Mar
10

Review: Bush Hunt

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You’re man’s man, you’re a man’s man’s man. In fact you’re the type of man who parachutes into danger to trap wild animals with nothing but a revolver and a stylish pair of shorts. This is Bush Hunt, the misleadingly titled XBLIG game from Riddlersoft that involves not the quest for fuzzy Triforces nor does it set on a Texas ranch.

Gameplay

The objective of the game is pretty simple, someone or something has caused the release of all sorts of zoo animals and it’s your job to go out and “trap” them by shooting them with bullets –Yeah I’m a little sketchy on the details of how that works too. You are parachuted into each  fairly confined level and all sorts of animals are released into it from boxes that are triggered by you moving over certain areas. The game offers twenty levels, two difficulty settings, two player co-op, and a four player survival mode.

I’m going to jump right into it guys: Bush Hunt isn’t a great game. It’s not even a particularly good game, because it suffers from some serious bugs and design flaws. In fact, during my play through of the game, I managed to crash it twice. On top of that, it’s plagued with frame rate issues that  slow it to a crawl. The frame rate issue is further exacerbated by it being a platformer/shooter that requires a certain amount of achievable rhythm to adequately play. In addition to this the controls give you the sensation of playing in peanut butter, which without chocolate is s neither delicious or sensual.

To add a little insult to injury, there are some strange happenings in the world of Bush Hunt. During platforming you will at times run into some sticky corners that can require you to back out of them and give it another go. On a similar platforming note, the moving icy platforms do not behave as such. They will act as normal terrain until they begin to move at which point the game will just try to slide you off of them leaving the physics feeling faked.

If compared to other games, Bush Hunt is similar in gameplay to that of titles such as Nasty in that they are both platforming shooters that take place in confined areas with numerous enemies. Unfortunately, Bush Hunt lacks polish and has a fundamental design flaw that makes it a less enjoyable experience than Nasty. The first issue is the lack of polish, which I have previously explained and the second issue is the fixed forward firing mechanic, which worked fine in things like Pixel Killer but is simply insufficient for Bush Hunt.

It isn’t a total bust though, Bush Hunt has a few bearable points.  The parachuting bits are pretty amusing, although they seem to largely act as a distraction from the lengthy load times.  There is fun a progression element to the game in that you’ll gain gun reload improvements allowing for more rapid firing, as well as more hearts to improve your longevity.

Audio Visual

The two brightest spots of the game are the visuals and the music. The pixel art assets of the game are pretty good and are quite bright and colorful with their primary colors. I especially liked picking the color of my characters outfit –red shorts FTW. The four environments, each possesses their own unique stylistic qualities, were visually interesting as well.

The music is enjoyable and with its percussive sound gives a fitting background to the safari look of the game and its characters. The howling sounds on the other hand were a little irritating, they kept making me nervously look about to see what was trying to eat me.

Summary

Bush Hunt is 80 Microsoft Points on the XBLIG Marketplace. Unfortunately, even at that price point I can’t give the game a good recommendation. For those who are looking for a solid platforming shooter, there are numerous alternatives, two of which are Pixel Killer and Nasty that I think both offer a better experience and a better value. All that said, I get the impression that the developer worked quite hard on the game and probably learned a lot in it’s creation; so in that respect, I look forward to seeing that experience applied in future projects.

2 Replies
Mar
9

Review: Jewelry Master Twinkle Light

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ARIKA’s follow up to the block dropping puzzle game Jewelry Master Twinkle is out and brings with it some nice value. The new version, Jewelry Master Twinkle Light, cuts down on fluff but still features the same basic gameplay of the original at a much more palatable 80 Microsoft Point price.

Gameplay

The gameplay is simple, drop the blocks consisting of gems and stones into position in typical block dropping game fashion. The gems and stones can be made to disappear in two different ways. Gems are done away with by boxing them in using stones. Once a gem has been boxed in, it and all other gems of the same color will instantly disappear. The stones, which come in different shapes and sizes, will only disappear when a full row of stones is constructed.

