PC

Review – Star Sky (PC)

May 9th, 2011

Review – PC – Star Sky

Mårten Jonsson | Released 05.09.2011

There was a recent news article floating around about “Video Games now Considered Art”. Now, personally, there are some questionable artistic content in say, Call of Duty, but even Movies can be considered Art and still have their craptastic turns like Revenge of the Fallen.

Then there are games that really feel like they have some level of artistic quality to them. They are interesting and original and evoke a bit of emotional reaction that isn’t just straight adrenaline. Star Sky, a recent indie title out of Sweeden is that sort of title. It’s seems odd to call this a game considering it’s general lack of game like qualities. There’s no score, there’s no competitiveness, there’s no killing of anything (as far as I can tell). It’s mostly just a quiet simple narrative told through the basic imagery on screen.

The execution really does make the experience here though. The basic silhouette graphic style adds a lot of mystery. It’s all very crisp and well designed too which makes it clear what you’re looking at despite any real depth. The sound definitely helps with the atmosphere presented here as well. There’s a lot of natural outdoorsy sounds, crickets chirping, occasionally there’s rain fall. The key is that there are slight cues, mostly in the form of a light flourish of music to indicate that “this is an area where something could happen”.

These events however are dependent on what you’ve done previously, for example, you won’t gain your companion follower if you didn’t previously gather the rose. But then you may not WANT to pick her up. There are about 20 different scenarios to come across and unlock and it’ll take multiple plays to get through it. This isn’t quite as tricky as it seems though considering that a single play through lasts maybe 5-10 minutes.

Overall though, it IS short and it IS fairly basic in game play. The experience is well executed and it’s certainly a good example of “Video Games as Art”. It also helps that it’s a $2.99 game, so it falls very much in the realm of impulse buy, especially if it looks at all interesting.

Review – BIT.TRIP BEAT (PC)

by Ramen Junkie.

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Gaijin Games | Nov 2nd, 2010

What do you get when you take the simplicity of Pong, a game that involves hitting small square “balls” with a rectangular paddle, and add in some musical aspects, a bit of plot, and ramp up the play mechanics beyond a 2 player game of tennis? Whatever it would be, it’s probably pretty close to BIT.TRIP BEAT. Ok, really the only thing they really share in common is hitting balls with paddles and retro styling. The general premise here is that you must deflect a series of rhythmic balls back with your paddle. They are more or less in time with the beat making this a bit of a Rhythm game, though not really in the traditional, Dance Dance Revolution/Guitar Hero sense. It’s not as straight forward as it seems either. You’ll start out with straight flying balls in a regular fashion but the game quickly becomes more complex with balls that stop or fly in series and move at angles striking just off from one another. It can get pretty complex at times.

As you deflect more you build up a larger multiplier for your score. You also change from various modes depending on how well you’re doing, which actually ramps up the difficulty some. If you continue to do well, you’ll go from all of the balls producing melodic notes and producing flashing sparks down to a very bleak near death black screen with white dots, no background music and only simple beeping to signify that you’ve hit anything. Miss too much in this basic distraction free mode, and it’s Game Over. It’s generally a fun game, you’ve gotta be quick and the chip tune style music is well mixed. It’s a bit short unfortunately. There’s only a few stages and songs to play though each song is pretty long and consists of several “stages” in itself. The recent Valve Potato Themed ARG added a nice Glados themed tune in addition to the original songs.

There’s even some bosses. These bosses are large blocks of balls which come out and shoot parts of themselves at you. There’s a bit of a benefit here because the ball color tends to correspond to how it acts and knowing what a boss is made from can help anticipate how to react. For example, the boss pictured here has simple yellow straight shooting balls but it also has a lot of the orange “bounce” balls which require being juggled for 3 or 4 hops before they leave the area. The simple graphics are charmingly well done as well, though when things start to explode or the background gets a little bright it can make the game difficult to keep track of. This is part of the game’s difficulty though there are times when it feels like kind of a cheap shot at artificially increasing the difficulty. So in summary, BIT.TRIP BEAT is a decent musical retro styled game that should appeal to fans of twitch style rhythm based gameplay. It could stand to be a bit longer but it’s a pretty solid and well made game otherwise.

