartArcade of Neon was developed by Ivatrix Games

80 Microsoft Points heard Devil Blood and Send in Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief in the making of this review.

Arcade of Neon is Chick Approved, even though in its case the Seal is affixed with the rancid snot of a walrus with the flu, and it’s ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.  Barely.

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Awesome Pirates

December 31, 2012 by 2 Comments

Awesome Pirates seems to be designed primarily with multiplayer in mind.  I had intended to use our holiday office party as an excuse to try it.  Forgot that people go to that party to like, drink and open presents and shit, so the game got passed over.   Well, a couple of days ago I had a chance to play it with three other people.  Those people were ages 5 to 8 too, which is fine.  It’s not the most complex title in the world.  You’re a pirate ship.  You shoot other pirate ships.

screen3

The kiddies grasped this just fine, and after a small learning curve with the controls, we had some nice sea battles.  We put nearly an hour into this, and at one point I asked them what they thought.  The reply probably should have been expected.

“Can we play your Wii U instead?”

Hmph.

“But this is an Indie game!  You kids don’t understand!  You’re supposed to appreciate the pluck and devil-may-care attitude of this whole new generation of game developers!”

“Oh.  Hey, do you have Nintendo Land?”

At this point, I figured I had lost them.  I was fine with that myself.  Awesome Pirates isn’t really technically flawed, but it’s kind of boring.  This type of game has been done so many times now that unless you have a really good twist on the formula, it won’t hold anyone’s attention for long.  I did put an extra hour into single player, which is especially dull.  Decent graphics, good play control, and again, nothing really wrong here.  The game just isn’t fun.  The kids didn’t like it either, and that’s only partially because there was a Wii U staring them down.  The action is kind of slow, the power-ups pretty dull, and there’s just not a whole lot to this one.  Props to the developers for making a fully functional game that’s only sin is being boring, but now you guys have to make something that anyone can enjoy.

Oh, and I totally kicked the shit out of those little kids in Mario Chase.  Ha, yea, serves you little pricks right for making fun of me for not being able to throw a dragon punch!

xboxboxartAwesome Pirates was developed by Cheeky Mammoth

80 Pieces of Microsoft Eight walked the plank in t’ makin’ o’ this review

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Shark Attack Deathmatch

December 27, 2012 by 11 Comments

Oh yea, this one will cause controversy.  No, not the fact that you’re killing realistic-looking depictions of the majestic and noble great white shark.  Personally, I don’t get why that’s such a big deal.  It’s not like someone is going to be motivated by playing this game and arm him or her self to go shark hunting like they’re fucking Brody or something.  The world doesn’t work that way, unless you’re one of those people who desperately needs to find proper medication.  The fanatical types will note that Super Mario Bros. didn’t breed a generation of children who ran around stomping turtles to death.  And where is this outrage when games depict dinosaurs being killed?  What’s the difference between that and killing deer in a hunting simulator?  Dinosaurs used to be animals, right?  And according to some people, that was just 4,000 years ago!

In all seriousness, I don't consider myself an animal-rights aficionado, but I'm agast at the Shark Fin Soup industry. You should really see this documentary by Gordon Ramsey on it. It's on YouTube, and I've linked to it here. Just click the picture.

In all seriousness, I don’t consider myself an animal-rights aficionado, but I’m disgusted by the Shark Fin Soup industry. You should really see this documentary by Gordon Ramsey on it. It’s on YouTube, and I’ve linked to it here. Just click the picture.

No, the real controversy is going to be about how much I liked Shark Attack Deathmatch.  Because I really did.  Opinion on it is fairly split, with some calling it good fun, and others calling it a steamy shit mountain.  I lean towards the good fun crowd, on account of actually having fun playing it.  But I could certainly see why so many people would call it Mount Crapmore.

It’s a weird idea: a slow, more methodical first-person-shooter set underwater.  And with sharks.  But killing the sharks is not the focus.  The idea is to kill the other scuba divers.  You’re armed with a spear gun and a knife to do this.  You’re given a decent-sized arena to fight in, but there are no boundary markers and I sometimes would swim out-of-bounds.  When you do, the game goes ape shit and demands you return to the play field, with a big arrow pointing you in the correct direction.  This was probably not a the best idea.  I would think having actual walls there would be preferable.  Like you’re in a giant lake.  A lake with great white sharks.  Okay, so it wouldn’t be authentic, but come, we’re in a video game where you can refill your health by picking up a giant red cross.  I think realism was thrown out the door at that moment.