The game presents itself as some sort of block dropping date simulator and I have no idea how the two of these things are supposed to go together. Unless of course, you’re talking about dropping the ol’ I block in for a Tetris, if you know what I mean. All that really seems to happen in Jewelry Master Twinkle Light is your “date” occasionally rambles about pickles or going for a ride on a Ferris Wheel as you score more points. I never really make it past talking about going on the Ferris Wheel though, so I suppose, in that sense, it is a pretty accurate dating sim.

The controls are fully customizable and even in their default configuration work well enough. I didn’t run into any major annoyances other than an occasional accidental instant block drop caused by nudging the thumb stick in the up direction. Really though, once you are aware of this particular control nuance it is easily avoided.

“Jewelry Master Twinkle become easier and re-release ! The jewels drop one after another. Join the jewels and enclose by the stones to erase ! The Graphics and the scenarios are changeable. It will depend on game play. You can enjoy the game kind of like a date. The game system has been changed. It’s Especially recommended for beginners ! “

The above is the developer’s description of the game on Xbox Live Indie Games Marketplace. The bold portion of the description seems erroneous as the only visuals I saw that were customizable were in the screensaver mode which allowed you to change the background color. The references to change in scenarios seem exaggerated as well, since the only gameplay that seemed to change what your “date” says to you is how far through the linear scripts you get. This is more then likely a result of a bit of copy/pasting from the previous full versions description and possibly some language barriers.

Audio Visual

The visuals of JWTLight are quite nice, the anime girl is nicely drawn and the backgrounds are animated and lively. One note worthy difference from the original is the inclusion of only one of the original girls. On the same topic, there are no male dates either, which may be a deal breaker for some out there.

The music of the game is descent enough for its stripped down nature, which is a good thing considering there appears to only be one track.

Summary

The price tag sells this one, at 80 Microsoft Points its production qualities are a bargain. There are a lot of less developed block dropping puzzle games out there at the same price, so if you are looking for a bargain in this genre I recommend checking it out.

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Mar
8

Review: Soulcaster

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MagicalTimeBean’s recent Xbox Live Indie Game release, Soulcaster, drops you into the role of a wandering geriatric wizard who, aside from having impeccable taste in hats, appears to have no talents of his own. That is of course until the souls of long ago heroes lend him their strength in an effort to restore peace to the land.

Gameplay

Soulcaster is an action adventure similar in design to The Legend of Zelda in that it features a top-down camera and a real-time combat system. That, however, is the extent of the similarities between the two, as the combat and progression systems differ fundamentally from the old Zelda hack, slash, and find.

Early in the game you come across the heroic souls of  an archer, an alchemist,  and a warrior. These three souls are summoned by you as combatants who will aid you on your dangerous adventure. The summoning system utilizes Soul Orbs as regents for the process and can not be used again until the Soul Orb is deactivated and recollected. You are initially given three orbs and then have the opportunity to buy two more to allow for the summoning of up to five of the three heroes; for example, you could summon three archers and two warriors if you possessed all five Soul Orbs.

As you may expect, each hero excels in certain areas of combat. The archer can fire arrows over chasms  and water, but not over walls or through compatriots. The alchemist can throw explosive potions over walls and compatriots but cannot throw them over bottomless expanses or water and upon death he will explode causing damage to anything in the area. The warrior is a master of close quarters combat, and is equipped with additional hit points and a shield that reduces incoming damage. The configuration of the maps and the adversaries you face will dictate who you summon and in what formation. The focus on strategy and  the summoned heroes immobility give the game an almost tower defense dimension.

To add a sense of progression, Soulcaster allows for the acquisition of not only more Soul Orbs but also upgrades for the individual heroes. There are four  basic classes of upgrade; a weapon upgrade, an attack speed upgrade, a hit point upgrade, and a range upgrade. These upgrades are all purchasable at the shop keep who, in typical game form, appears throughout the various dungeons.

The death and save systems of Soulcaster are a bit reminiscent of games of yore. Upon your death you will be forced to restart the map you’re on. In the event that you wish to save your progress you pause the game and are presented with a code to write down and then enter when you return. There is no confirmation of a purple leotard code.

The game works really well; therefor, I don’t have much to complain about from a mechanical perspective. The controls at time were a little strict only allowing for movement in the cardinal directions, but this is really an intentional design decision to give the impression of retro or D&D style movement.

