Posts Tagged ‘XBLIG’
115 items.
This may be a touch short game review. I often like to exhaust all of you with all the details of the games I play in hopes of providing you with everything you need to know to buy, demo, or forget a game. Unfortunately in this instance, it is a touch difficult as the game, Strategy Soccer, is: A) A sports game and B) A two-player only game. Now typically the first would not be much of an issue, since I, as an American male, spend most of my time emotionally detached from whats going on around me. But the second issue is a bit more of a problem, because as I have previously mentioned the vast majority of my friends choose to manifest themselves exclusively in various digital formats. But we shall overcome these adversities and do the best we can, so get that ice berg sized grain of salt out and lets get to it.
Gameplay
As the game’s name implies, Strategy Soccer has taken upon itself the task of combining both the sports genre and the turn based strategy genre into one package. This of course runs into its first problem right off the bat since any strategy came you try to make requires a great deal of AI work to make even remotely enjoyable for the single player. Strategy Soccer forgoes this need by simply making it a two player only game, which is great to alleviate the heavy burden of programming, but not necessarily great for anyone with a serious lack of willing and able participants.
It was right out of the gate with Strategy Soccer that it began to be a bit bothersome to review. As I had previously mentioned, the game is two player only and my traditionally anti-social personality has lead to it being practically impossible to find people to coerce into playing the game. So this leaves me with the unfathomably boring option of playing the game single player. Imagine if you will, sitting at a chess board and playing yourself because that is exactly what it is.
Moving beyond the lack of a single player mode we do find a few decent design decisions. First and foremost is the decision to go with a turn based system. This alleviates the major issue of sluggishness and the down right inappropriate use of a console controller for a strategy game. Of course on the negative side of things, it also slows down the pace of an already mind bogglingly slow sport. The game also utilizes an energy system that allocates a certain number of points for each players turn. The points are then spent using an assortment of various abilities which have been balanced by what appear to be fairly well thought out energy costs.
Audio/Visual
Graphically speaking, there isn’t a whole lot going on here to talk about. The little sprites are okay, and their jerseys which represent which country the players are from are neat. Unfortunately, at times it was fairly confusing which players were exactly which if they were for example two countries with predominantly red colors.
Music and sound effects are very minimalistic. They work but aren’t worth mentioning beyond me simply saying there was audio.
Summary
I’m sure the game was intended to capitalize on the international extravaganza that is World Cup. Unfortunately I procrastinated and didn’t get this review up till after it was over. Fortunately, that means I probably wont be killing your World Cup buzz by saying that I think you’d best look elsewhere for a soccer fix. This one just feels pretty half baked as is the 240 Microsoft Price.
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If you’re anything like me, then you’re probably getting a little tired of shooting zombies and are really interested in a change of pace. Maybe you’d like something a little reminiscent of the adventure games of late 1900′s, where something isn’t going to chew your face off or explode if you take a second or two to actually look around and enjoy the environments that have been so painstakingly created. Well then maybe Travis Rogers’ latest installment in the Mind’s Eye of Jupiter series is just the ticket.
Gameplay
As a science fiction based adventure game this ones gameplay is exactly what you think it is. Reminiscent of many 1990′s adventure titles such as Myst, Return to Zork, and the like. You simply wander around, investigating the environment, inspecting objects, and more or less trying to figure out what the math is going on.
Similar to the aforementioned titles, this second installment of the Mind’s Eye of Jupiter series features some puzzle solving in a 3D environment. The puzzles themselves provide the main resistance to progression in the game. Unfortunately, the puzzles are impossibly simple. There is just simply no challenge present in the game other than pick up object x, place object x at location y. Considering their simplicity, the game was notably devoid of any sort of red herrings. For instance, in one room you need to figure out how to open a door to proceed to the next room. In this room there is literally only the objects you need to open the door. All the puzzles in the game seemed to be this way.
Also on the list of negatives is the completely linear layout of the game. There is absolutely zero branching and that is a bit strange for games of this genre. I would have liked to have seen some alternate means to an ends and maybe some outright wrong turns that reward your exploration with some interesting flavor or clues to plot intricacies.
All this complaining may give you the impression that I didn’t enjoy the game, as it turns out this is just not the case. I was quite pleased to be playing a game of this type on the XBLIG as it is quite an unusual offering. The game was short enough to play in a single sitting, which didn’t feel wrong in this particular instance as it felt a bit like reading the chapter of a book. Additionally, the transition for this typically mouse dominated genre to the console worked out pretty well with the use of a pretty solid menu system.
