WarpZone's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Hero RPG]

Nice RPG, but please simplify the interface!

The game's not as approachable as it could be. I need to move my hands all over the place like an octopus just to engage in combat. It's like hit space, grab the mouse, attack, let go of the mouse. Move in, hit space, grab the mouse... it involves too much taking your focus off of the game and looking at your controls. It breaks immersion.

If you didn't need to aim (I.E. Attack button just attacks whatever's in front of you, like Zelda) )or if there was no need to hit space (I.E. if you were ALWAYS aiming and strafing at the same time while in the field, ) it would make simple combat much more immediate and intuitive. There's no need for a Shift key whatsoever, just make it so that walking over the loot collects it.

In town the shop menus are relatively well done, but dialogue feels a tad clunky. If a press space and a guy says "Hi there!" and that's it, I expect to be able to quickly tap space again to end the conversation. There should be no need for me to take my finger off the space bar and reach for the mouse. Again, if clicking was the ONLY way to talk to people, and the space bar never entered into it, then I could easily move around town with the arrow keys, click to start and end conversations, and go through the entire game with one hand on the arrows or WASD keys and the other hand on the mouse.

Basically the problem is, users have two hands, and your control scheme involves 4 different controls that are pretty far apart. You could easily simplify this to just arrow keys + mouse, and I think the game would get a lot more approachable and more fun to play. Less tedious. That's just my 2 cents.

Basically, the gameplay is simple action like Zelda, but you're trying to give it an elaborate interface like Ultima. It's really overkill. Please try to pare the controls down some to make the game faster and simpler to play. And don't say it would make the game too easy. I don't consider reaching all over the place for my controls to be a meaningful source of challenge. It's just noise that prevents me from telling the game to do what I want it to do.

LonLonRanch responds:

I think you have some silly probelms with the controls, first of all make sure you are using WASD instead of the arrow keys. It says so in the instructions. There is never a need to take your hand of the mouse. Hitting the spacebar is a very easy task, use your thumb. The controls will also come more comfortable with a little bit of time. Thanks for the review :)

[Lemon Smash]

Hey, that was actually fun!

The controls weren't that difficult. You said they would be, and in most Flash side-scroller games, they are, but you managed to make this game playable. Good job!

Also, I see the highscore table hasn't been destroyed by spoofers yet, so that's kinda cool, too.

Good job! :)

Coaly responds:

Yea that was a little joke, you caught me.

[Dinosaurs and Cadillac]

Wow. Original.

As you can tell by the title, this is one of those truly unique original concepts, like Man Spider, or Hedgehog The Sonic. Get ready for a slow gameplay, unresponsive control, animations that don't match up at all when two characters collide, and about 3 keyframes per animation.

I don't get why didinko is spamming copy from the back of the box of Jurrasic Park in response to reviews. Maybe he doesn't know english. Oh well, here's hoping he gets better.

didinko responds:

you know, I found your review very helpful!
you don't like my submission- this is OK.
ok im sorry but why is this crap on here
"I don't get why didinko is spamming copy from the back of the box of Jurrasic Park in response to reviews."
I have used the story because I'm a twat....not because i like the movie "Jurrasic Park"
"Maybe he doesn't know english."- You got me!
I don't know english. Could you explain me, what does it mean?
"Get ready for a slow gameplay, unresponsive control, animations that don't match up at all when two characters collide, and about 3 keyframes per animation"
Thank you

[Boss Bash]

Sure brings back memories...

BTW, don't feel bad if you get your ass handed to you constantly. This is not the play control of the original games. The gameplay concepts are the same, but the execution is subtly different in a million ways. In a way, I guess that could be considered a good thing for all us old farts, it means we'll have the challenge of mastering these bastards all over again. :P

BoMToons responds:

Yeah, it's not an emulator, which is part of the charm I'd say. Good luck not smashing your controller in frustration.

[Super Chick Sisters]

Pretty good gameplay, for a PSA...

So, wait, let me get this straight... there's a new game on Newgrounds that combines Mario parodies, Pamella Anderson, AND Animal Cruelty? This is gonna go down in history as the highest scoring flash EVAR... oh, wait. No. Don't get excited, it's just a Peta ad.

That was my initial reaction when I realized that this game was sponsored by People for Extortion, Terror, and Arson. (And yes, I realize that after winning that Wiggi World contest, I'm the last person who should bitch about preachy morals lurking in my video games. I'm just not a big fan of PETA.) Thankfully, there's a game underneath the message, and it's halfway decent.

The implementation is extremely clean. At any given moment, you can jump on stuff, break stuff with your head, collect stuff, and stomp on stuff, and the controls do exactly what you expect them to do. The stage design is also good, although it feels a bit more sprawling and random than your typical Mario game, and there's only 2 types of bad guys, who seem to follow arbitrary hardcoded patrol paths instead of walking all the way to the edge of a platform. Often this means a spider-bot is lurking directly under some bricks, so it's a little tricky to time your jump to nail them. There's also a single decent boss.