If there is one thing to complain about it is the length of the game because it really feels like you are just starting when it ends. The pacing of the game felt perfect, so I do think it was simply  a need of, perhaps, another level or two. That said, the game sports two difficulty modes and seems to offer reasonable replay value.

Another item that stands out in Soulcaster is the lack of boss battles. However, even without boss battles the creators manage to escalate the difficulty by deploying swarms of normal creatures in less than ideal environments. Now this isn’t really a complaint, it’s more of an observation, though I wouldn’t have minded seeing a boss or two. I have the feeling that the mechanics of the game’s combat system didn’t lend itself to easy boss designing and tuning.

Audio Visual

Soulcaster has a nice retro eerie feeling world filled with pixel art sprites and a classic tile map environment. The aesthetics of the game are going to appeal most to those who are appreciative of retro styling but likely wont hinder players who may be indifferent to it.

One of the bits I enjoyed most about the game was its music. My favorite track is the one played during courtyard scenes in which you talk with the heroes’ statues and receive information pertaining to the world.. The music itself feels a bit more modern than the game looks but it still has that old school synthesized feel to it that keeps it from seeming out of place.

Summary

I got to say I really enjoyed this one and if you are looking for a top-down action adventure role playing game with a  retro look and feel it would be difficult for me to not recommend Soulcaster. If, maybe, you aren’t looking for a game that fits in exactly that sub-category and are just looking for a fun game, you should definitely check out the demo as its quite representative of the full game experience. The only aspect one should be mindful of when considering Soulcaster as a purchase is its length, it clocks in on initial play through at around an hour long; but do note, the game has a hard difficulty mode and some pretty decent replay value. Soulcaster rings up at 240 Microsoft Wing Dang Doodles and feels appropriately priced.

8 Replies
Mar
6

Review: Wordzy

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After playing Wordzy for a little while, I came up with a title I thought was a bit more fitting.  I call  this game: “How Many Five Letter Words Do You Know?”

That’s not to say it’s a bad game.  Just that the question of how many five letter words one knows has a direct bearing on the playability of this simple little Xbox Live Indie game by by John Sepulveres.  As it turns out, Geoff knows very few, and I know quite a bit.  So our discussion went something like this:

Geoff: You want to review that game?

Me: What game?

Geoff: Check the contact email.

Me: Yeah, I’ll review it.

Geoff: I tried the demo.

I fucking failed.

First word… buhhhhhhhhhh

Second word rooooooooooooooks is going to have to play this.

And so I did.

Gameplay

Wordzy is a word puzzle game.  The basic premise is to attempt to determine the randomly selected word by inputting letters.  Letters you get right are marked and move on to the next attempt for you to use.  Letters that are in the word, but are in the wrong place are marked with a different color so you have a bit of a hint.  A sort of Mastermind using more symbols but with the actual answer limited to a dictionary of words.  In this case, as you may have guessed, this dictionary is limited to five letter words. When guessing words, the default options only give you the color-coded clues if your attempt is itself a word found in the dictionary.  This keeps you from using a strategy of entering common letters merely to determine if they are part of the word.  This can also be a problem if your diction isn’t quite up to snuff, so there is an option to turn this off.  There is also a difficulty option which lets you set the random word to something from the game’s entire dictionary or merely a subset of more common words.

The game includes options for both playing alone, or playing with another person, whereby you take turns entering guesses until someone gets it right.  You can do this in person or over Xbox Live with a gold account.  There are also options to play against a timer or without it.

One thing I can’t help but notice is how much easier this game would be with a keyboard.  I type exceedingly fast, think even faster, and the fact you have to enter letters by scrolling slowly through a list using the Xbox controller slows me down considerably.  There’s not much that can be done about this, however, and the timer is usually more than sufficient to solve the puzzle using the supplied input method.

Visual

Wordzy has a very simple look to it to go along with its simple gameplay.  I must admit I was slightly disappointed with the graphics.  The look of the “letter tiles” can be selected from a set of three, with the white you see above being the most readable.  The solid black letters were hard to distinguish against the green background on my tv.  The background is a static image of a jumble of letters, and the UI is very utilitarian.  Considering the interesting stuff that some other indie developers have been putting out graphics-wise, I would have liked to see something a bit more visually interesting.  The letters in the background could float and dance and light up when used, for example.  The graphics aren’t terrible by any means, but they aren’t top notch either.  They simply are graphics.

