WarpZone's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[GemCraft]

Finally, a tower defense game with some finesse!

Every now and then, someone makes a game that's actually deep and well-balanced. It doesn't happen often. Entire genres can rise and be fun and sell a million copies without such a game occurring.

This is easily the best tower defense game I have ever played. I'm not sure it will ever be this good again. The reason is the incredible ammount of depth packed into the game. I don't know where to begin describing the ridiculous number of reward schedules built into the game and the different the ways they fit together, but you can't just breeze through the game oing one thing.

I thought gem-matching was critical until I discovered that it was cheaper to just spawn them whole. Then I couldn't progress, until I noticed how powerful gem-bombs could be when you put some skill points into it. Then I went back and got glowing frames in the first few stages, only to discover that that shelling the enemy into oblivion is too costly in the later stages. The first epic stage Boss kicked my ass over and over again until I learned the foresight to max my Mana Pool early and the patience not to build anything during the last few waves. And when you finally start maxing those top-teir skills, everything else fades into the background as you focus on building a ludicrous arsenal of grade 7 gems. From that point on, it's pure Tower Defense, but the route there is delightfully diverse.

My one complaint was that the most interesting play mechanic (matching gems) goes under-used, since you can buy gems cheaper than you can make them. Don't think of this game as a hybrid between gem-matching Puzzle Game and Tower Defense. Instead, think of the gem combos as a way of optimizing your inventory. It's a means of buffering and condensing your offensive power into a few key towers.

There's also some Amulets, which are pretty much like achievements, except they boost your score, which helps you level up, which means that if you want to learn the techniques you'll need to survive some of the tougher stages in the middle, you'll need to spend a few rounds doing stupid bullshit like building towers you have no intention of using, or using the hotkeys to create and combine a bunch of low-grade gems and gem-bomb them all in the corner, once you're confident your REAL defenses can handle the mobs. So, it's kinda stupid, but it's a layer of the complexity. Remove it and the whole game might fail.

Basically what this game does is give you plenty of options, and then force you to experiment with them, since the optimal technique changes as you level up. I happily invite sequals and rip-offs, because I think there's so much diversity here, further experimentation couldn't dammage the overall quality.

I've played a lot of defense games. Some were fun right off the bat, but got boring once you discovered the "best tower." Others used gimicks to impose challenge artifically. There's none of that here. Oh, sure, there's a few annoyances. Lime looks almost exactly the same as Green. All your best gems might be Red, and then you get a wave of Red enemies. Ctrl+Combine Gems is pretty much pointless unless you're going for an Amulet, in which case it takes all the effort out of it. But the game a whole is so great, I'll gladly work around these problems as I continue to play.

I'm only about 2/3 of the way through, but I can't immagine there being any way for them to screw up the endgame. I mean, the final level could turn out to be some kinda Xeno Tactic bullshit where you need to pick the exact best combination in order to win, but even if they pull that, I'd forgive 'em. The middle of the game is just that good.

(And long!)

[Fanta Dash]

"No fun!" Heh. No, seriously...

'Lo Weeb. Great cartoon. If you're gonna shill, shill sarcastically. I loved everything about the cartoon. The humor, characters designs and voices were all excellent, and the art was great by flash standards. And of course the timing was excellent. But the game at the end is no fun for a couple of reasons:

First of all, the shake-up seems a lot harder than it should be. It's difficult for me to shake it up because the flash window only occupies like 1/12th of my screen and any vigorous mouse movement puts my cursor outside the window. I suppose that's beyond your control, but I don't see why snapping the cursor from one end of the screen to the other in the space of a single screen refresh doesn't shake it up more than... err, none at all. (I have a sneaking suspicion that the countdown timer is based on milliseconds while the shake-up is directly tied to the flash game's refresh rate, which would mean that if Flash starts dropping frames, you lose shake-up time faster than Flash acknowleges mouse cursor position updates. But that's conjecture.) I have pretty good reflexes and the way I've got my mouse set up lets me move the cursor really quickly, but I can never get the meter above 2/3 or so. Every time Flash acknowleges a mouse movement, the bar goes up, then it slowly goes down and then shoots up again, despite the fact that I NEVER stop shaking. In other words, I'm shaking as fast as I can, but Flash is only picking up the shakes occasionally. Seems really bugged. Let's move on.