Review – Rush (PC)

Apr 18th, 2011

by Ramen Junkie.

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Dec 3, 2010 | Two Tribes

Rush is a Puzzle game of directional control. I’ve been racking my brain trying to remember the game it reminds me of but the best I could come up with is Chu Chu Rocket. It’s not really a clone of Chu Chu Rocket though it does sort of share the same basic premise of gameplay. Basically, there are cube spawners laid out on a 3D board, the object is to lead the cubes to a collector of the same color. You have a limited number of tiles to use to accomplish this task and you’ll always have enough tiles to solve the puzzle exactly. The trick is keeping the cubes from falling off the edge of the playing area and keeping them from colliding with one another. This will often involve careful timing and the use of less obvious solutions to keep the cubes from hitting each other.

There are a few different types of tiles available to accomplish this task. Regular arrows will cause blocks to change direction immediately as if they were continuing in a regular line. There are also separator blocks which will alternate which direction blocks are sent as they arrive. Also available are conveyors which will slide a block in a particular direction without changing it’s natural direction of travel. For timing purposes there are stop signs, which will hold tiles for a short period of time. Finally there are walls themselves, which will cause a cube to turn but also add a short delay.

The three dimensional aspect comes heavily into play in the later levels. You’ll be required to rotate the view around to get all of the angles and often trial and error is needed to discern the proper placement of the directional tiles on the board. Often you’ll want to drop a cube off a cliff to a lower level, just so long as it doesn’t fall off completely. If you are good at thinking in multiple dimensions, including time, many of the puzzles will come off as pretty obvious and the game is a bit easy at times. If you get stuck however you can use one of two hints. One will tell you which of the tiles you’ve placed are correct, the other will tell you which spaces are supposed to have tiles on them. Neither will give you an instant solution, but they are both useful if you get stuck.

Graphically the game isn’t too bad. It’s simplistic but it serves it’s purpose. everything runs smoothly and when a large number of blocks are chugging along it looks fairly impressive. The one real complaint I have, other than the occasional easy difficulty. is that there isn’t a fast forward feature. Several of the levels seem like they are just endlessly pumping out blocks when the solution is extremely simple. This can lead to simply sitting and waiting for a good time as blocks parade into the catch. It’s a bit of a pain and being able to speed up the action would be nice.

Overall Rush is a decent puzzle game and there are enough levels to keep you busy without having so many that the game seems overwhelming. Still the appeal is mostly for people interested in puzzle style games.

I also can’t immediately come up with something else that this game feels like it’s knocking off, which is often a problem plaguing puzzle games.

Review – Your Doodles are Bugged! (PC)

Apr 5th, 2011

by Ramen Junkie.

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Blitz 1UP | 04.05.2011

This is one of those games I’ve been meaning to look into since it was released. That is, it showed up one day on Steam’s New Release list, it seemed kind of interesting, so I stuck it on my wish list. Then I never got around to actually getting it or trying it or picking it up. It’s an interesting little title that comes off as sort of a combination of something like Crayon Physics and Lemmings.

On it’s surface, it IS a combination of Crayon Physics and Lemmings. You have to draw lines on the map between some existing doodles to help a batch of little hopping bugs get to the large honey pot. Unlike Crayon Physics, your drawings are stationary once placed. Unlike Lemmings, your bugs do not have other special functions. They do jump rather randomly and blindly around the world. There are some obstacles to this endeavor in that your pen only has a limited supply of ink. Also the bugs are pretty erratic and can be unpredictable at times. Also as the game progresses there are special surfaces and objects that show up such as killing floors and portals which will teleport bugs to other areas.

The basic premise is pretty much exactly as it sounds though. The gameplay itself is a pretty neat concept and it’s fairly fun to play… Initially.