Audio

The audio present in Wordzy matches up with the rest of the game, it is simple.  There are small incidental noises for letter tile selection and placement or errors, and these work alright.

The game also contains a pair of music tracks.  One, a light, poppy number played over the menu, and the other a jazzy tune which accompanies the actual gameplay.  Both, I think, fit the game fairly well.  The game supports custom soundtracks though, in case you prefer playing your own music.

Summary

For a mere 80 Microsoft Currency Units, Wordzy is accurately priced.  If you know a lot of five letter words and enjoy a simple puzzle game, you’ll find Wordzy diverting for a time.  But I can’t help to think that with some extra visual flair, a couple more twists on the game play and perhaps options to play with 6 or 7 letter words, the game could have been something much more unique and generally better.

6 Replies
Mar
3

Review: Nasty

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Old eccentric GuyBob, everyone thought he was mad. That is, until the evil Dr. Slug came to this world and GuyBob’s sons, Guy and Bob, were called upon to plow through 100 dangerous creature filled levels and save the world. And thus, the stage is set for Kris Steele and company’s platforming shooter Nasty.

Gameplay

Nasty, a traditional 2D platforming shooter, consists of 100 single frame levels. These levels are filled with various combinations of monsters that will require slaying in order to unlock the door to the next level. There is also a point system that, in addition to granting bragging rights, will give additional lives every 10,000 points. The extra lives come in handy because this game (I’m looking at you when I say this Level 70)  is quite challenging.

The creatures’ behaviors vary and understanding them is essential to making your way through the levels successfully. Some creatures will simply walk forward until they run into something and turn around, others will bounce off a surface and continue in a new direction, and more yet will display an intent to kick your ass by continually meandering in your direction. The creatures of Nasty also differ from difficulty mode to difficulty mode. An example of these differences is the accountant ghost. In easy and normal mode they simply chase you around until either you die or they die. However, in hard mode once they have been destroyed, they split into four little ghosts who then proceed to resume the chase.

Did I mention the clock? Yeah there’s a clock and, of course, it ticks down! Once the time on a particular level runs out you won’t simply lose, that would be dull. To keep things exciting Nasty will deploy Doom Bolt, a giant ball of spikes that chases you unabatedly until either he impales you or you clear the stage of enemies.

When it comes to death Nasty is seriously retro as it relies on a finite number of lives and a limited quantity of continues that it is all eager to relieve you of. The game has a tendancy to be challenging and at times down right frustrating, but manages to balance it out with a pretty decent death system. This balance is one of the systems used to differentiate between the three difficulty modes. You will receive five lives and fifteen continues on easy, three lives and five continues on normal, and three lives and three continues on hard. On top of this system all modes allow you to save progress every 10 levels by establishing a check point. Once you wipe out all your continues you can start a new game from the last check point you unlocked. This was the first time I had seen these two style systems work together in such a way and I found that I really appriciated them as they managed to balance a sense of penalty for death without really preventing you from progressing through the game.

Power ups and points are sprinkled throughout the world and come in various shapes, sizes, and effects. The power ups persist until death and can, in some cases, be required to finish a level. So don’t die because the power up won’t respawn unless you use a continue which is is less than ideal. The list of power ups is quite extensive; they can stop time, improve your offensive ability, increase your jump hight, or make you invincible. The points are all over the place and don’t require much explaining, go get you some.

Bosses appear every twenty levels or so and are mostly of fairly simple design. They will typically  make use of minions and mechanics present in other creatures in the game. One of the bugs I experienced during my play through of the game was during the Hell Snake boss, the segments of the creature would break apart into little minions and fly off in a pattern. If these segment are destroyed while bouncing off the ground the minions will tend to become stuck and difficult to destroy. On a more pleasant boss related note, a character who plagues you through the entire game shows up as a boss and presents you with the opportunity to have your sweet revenge.

There is a cooperative mode as well as a battle mode, I unfortunately didn’t have an opportunity to test these, as I have no friends or enemies, but if the cooperative play is anything like I would expect it is, it’s probably pretty damn fun in that double dragons sort of way.

