2016. A year to forget for so many reasons. Reasons beyond my own lack of effort within the written entity that is Beat All Games; reasons I wish not to discuss as this is not that sort of forum. I will, however, discuss my perceptibly poor output when it comes to finishing a wide variety of video games just so I can whinge over all the details. 2016 and only, what? Ten games? Pitiful. My most pitiful year to date. But only pitiful in the face of games conquered. It was still a productive year in games played and games thoroughly enjoyed. It's just, so few reached the finishing line creating the illusion I'm no longer the prolific player I once was. Though, to be fair, I don't think I've ever considered myself a prolific player. Otherwise, I'd probably jump on the Twitch train and that just isn't for me.
Ten games isn't enough to allow for any sort of traditional year end list with any real substance so I'm unsure which direction to take this post. Suppose I can just top five it and be done with it. Eh, sounds good since I really don't have much else to say.
5. Evoland
-Not a great game by any means, but does exactly what it set out to do. Unfortunately, the game loses it's way in the second half where the "evolution" factor takes more and more of a back seat.
4. Comix Zone
-Long a favorite on the Genesis, but also, long a notoriously difficult beat 'em up. A unique classic, really.
3. Earthlock: Festival of Magic
-There's so much that angered me, but there's also so much that I loved. It was a tricky balance: was there enough of the good to outweigh the bad? Yes. Yes there was.
2. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
-I almost feel like this one's getting the spot by default. Don't get me wrong, TTYD is a fantastic game, and far far superior to its predecessor. At the same time, it's not that different form the original and faces a lot of the same issues. The number two spot comes simply because of this year's low count in games beaten I fear.
1. 12 Labours of Herucles: The Cretan Bull
-It's great fun. It's wildly addictive. It's bright and colorful. It's easy to learn but can be tricky to master. It simply understands the fundamentals of what makes a great game and keeps all the unnecessary fluff out of the picture. More to the point: I want to play more of these games.
And with that, this mess of a year is done, or at least it will be in a few hours. Good riddance.
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Sunday, December 25, 2016
SNES - Super Mario All-Stars
and so the story begins,
the birth of remakes -
how I hate remakes
Additional Comments:
First things first, I seriously did not expect another Mario Christmas, but here it is - another Christmas Mario. I decided, very last minute mind you, to clutch out some sort of Mario game. Not exactly my first pick but for the sake of traditions, I knew Super Mario All-Stars was something I could pound through relatively quick, until I realized what I was dealing with and then I began second guessing myself. As Christmas Eve entered the wee hours of the night and I was still pushing through Super Mario Bros. 2, I wondered if I could seriously manage to complete the game while still dealing with, you know, holiday related nonsense - though fortunately for me, and for the sake of Beat All Games, I have very little holiday nonsense I have to deal with these days.
Now on to more serious stuff. Super Mario All-Stars more or less birthed the now shitty tradition of Nintendo and countless other companies rehashing the same material over and over again in the form of remakes instead of coming up with an original thought. Doesn't even have to be an original thought outside of the franchise - keep pumping out Mario games. However, back in the 16-bit era, Super Mario All-Stars was a thing of wonder. We suddenly got to see our 8-bit favorites jump from four color mediocrity to brilliant flash. I remember the first time I beheld Super Mario Bros. with cool new backgrounds, but it turned out to be a passing fad.
To this day, I still like the 16-bit backgrounds that breathed new life into all the levels, but the games lost their charm. Both Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2j lost their originality and now feel like bad hacks even though they're the original games. Of course, the physics tweaks don't help, but I'll touch on that a bit later. At the time, for sure, the games felt fresh in their new clothes, but over time, I've come to realize Super Mario All-Stars is a poor recreation of the original games. It's the same problem every remake faces, be it games, movies, whatever. Remakes fail no matter what. There are few if any remakes that I have ever felt worked. As far as games go, I don't believe there's a single remake that works. Every remake I've ever played has either been trash or completely unnecessary. They're proof positive that they exist simply for cash. The whole concept depresses me just thinking about it.