The other thing is that I can't seem to figure out the gameplay. Once I'm launched, going for raw distance is boring, and the close-to-the-ground game is hard to pick up. The problem is, I can't really EXPERIMENT close to the ground because every time I lose, I need to wait like ten seconds for the stupid "game over" music to play, which if you're trying to experiment with the close-to-the-ground handling, is often longer than it takes to play the actual game. PLEASE, let the player click to skip the game over music.

there should be none of this waiting for a button to appear or lining the cursor up with the button, just a quick lauch, die, restart, launch, die, restart. What it adds in style it more than takes away from gameplay. I realize it may seem really petty for me to bitch and moan about ten seconds of wasted time, and it IS really petty, but since the ammount of gameplay offered here is equally petty I feel I'm entitled to restart at my own pace while grappling with the learning curve. The controls seem quicky and unfamiliar compared to other games of this genre, and I'm finding picking them up more tedious than fun.

Of course everyone else is giving it tens so who am I to argue. Certianly I have no room to talk about form over function after that halloween thing I did. I'll just give this review a rating of 10 and hopefully the evil corporate drones who decide whether or not to invest in one of these virally-marketed flash game dealies won't bother to read all this fine print and will only see the unbroken string of perfect tens. Just between you and me, I figure it's worth about a eight. If I could play it with any degree of precision, or at least practice more than 50% of the time the game is running, it could easily become a nine or a ten. As it is, the cartoon is good enough and long enough that the game basically doesn't matter.

[Pickleman Begins Betatest]

LULZ!

This game neatly splits the NG userbase into two camps:

People who gave it a 10: Savvy (or ancient) gamers. These folks get the reference, or at least are smart enough to recognize a parody when they see one.

People who gave it a low score: Effing nubz.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I expect the people who visit this website to have ever actually seen a working Atari 2600, but you'd have to be living under a rock not to have read any of those "Worst Games Evar" articles, blog posts, and podcasts that are all over the internet.

What's that? You say you came to NG for the toons, not the games? You're not some gaming geek who can be bothered to research tedious minutea of gaming history just in case it would help you get a joke someday? Okay, then. You're off the hook... that's what I'd say if this wasn't posted on Apirl 1st.

I guess I was able to get two Secret Collects before dying. In the glorious abscence of any sort of feedback or interface whatsoever, I'm going to pretend that means I won the game somehow.

Oooh! For your next game, do Custer's Revenge versus Manos: The Hands of Fate!

[Pico 2]

Heh.

You know, I just realized, PowerPuff Girls kinda works better as a straight superheroes show than Teen Titans.

Happy Liar's Day, everybody! :D

[Pervert Adventure]

Another typical so-called adult so-called game.

If there had been any thought or effort put into this at all, I might have been able to tell myself it was a deconstruction of the hentai genre. But the artist (bafflingly) seems to take this game seriously, and (even more incredibly) some company decided to sponsor this game.

I don't know whose pockets were deep enough to sponsor this garbage, because the ad that got served is in Asianese. That's right. The big company using fancy technology to sponsor this game using rotating ads isn't smart enough to at least serve relevant ads based on what part of the world the request comes from.

Clumsy attempts at commercialism aside, though, this is just a terrible game. The graphics are poor, which means the visual experience isn't titillating, which means it fails as an actual attempt at porn.

As a game, it fails, because it's not fun. Exactly ONE risk/reward schedule which other games have done far better, and the ugly graphics and annoying sound make it impossible to play for more than five seconds.

What bugs me the most about this game is, I can't fathom a motive. I don't mean a motive for the main character to follow as he goes about his para-ogling. I mean I can't figure out what motive the artist had for creating and releasing a game this crappy. Who thinks this game would be a good idea?

(Surely alcohol played a role, but in order to think this game would be a good idea, you'd need to be much too drunk to launch Flash, let alone program in ActionScript.)

The only thing I can think is, unless this was meant as a parody (and it was just such a joyless, bland, and generic parody that I missed this intent,) then it must be the product of an artist desperate to "create adult games" because "adult games are big moneymakers," but so jaded and burned-out that both video games and naked women no longer excite him. If such a man exists, he has my eternal pity.

I can only hope that this game started out as a good idea, but was then killed in committe by executive meddling. Maybe it's even the result of a wild frat party at FullSail, with everyone involved in its production was totally wasted at the time.