Audio Visual

As previously noted, Nasty is a retro game and, as you’d expect, the visuals are retro as well. The sprites look good and are animated well as are most of the enemies. The levels are decent looking with some nice background art, though there aren’t really any opportunities for any parallax to show it off since the camera is stationary.

I’m not really sure why, but for some reason the ghosts don’t feel quite right visually. This visually awkward feeling goes for the boss Hell Snake as well. I’m not sure if it’s that they are so large and simple in design that they feel as though they lack detail, when compared to the densely detailed smaller sprites, or what. That said, I found the simplest solution to the problem was to shoot them. Oh maybe they could have little green accountant visors? I did mention they are accountant ghosts, right? Don’t be so surprised, according to A Christmas Carol one in four ghosts are accountants.

On the issue of level design, there were some repeats, which is to be expected in a game with 100 levels. I just felt it was worth noting.

How does it sound? It sounds pretty good. The start screen theme is decent, although the game soundtrack gets a little repetitive during marathon play. The sound effects are pretty generic retro, which is a given considering the style of the game. So in essence the sound all works fairly well for the game but it won’t make you weep with joy.

Summary

Nasty costs 80 Microsoft Points on the Xbox Live Indie Games store. Thats a dollar for a game with 100 levels, 3 difficulty modes, cooperative play, and a battle mode. The normal modes have a solid 4 hours or so of play through time. All that said the game is retro and will appeal to mostly retro fans, if you don’t count yourself among such fans I would recommend trying the demo before giving it a buy. The demo is pretty representative of what you will experience in the game and should help you make the right call.

edited 3/5/2010 for grammar

2 Replies
Mar
2

Review: MotorHEAT

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It looks like Toyota isn’t the only one with an uncontrollable acceleration issue, but in this case I think it’s probably working as intended. MotorHEAT is a the latest racing game on Microsoft Xbox Live Indie Games and it comes prepackaged with some seriously addictive gameplay. The game was developed by Alejandro González Fiel and Miguel Herrero Obeso of Milkstone Studios, who in the past brought us titles such as Wool and Little Racers.

Gameplay

MotorHEAT is an arcade feeling racer in that it’s obviously not a simulator and nor does it try to be. In fact, you don’t even have to do much to stay on the road. Your only objective is to dodge other cars, but not so much so that you don’t get dangerously close to them! Yes that’s right your objective is to NARROWLY miss all the other cars on the road. Doing so grants you boost based on how far you were from the cars you pass.

In addition to this boost mechanic, you also level up. The higher the level the faster you go. Anecdotally speaking, I think by the time you are getting around to level 15, your normal base speed is easily faster than your initial boost speed was. To top it off your new boost speed is something that requires calculations from the ships computer, because it ain’t like dusting crops, boy!

One of the most frustrating and yet amusing aspects of the game is the behavior of the White Cars. These little bastards have sentience I’m convinced of it! You think I’m kidding but these cars will change lanes and without fail, wined up directly in your path. Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks so because there is actually an award called “They Do It On Purpose” which is achieved by getting tore up by 150 of these sons of bitches.

Other than the cars on the road you will also find an array of bonuses that will offer up extra time, more boost, score multipliers, score points, and invulnerability. They pretty much do what you would expect them to do. The only one that may not be imediately obvious is the invulnerability boost. The nice part about this guy is that it will let you drive right through all the other cars and quickly max out your boost bar.

In terms of cons of the game, one I experienced was related to these bonus items. The first is that they can sometimes obstruct a car that is right on the other side of them, as soon as you collect your bonus your boned. The second relates to the blue box vans that look exactly like the blue power ups. Now I know you can tell the difference because one rotates and the other doesn’t but there is only so much sensory data you can process while traveling at the speed of holybajeezus.

On the bug front MotorHEAT does have a current issue with the score boards. The issue being, as far as I can tell, they don’t work at all. The developer has already commented on this and stated that a patch is going to be submitted this Friday and we should be one upping one another in no time. Which is really good because I think it is probably a very important element of the games replayability.