I don't think I would classify this as "Suitible for everyone." There's blood all over the place, and graphic descriptions of animal mutilation. Either torturing animals is horrible, OR media about torturing animals is suitible for children. You can't have it both ways.

I actually liked the cutscenes. I thought they were pretty funny. They're pretty tame compared to the hundreds of violent Mario parodies already on Newgrounds, of course, but they were funny and well-done. Also, that sunset at the end was just plain cool. Playing as Pamella wasn't much fun. There was no major difference except for the graphics, and she was pretty awkwardly realized... her feet don't touch the ground correctly, and she just generally looks weird. Certianly nowhere near voluptuous.

Persoanlly, I don't eat at KFC if I can help it. Not for moral reasons, I just don't like their food. I usually go to Popeyes or a local ma & pop place to get my fried chicken fix. Putting aside my personal prejudice against Peta for their anti-human tactics, though, I question the usefulness of raising perfectly healthy chickens under opulent conditions in captivity, putting them to sleep with anesthesia or something and then killing them gracefully in their sleep. That's just a ridiculous ammount of effort to go through to ease the suffering of an animal that's raised as a food source and doesn't possess the mental faculties to comprehend its own mortality anyway.

Decent game, though. If this was your first forray into Flash, you did an excellent job. I'd like to see more games from you, but since you're not a gamer, I guess that's probably not very likely. Still, there was some decent entertainment value here.

Thanks for tha game. :)

FunkWaxPuppie responds:

You make a good point. This is probably best suited to 13+ :) Thanks for the detailed review!

[Wiggis in Flight]

Actually addresses responsible internet use!

I really liked this one. :) The pop-ups are annoying and almost impossible to avoid, which makes them almost exactly like real pop-ups. I'm actually kinda surprised there weren't more "surf the internet while avoiding internet danger" games so far. I considered making a game like that, but I figured the biggest internet danger for kids was pedophiles, and I couldn't figure out how to do the "GAME OVER" screen. IMHO, this is a decent compromise.

The gameplay was good, though perhaps a bit simplistic. You took the two most iconic wiggi sprites, and put them to good use in a story. Each level is very short, but of course that's kinda what they were going for. Not bad!

gankro responds:

that's what I've been saying! Almost none of these games involve internet!

[Wiggi Rush]

Probabaly the most impressive Wiggi maze game yet.

This game uses a good, solid scrolling platform engine. I kinda missed not having any baddies to fight or objectives to clear, though. I realize this is Wiggi World, so we can't just make a normal video game where you blow stuff up, but still it would be nice if there was something else to do.

For what it is, it's impeccably well-done. You might need to change the music, though... they're all remixes from Sonic games. I know BOT said we could use portal audio, but I assumed he only meant "copyright-free" stuff, not remixes of commercial songs. But then I've never been too clear on a lot of these copyright issues... seems like any time you ask somebody, they give you a vague answer that could be taken two ways.

Skeik responds:

I wanted to choose some more kid friendly and copywright friendly music, but I had no other choice :P This was the only royalty free music I had on my computer so in the game it went.

If you like this engine then you should look out for my next game, which is going to be using this engine.

[Wiggi Maze]

Tries to be too many different things.

I'll agree that all of the elements seem to conflict with each other. The player's character looks like the grittiest action hero I've ever seen in a wiggi world game. The music is light and cheerful. The background is throbbing red-hot pain. Running a maze is a tried-and-true gameplay mechanic, and a rotating maze is a nice(pardon the pun) twist. The questions seem just right for a wiggi world game, but outside of any meaningful context they're basically just a button you push to advance.

Collecting items of the list seems like a tacked-on play mechanic... there's not even any rhyme or reason to which items you collect or avoid; you're just following an arbitrary list of instructions. I guess that encourages obedience, but really, virtually all game rules promote obedience on THAT level. In Super Mario Bros, for instance, you jump over Goombas because the rules say you die if you don't.

Most importantly, there's some issues with your character overlapping a portal and an item at the same time. Stepping onto an item brings up the Yes/No menu, but then it detects a new collision with the portal (perhaps due to hitTests coupled with the player's breathing animation, or something like that,) and rotates the maze before you can answer.

This happens most frequently with the bubblegum and the soap in the first maze. The easiest way to reproduce the bug is to keep saying NO to the items and keep using that corner portal. Try and stop walking exactly midway between the item and the portal. You'll see what I mean.

If I were you, I'd either make the graphics and background cuter and softer, or else rplace the music with some hard techno. Splitting the look & feel down the middle like this is just too confusing.

Lantay77 responds:

Thanks for taking the time to play and write a complete review I will take all of your comments into consideration.