Zombies, Cows and a Sponge…

July 15, 2008 · Filed Under Reviews · 3 Comments 

Moocow!

It seems bizarrely compulsory that when you mention adventure games you drift off into a lament about the loss of classic Lucasarts style adventures to the mainstream. Given that you can get this sort of meander anywhere, I’ve made a conscious decision to try and skilfully negotiate the issue wherever possible.

Not Dead

Anyone with the slightest bit of nouse will be aware that whilst the mainstream may avoid such things, peeking its head overground is a whopping community of folks that keep the adventurers dream alive. From Inform (which I briefly began tinkering with last year to a medium amount of success before getting bored), Wintermute (it’s not all Limbo Of The Lost from the Wintermute community) and AGS there’s never any shortage of adventuring to be done. But I’ll be honest, I’m lazy and rely on second hand opinions before checking an adventure game out normally. The time investment required is generally more than I have to give of recent times. I have no doubt that I’m missing out on some minor masterpieces along the line, but thems the ways of the world.

However, there’s days when you just need a damn good laugh and that’s something I fear most arcade games or major titles fail to manage. It’s not generally their reason to exist. Given I’ve hit the wall at the moment, (That point in the year where everything seems to require more effort than I have in me. I’m sure most creative folks get it from time to time and can sympathise with how frustrating it is when you hit it. Even pixelling a 32×32 sprite becomes a chore and nothing seems to be quite right.) I really desperately needed a good hard guffaw to lift my spirits.

Well, thank fuck for Mr Gibbage himself, Dan Marshall, who’s just launched his rather spanking looking new place over at Zombie Cow Studios and dropped two new games for the public to drag their scraggly eyes over. (And dropped the price of Gibbage to a whopping three of your Earth pounds). Ok, so only one of these games is actually funny unless you happen to have a bizarre sense of humour that finds block dropping games hilarious, but that’s not the point here. For the first time in a very long time, I laughed long and hard whilst playing a game. Repeatedly.

Put that where?

The game in question is Ben There, Dan That. I’ll confess that when I first heard about the game, I was worried it may have turned out as one of the most solopsistic concepts ever, a game by Dan and compadre Ben about well, you can work that out for yourself, no? I’m very glad to say that it didn’t turn out to be the case beyond the odd knowing nod near the start and BTDT is filled with accessible and piss funny jokes from the offset. The first puzzle alone makes it worth the entrance fee. (Which incidentally, is nowt).

Having left the game around the 3/4 mark yesterday to watch the MS E3 conference (nothing to do with being mildly stumped by one puzzle at all, oh no) I’d already had more than one persons fair share of enjoyment out of the game and I’m quite looking forward to finishing it all off today. I’m already missing my dimension jumping antics and share of snidey match 3 quips.

I can’t in all honesty claim that the puzzles are entirely logical, but there’s enough foreshadowing and sprinkling of clues around the place to ensure that you’re never left in the dark for too long. The spritely dialogue and interaction between the two heroes is enough to stave off any boredom or frustration regardless. There appears to be very little in the way of interactions or possible combinations that the authors haven’t accounted for, there’s a response to pretty much everything you try and do.

I’d say more, but I really don’t wish to spoil the game for you, dear readers, but I will say this much. If you fail to raise a smile at the encounter with the Vicar and subsequent comments about said encounter, you’re officially dead inside. That is all.

So I’ll just leave you with that link again for you to go and investigate the game yourself.

Ben There, Dan That. Grab it.

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Blast Miner Review

May 10, 2007 · Filed Under Reviews · Comment 

Don’t look here, look here.

{as Gibbage is now defunct, I’ve retrieved the text and added it to this post - exciting eh?]

Blast Miner

Blast Miner isn’t a bad game, unfortunately just like the description seems to flounder to nail down what the game entails, so it follows that Blast Miner isn’t sure what type of game it actually is. Its as if someone has sat down and made a list of things that are really, really great in games right now, and next to each point they’ve drawn a little tick box in crayon and wont be satisfied until every single box is filled with ticks.

Physics? Check. Armadillo Run style stage set up? Check. Completing a level within a budget? Check. Block dropping? Check. Explosives? Check. Huge chunks of gold - check.

Game designers, when will you learn? You can’t possibly be everything to everyone without losing that something that will make your game special.

Special, like a cow at Christmas.

Thats the saddening thing about Blast Miner, each individual part of the game is highly polished and brimming with good idea’s but when viewed as a whole, they all fall short of the mark.

The graphics and presentation are fantastic, so much so that they almost disguise how awful the menu system is, the three game skins are well designed yet one is needlessly confusing replacing the symbolic blocks with chunks of colour, the physics are solid and a great idea but feel too floaty to be satisfying, and both the included game modes seem to be great idea’s in their own right let down with minor niggles.

Out of the two game modes, the puzzle mode is the more satisfying. Being able to set up the stage and let rip a huge chain of explosions propelling your blocks to the finishing line is a rewarding experience. The designs are fiendish at times, occasionally confusing, but this is a puzzle mode and you’d expect nothing less.

Its the arcade mode that really lets the side down. You never really feel like you have any control over what happens on the screen. Rotating the blocks becomes a chore due to the floaty physics, launching the gold into the machine feels more a matter of blind luck than skill no matter how large an explosion you cause and the small play area stifles any truly creative play. Even watching the online replays, you’ll still be left feeling none the wiser as to how to score big.

If you can pretend the arcade mode doesn’t exist and learn to cope with the curiously drifting physics in puzzle mode, then there’s a good chance that you’ll find a lot of love in Blast Miner. I just can’t shake the feeling that with a little bit more focus, more concentration on what the game does well and a whole lot less emphasis on just ticking the boxes of whats good and great in games - Blast Miner could have been something very special indeed.

As it stands, its a flawed gem that on one hand should be applauded for being so defiantly indie in its approach, and on the other, taken outside and given a kicking for being so defiantly indie in its approach.

A surefire case of try before you buy.

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