Audio Visual

MotorHEAT looks quite good, it has a full 3d environment with some nice dynamic lighting and weather effects that really up the ante. The game will start you out in regular daylight, toss you in fog, throw you in the dark, and I’m pretty sure there is a snowy effect too. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was more after that but I usually sucked and died right around there every time so I can’t say for certain. The music also fits well with the game and has a good sound to it. It flows quite well in the game and as such it is pleasant regardless of the length of a single play sessions duration.

A features I think I would have liked to have seen was some vehicle diversity. The only customization that appears to be available in the game is changing the paint job. A few models or ground effects could have been a nice touch, but considering the value offered here already I don’t think it hurts the game.

Summary

MotorHEAT is 240 Microsoft Points, that’s three puny human monies, and is a very good indie racing game with some serious psychological hooks to keep you playing. I think if arcade style racing is what you are looking for it’s an easy buy recommendation. If you are just plain looking for a good indie game, it is also worth looking into, but you may want to check out the demo to decide for yourself. All and all MotorHEAT is a really great offering by its two person development team.

3 Replies
Mar
1

Review: PixelKiller

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PixelKiller is a challenging little shooter platformer developed by mystery person “buddrick” and is new on Xbox LIVE Indie Games this weekend. You find yourself alone on an alien world, your only possession a gun, oh and when I say the game is challenging, what I really mean is that PixelKiller’s job is to kill you and it really loves its job.

Gameplay

This ones a straight up 2D platformer with a traditional forward shooting mechanic. Within  it you will find that there are coins to collect, bad guys to shoot, and turrets that fire projectiles at you that warrant evading. The game breaks no new ground and really doesn’t seem that it had any intention to, which in my opinion is better than breaking no new ground and pretending to.

The coins are scattered throughout the game but seem to serve no real purpose other than to fulfill the hopes and dreams of completionists. They’re often hidden in areas that, to obtain, require you to go through secret walls, some of which you just stumble onto blindly and others you’ll need to do a little hunting for. This secret wall mechanic is used pretty extensively in the game and while it can surprise you when the ground suddenly gives way, you fairly quickly become accustom to the idea of it.

Posing the greatest challenge in the game, the canons operate in three unique ways; some fire simple projectiles in one direction at a regular interval, others will track and fire directly at you, while others yet fire heat seeking missiles that will chase you down until they collide with something or are shot. The canons are all over the place, easily outnumbering the creatures who largely provide limited opposition.

The game is pretty difficult, fortunately the death mechanic isn’t overly punishing with a built in checkpoint system that drops you relatively close to where you just died. This really saves PixelKiller from being an easily written off game as many situations would have constituted jettisoning the control at dangerously high velocity.

Audio Video

WYSIWYG, and the audio is just as simple. PixelKiller picks up no style points. Oh and it’s not full screen, wtf.

Summary

Good little platforming shooter it’s challenging in difficulty but isn’t going to keep you from progressing through the game thanks to its forgiving death mechanics. It is an indie game, and thats an easy cause to get behind, but this one doesn’t offer up anything particularly imaginative visually or mechanically. Fortunately, it clocks in at 80 Microsoft Points and that’s really where it should be. This all said, I can’t put a strong buy recommendation on this game. Fans of the genre will appriciate its gameplay, but there are better options at the one and three dollar price points. However, if you have played all those and are looking for something new, PixelKiller is worth checking out.

2 Replies
Feb
26

Review: Shoot 1UP

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In the early 1990′s it was the creation of “bullet hell” that was meant to impress players with lots of shiny sparkly bullets on the screen in often beautiful arrangements and highly complicated patterns. Well yesterday the player got the multiplicity treatment in developer Mommy’s Best Games’ Shoot 1UP.

Gameplay

Shoot 1UP is a traditional shooter with one major difference, rather than having one ship at a time, the game gives you control over up to 30 ships at once. The ships move together in a phalanx of variable size. The phalanx formation is  expanded or contracted by using the triggers. When the ships are spread adequately far appart you gain access to the serious pew pew. However in doing so you have leveraged your ability to avoid the barrage of missiles. This forces you to play strategically and pick the proper formation for various situations.

You begin the normal modes of the game with 3 ships and quickly proceed to add ships as you destroy enemies and collect  the titular 1UP items. As you gain ships in your phalanx you gain new power as the ships synergies with one another. Additionally you begin to also fire in multiple directions, first in all the primary, forward, backward, left, and right, and then in the secondary angular directions.

