Retro Remakes 2006 Competition
With just over 24 hours to go…
A small sneak preview of some of the games due on September 1st…
Fren-ze
One of the great joys of reading The2Bears excellent blog is getting reasonably up to the minute news on the latest shmup releases (odd considering its the main focus of his blog - who’da thought it?), so it was with much pleasure a few nights ago I read of the release of Hermit Games latest opus, Fren-ze.
There are very few Indie releases that have ever pressed such an urgent need to push the buy button after a few brief moments playing the demo before, Fren-ze joins the hallowed few with pride. Partially due to being an utterly wonderful game and partly for having one of the most insanely low price points I’ve hit upon in a while. (Pretty much on par with The Pickfords excellent Naked War for value for money) Running in at a daft $5 for the full 4 level game its an absolute bargain.
4 levels? Is that all? Don’t be fooled - this is definitely a case of quality over quantity. Its also, a brutally hard game that positively revels in kicking your arse from here to kingdom come… which would be a problem if the game wasn’t so carefully and lovingly crafted to near perfection. Looks wise, it mimics the Aba Games clean vector stylings, which by now, you might have gathered I’m a sucker for a lovely retromodern style so it most definitely appeals to my eyes.
The game involves traversing increasingly difficult patterns of bullets and a variety of enemy styles, beating the mid level bosses for power ups and generally, attempting to stay alive and score as highly as possible - all the hallmarks of a fine shooter then. Now, the scoring in Fren-ze is a little bit different to what you’re used to and is based on earning 1 point per pick up pushing you ever onwards to pick up the blue glowy things that the enemies leave behind in a vain hope to break the three figure mark on the scores.
All told, a beautifully polished game with gorgeous visuals and a spankingly harsh difficulty level that never feels unfair.
Alpha Six
Alpha Six is described on the website as, and I quote “a pure action game.” - well, that sounded right up my alley from the off - graphics looked lovely in a retro old skool kinda way - so this morning I downloaded it. Wandered off and remembered about it around half an hour ago and in a fit of schoolboy excitement loaded it up.
Jesus.
I should have known, really, I should - as any regular readers will know - I love and adore simple concepts in games, I love well executed idea’s, I love pretty graphics, I like good things.
Yes… a fair proportion of my will to exist thanks to this game…
Alpha Six just, well, isn’t good. I’d even be so bold as to say its quite possibly one of the most appallingly executed things I’ve come across in around 12 months, and I review shit games for kicks…what set the alarm bells off at first was the size of the manual. Now, I’m all for comprehensive documentation in games - in fact, I love nothing more than a well written piece on a game and tactics involved in playing it (obvious self pleasuring excepted) but when your manual features such exciting information as this dizzying amount of dull statistics and lengthy pieces on the various “special” moves in the game (think “special child” and you’re not too far off) then we’re heading seriously into “if you have to explain it, its not working” territory.
I’ll control myself when you fucking learn to slimline your control methods.
The main problem is, its all a case of overthinking. What should have been a decent enough straightforward shooter turns into an unnecessarily complex fuckmeld of things that I swear, two minutes in, a fucking kitchen sink fell out of my monitor whilst running the game. And most of the additions to the game, like Line Of Sight visibility, frankly, are shit and unnecessary.
LoS works well in Paradroid because the entire game mechanic is carefully built around it, whereas in a game which I would best describe as a really shit SmashTV meets Streetfighter, or everything Gibbage would have been if Dan Marshall had taken leave of the last of his marbles and decided to make the worlds most appalling deathmatch game, with overly complex grandiose idea’s of greatness, too many buttons, no gameplay and a manual the size of the worlds biggest ball of twine… (and we’re thankful to Dan for saving the 2d deathmatch genre still, cheers Dan!) its rank and nothing more than an extra hurdle in an already inaccessible game.
If I wanted to spend 2 minutes wondering where the fuck the enemy is, I’d get myself a career in jungle warfare not play fucking games.
Look, the AI guy will be in the top corner wedged amongst something, same as ever.