But the thing is, when Super Mario All-Stars first came out, I believed in the game, probably not as much as others because I still felt very attached to the NES originals save SMB2j since the game was practically an unknown up until that point in the west. Of course, I was a kid at the time, but I think part of my buy in to the game was because everyone else was bought into it as well, and why like bland 8-bit scenes when we could appreciate these vibrant new palettes? Except, deep inside, I felt like the game was a swindle. Apart from SMB2j, I quickly saw that the game had little to no merit.
Granted, I never owned the game as a kid, but I distinctly remember renting it one time, checking out the updates in each game, spouting child-like rage at SMB2j and then never having the desire to play it again. To me, Super Mario Bros 2j was interesting, but total garbage, not to mention ridiculously difficult, and the rest of the game? Well, I preferred my good old NES carts hands down. To this day, I still prefer my NES carts. If ever I wish to play an NES Mario game, Super Mario All-Stars isn't even remotely an option, because it's nothing more than designer fad.
It's disappointing to talk down about a set of Mario games; the original quartet of Mario games at that. Albeit, SMB2j is a shit game, and SMB2 is questionable at best in terms of Mario-ness, it's still a great platfomer, but SMB and SMB3 are fantastic classics. SMB3 especially, for me, is a top game that can easily outclass most any video game. Fortunately, the SMB3 remake is steeped in relative sameness and only endures graphical enhancements. Though I will say, the king transformations, while cool to see nods to other SMB titles, are a total disappointment. The original transformations are so superior. I mean, come on, a seal flipping his crown around on his nose, and now we have...what? A random SMB2 nobody, a discolored Dino Rhino or a Yoshi with a fat lip? It's the same issue all over again - the utter removal of everything that made the original so quaint and endearing. It's bullshit!
A lot of that, I admit, can be argued as personal qualms over artwork and general distaste towards remakes. Ok. But let's dig a little deeper. Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2j are a total joke. It's been a few years since I played the original SMB, so perhaps I'm a little rusty, though I played SMB2j a year ago so.... Plus, I've been spending a good amount of time on Super Mario Maker where the general physics have been tightened up across the board so there's a good chance my baseline for Mario physics is greatly skewed in error. However, these two games feel completely wrong. There's a strange meshing of loose physics with stiff rigidity. I can't fully explain it. The much hated ice like physics of Mario is there, but somehow Mario's become prone to wooden awkwardness. I've never felt more uncomfortable controlling Mario. It's like playing a third rate platformer that never garnered any popularity thanks to how awful it plays. I don't get it either. Why did they fiddle with the physics? Thing is, I don't recall this ever being an issue when I was young, and perhaps it was because as a kid, I could easily be fooled. We had no internet to verify our suspicions. Without A/B'ing a game on the spot, shady physics doctoring was all just hearsay. I had both an NES and an SNES, so I suppose I could have tried way back when, but there was no suspicion to begin with because we were so entranced by the new beauty of the Mushroom Kingdom. Dirty tricks were the only thing at play, and we missed it.
Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario Bros. 3 don't really suffer the same effect. In fact, I'd go out on a limb and say the physics are pretty much dead on, except SMB2 did feel a tad sloppy. I don't think such was the case, and it may have been my negative impressions from the first two games playing tricks on me, but it is a possibility. SMB3, however, did show off a bit of the darker side when it came to question blocks, bricks, and the like. Much like SMB/SMB2j, SMB3 suffered from this weird block repulsion that appeared to affect general momentum. As a result, I played most of the game as small Mario - placing precedence on momentum over power-ups. Honestly, the levels played faster and easier this way. The repulsion effect, which basically repels Mario at an incredible downward speed after hitting a block, would completely break my rhythm. This isn't the first time I've seen the effect as I'm familiar with it from my SMW hacking days. I remember coding custom blocks and dealing with this exact issue if I forgot to insert a bit of code that would affect Mario's y speed.