You can't shoot the eels or turtles that float around. They only seem to be there to cause the occasional (actually quite rare) frame-rate hiccup. They should have been put there to give you powers or something. Maybe for the sequel.

You can’t shoot the eels or turtles that float around. They only seem to be there to cause the occasional (actually quite rare) frame-rate hiccup. They should have been put there to give you powers or something. Maybe for the sequel.

I think most of the hate for Shark Attack Deathmatch comes from those who stick exclusively to the demo.  Without getting to play the game online, you’re really missing out.  The single player Survival modes are pretty lame.  One of them involves zombie sharks, although I’m not sure what difference it made besides making them look scabbier.  If it’s not the single player mode, it’s the aiming of the spear gun.  I admit, I hated it at first too.  There’s a learning curve to it, and you can’t possibly get it down pat in the amount of time the demo gives you.  I’ll admit, even after a couple of hours of playtime, the aiming was never that good.  Even if you adjust the sensitivity, at best it can be described as barely satisfactory.  I found I did best when I centered my aim with the cross hairs and then switched to views with the left trigger.  Cumbersome?  Yea, but it was the only way I could seem to shoot accurately.

Of course, the one thing everyone says that’s nice about Shark Attack Deathmatch are the graphics are seriously stunning.  And yes, while you have to pull the old “good for an XBLIG” card, it looks really, really good.  For an XBLIG.  Easily the best looking first-person shooter on the platform, with nothing coming close.  And the audio cues are well done too, with a Jaws-like “daaa daaa DAAA” whenever a shark draws near you.  Of course, the sharks really aren’t the focus of the game.  They’re more like window dressing, if window dressing was sentient and out to kill you for no reason.  You can even turn off the sharks when setting up an online game, although I didn’t find anyone willing to do it.  The only way I could use the sharks was to feed myself to them if I was in danger of dying, thus depriving an opponent of a point.

I enjoyed most of the matches I played of Shark Attack, but there are tons of little annoyances.  Spawning is horrible.  I’ve spawned and died in less than five seconds because an angry shark was pissed off that I had blinked into existence on their watch.  Or there was one time where I spawned literally between two guys who were having a knife fight.  In the couple of hours I played, there were nearly a dozen instances of the “you’re alive again, you’re dead  again” spawning.  Brian once came back to life right in the path of an oncoming spear someone else had already fired.  Hilarious if it’s not you, but fucking annoying as hell when you’re on the receiving end of it.  To defend yourself, you can run for it, or you can drop a flash grenade.  The problem with this is it takes so fucking long to activate that by time you’ve removed it from your holster, pulled the pin, and dropped it, you’re probably either dead or dying, and all lined up in the sights of whatever is trying to end you.

"Running out of air? Don't worry, in a few seconds you'll have a fresh set of gills, and perhaps a blowhole in your back too!"

“Running out of air? Don’t worry, in a few seconds you’ll have a fresh set of gills, and perhaps a blowhole in your back too!”

Aggravations aside, Shark Attack Deathmatch is really fun.  And unlike a lot of games with online multiplayer, it has a full community.  I never once had a problem getting a full slate of players into a match.  Typically, if someone quit, there would be someone there to replace them in just a few seconds.  It didn’t matter if it was 11PM on Sunday or 4AM on Christmas morning.  Someone was always there.  Sure, it’s a totally different beast than your typical shooter, but that’s part of the charm.  I don’t really want to play a poor-man’s version of Goldeneye or Doom.  I want to try something original, and Shark Attack Deathmatch is that.  When I played with friends, we all had a hooting and hollering good time.  And hey, Sharks!  Who doesn’t love sharks?  It gives new meaning to the phrase “hanging out with chums.”

xboxboxartIGC_ApprovedShark Attack Deathmatch was developed by Lighthouse Games Studio

80 Microsoft Points noted that when you die from a shark, it says “you were murdered by sharks.”  I don’t think what Sharks do is technically murder, unless they’re killing us for shits and giggles.  Dolphins do that, not Sharks in the making of this review. 

Shark Attack Deathmatch is Chick Approved and ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.  See which games it put a scuba tank in the mouth of before shooting them with a harpoon. 

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