Audio/Visual
The Mind’s Eye of Jupiter series is in 3D. I would liken it to probably a very simplistic looking PlayStation 2 game. I say simplistic because there isn’t an awful lot of “stuff” in the game. Very few objects laying about, mostly large cavernous rooms with heavily geometric looking shaped items. The character models are a little bizarre, but not in a way that negatively effects the game since their presence is limited. As a pure adventure game the world is odd enough that it makes you want to look around, so in that category it does get bonus points. But, as previously mentioned, the lack of branching and additional areas to explore for explorations sake you do feel a little unfulfilled – which is something my girlfriends passed say is sometimes a deal breaker.
Musically the game is unmemorable, it has music and that’s about all I can say for it. It has a sort of a surrealistic scifi feel to it that doesn’t hurt the gameplay and adds to its atmosphere but you aren’t going to be trying to find the soundtrack.
Summary
If you played the first game of the series I think you probably know what to expect and whether you are interested in playing the second installment or not. To those of you interested in starting with the second game you can do so, as the game has an intro that catches you up to speed and doesn’t simply strand you in the middle of an already started narrative. I would say I enjoyed this game as it provided a bit of a breath of fresh air, its unnecessary simplicity may have even contributed to the overall positive experience. With all that said I can’t simply stamp a buy on the 240 MS Point Mind’s Eye of Jupiter – 2, I think it would be best for those who are interested to pick up the game’s demo and see if its plot and world appeal to their tastes. For those who end up uninterested but still seek an adventure game you may want to check out Decay.
As the designated falling block aficionado of Two Fedoras, I love seeing what the Indie community can produce to iterate on such an already markedly established genre with so many classics. This brings us to XBLIG’s latest offering: Acupwnture.
Acupwnture is an unfortunately titled falling block game that, in attempting to be a difficult and unique member of its genre, almost misses the point of being a falling block puzzle game in the first place but still manages to deliver some solid block fun.
Practically ever since the launch of Twilight began to glitter the ultimate human predator, I have more or less been in the midst of an all out vampire boycott. In fact, the only exception in the last two years was playing Castlevania: SOTN on XBLA. Oh and I don’t want to hear any whining from you True Blood soap opera fans either. Now to the point, I’ve momentarily placed a moratorium on the blood sucking boycott for one very special game that we’ll be having a full review of in the near future(between now and when the Sun becomes a Red Giant engulfing the Earth). I’m bored with ending these the same way every time, so just know that the bold stuff is mine.
Dino ‘Splode |
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Dino ‘Splode is an exciting action platformer where the player controls a nearly nuclear dinosaur named Sandwich. The player travels through various unique locations, solves puzzles, survives harsh environments, and makes their way through the bloodthirsty and constantly feuding Caveman nations.
Developer: Owen Deery Price: 240 Microsoft Points Fairly enjoyable platformer with a kind of amusing sun/exploding lizard mechanic that creates a sense of urgency which persists throughout play. The speed of the game feels a little off though, I think it is worth genre fans’ time to give it a demo play. |
This Is Hard |
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Think you’re man enough to conquer the depths of THIS IS HARD? Trek your way through nefarious traps and deadly zombies to escape with your life. Who would fill the world with so many sharp and explosive objects? Conquer these challenges, or join the undead masses.
Developer: Stegersaurus Games Price: 80 Microsoft Points Awesome, hilarious, and fun go get your run on. |
Sharpshooter |
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www.yyrgames.com – An intense test of your target-shooting skills! Experience 20 unique games, dynamically-adjusting difficulty, and optional Double Mode where you play with two guns at once! Compete with a friend in two multiplayer modes, or compete online with Internet Ranking! Will your skills be enough to earn the top grades? Also includes “The Best of Xbox LIVE Indie Games, Volume 1.”
Developer: yyr Price: 80 Microsoft Points Mildly amusing thumb work out, yyr games typically runs competitions on their new releases as well. Competitions with MS Point rewards, so go check that out at their site if you end up getting the game. |
Sword&Magic |
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This game is a horizontal scroll shooting game. The character of two people can be switched. It raises the level when EXP is collected, and power improves. The trial version is 4 stages. The product version is 12 stages.
Developer: HUNTERS Price: 80 Microsoft Points Interesting side-scrolling shooter in which you swap characters in and out during play. The art is a little janky even by pixel art standards and the bullet patterns seem a bit inelegant. It still seems worthy of checking out the demo. |
German 101 |
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Learn German with 1000 flashcards featuring the most commonly used words.