All in all, the game is a joke. I recall enjoying it for what it was as a kid, but always having reservations about it over the years. Even when friends would bring it up in conversation as a great collection that existed on the SNES and how it improved the original games, I'd nod in agreement and offer my praises for including SMB2j, despite hating that game, and the wonderful graphical overhaul each game received - namely Super Mario Bros. It felt wrong to criticize the game not only because it's Mario, but because it was a statement by Nintendo saying they not only respect their roots, but wished to give them a dazzling new set of clothes and set 'em loose upon the 16-bit generation in style. But now, I'll criticize the hell out of the game. It's something that should have never existed. They should have sat on the games and then released them as a collection - not as remakes, but as a collection somewhere down the road, like on the GameCube, like they did with the Zelda games. It's the only acceptable form. Instead, they fucked up four perfectly good games, well, three good games.
And with the SNES sound font, the music is not even worth looking into despite it all being classic video game tunes. I especially hated the sound effects used in these games as it made the whole game sound artificial, almost plastic. Everything has a solid thonk instead of a nice squish. It's wrong. It's more than wrong. This whole game is an egregious mess and Nintendo should be fucking ashamed they ever released it and tricked all of us gullible nitwits into thinking they vastly improved the original gems which were fucking perfect as they were. Fuck you, Nintendo, and fuck remakes!!! What a shitty Christmas....
Rating: 1 giant Bowser portrait out of 5
Thursday, December 22, 2016
XB1 - Earthlock: Festival of Magic
O, silly rabbit,
don't you know Trix are for kids?
Oh! wait, wrong rabbit
Additional Comments:
Here's to hoping I can recall everything I wished to discuss, but considering how much time has elapsed since I finished this game, the details are anyone's guess.
Acquired through Games with Gold, I pounced on this game immediately since there are so few RPGs on the XBox One. There are a couple that came out over a year ago that piqued my interest but just never got around to picking them up. Certainly, making a game free makes it so much easier to nab a game. And though I initially had doubts based on a few pics, after a few quick minutes of in-game footage, I was sold. Old school RPGs seem to be such a rare thing outside of PCs. Why is that? When did console users choose to scorn turn-based RPGs other than the miserable pieces of crap starring the same old emotionally abused androgynous jerk-offs that Squaresoft keeps passing off as Final Fantasy?
Ok, Earthlock technically isn't an old school RPG, but it appears to have far more kinship with RPGs of yore than today's overblown trash. Despite separating itself from its ancestors, especially through the use of 3D maps and environments, Earthlock kept stirring memories of Chrono Trigger. Perhaps it was the same cliché tropes used over and over again, and true, those same old tropes become tiring, but at the same time, they help to invigorate the game through lapses of nostalgia. Unlike numerous other titles that attempt to reap the benefits of creating Chrono Trigger 2.0 or Final Fantasy IV reimagined, Earthlock distanced itself by creating an entirely alien environment. It still rehashed the same old kernels of the old world sowing the way for the new world through magical destruction - here the case being eternal day/eternal night and the same characteristic party sporting the same conventional traits saving the fate of the world by using the tools of the past. It's all been done before, and quite possibly, to death. But there was enough of a rift among the pedestrian RPG outline through imaginative details elsewhere in the world to make it feel different enough.
Unfortunately, Earthlock nearly shot itself in the foot right out of the gate. The beginning of the game felt laborious enough to warrant it undeserving of my time. The initial character we're introduced to, Ive, is a such an eye-rolling, self centered, twat that I nearly put the game down for good before I even made it five minutes in. Throughout the whole of the game, I loathed anytime a cutscene popped or I had to make use of her because of how despicably arrogant she was. Of course, she's the king's daughter, so what can you expect, but still, there's no getting around how off putting a character of this caliber is and having to deal with her the entire game absolutely killed much of the praise the game could have gotten. Ive is easily one of the worst characters I've come across in any game, equatable to Kara from Illusion of Gaia. Given the game's introduction, I had to seriously question the game's intentions when they wished me to rescue her from the wreckage. Fuck her! I don't want that contemptuous bitch in my party. It's moments like these that make me hanker for freedom of choice and lend me to admire many of today's western RPGs. I don't have to suffer through bullshit because of lack of choice. If the choice existed to help Ive or to simply walk away, I would have walked away in a second. Up until that point, or even throughout the rest of the game, there was never a moment that nudged me into accepting her despite her personality deficiencies. And it's hard to invest oneself into a game that has such a disagreeable character. Some level of empathy must exist, especially in story rich or character heavy games, to agree to or accept the circumstances as presented, but when a character like Ive exists, much like Kara, it's hard to overlook and can inevitable affect the enjoyment factor of the game. Although you do get Taika out of the deal, so....
