Monday, 7 September 2020

Hidden Gems part 2

Despite the fact I already purchased a dozen or so games on the sale, I've only gone and purchased another 8. I need about a months holiday from work now if I ever intend to play them all, many of them are much longer from the 1 to 2 hour experiences I went through before. Maybe I could throw myself down the stairs and break my leg? Anyway, more games on the sale coming up.

88 Heroes




2D platformer again, and one with an interesting concept. you have 88 minutes to complete the 88 levels with 88 lives. However, this isn't lives in the usual sense. There are 88 different playable characters that are selected randomly as you play, some good, some bad. Love has gone in to all the characters, each wildly, or slightly different from each other and many of them references to other games, movies and TV from Mario and the Ninja turtles to Snake (as in the mobile game, not of the solid variety). This game is hard, sometimes because I make a lot of mistakes due to the the rush of getting through levels (which is the point) to some that are unavoidable. Some levels are either impossible or extremely difficult to complete with some characters and the only way to change character is to die, then you're down a life/ hero. Additionally (and more frustratingly) is the level scrolling. The first time I played it through I didn't even know you could look around as it never tells you how, or indeed that such an option exists. On top of that the scrolling takes time, vital seconds, and as silly as it sounds you're racing against the clock and stopping to look at what is coming multiple times a level eats up way too much, personally I think the the clock should be stopped when you do this. One more problem, each character comes with a bio, which are fun but they cover up most of the screen so when there is an early danger in a level, you can't see it coming. Overall this is a very  inventive game that I would love to see a sequel of, with some of the niggles ironed out. It's close to being something really special but for now I'll have to give it 7/10.


HORROR STORIES





This is a top down survival game of sorts. In the event anyone has ever played Party hard (where you're a top down 1 screen guy who has to silently slaughter everyone on screen), it's the opposite of that. It's a one screen affair too but this time the player is the one in peril. The protagonist has to sneak around the screen, hiding from a masked killer that is somewhere between Jason Voorhees and Leatherface (and later on other classic horror villains (or so I hear)) in order to set traps to escape. It's not quite that simple, every trap involves needing to find a specific item that sets up a separate, specific trap in a different location on the screen. This frustrated me as setting the traps in one would speed the play up, they could even add more traps but without the required items and that would work better. To be honest, this is a poor game. After playing the first level you get the whole game as it repeats just on seperate maps. The enemy spotting can be very frustrating, you are often seen from a mile away, yet also frequently not spotted right buy in front of the killers face. Additionally as soon as the slasher spots you, there seems to be no way to escape no matter what wardrobe you try to play in and you must start over. This game is dull and repetitive and not as quick paced as I would like for such a simple set up. To be fair I only played this game for about 20 minutes and didn't want to carry on, but from some gameplay videos I can tell I wouldn't want to. I paid 50p and I'd quite like it back. 2/10 (it didn't crash so it is not a 1/10)


GOLAZO!




Yes! football. There has, of course, been a lot of football games down the years and I have played a whole lot of them, from Pro Evo 4 to Actua Soccer 3 (to be fair, I liked that game based on Villa park being in it and the ability to leave footprints on the snow) and it was time to add another to my vast collection. An arcade soccer game that is a cross between Red Card Soccer and Sensible soccer (ugh, 'soccer'). The view is is side on like modern day games and has little rules and no fowls (apart from in the penalty area for reasons), there's a few power ups, speed, tackling and shooting which amounts to a simple, yet enjoyable arcade football game. there are no real licensed players, obviously (though unfortunately no teams made of different names of cheeses) with only a couple of modes, exhibition, world cup and league. There is local multiplayer (shame I have no friends) but unfortunately no online. The game adds a handful of collectibles, different kits etc. to unlock, but at the rate you gather in game currency it would take weeks to collect them all. There's no platinum here, though it would seem achievable if time is put in, which i might have had there been one. This is a perfectly acceptable football game if, like me you enjoy football games. For about £2 on the sale it's worth a purchase even though it gets long in the tooth relatively quickly. Like Gravity Duck before it the rating will get a bump for the low price which means 7/10.


BOUNCY BULLETS



 

Yes! easy platinum again (btw, all these easy platinums are coming from publisher 'Ratalaika Games', who are known for releasing cheap easy platinum games, but at least they actually make an effort to make an actual game, unlike some other easy platinums out there like Energy cycle or My name is Mayo, which are not really games at all). So, a first person 3D platformer with a major flaw. Like approximately 10% of gamers I play with an inverted Y axis. It just makes sense to me. This game does not have an option to invert and thus what should be a simple game turned into a frustrating endeavour. Each level has a time trial element to get 3 stars but I ended up with 1 star on basically every level as a result of this major issue. this is an ugly game, with simple colours and ordinary platforming, with the enemies taking the form of whacky, not waving, not inflatable, armless rectangle men. Even if you could actually could control the game it's extremely forgettable (I assume) and if, like me, you play inverted then completely avoid it, I could barely get through it. 2/10

This list was much poorer than the previous round of games unfortunately, but I purposely picked these games because they were short (there is replayability in 88 heroes and Golazo! but seems unlikely). Better start actually playing some of these longer games now, so the next post will likely be more of a wait. 

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