Developer: Glass Joe Price: 80 Microsoft Points This one, obviously, isn’t a game in the traditional sense of the word. I still felt like mentioning it as it seems the developer put a lot of effort into its creation. |
Vampire Rage |
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Cursed for an eternity with the loss of a loved one. Revenge is a dish best served cold! Vampire Rage is a fast paced shooter, themed around vampires and the undead. Can you handle the RAGE?!
Developer: tricktale Price: 80 Microsoft Points A very very impressive demo experience. I would be willing to speculate that this one could be the best vertical scrolling shooter offering since Shoot 1UP! Just the environment and its various layers of parallax are enough for a thrill. |
Ancient Trader |
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The smell of exotic spices and the thunder of the sea accompany your journey as you discover new islands with thriving harbours full of goods. Sail through unknown waters where no ship went before, compete with other traders, fight mythical sea-monsters and gather ancient artefacts to claim a legendary treasure. Ancient Trader is a quick, pick-up-and play arcade family-entertainment strategy game.
Developer: Fourkidsgames Price: 240 Microsoft Points This one has a really nice look to it. I don’t know how good or bad the gameplay is as it seemed hard to get a feel for it quickly which could mean there is some gameplay depth there. It may have helped if I had read any of the help or tutorials, but those are for pussies. |
Alright, it has been a considerable length of time since our last update, so as you can imagine that means there was a ton of games to go through. I did my best to hit all of them and catch us up to todays releases. I gotta say there have been a ton of really good looking releases since I left on vacation and hopefully I’ll have time to go back and play them all the way through. On the other hand there was also a lot of total shit too — “Try Not to Fart,” seriously? Stay classy Silver Dollar Games. Anyways, the descriptions of the games below have been carefully concocted by the marketing arms of their respective developers. Our scant commentary will be displayed in bold.
And just what do we have here? Do my eyes deceive me? Is it another game from the folks of Zeboyd Games? It sure as hell is, and in typical Zeboyd fashion the plot is redonk and the characters just absurd enough to be perfect. The game will play very similar to Breath of Death as it shares the same throwback JRPG niche genre and it appears to run on the same engine that has since received some sexification. I’m also very pleased to see the game priced at 240 Microsoft Points, BoD VII was simply an absurd value at the 80 MSP price point. In any case, the full press release along with a couple screen shots is below. Cthulhu Saves the World is scheduled to hit an Xbox near you this upcoming August.
Press Release:
Zeboyd Games (Breath of Death VII: The Beginning) is proud to announce their upcoming RPG, Cthulhu Saves the World for the XBox 360.
Cthulhu was all set to plunge the world into insanity and destruction when a band of heroes cursed him and sealed away his powers. The only way for him to break the curse is to become a true hero. Save the world to destroy it!
Features:
An epic journey of redemption and insanity!
Classic 8/16-bit style combined with the best of modern gameplay design.
720p! Parallax scrolling! Backgrounds!
Use magic and skills to inflict insanity upon your opponents! Insane enemies are more dangerous but also more vulnerable!
More accessible than ever before! Collect Save Notebooks to save wherever you like! Collect 1Ups to retry failed battles!
7 playable characters – Umi the beautiful heroine with an unhealthy obsession with the ocean, Sharpe the sentient floating sword, October the cute necromancer, Paws the alien cat, Dacre a senile old man, Ember the dark dragon, and of course, Cthulhu from the classic horror of H.P. Lovecraft!
A 6-10 hour main quest with multiple difficulties and post-game modes like Score Attack and Highlander to increase replayability!
All of the great features players know and love from Breath of Death VII: The Beginning have returned – fast-paced gameplay, combo system, random encounter limits, unite techniques, branching LV-Ups, and more!
Cthulhu Saves the World is currently scheduled for an August 2010 release on Xbox Live Indie Games. It will cost 240 MS points ($3 USD).
For samples of the game music head on over to Zeboyd.com
It’s been a few days since we had an update. Fortunately for me, it seems the developers took it easy over the weekend and didn’t go nuts releasing games. That said, we did have a fair amount to get checked out and below you’ll find the creame of the crop. As the title suggests, we do have a favorite in the group that is very deserving of your attention. The descriptions of the games below are the handy work of the games’ respective developers. Our commentary is prominently displayed in bold.
Solar Hoops |
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For an unknown reason, you are trying to catch a fiery meteor as it falls through a maze of stars into a waste basket being pulled by a spaceship.