Earthlock was lucky to win me over with a variety of mechanics, namely the talent board and bond system, but characters continued to be a stumbling block for the game. Each one of them felt vapid, and despite all efforts to differentiate themselves from RPG stereotypes, still fell subject to their cliché personalities. Gnart, who may have been the most dynamic characters was also one of the most tiring only because he followed the typical goofball sidekick trope thrown in for comedic effect - sure, he had some knowledge and an intriguing past, but he's liable to open mouth insert foot for a non-quality laugh to help lighten the mood and make us say, "Oh, you silly rabbit. You and your silly stories." It's stale, and it's unfortunate since out of the whole lot, Gnart's histroy, as well as that of his people would easily be the most interesting to read up on.
Olia, on the other hand, comes off as a waste. She brings brute muscle, which from a gameplay aspect is greatly welcomed, but her story is done to death. Squaresoft has given us enough of the brooding heroes who'd rather keep their past to themselves while we as players struggle to connect with these detached individuals. You're giving me nothing to work with here outside of strong-arming the competition. Eh, I suppose that's enough.
But enough of weak character portrayal. Let's delve into actual gameplay. Upon first glance, Earthlock feels a bit too rigid and leans far too much on traditional RPG values. Nothing exactly wrong with that, but it certainly did little to help sell the game. Sure, I started out by whining how so few traditional turn-based RPGs exist these days on consoles, but at the same time, I don't wish to play the same old tiring mechanics. Developers need to integrate new ideas to help invigorate old traditions and Earthlock failed to do that upon initial inspection. But once you get into the game and some of the more interesting mechanics open up, Earthlock begins to set itself apart. True, likenesses of the talent board or bond system have shown up in past titles, but they felt fresh, locked into a combination that helped us to look past the tried and true mechanics of the RPGs of yesteryear.
However, Earthlock definitely made some missteps in its hopes to individualize itself. Crafting was likely the biggest misstep of all as it completely nullified the use of the shop system. Despite my natural tendency to steer clear of shops in RPGs simply to increase the difficulty, I found the shop system in Earthlock to be completely unnecessary. If I can craft anything and everything and I can easily obtain any of the crafting materials from the various denizens of the world, why would I ever stop at the local market? Something few games have ever managed to properly balance is the coexistence of crafting and shop systems. More often than not, one negates the other and Earthlock may have been the greatest example of this problem.
Not only did crafting bring down the world market, but crafting befell its own niggles. At first, I kind of liked the idea of growing a garden from which I could craft various ammos or potions - all items of which I pretty much never used throughout the entire game, but I'll come to that later. It gave the game a tiny slice of a Harvest Moon feel. I hate to admit it, but Harvest Moon, or similar games have a joyfully addicting quality to them, so to see Earthlock integrate this, even on a bare minimum level, was cool. Turns out, I used the garden for nothing more than an achievement hunter effect. When that's the case, it should be blatantly obvious the mechanic was added without much forethought. Honestly, it was boring as hell to sit there clicking on plants for close to an hour or more trying to mutate a certain species only to find out after turning to GameFAQs to see if I was victim of a bug, that for one single mutation, they completely deviated from the norm in that you had to kill an optional boss. What the fuck? If Ive didn't annoy the piss out of me enough, shit like this happens - counter-intuitive garbage that suddenly diverges from everything we've learned up until that point.