Your Doodles are Bugged is not without it’s flaws, which can stack up to make the game a little frustrating. Where to start. How about the basic mechanics, which can be a little, buggy, pun intended. Sometimes I’ve found that when bugs get stacked up on a corner or tight area they can actually manage to wiggle through the line you’ve made. This can be frustrating when you’re doing well at saving all of the bugs and not just the required number, but it’s even more frustrating when you’re short on ink and have to rebuild some elaborate scaffolding in order to lead the single bug back up to it’s friends.

A similar problem comes up with the erratic nature of the bugs’ behavior. 49 out of fifty bugs may hop right on across a little set of ramps but that one left over one, for whatever reason, will hit something and turn around, often causing the need to panic and stop it from leaping off a cliff. Meanwhile you’re trying to keep a handle on the other 49 bugs. There is also a timed aspect to each stage, which only functions for the leaderboards, so it’s not super critical, but often you’ll end up watching a pit of bugs hop around randomly while frustratingly begging them to “JUST CLIMB UP THE RAMP ALREADY DANG IT”. Meanwhile, your level time is sky rocketing.

Possibly the biggest frustration is the tediousness of it all. A lot of this comes from the limited ink supply. It becomes apparent fairly early that the primary way to tackle a lot of the levels easily is to paint a line, which is thick by default, then slowly reabsorb bits of the line so it’s a thin line allowing you to more or less double to triple the amount of lines you can make. This is an extremely slow process. I realize the limited ink supply is basically meant to create more challenge but it might have been better as an optional method of play for people who want a tedious challenge.

I know I feel like I’m kind of dumping on this game but it really can’t be helped. I DO very much like the concept, I just really feel like the execution could use a little more polish. I’d recommend waiting for a sale, or a bundle, but if the concept seems interesting you’ll probably get some enjoyment out of this title, just be prepared to get frustrated and possibly bored of it halfway through.

Your Doodles are Bugged on Steam.

Review – Din’s Curse (PC)

Mar 23rd, 2011

by Ramen Junkie.

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Note, This review originally appeared on DieHardGame Fan and this game was received for free as a review copy.

Din’s Curse: Demon War
Developer: Soldak Entertainment:
Publisher: Soldak entertainment
Genre: RPG
Release Date: February 23^rd, 2011

Din’s Curse is a Hack’n’Slash style RPG in the vein of Diablo or Icewind Dale. Using a random dungeon generator and real time combat and action, it is a more fast paced Role Playing experience than the more traditional turn based and story driven RPG. Each play through is, by design, different than the previous, though there will be some similar basic ideas and events. Din’s Curse is heavy on the customization options and it adds a lot to this style of game to set it apart from its obvious Diablo roots.

Primary among these differences is the time based nature of many of its quests. Most quests have some level of time limit in play. Some may essentially be infinite where you have to find some object buried deep in the dungeon, others may require more urgent action, such as finding a person from within the dungeon. In most RPG, a rescue mission will generally sit and wait for the player to arrive to initiate some sort of story sequence. In Din’s Curse, if you sit and wait around, the person you’re trying to rescue will likely be killed. Your choices also affect how the town people you’re trying to save will treat you. As you complete more quests for a particular person they may give you free items or discounts on weapons and armor. Completing more quests also will open up more optional quests as people trust you more. You’ll also be helping the townspeople become more powerful in the event that the town starts to become overrun by the monsters in the area.

The original game featured 6 base classes, Warrior, Rogue, Priest, Wizard, Ranger, and Conjurer. Each of these classes have their own skill set to be upgraded as you level up. The skill sets are also divided into more specific class types. For example, the Warrior is divided further into Weaponmaster, Gladiator, and Defender. When creating your character, you can also combine specialties from two different classes to make a custom Hybrid class. You’d first select a primary skill such as Gladiator from the Warrior Class, then you could add a bit of magic with the Warlock specialty from the Conjurer class. Demon War adds the Demon Hunter Class, which is a class specifically designed to kill off Demon type creatures.

1. Story

The core story is one that is fairly generic, you’ve been cursed by the giant God Din and must do his bidding in order to earn your freedom. His bidding involves saving many towns from monsters and plagues and other threats by doing tasks for the people in the towns. It should be noted that the action takes place in the town or in the cave the town has been constructed around. Why the towns folk built their town directly on top of a cave full of monsters is anyone’s guess.

