I’m not really up to doing some coding, so I thought I’d take a gander through the Game Tunnel Game Of The Year awards and have a look at some of the incredible Indie titles up for nomination this year in a not easily rigged whatsoever voting session thingymalarkey.
So, its with steely determination I’m about to dive in and try each and every one of these games using my incredibly fair judgement system… otherwise known as, if you can’t grab me within 5 minutes you can go to fuck.
If, within the 5 minute window the game hasn’t grabbed me by the bollocks and said “YES! YOU MUST REPLAY ME” then its failed as far as I’m concerned.
Harsh? Probably. Fair? Heck no! But its my system and I can use it if I want.
I’ve already covered a couple of the games here before now, but I’ll recap a bit on those as well.
Aveyond
The first to demo to land on my hard drive, so the first to get tested, and bugger me sideways I’m already off to a fantastic start here. No, wait…the other one. This is an old school RPG apparantly, well, I’ll give the makers their due – the collision detection certainly is. Jesus H. Christ on a bike, they grow strong flowers in this land. I wondered around for a bit trying to negotiate the shrubbery that blocks your way, bumped into a few NPC’s in a very literal sense then turned it off.
Congratulations Aveyond – you managed a whole 6 minutes. And most of that was spent trying to avoid throwing an epileptic fit at the scrolling.
Avernum 4
I’m two games in and things aren’t exactly looking great for me here. Avernum wins the worst interface award of 2006 by a long chalk (unless, by some miracle, there’s a game with a worse interface in this list – I doubt thats going to happen though). I made it as far as the second room before I got completely and utterly pissed off with the reams of textual help (tip: if it needs that much explaining, its fucked) and twatting around clicking around an interface that looks like something Denton Designs would have written off as a bad job.
Used most of its 5 minutes before I’d even started the game.
Armadillo Run
The first game to hit the “5 minutes are not enough” marker. There’s so much about Armadillo Run that y’know – really should be shit. Its not a great looking game by any means, and a game thats based entirely around physics would, under normal circumstances – be slung into the corner and filed under “stick to the classroom”. But Armadillo Run just works. Its not a looker, no – but theres a careful balance (hohoho) on the playability front that gives it that “oh go on then, just one more try” factor.
Bullet Candy
I’ve already bought Bullet Candy. I bought it within a few hours of its release. Yes, I am *that* kind of nutjob who hawks internet message boards waiting for decent games to crop up. And Bullet Candy isn’t perfect, its not full of professional gloss and sheen, and there’s a few niggly things that stop it from ever going down in history as a classic of its genre. But it matters not a jot because its fucking fun and Charlies taken most of the feedback from his users to build on an already fine game and make it better.
So, thats alright then. I feel a little less sad about having to endure 2 arse games in a row to begin with now.
Defcon
I don’t understand the fuss over Introversion. I thought Darwinia was a beautiful, beautiful game to look at but ultimately wonky arse to play. Can Defcon make me change my mind? Well, I guess the answer is no… I still don’t see the fuss about Introversion unless you’re easily swayed by style over substance.
The best part of Defcon is the soundtrack. Thats glorious. But I’ll be damned if I could find a decent game in here. Its like Risk with all the decent bits stripped out.
Devastation Zone Troopers
Catchy name, chaps! Thats right out of the “I’m fucking desperate” barrel there. Devastation Zone Troopers managed to break the 5 minute mark into a whopping 9 minutes. Most of which was spent staring in disbelief at the sub PS1 pile of bollocks gameplay I was presented with, the rest of it was spent wondering which smart cookie thought popping up a music player to advertise some shit music to me was a really good idea whilst attempting to play the game.
Here’s a hint chaps – I couldn’t give a fuck who wrote your music. Now piss off.
Eets
I like Eets. Kinda. Its Armadillo Run meets Lemmings in an adorable style. It makes me smile. It makes me laugh. It also makes me wish more games had a sense of humour.
But they don’t. And thats how we end up with games like The Exchange Student. So we’ll give two thumbs up to Eets and move swiftly along.
Empires And Dungeons
I always worry about websites that feel the need to label one of their games “very popular”. Why the fuck should I care? The only thing that matters to me is wether I like your game or not, I don’t care if 8 billion people love you. Anyway. Thats about all the review of Empires And Dungeons you’re going to get because it fails to load. Great fun that.
FastCrawl
Or…the game I thought was probably going to be dismal and instead wrapped me up inside it. Fast paced Rogue-esque action? Don’t mind if I do, sah. Only gripe? I don’t really want to play a game of chase the tutorial menu.
10 minutes for FastCrawl before I turned it off thinking “hmm, I could be on this all night…”
Fizzball
Oh fuck, its breakout. But wait! Its breakout with animals instead of bricks. Genius. I just spent 5 minutes spanking the monkey with my balls.
I’m sure my kid would love this though – it has sheep. C4 likes sheep.