What's more, the game suffered from various other counter-intuitive faults. Another one that nearly sent me over the edge was figuring out how to use my fifth through eighth abilities. The tutorials describe, fairly well, how to use the various menus and actions but failed to mention how to reach your next page of abilities. With my abilities tab grayed out, I wouldn't have guessed in a million years that I could still press the tab to find more abilities. Grayed out means the operation has come to an end; there's no more forward momentum here. It's the fucking clock in Where's Waldo? all over again. They're going against everything we've ever learned in gaming over the past 30 years. I only realized how to use those abilities by sheer accident after having left the room for a couple minutes and upon returning, picked up the controller and accidentally nudged the joystick in the right direction. That then led me to spend the next several minutes trying to replicate my accident. All be told, this event didn't happen until well over halfway through the game, so yea, I spent well over half the game believing the tutorial lied to me - that it was written for the PC version and they neglected to translate this one section for the Xbox.
And it doesn't end there! Figuring out how to upgrade Pat to Pat 2,0 was a total nightmare. I have all the necessary ingredients but...I can't craft the fucking token!? Oh! I've got to remove the original tokens. Well, that's real fucking obvious!
It's sad. There's many aspects of the game I loved, but far too often the game hit me out of left field with some half-assedness. And it's simple things they managed to botch. Fortunately, nothing's game breaking, but the annoyance level some of this stuff managed to induce is astronomical. Many of these faults so nearly made me shelve the game, but many of these things happened so late in the game that the time invested would prove nothing but waste and I hated the prospect of walking away from it when I was that far into the game - like I had reached a point of no return and was relegated to accepting my fate. Besides, the good qualities continued to coax me on - qualities like making best strategic use of the various bond configurations or the fact that I was playing a turn-based RPG that didn't rely on cyclical healing. Sure, healing was critical in certain battles, but it wasn't an absolute that I had to rely on throughout the entire game unlike most turn-based RPGs. And while most battles were nothing more than tests to dole out damage as fast as possible, a number of battles popped up that allowed me to make use of some of my other abilities thus forcing some underlying strategy throughout.
However, that being said, many abilities came off as superfluous. As mentioned before, how crafting ammo was a complete waste, I found few battles where a reliance on ammunition was a thing. The trade off for job swaps forcing me to lose a turn typically wasn't worth it, nor was the time spent crafting the ammo to begin with. Same can be said for the other characters. I pretty much ran all the characters on the one job I was comfortable with and stuck with it. The mere fact that that can be done makes the whole system moot. But then, without relying on cyclical healing or some sort of deeper element system, there was never really hope for such a system. If I can dole out enough damage with a sword just as quickly or more so than a gun, so be it. Of course, the argument can me made that it's all there for personalized customization. Fair enough. But I think with the job, or stance, system, the intent was for a more robust strategy allowance, which in my opinion backfired. They could have handled everything just as easily if everything was simply a single set of abilities allowed by a given character. I suppose it can be thought of as an offense/defense stance used in older RPGs, but at least there, you didn't have to waste a turn choosing your stance before you can make use of your allowed abilities. Instead, it seems to help fill out a common theme of implemented mechanics without much forethought.
Finally, on a personal note, I found the graphical style irksome. I loved the locale design and enemy design, but found the character design unnerving. It reminded me of the character design in Twilight Princess. Something about their looks is so off putting, and sadly with a number of characters already annoying me for one reason or another, the art direction made everything all the more tougher to digest.
I'm sure at the time of play a number of other details existed that I could have easily harangued over, but I doubt I'll remember them. They were likely minor anyways, at least compared to what I've covered here. Besides, I know what I have gone over were the major talking points I wished to hit up anyway. Perhaps I should keep a running log as I play, but alas, that would make all of this feel too much like work instead of a hobby with no return.
Suppose the last thing I can hit up is the soundtrack, but honestly, I can't remember a lick of music. I recall the music being sweet on the ears, but nothing really stood out. I know there were a couple tunes in the game I enjoyed but they obviously didn't leave a lasting mark. After refreshing myself with the soundtrack on Eiko's channel, it's sad that that's the case as there are certainly some nice gems stuck in there such as Vast Canyons, Sweltering Desert, or Dreamless Grotto, which after hearing it again I recall this being my favorite track in the game. Ah well, typical RPG fare.