In addition to the super weapon and the multidirectional firing, your ship count also effects another mechanic, the shield, which is built up any time you stop firing. The beauty of the sheild is that when you begin firing again it explodes and destroys all projectiles and any enemies who find themselves in the blast radius.

Included in Shoot 1UP is a mode of play  referred to as “Score Trek”. This mode plays like a classic shoot’m up giving you only one ship that levels up as you collect 1UP’s. The interesting idea here though is that your progress is saved at each stage and you can carry on beating all the stages in that way. Once you have finished them all you can then play through again at a harder difficulty with the same ship, it sort of behaves like an RPG element. You can do this over and over again. I have no idea how high it goes, because honestly I am horrendous at shooters and die really fast.

Speaking of my debilitating shooter ineptitudes, one of the nice bits of Shoot 1UP is the difficulty levels; Chilled, Normal, and Serious. In fact, chilled is so chilled even I was able to play through it! This really opens the game up to both hardcore shoot’m up folk and the rest of us.

As far as bugs, the only real issue I experienced in my play throughs of the game was some slowdowns in frame rates during hectic sequences. Which as you can imagine is kind of a dangerous thing to have happen in a bullet hell, but  I don’t think I ever died as a result of it.

Audio Visual

Visually Shoot 1UP is pretty well done and is the equal of many popular shooters of yesteryear. The ships and critters look good and the bosses are gynormous and intimidating, especially the one with the boob canons. I’m not even sure I wan’t to know what the aliens are planning to do with enormous boob canon weilding women.

I actually found myself distracted on nearly every stage, some more than others, by the backgrounds as you can see this ruined wasteland scrolling below you. You cant help but want to look at what all’s been going on down there.

The bullet patterns when you have a big phalanx going and start occupying a sizable portion of the screen when in various formations. The Ovoid ship in particular is visually impressive with its larger projectile sizes. That said it isn’t the most impressive bullet hell display of ridiculousness you’ll ever see.

The audio is pretty good, it has a great retro sound that matches the games visuals. While it was in this retro style you could definitely feel that it was modern much in the way the graphics were retro but had modern effects and crispness to them. Not a bad soundtrack at all.

Summary

Probably the best dollar you will spend today. It’s available now on Microsoft Indie Marketplace for 80 Microsoft points.

4 Replies
Feb
24

Review: Vatn Squid

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Bullet hell shooters are a strange beast for me.  I’m hideously embarrassingly terrible at them, yet I love them to death.

Vatn Squid by Ted Lauterbach is no exception to this.

Gameplay

Vatn Squid features your standard modern vertical shoot-em-up fare.  You are a ship at the bottom of the screen, you shoot at things at the top of the screen until they explode, and then move on to the next thing to shoot.  In this case, however, the levels consist purely of a single creature firing ornate bullet patterns in the hopes you will collide with one and die.  Unlike most other which feature powerups however, Vatn Squid follows in the footsteps of Ikaruga by allowing your ship to absorb bullets and fill a “power” meter which, when filled, lets you unleash a powerful homing blast.

The game is intended to be a sort of middle ground between and entry level and a hardcore shmup experience, and it shows when most of the patterns are easily avoidable and in some cases avoidable completely by hunkering down in a safe spot.  But this belies the fact that for this game it isn’t just about getting through the game, the real challenge is to see how FAST you can do it.  To achieve this, you have to learn to constantly be absorbing bullets, building up the power meter, and pushing out the super blast.  All while balancing the fact your shield meter is on a fairly slow recharge.

Visual

The game graphics are splendid.  There’s a nice blocky 8 bit feel, while still utilizing some higher resolution for effects like the floating background and the bullet glows.  The underwater theme works nicely for the genre, and ties the game together by making all the bosses quirky pixel art sea creatures.  The bullets vary in color and shape by pattern which changes things up nicely as you go.  I also love the bubble particle effect which trails your ship, as well as emits from enemies as you hit them.

Audio

While the game does feature some standard shmup sounds (firing, hitting and dying), it’s the musical track composed for the game which make it shine.  Even though it’s on a loop, I never seem to tire of its smooth techno-ey goodness.  In fact, it reminds me in part of the Serpent Trench theme of Final Fantasy 6, another dreamy aquatic soother.  Even better, you get it in .ogg format so you can loop it for yourself!