This story is mostly a throw away excuse for the basic replay-ability gimmick. You create a character, you save a town, you move on to another town. The town based gameplay makes for a nice stopping point for anyone wanting to play multiple characters without feeling like they are starting over with the exact same quests they just finished on the previous character.

There are also a large dynamic of mini stories and interactions. The towns and dungeons are randomly generated. They share many of the same basic traits but layouts and the quests that occur are all different each play. There are also time based elements that add to the urgency of the quests. You may find out that some Boss monster is amassing an army on Level 8 of the dungeon but you’re still on Level 2. You’ll have some time to get there but take too long and you’ll find that army storming the town and killing the townspeople. One person may complain they are starving, if you fail to donate to them they’ll soon die off. This randomness is the main draw point of this game.

Story Rating: Very Good

2. Graphics

This game is an RPG in the tabletop sense more than the console sense. This means your hero is fairly generic and it’s up to you to decide his look and story based on your actions and various equipment you find. This also tends to lend itself to an issue of generic-ness among everything. Even the difference between a male and female character are fairly indiscernible. This wouldn’t be so bad except that nearly all of the NPCs also use the same basic character model. The end result is that you have a town full of identical looking dudes being saved by one slightly different looking dude.

The dungeons get a bit better with a few varied environment styles and a decent selection of enemies to fight. Still it’s not always easy to quickly pick out a particular enemy from a group due to the dark and muddy look to everything. This can be particularly annoying if you need to “Kill X number of Y”. What happens is you end up slogging through a swarm of enemies then getting random pop ups stating say, “5 of 10 enemies left”.

The screen can also get confusingly busy times, especially as enemies start dropping items into a groups of enemies. You pick up items by clicking on the name and the name banners are a little large. This can lead to trying to beat back a horde of enemies while accidentally making your character charge head first into the melee to grab some random potion that was dropped. Often the name banners will obscure the screen making it hard to tell what is attacking you and which enemies need dealt with first.

Graphics Rating: Decent

3. Sound

Keeping in line with the somewhat mediocre graphics, the sound is fairly weak as well. There are a fairly limited number of effects to go around and there’s one particularly annoying screeching noise that occurs on a regular basis when certain enemies attack. The sound factor of this game is generally just unremarkable. Not much can be said about it positive or negatively.

Sound Rating: Mediocre

4. Control and Gameplay

Unfortunately, there isn’t any better way to explain the gameplay than to mention Diablo. The gameplay at its core is almost identical to Blizzard’s popular franchise. This isn’t actually a terrible point since it does a good job of mimicking the better aspects of Diablo. It also adds a ton of options and customization not present in Diablo as well which will be touched on in later sections of this review.

The real issue is that there’s almost too much going on at any one time. There’s a ticker of activities that runs in the lower corner of the screen that is easy to overlook. Given the time sensitive nature of many quests this can lead to missing opportunities and not even realizing it. Or worse, failing a quest you’ve picked up without realizing it.

The controls themselves are very basic. Most of the time you’ll be clicking the mouse button repeatedly to attack and move. You also have a pretty standard set of RPG menus to navigate for inventory, stats, equipment, and skills. There are hotkeys that can be assigned for attacks and skills as well.

Control and Gameplay Rating: Above Average

5. Replayability

With the lack of a real overarching story, the random nature is used to essentially create a new game every time you play. The dungeons are randomly generated in each town. A single town can be saved after a couple of hours of gameplay. This is one of the better differences between Din’s Curse and Diablo. This makes it easier to say, play a bit as a fighter, then, start a new game as a thief or try a magic based class. Your characters can be reused after you’ve saved a town, keeping all of their stats and equipment. Over time your characters will become very high level. Fortunately monsters level up to match your character to keep up the challenge.

Another extreme plus for replay is the shared chest. Your character has a personal chest for storing loot that is found that may not be immediately useful or that the player simply wants to keep. There is also a shared chest available which all characters can access. This is great for when your Fighter finds a good magic augmenting weapon that a Wizard could use.