Nano-Win:
One thing I did like about the game was the usage of Kickstarter funders' appellations for the ghost tag side quest. If was always interesting to see what quirky named individuals I'd come across next and a handful of them gave me a good laugh.
Nano-Rant:
Fix your fucking bestiary, and while you're at it, get some decent QA to proofread your text. There's nothing that will drag down the integrity and professionalism of a given game more than spelling and grammar mistakes. *Proofreads above editorial and hides* Eep!
Rating: 3 hogbunnies out of 5
Friday, December 16, 2016
PC - 12 Labours of Hercules: The Cretan Bull
work is never done
so says the adage of yore;
no thanks to yon bull
Additional Comments:
First, it should be noted that I've been miserably slow at updating Beat All Games. Thanks to my tardiness, my exact memories of these games are fleeting. This game, along with Wheely and the next title that I'm going to try and wrangle out of my procrastination and general lack of passion towards writing such long winded tirades other than using it as an outlet to write something, were all completed two or three months ago. Only for the approaching end of the year I realized I should at least try and slap some sort of structured anger or appeasement. I doubt I'll even manage a Christmas Mario this year. Such tragedy. Though, admittedly, in addition to my growing apathy, my neglect has been spoon fed by the fact that I've been playing games as of late that are either entirely open ended and/or have a good many hours of gameplay present before any sign of an end is near. And anyone who's familiar with my particular way of playing games, a 40 hour game, for example, can easily be dragged out to 120+ hours over weeks and weeks of game time. No wonder attention to Beat All Games has dropped.
But enough of that. I present another in a series of fast growing favorites: 12 Labours of Hercules: The Cretan Bull. If it wasn't for a room full of games that I wish to play, and my desire to mix things up from title to title, I'd probably play every 12 Labours titles in a row. Sure, they're all essentially the same, but they're all so damn fun and addicting. As much as the first game enticed me with simple gameplay, the sequel cemented my love for the series. I feel foolish to say as such, but the games are executed so well. Perhaps because they still have an air of guilty pleasure wrapped around them. It's that hard to explain mobile gaming polish that coats the presentation that makes me ashamed to admit how wonderful the game is, but gameplay and execution shall always trump all and the devs seem to know a thing or two about gameplay.
Other than a new story, Hercules trying to capture the rambunctious Cretan Bull that's terrorizing the lands wherever he goes, there's very little in terms of new gameplay here. But that's fine. Why fix what isn't broke? Sometimes we genuinely do want more of the same. Hell, just look at some of the classics like Mega Man or Sonic - very little changed over the course of the first few games. When things finally began to change in dramatic fashion, hoping to freshen what the developers considered old hat, well the series, in my opinion, took a massive nose dive into a heaping pile of cow dung. If it works, let it be, and 12 Labours is doing exactly that. What is changed is small, but clearly impactful. New and interesting minigame boss fights, the ability to build outposts to advance your workers further into a stage, or even the new puzzle piece extraction to add a dash of collection mechanic. Nothing here is major, but it's all enough to make the game feel fresh despite being nothing more than additional levels that could have easily been tacked onto the first game as DLC. Too much change and surely the game would have taken on too much of a different feel; losing that special quality that makes 12 Labours what it is. For anyone who's ever wondered why Capcom created Mega Man 9/10 or Sega created Sonic 4, it's exactly for those reason, I should suspect. Of course, I don't have the inside scoop, so I could be talking out my ass, but still. There was a quality to the original games that people loved and desired more of just as they do with 12 Labours, again, so I would suspect. Either that or the developer is stuck in a developmental rut, but you know what? If that's the case, I say thank goodness for ruts.
Unfortunately, because of the striking similarities between games, there's very little else to talk about that I haven't already talked about previously. Perhaps I can groan over the puzzle piece mechanic insomuch that for the first two worlds, despite knowing puzzle pieces existed and somehow collected a couple by sheer happenstance along the way, I had no idea what I was truly seeking. For a while, I expected the various sparkles or targeted animations to be a clue as to their whereabouts but I was wrong. Eventually, I had to enter a stage and simply take in the detail. There I sat scanning the landscape for I don't know what. Once I realized what the pieces looked like, they turned out to be quite easy to pick up over the course of the game. Still, I wish there was some sort of device in place that introduced us to the concept. Everything else within the game is very intuitive, however that was the one mechanic that felt like a missed opportunity.