I guess what it boils down to is AlphaSix is the antithesis of everything I enjoy in a game. It doesn’t care about you, its a giant egowank from the authors, a show of what they can throw into one game with no care or attention to how it plays at the end of it. Everything you see in this game has been done better elsewhere and more succesfully, by people who *do* care about you, do care about the player, and aren’t just out to spunk up their coding abilities in an 18meg zip file.
New Indie & Retrogaming PodCast
Podcasts, god, so many of them are either terminally dull, gratuitously studenty or just manage to completely miss the mark completely don’t they? Thats the problem with these new fangled idea’s, everyone wants a shot at one and really, not everyone should be allowed near a computer - nevermind a microphone to record their views and air them to the internets public at large.
So, its nice to be sent a link to one that isn’t a waste of my time, effort and energy listening to and covers a subject I give a shit about and covers it well, and for bonus points, manages to get a loud “mmmnnnnnnnng” into the podcast (which had the unfortunate effect of making me laugh far too hard at an early hour of the morning yesterday and near coating my chair in an interesting shade of yellow.)
The podcast in question is the excellently titled Arsecast (which gives my own HallOfTwats a run for the money in the domain stakes) and features previews of some upcoming Indie games, reviews of a few games already out there (some of which you’ll have seen covered here previously) and aside from the anonymous (its not me, so don’t point the finger in my direction) caster being described by one person as “sounds like some second rate BBC local radio programme for the one-foot-in-the-grave crowd” is a most welcome and enjoyable addition to anyones listening schedule.
At around the 20 minute mark, its just the right length for listening to whilst doing the ironing.
Not that I know what an iron is, its just a rumoured mystical item as far as I’m concerned.
But if you do have an iron, then Arsecast is perfect for listening to whilst using it. Or so I hear. Just go and listen to it!
Ray Hound
Mouse control in shooters is an incredibly tricky thing to get right, so many casual games attempt it and fall at the first post - usually by making the mouse control a secondary consideration to mechanics that are normally applied to stick/pad or key control. In other words, thinking of the market before thinking of the end user. Even for the more hardcore games, mouse control can come off as a cumbersome addition to the gameplay often disconnecting the player too far from the action.
Very few shooter based games cope well with mouse control, GR++ is one of the shining examples of applying the mouse to the genre and Ray Hound takes its place amongst the hallowed halls of the elite few with ease.
What both GR++ and Ray Hound have in common aside from the mouse is very little from a gameplay point of view, but they do share an emphasis on the players dexterity and handling over the actual action of shooting - placing you 100% in control of the action.
More importantly - giving you the feeling that you are responsible for whatever happens on screen.
As a gaming concept, Ray Hound couldn’t be more simple - you are faced with a number of turrets who’s sole aim in life is to wipe you off the screen - they fire lasers at you, y’know - being turrets thats the kind of thing that they do. In order to survive you have to capture the lasers using a surrounding force field and then return the beams of death at the aggressors. All the action takes place in an arena, meaning you have to be careful not to lose your captured beams by crashing them against the edges, its all against the clock meaning that in order to survive long enough to get a meaningful score - you’re going to have to hammer the turrets out of existence as quickly as possible to achieve the time bonuses.
Its all handled so perfectly, plays so beautifully and looks gorgeous that you’ll find yourself gagging for just one more go to beat your last high score.
Thanks to Bill at The2bears for the heads up.
Why?
People, why mow the lawn at 7 o’ clock in the morning when its just been pissing down? Is there something wrong with your head?
Its soaking wet, its early in the morning, you’re making an absolute racket. It can wait till you get home from work you know, or tomorrow, or the weekend…or next year… just stop mowing the lawn at a ridiculous hour of the morning for the love of god.
Thanks.
Vector Infector Titles
Finally got some time to get back to VI, most of what remains is purely cosmetic and to some degree - trivial - though time consuming all the same.
One of the things I’ve never been happy with is the front end, I have a mental block on menu systems for some reason when it comes to implementing something that looks half decent. So, I decided its time to knuckle down and actually get something that looks good and does the rest of the game justice.
It might not look much from the screenshots below, but it looks luscious moving and Geekays soundtrack is the icing on the cake. Now, I’ve just got to get the menu code and highscore bumf in again…
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Retro Remakes
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Here you can find his rants, freeware retro remakes, development blog and game reviews.
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