The point is that the replay factor is fairly high. There’s good breaks in the flow to allow players to feel less like they are abandoning a character for another one and there’s plenty of options to help keep the player on their toes for future rounds. The built in randomness makes it less repetitive to try a new character as well. With the ability to mix classes for custom characters creating nearly 200 class combinations, you’ll want to play several characters at a time.

Replayability Rating: Incredible

6. Balance

This is one area that the game has working for it. There is a nice system in place when you start a Town that allows you to set the level of the monsters compared to your own level. If you’re having trouble you can set them really low level. If you think it’s too easy, feel free to level up the monsters higher than your character. If that’s not good enough you can also enable several custom options to make the game trickier such as the need to eat regularly or the option to play “Hardcore” mode where when you die, that’s it.

Balance Rating: Great

7. Originality

The basic concept presented here isn’t anything overly original. There have been plenty of item collecting dungeon crawling RPGs in the past. Din’s Curse does add a good amount of originality for it’s open style of gameplay however. You’re not locked into one set storyline and you’re not even limited by the idea that you may actually fail to save the town you’re trying to save. Things may simply all fall against your favor and the place becomes overrun. There will be another town to come back to next round. It’s not excessively original in its concept but if it were too different it wouldn’t appeal to its core target.

Originality Rating: Good

8. Addictiveness

Din’s Curse definitely falls into a category of gaming that relies on compulsion. The need to find better gear or to keep going because one more quest won’t take THAT long to finish is pretty good. The gameplay is a bit repetitive but it also has a good factor of regular reward. None of the quests are overly difficult or tedious to complete which gives it a bit of a casual gameplay feel despite its larger more time consuming RPG core. The myriad of options also work well to keep a player interested.

There’s also an online component to allow you to play with friends. This only helps push the competitive desire to keep going.

Addictiveness Rating: Good

9. Appeal Factor

Fans of dungeon crawlers and item gathering will like this game and all of its options. If you have an overwhelming need to fight monster after monster hoping for the last drop of your special Uber rare set item this game will deliver it to you. For the rest of us it gets a bit repetitious after a few rounds. There isn’t a ton of variety in the quests and the endless crummy items that are good for nothing but selling off in town get old fairly quickly. In short, if you like Diablo 1 or 2, you’ll probably like this game.

Appeal Factor Rating: Very Good

10. Miscellaneous

The real factor that sets this game apart is it’s dynamically generated gameplay. I know I’ve mentioned this before but it is a strong component of the game that makes it unique and helps make up for some of its presentation flaws. The simpler graphics and sound aren’t anything groundbreaking and does add some charm to the game. I used to be a huge fan of RPGs but as time went on, I found I had less and less time to spend on a lengthy story. Din’s Curse does a pretty good job of taking the RPG style of game play and making it more digestible in byte sized components. The random level system is great for this and the almost “Stage Style” nature of the Towns makes it easy to get into a game for a bit, complete a town, then take a break and come back later for some more. You don’t feel like you’re abandoning your characters and you don’t have to try to remember what you were doing last time you played it. Unlike Diablo, you’re not going to be playing the same two dozen quests every time you start a new game either. Yes there is some repetition and similarities in quests but there’s enough variety to make it less noticeable. Demon War also adds some options to engage Town People in combat so if you really want you can just go completely Chaotic Evil and slaughter everyone instead of saving them.

Miscellaneous Rating: Great

Story Rating: Very Good
Graphics Rating: Decent
Sound Rating: Mediocre
Control and Gameplay Rating: Above Average
Replayability Rating: Incredible
Balance Rating: GreatOriginality Rating: Good
Addictiveness Rating: Good
Appeal Factor Rating: Very Good
Miscellaneous Rating: Great

Overall Rating: Good

Short Attention Span Summary:

Din’s Curse is a decent Diablo style clone that takes the core formula and adds a lot to it. It’s primary drawback comes in its slightly dull presentation and somewhat repetitive gameplay, though the repetitiveness is part of the territory when it comes to this style of RPG.