The only other thing worth noting, perhaps, is the difficulty when it came to expert mode. Compared to the first game, this one felt a lot easier. Could be that I knew what to expect and how to handle the game; that I had a better understanding of the necessary strategy to overcome situational obstacles. But then, it's also been over a year since I played the first title, and if other games have taught me anything, is that I easily become rusty after mere months of absenteeism. Maybe time strategy games don't befall the ills of prolonged absence. Makes sense since the game is devised around strategy and not skill. Still, with some of the additional elements in The Cretan Bull, there's enough to throw me off my game. Poke and prod at any number of hypotheses, but I can't help but feel the true state of the matter is that the sequel is simply easier. Unlike the first game where a number of levels tested my problem solving skills as well as my patience while under the constraints of a demanding clock, only a small handful of levels proved to be of the same caliber. Be aware I use comparison lightly here as even the difficult stages proved easy compared to the difficult stages in the original game. I believe there was only one that was truly comparable to the original game in the number of replays attempted. Perhaps some of the new elements not only added to the complexity and depth of strategy, but counterbalanced the difficulty as an unforeseen side effect. Who knows?
Whether the game built on the original, which it did, or simply stalemated the franchise, which it didn't, The Cretan Bull validated the franchise and its future, which at this point, I believe consists of four more titles. I know I have the third and fourth already in my Steam library and honestly can't wait to play them, even if they are more of the same old same old. As long as the same old same old keeps up the same level of fun and excitement, than more power to them. Hell, I'm not even mad that most of the soundtrack is the same - it's a fantastic soundtrack. More 12 Labours as is, with minimal but poignant alterations and/or additions and I'm all over it.
Rating: 4.5 waterslides out of 5
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Flash - Wheely
don't fret little car,
consumers are all just bums...
racing - there's a thrill!
Additional Comments:
I always feel I must predicate any lengthy flash-related essay with a myriad of justifications. Why do I always feel guilty of playing flash games? Because they're juvenile? Simplified? Typically representative of low quality output by bedroom developers? Perhaps, but perhaps juvenile or simplified games can be enjoyed for what they are. Low quality output on the other hand - eh...
One day, mixed among my recommended videos on YouTube was a video for an LP of one of the Wheely games - it might have been the fourth one, but I'm not entirely certain. Out of curiosity, I clicked on it. It was a short four or five minute playthrough of a cutesy point and click game that some how sold me enough on the idea to seek out the series and give the first game a go. Maybe it was just because it was a simple point and click series that embodied the absolute definition of casual game. Whatever the case, there was something about it that made me believe it was a worthy flash game, even if it appeared to be directed at an audience of four-year-olds. If anything, the one thing that stuck out is that it appeared as though the developer went out of his way for all the little details - that he chose to make something bespoken of quality, even if he's popped one or two of these games out every year for the past few years. It didn't immediately scream shitty Microsoft Paint drawings quickly embedded into some javascript in 48 hours so I can pop off my 145th game of the year. This is how the vast majority of flash games come off and Wheely took the effort to prevent itself from crossing that line and proved that simplicity doesn't necessarily equate to crap.
I remember reading a fantastic article several years back articulating the complexities of the hows and whys a given movie review is presented as it is, i.e. how some blowhard B-movie cheese can actually garner a decent review. The article's writer expressed his (or her) opinion that reviews should take into account whether or not the product accomplished exactly what it set out to do. If it was meant to be nothing but cornball camp, did it at least pull out all the stops to be the best damn camp it can be? Other than being of the opinion that all reviews should be argued as such, no more so than here. To the average gamer, and probably a wide spectrum of people beyond, Wheely is likely a pointless endeavor either meant purely for pre-Kindergarteners or simple drivel to plaster on Newgrounds, Kongregate, or other such Flash sites where it can further contribute to a plague of over saturation. Except, Wheely, in my book, hits all the marks it set out to, and perfectly at that.