I'm pretty sure it's not a "look what shit I can make pass" experiment like the crap Kitty Krew churns out, because you can tell time and effort went into this. I just don't understand WHY time and effort went into it. It would be nice to get a response from the author, but I doubt the speak English. Or any language. Seriously, this is the kind of game a small lizard or frog would write, if they had only a vague understanding of what the human concepts of "porn" and "game" are.

[Strategy Defense 4]

The turn-based games were better.

3 paths is slightly better than 1 path, but this is not enough. It's too easy to win. Simply commit all soldiers to one path, and always use the most expensive unit. Automatic win.

Listen: The game-play is not too EASY. It's too SIMPLE. The player needs more choices. And the choices must be more meaningful.

Here's some ideas: Forget the grid completely. 360 degree movement. Let the player direct the movements the soldiers. Put power-up items on the map. Not treasure items. Items like an extra SPECIAL attack, or extra soldiers, or double the strength of the soldier who collects it.

This game is too linear. You must create non-linear, asymetrical game-play. There should be more objectives than just attacking the enemy castle. And winning these objectives should help you attack the enemy castle.

Keep trying. But please, add complexity!

[Second Wave]

Not bad.

I liked the graphics, music, and style. The gameplay was also pretty cool, kinda novel and unique. The control started to wear thin after a while, though. It felt too floatly, like I didn't really have full control over my movements.

Is there any particular reason why you couldn't snap the player position directly TO the mouse position as long as the mouse position is inside the bubble? I think that would make the game more playable and give the player more agency over his movements. Just a thought.

jacksey3k2 responds:

I was wondering if they might be a bit weird. I was torn between floaty, and fixed movment. Ill have to have a fiddle and see how it feels.

[Cheerleaders game]

Almost a game.

The graphics are great, especially the photographs and the 3D effect on the title screen. But since everyone knows good graphics don't mean anything unless the gameplay is there, let's take a look at the gameplay here.

You've basically got no control whatsoever over where the ball goes. At first I thought it was the lag that was fouling my timing with the power-meter (It freezes for a splut second every time the music loops) but after a while the truth became clear: You can click on the exact same spot with the exact same ammount of force ten times in a row, and the ball will sail off in ten completely different directions, and arc at ten different angles.

Do real-life athletes really have so little control over their kicks? And if so, why the hell do we bother to cheer for anybody? Because apparently the entire game is a roll of the dice and has nothing to do with skill.

I guess this is supposed to be like one of those video games they have in bars. You know the kind I'm talking about. Everyone's reflexes are shot, perception is skewed and judgement is impaired. Under those circumstances, any game with titties and randomness becomes a quarter-muncher, even if the gameplay is so bad that same game wouldn't be able to show its face in a real arcade.

So yeah, I hope you had fun doing the photo-shoot, and I hope meeting the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders was your only goal when creating this game, because nothing else of interest was accomplished here.

Oh, you want to improve it? Reduce or eliminate the randomness of which way the ball goes when you kick it. That's called "giving the player agency." It means when the player does somehting, he gets predictable results based on his input. Oh, you say the game's too easy to beat without randomness? Then add a skill-based challenge to it. Make the targets in the field goal move around. (Not randomly, in a pattern.) Or add football players who attempt to block your shot, or something like that.

Your goal as a game designer is to place meaningful obstacles in the player's path which can be overcome with skill, planning, or reflexes. Luck is the worst possible way to add "challenge" to a game. Because it doesn't really make the game more challenging. It just means you need to do it over and over again until you randomly succeeed.

That's not a video game. That's Candyland.

Better luck next time.

[MARKSMEN]

I have no idea why it fades to black and I die.

It looks good, but I get about halfway through the second area and the screen fades to black and I die. Both characters still have full health, so WTF is going on and how am I supposed to do anything about it? You need to give the players clues when introducing new play mechanics like that. If there's a timer, show the player the timer. If there's an objective, tell the player about the objective.

I played a second time to make sure it wasn't a fluke, then I quit playing because my shooting skills and health seemed to have no effect whatsoever on whether I succeeded or failed.

Graphics were okay, and the voices good as usual, if delievered a little awkwardly in spots. I didn't really see it as a GoW ripoff so much as a RE ripoff with power armor tacked on.

Basically the score is so low because I keep dying for no reason. If I understood what was going on and could keep myself alive longer, I'd probably give this an 8. It looks like it's probably worth about an 8, if we assume it's a decent length and the writing's on par with the ESCAPE games.