Summary

If you’re a shmup master, you’ll find no challenge here.  But for everyone else, it’s a nice short introduction to the playstyle.  In spite of my handicap with the genre, it only took me 4 attempts to beat it, once I had a handle on the shield/blast mechanic.  At any rate, there’s no reason NOT to give it a shot, it’s FREE!  (Windows only.  Works great with an xbox controller!)

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Review: Toki Tori

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You are a bird, of sorts. A little yellow, bridge building, stone throwing, freeze ray shooting, slug sucking, ghost trapping, flightless, bird. Toki Tori, a puzzle game created by developer Two Tribes, features four unique worlds consisting of twelve stages and multiple difficulty levels. It’s currently available on the PC through Valve’s Steam, WiiWare, and the iPhone, and it will set you back $4.99. As an important note to the readers, I played the PC version using an Xbox 360 control.

Gameplay

Toki Tori is a puzzle game start to finish. It ranges in difficulty from simple to quite difficult, but in an effort to alleviate the frustration that can build through the course of the game, you are granted one free pass to skip a stage and continue progressing.

The stages themselves utilize various sets of obstacles like; gaps, drops, spikes, attack slugs, lava, and even a ghost or two. These obstacles are overcome by using an array of various tools that can do things such as build bridges, freeze adversaries into ice cubes, or set traps.  To further complicate things the use of these tools is limited by a unit count, usually there are just enough units total to solve a puzzle in one or two ways.

The game does a nice job of introducing the tools to you gradually over the course of the game. It will typically give you a paragraph or so of description and then have a level immediately following that is designed specifically to teach you the tools mechanic.

My only complaints regarding gameplay were centered around two of the items. To be honest they are pretty minor, but given some of the inherent complexity of certain levels they can very quickly become the scapegoat for a considerable amount of built up frustration.

The first of which is the Slug Sucker. This item is used, much like its name implies, to suck up slugs. When the device is introduced it mentions that the device can be used in such a way that it redirects slugs at no expense to your unit count but this specific function seems more or less abandoned and forgotten about until late in the world. To be fair, it really feels like the mechanic in question was more of a design consequence rather than an intended function to which they designed a whole level around.

My second gameplay complaint involves the Bubble Suit. This item allows you to freely float in the underwater stages of the game. The suit itself works fine and isn’t all that bad. My issue is mainly concerning its charge system, it receives a certain amount of charges, these charges were then expended by moving a certain number of spaces. The problem was it was very easy to make a false step which sometimes resulted in a complete fail.

Audio Visual

Looks good, sounds good. The game resides in 2D but uses 3D graphics with bright and bold primary colors that give a cheerful feeling to even the slime covered stages. The animations are all polished and Toki Tori is pretty adorable while you are idle thinking about that next move of yours.  As far as the user interface goes it is polished and clean, all the information you need regarding available tools and their quantities is presented in an easy to glance at way.

Audio for Toki Tori could have been a disaster. If a crappy song had been looping the whole time you were on some levels it could have made you hate life. Fortunately that is not the case and your life can remain unhated because the music is quite pleasant and suits the character of each world adding nicely to their respectively unique atmospheres.

Sample Audio Tracks:

A Brief Side Complaint

I have to admit guys, I got stumped. I got really freaking stumped. I ended up having to tune in to some YouTube video’s on a couple of stages and what I saw was disheartening. For the first time in my adult life I felt old, real old. There they were, two prepubescent lads giving me the secret sauce to Toki Tori, cracking voices and all. The worst part was what they then went on to show me was so blatantly obvious that I had begun to wonder if my brain was becoming completely incapable of non-linear thought processes. Time makes fools of us all, I suppose.

Summary

Toki Tori is $4.99 and is available on WiiWare, PC, and iPhone. The game is challenging and offers a good deal of first play through playtime and solid replay value. There are frequent moments of frustration do to game difficulty, but that is kind of the point of the genre. To puzzle game lovers it’s an easy game to recommend, so I do. To those who aren’t necessarily fans of the genre but are looking for a good value it may be something you should look into.

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