Wheely, an obvious nod to Lightning McQueen, consist of (mostly) one screen puzzles - move the eponymous car from point A to point B while maneuvering around simple obstacles so he can make his way from a tired showroom floor to the day of the big race. Wheely's aspirations are admirable considering he's become last year's model - a victim of price reduction time and time again, proving he's no longer the chic auto he once believed himself to be. But forget materialism or consumerism. Instead, Wheely turns to ambition, to prove to himself as Red would come to learn in Shawshank Redemption - get busy living, or get busy dying. Who wishes to rust away as they're put on year end manager closeout special buy 99% off dealer's choice everything must go extravaganza only to watch everyone turn their heads towards other, more appealing buys?
The difficulty is hit and miss as the levels seem to progress more in favor of continuity between levels. I respect and appreciate that, but it does manage to fracture the gameplay a bit. There are a couple balance puzzles that are interesting, and at least a step up in difficulty compared to some of the earlier levels, but there's no solid progression. Granted, given the size of the sprites and the fact that most everything is confined to a single screen, it can prove restricting on what can be done. However, for the most part, I think the developer did a fair job with the levels at hand.
Honestly, it's hard to criticize the game only because the game is exactly as advertised...at least in the general presentation. Dig a little deeper, and it's a different story. My experiences with the game were unfortunately bitter as I had to shuffle through a few different sites before I finally found a version that I could get through without bogging my laptop down to an absolute standstill. The issue seemed reminiscent of a memory leak, eating up gargantuan amounts or RAM at an exponential rate once I got to about the seventh level. First attempt, I made it to Level 9 before my computer became frozen in time. Next two attempts - each on differing sites - I made it as far as Level 7 and began chucking F-bombs at a children's game as the lag became utterly disgusting. Using the air pump before the giant saw blade tore Wheely asunder was a venture in total futility.
I believe I finished the game on Kongregate, thanks to their cookies autosaving whatever level I was on, though I initially sought the game elsewhere due to the lag being so awful there, though it was no different anywhere else. Through personal tyranny of will, I decided to push through best I could, even if it meant restarting Level 7 multiple times until the lag was tolerable enough to work with. Once I pushed through Level 9, the issue disappeared, so I'm not entirely certain what was going on and based on a couple of LPs and some comments here and there, no one else seems to have experienced this awfulness. Thing is, I've never experienced this with any other Flash game, and Wheely brought my laptop to its pitiful knees no matter where I tried it. So whether it was a memory leak or some sort of malware piggybacking the game, it completely ruined my experience - an experience I'm quite certain would have been favorable in the game's lighthearted simplicity as I fully respected the game for what it was. But with all the trouble I had to deal with just to play a ten minute time waster built in the Flash medium, it's hard to heap praise of any kind. Instead, I find the game flawed and egregious and the developer should be ashamed if it truly exists in this condition. If, however, it was merely a fluke between the game and my own hardware, well, it's a shame. Although, I did run one attempt on a desktop; suffering the same deplorable conditions, so...for the moment, all signs seem to point to bullshit on the developer's end. Ah well.
Nevertheless, I probably would try out another Wheely title simply out of curiosity. Consider it personal interest in seeing how the developer grew the series - if any sense of complexity ever enters the equation or he simply stuck to his guns with one screen puzzles. I've seen some screen shots of the other games, and like I said, I learned about the series by watching an LP of the fourth(?) installment, and from what I saw - no change. If anything, I hope the bullshit lag is rectified.
Nano-What?:
Seriously, there's a level that is literally nothing but changing your paint, tint, and wheels? Why wasn't this simply an optional customization menu at the beginning of the game so we can all choose our personalized Wheelys from the get-go? I felt any attachment to Wheely as a character was lost since it happened in such an arbitrary way at such an arbitrary time - like an afterthought shoehorned in without any real thought.
Rating: 2 sunglasses adorned lorries out of 5
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