Developer: Shawn Ryan Price: 80 Microsoft Points A surprisingly fun combination of a Peggle like game and a puzzle game. Seems like a solid game to mellow out with. |
Kubrik 3D |
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Kubrik 3D is an addictive 3D take on a block stacking classic. Rotate the falling shapes then drop them into place to clear layers. The object being to prevent the blocks from reaching the top and to survive as long as possible. Featuring colourful 3d graphics and exciting fast paced gameplay, Kubrik 3D takes this style of puzzler into the next dimension !
Developer: Mr Zilog Price: 80 Microsoft Points The game is more or less three dimensional Tetris. It plays fairly well but I think it would have benefited enormously from having a drop shadow helping indicate block placement. |
Plasma Spheres 2 |
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Plasma Spheres 2 is a retro arcade game where players navigate a bouncing sphere through a bizarre world. In the campaign, players must collect items and experience to survive waves of diverse enemies including Zombies, Pirates, and Ninjas. In battle mode, a myriad of weapons, items, and objectives make for a wide array of multiplayer fun. A full physics engine makes every match unpredictable.
Developer: abnormalsoft Price: 80 Microsoft Points I like it, I don’t know if it is actually any good, but I like it anyways. |
Apple Jack |
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Ever felt the urge to throw a washing machine at a panda? Apple Jack is a platform/puzzle game in which you DESTROY enemies by picking them up and HURLING them at each other! Journey west through five counties and 100 levels on a quest to rescue your beloved dog from the icy summit of Mount Snowdon!,
Developer: My Owl Software Price: 80 Microsoft Points Like platformers? I think you can go ahead and pick this one up. I haven’t gotten to spend any sort of meaningful time with it outside of the demo, but just from a quality of feel I think this one is likely to be well worth the 80 points. |
Avatar Paintball |
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Take your very own Avatar into the battlefield and compete online in Avatar Paintball. Play online with up to 16 players, in a fully 3D world, complete with weapon unlocks, battlefield power-ups and portals! Compete with the rest of the world with the global high-score list.
Developer: DigitalDNA Price: 240 Microsoft Points I hate avatars, but I really like the world the developers have created for this game. It just has a lot of character. The over the shoulder camera angle is pretty annoying though. I would recommend trial playing the game before deciding to buy. |
Rock A Block |
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An original racing, puzzle, platform game. Rotate your colored block to match the roller coaster of primary colors as you race up to 5 opponents along a brain twisting track of twitch gameplay or go head to head in 2 player. Alternatively take on the championship mode. Nine unlockable maps, five unlockable opponents and 9 unlockable add ons that give your racer boosted attributes
Developer: diskyoz Price: 80 Microsoft Points Game looks good, the play is fairly shallow but may have some good party game benefits. It’s ability to appeal to that audiance is limited however, by it having a maximum of two players. |
So much for completionist XBLIG coverage — personally I blame Two Fedoras reader Sylath for only encouraging us to continue our cherry picking approach. But seeing as how I think he is the only reader we have, it seems fair to pander to our super majority holding constituent. The descriptions of the games below are the handy work of the respective developers. Our commentary is bold so you can easily skip it.
Project Zero |
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Prepare to wage war against the evil Construct forces in this epic space shooter! – alone or with a wingman. Never before has war in space been this intense, or looked so good!
Developer: Angry Aardvark Price: 80 Microsoft Points A vertical scrolling twin-stick shooter, it has powerups and other fun things. It does seem to have a little bit of slow down issue when things start blowing up. There isn’t too much danger of this one shaking up the top three contenders in the genre, but it could be a fun diversion for fans. |
Battle Tanks |
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GET READY TO EXPERIENCE THE NEXT LEVEL OF TANK WARFARE! POWER-UP YOUR TANK, DEFEND YOUR BASE, CONQUER YOUR ENEMIES! PLAY SOLO OR COOPERATIVELY WITH A FRIEND!
Developer: Angry Aardvark Price: 240 Microsoft Points Shouting descriptions aside, this one is definitely a game that involves battling tanks. I have to admit, I’m not a fan of tank controls, so as you may suspect, it’s quite difficult for me to like any sort of tank based game. Fortunately, not being entirely egocentric has its benefits, as I can understand someone out there somewhere may appreciate the style of play more than I do. As far as that goes the game seemed solid enough for that guy/girl, whoever he or she is. |
Scribble Defense |
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You are the Scribble Meister, a master of inks and defender of Scribbles. As their sole protector, you alone defend them from an unrelenting march of vicious Scrawls. Each puzzling level will challenge you to play creatively; deploy destructive towers to unleash powerful attacks, or kinetic towers to manipulate foes and the very paths they use to assault you. Hurry, the Scribbles need your help!
