Surprisingly fun
A simple game that turned out to be surprisingly fun, despite its simplicity. Definitely a good way to kill 5 or 10 minutes, though there's not much to play for once you beat 35 seconds. Still, you should give this fun little game a shot, if nothing else to get your reaction time.
Not what I expected...
I found several good things about this game. The level designs were obviously carefully thought out and the challenges themselves seemed nice and solid.
However, I couldn't bring myself to play it all the way through. It wasn't the lack of powerups or the incredible challenge that finally led me to drop out of playing.
It was, first and foremost, that Mario, and to a lesser extent, the entire game, is too slow. The pacing of the game is simply glacial and is totally misplaced in a game where the goal is to get to the other side of the screen, repeat until game cleared.
The design of the stages was excellent, and it made me want to keep playing. Unfortunately, the long, slow crawl across the screen was too powerful a deterrent to continued play for me.
As a side note, if you get too close to the left edge of the screen, it kills you. I don't know if this is a bug or not, but it warrants mentioning.
Objectivity (and length) follows
Let me go on and talk about what I liked about this piece first.
The interface is slick and smooth, and the presentation is among the best I've had the pleasure of seeing. The ability to customize your fighter is also a welcome touch. All of the animations and effects were of extremely high quality, and the overall look of the game was awe-inspiring.
However, there were several things that, while they did not directly detract from the experience, were noticeably absent from the game. I never did figure out how to throw reliably. The combo system was likewise confusing, as it at first seemed like my combo was resetting prematurely, but then sometimes I'd just drop the last hit of the combo from a dead start. I figured out in short order what the guard meter was, but all of these little issues would have been removed from the outset if instructions were included.
I won't touch too much on the gameplay as its been hammered on enough in the few reviews I went through before playing. Hold A, win, repeat. I can appreciate how hard an effective AI is to write, so I don't hold that against you. However, my fighter felt sluggish while moving, and the lack of an ability to quickly change position (jump/dash/sidestep/etc) made me feel like I was playing Urban Champion again. This was reinforced by my extremely limited moveset; combo, guard, throw, inch forward or backward. The ability to say, toss out that jumping back kick whenever I wanted to, or to crouch or attack low on my opponent would have likewise been nice. If my opponent is just going to be a glorified punching bag, at least let me pound him with more style.
I still gave this overall high marks because it is an extremely well-presented and complete game, even if the game itself is lacking in things I personally find essential to a fighting game. With some more work on the substance to go with the style, you'd have a monstrous hit on your hands, I believe.
Thanks for taking the time to write such comprehensive review, Ben_Fox :)
Memory Lane
What's scary is I remember all of those ads being on TV. If you'd only had the one with the guy on the gray screen yelling the Zelda enemy names in odd voices, it would have been perfect. Then again, the fact you managed to dig all these up is impressive enough. Very cool.
Not as easy as it looks!
This game is considerably harder than it looks! After I got the hang of controlling the ball, things got easier for me, but that didn't detract from the challenge of the levels. Your user levels are downright sadistic, and I'm not completely sure that levels that pretty much require you to get lucky and get a ball-shrinking powerup are that good of an idea. Besides that, however, it was definitely a very original and fun game. I liked it, keep up the good work!
Argh
It was a great game. But because it's controlled with the mouse, when I was trying to launch a ball I wound up voting 1 for it by accident! Argh! This is easily a 4, too. A keyboard control option would be absolutely great for it, and that's my only suggestion. Besides that, it's great.
Meh, not bad
As Space Invaders clones go, it wasn't too bad. All the old tricks worked pretty well, but by far the best thing about it was the Carmida Burana remix, which ended, for no good reason, after about the second stage. What's up with that?
My only other complaint is somewhere later in the game, the aliens finally broke through and hit the bottom, and suddenly the game just restarted from the beginning, my score disappeared, the music restarted, I was back on level 1, but my barriers were still all damaged. A game over screen, at the very least, would be nice in that situation.
Still, not a bad remix. Good work.
No, no, no, no, no.
Let me preface this by saying that I am an old-skool side scrolling shooter fanatic. That means, generally, that I expect more from that genre of game than any other.
Right off the bat, I'm playing a big, sluggish target. Sure, I guess the fact that I have a health bar is supposed to offset the fact that I'm too big and slow to effectively dodge anything. But it doesn't.
Next up is the fact that, because the fire key is mapped to the space bar, I can only move vertically or horizontally while I'm firing; I can't move diagonally and shoot, further reducing my already pitiful mobility and limited effectiveness. If this lumbering amateur is our last hope for freedom, we are indeed doomed.
There are no powerups. You're stuck with a peashooter through the whole game, while facing off against 4-5 enemies that take upwards of 10 hits each to destroy at once, and your only choice is to suck it up, lose 25% of your health, and maybe, just maybe, get a health powerup that restores such a laughably small portion of your bar that I wonder why they're even in the game.
The really good shooters, when they kill you, leave you with the feeling that if you'd just done one thing a little different, you would have made it. This does not get that response from me. In fact, it's quite the opposite; I feel like nothing I could do would change the outcome.
Pretty graphics do not a game make, nor do hordes of enemies on the screen at once. A shooter has to give the player the tools, like firepower and mobility, that they need to dispatch the enemies they face. A slow, large target with a pitifully weak gun and limited move+fire options does not fit that bill.
I appreciate the effort, but I cannot give this game a thumbs up. My apologies.
Well
I can appreciate the work that went into it. I was thinking that this wasn't that bad, then I got stuck in a wall. It's still a pretty magnificent piece of coding wizardry, but I'm afraid your engine is far too memory-intensive to ever do anything really productive.
That happened to me too, during testing. That's why the menu you get to by hitting spacebar has a "teleport to random position" and "reset game, new map" link. The map is also there to aid you in times like that.
A nifty twist...
However, you need to tweak this. The torpedoes are way, way too sluggish for the field of vision that you have. Combined with the speed of the boats, it makes scoring a hit at anything but point blank range a matter of pure luck instead of skill. You simply don't have enough time to see a boat, aim, and get a torpedo off with any chance of hitting before the boat is off the screen, unless you happen to luck out and catch one the instant it appears, at which point you basically have to aim at the opposite end of the screen, fire, and hope it makes it in time.
A little tweaking and you'd have a very enjoyable game here. As it is, it has potential, but doesn't quite live up to it. Oh, and the rules could be easier to read, too.
Few things are more dangerous than a well-meaning amateur.
Age 45, Male
Web Development
Dover, NH
Joined on 12/27/03
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