Developer: mechaghost Price: 80 Microsoft Points This is a pretty neat little tower defense style game. It didn’t necessarily do anything brilliant or new, it just looked cool and played well. Which is more than enough reason for you to go check it out. |
If you are a twin-stick shooter fan like I am, you likely have a list of games that have excelled in the last few years at raising the bar of the genre. Accompanying that lis, is probably another list of things you enjoyed, liked, loved, and hated from each of those games. I think Radiangames had a very similar list when it begain creation of JoyJoy, because crammed into this game is damn near everything I ever had on my love list.
Gameplay
In terms of gameplay, JoyJoy is a standard twin-stick shooter. However, it brings to the table its own compilation of mechanics to present a unique experience to a genre whose features tend to be rather ubiquitous.
All of the gameplay of JoyJoy takes place in a single frame, similar to that of Pew Pew Pod and dissimilar to that of Geometry Wars. I find this to be the best possible format as the scrolling window of GW2 can often lead to things spawning while off screen. JoyJoy also has one more thing in common with Pew Pew Pod, it has a whole host of different weapons that can be toggled through by tapping the right and left bumpers.
In addition to the standard firing modes of the weapons there is also a charge up and release special to each of the weapons. The multiple weapons and the varying firing capabilities adds a good deal of depth to the game, as they allow you to play strategically based on what the game is throwing at you.
A strong divergence from the pack is shown in the design of the gameplay modes. Campaign is the main play mode featuring over twenty waves of enemies, swarms, and even a hand full of boss encounters. Each boss you’ll encounter in campaign mode will have its own bullet patterns and flight paths to keep you thinking on your feet.
On top of the campaign mode, there are also challenges. These challenges offer up special circumstances like limited selection of weapons, and a style of enemy attack. For instance, you may be given a couple spread style weapons to chose from to take out swarms of enemies for four minutes. These challenge modes are made available once campaign mode is cleared. There are six challenges and each of the unlocks a modifier once beaten.
Modifiers are probably the best feature of the gameplay and is something I think should become a staple of the genre. They basically behave as cheat codes that can modify anything from firing speed to invincibility. You can turn on any of them you want and play through the whole campaign mode on any of its plethora of difficulty modes.
JoyJoy is probably one of the most polished games on the XBLIG service. The game stands out even in the heavily populated twin-stick shooter genre as one of the best. The controls are tight, responsive, and intelligently designed with no major or minor points of contention. Slowdowns are almost non existent, in fact even when you enable invulnerability and let waves of enemies stack up the game only slightly begins to show slowdowns in frame rates.
There are a couple negative points to JoyJoy. I found that I enjoyed the challenge modes, so much so in fact that I wish there had been many more of them. As it is there are only a handful of challenges, though each of them does allow you to play a pretty generous variety of difficulty modes. In addition to the challenge modes, I would have loved to have seen some more crazy mods to accompany them — maybe like some really crazy unlockable weapons that are totally game breaking. Last but not least on the mode QQ’ing, the addition of an endless mode would have been a nice addition to the game.
One omission that does detract slightly from the game is the lack of an online scoreboard. I’m guessing this is a result of the modifiers system, as they would likely dramatically effect the design of such a scoreboard system.
Audio/Visual
Like candy for your eyeballs, JoyJoy is literally joyful in every aspect of its visual being. The color scheme is to receive the bulk of the culpability for the games splendor, as it features light and fluffy pastels with varying degrees of richness and are all coordinated for each wave. The colors then shift around a bit as you go through the levels and never ceases looking perfect.
JoyJoy tosses in a little gravity based movement in the background of the game with stars that swirl around your ship as you charge your weapon to full and gather around vortexes that capture enemies and hold them in place for you. Despite the star’s delightful visual display, their light creamy coloring keeps them low key enough to never become a distraction.
The audio of the game matches the visuals exceptionally well. It is light and soft-spoken but well designed and of high production quality. There is a verse in one of the songs that is frighteningly ear catching every time it comes up, I always feel as though I know the tune but can never put my finger on it. In any case the music is very good, it doesn’t make the game but it does certainly add to its over all high value.
You can listen to the music At Radiangames’ bandcamp page.
Summary
JoyJoy has quickly become one of my favorite twin-stick shooters on the Xbox Platform. Yes, that means I think it is better than Geometry Wars, if for no other reason than just being more accessible and a more fun experience. At 80 Microsoft Points, you’ve really got no excuse not to pick this game up, especially if you consider yourself a fan of the genre.
