PANGAROIDS Review

Before going on, for full disclosure, a while back the two people who made this game had apparently asked me to take a look at it. Unfortunately, I only recently got the notification I had gotten a message. Sometimes WordPress has the funkiest glitches. On top of that, I had a lot going on outside of my online presence so it took me a while to finally get to this one.

PROS: A solid Asteroids clone with some twists.

CONS: Not the deepest experience

POWER-UPS: Be sure to get them often.

With that out of the way, I’m getting to this now. I contemplated calling this a mini-review at first because on the surface there isn’t much to talk about. Upon seeing it for the first time your likely reaction will be “Oh, an Asteroids clone. Okay.” and go on about your day. But after you play it for a while you’ll start to see that they did put some thought into differentiating it from the many games that have taken a shot at updating Asteroids.

Pangaroids is a game that adds a slight hint of Pong into the mix by having borders around the playfield. What does this do? Well, the Asteroids (which I think are supposed to be space hockey pucks) can bounce off of the borders at various angles. So when you aren’t initially crushed by one of them, they can still rebound into you. As in Asteroids, shooting them blows them into smaller pieces that you also have to avoid while shooting them.

This results in the screen getting cluttered up a lot faster than in Atari’s old vector game. To help you, there are power-ups that will randomly drop from the destroyed space pucks. You can cycle through them before picking them up by shooting at them. And while it never gets as varied as other shmups that do this like Twin Bee or Cotton, it does break up the formula a bit. There are missiles, shields that can protect you from a hit, and a few others. Some of them will affect enemy behaviors to a minimal degree.

The game also has a similar thruster mechanic to Asteroids. So you have to try to anticipate where momentum is going to take you in addition to where your targets are going to be. So the game does have a bit of strategy involved within its space. Visually, the game doesn’t really do much to stand out. Make no mistake, it doesn’t look bad at all. But it has a clean, sterile look within its border, and sprites give off that early 2000s Newgrounds vibe.

The game controls well enough, with a little bit of floatiness you’d expect to see in any game following Atari’s classic arcade game. You move the ship using the arrow keys, and you fire with the space bar. Honestly, it’s pretty good for what it is. It isn’t going to set the world on fire and won’t pull you away from a deeper game you might be playing through. But for a game you can fire up in short bursts, it’s a pretty good option.

I’d say if you own a laptop you should add it to your Steam library. It’s the kind of game you can play on a commute or while waiting in an office for an appointment. And if you’re an old-timer like me, you may want to drop some time going for a high score. And you don’t see solid freeware games like this these days very often. As publishers usually go the ad-driven or microtransaction fuelled route instead. A full-fledged freeware microgame that plays well is a rarity. And the whole thing was made by a figurative handful of people so all in all a solid effort.

Final Score: 8 out of 10

Pop the game in, and live to win.

With all of the Splatoon 2 I’ve played as of late (It’s a great game, if you’ve got a Nintendo Switch you ought to check it out.) I got to thinking about previous multiplayer shooters I’ve gone back to again, and again, and again. I’ve reviewed a number of them on this blog, and in some previous ones I’ve had over the years. Obviously I talked a lot about the features, modes, how they work, and how these make for a good game.

But over my life growing up with games, I’ve found I get very competitive. More so with myself than opponents. Though I’ll put my best attempt at winning forward, I know, at least in the realm of video games, I can’t claim to be the top guy. If I were, I could be like the great Chris Jericho cutting amazing promos, and winning e-sports championships. (Seriously, Chris Jericho is one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. That’s one of my favorite of his promos. It’s great. That feud gave 2012 one of the best WrestleMania shows ever.)

Where was I? Oh right. Competitive gaming. More particularly why do I find it so compelling? It’s hard to describe really. Depending on the game there could be one or many goals. You may have to fill a role on a team, and work well with everyone else while focusing on your task. But you have to be well-rounded enough to pick up the slack if someone else falls. In another game it could be a free-for-all where you only have to focus on your own performance, hopefully being a cut above everyone else in the match. It could be a one on one game like a fighting game, where you have to not only continually hone your own skills, but be aware of both your own weaknesses, and your opponent’s weaknesses.

Then you have the cerebral aspect of strategy. In an actual strategy game it might be about managing resources, properly placing units, and making contingency plans in case your current plan of action doesn’t pan out. But there are different layers of strategy in any game. In a turf war round in Splatoon 2, you may decide to paint your side thoroughly, and slowly push ahead with a defensive focus. Or you could decide to just rush ahead, and get early claim at the middle ground. Then hope you can hold it, while touching up all you’ve skipped at the start. Or you could send two people ahead, and leave two behind. What load outs does everyone have? You could create a plan of action around your armaments. There is a lot more to think about than you might realize.

I remember way back in 2004, when I first got Unreal Tournament 2004. I had played the first game (commonly referred to as UT99) to death working at a OEM at the time. I loved it so much, I was excited to pick up the 2003 edition, and of course the 2004 version was lauded for ironing out some balance issues, adding new modes, and options. Though some weren’t fans of its omission of a few features in the process. But I digress. I had decided I wanted to get better at the game. Not to be a professional player (which wasn’t as common as it is today. There was no Twitch. There were a handful of major tournaments, and a number of smaller, regional ones. The major competitor back then was Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel, and chances were I was never going to go up against him on TV. Obviously, I never have.) but just to be able to get a win online occasionally. To not always be at the bottom of the scoreboard. Also to beat my coworkers.

Anyway, I decided that I was going to improve by focusing on one weapon in the game, and becoming proficient with it. That weapon was the Bio-Rifle. It was probably the least popular weapon in the original game, and so in the world of 2003/2004 not much more. People were enamored with stalwarts like the Flak Cannon, or the Mini-gun or the Shock Rifle (Those shock combos are known to clear rooms.). But I found the weapon to be pretty cool once I started getting a handle on it. In the Unreal Tournament games, every weapon has two firing modes. The Flak Cannon shoots shrapnel, or a bomb. The Shock Rifle shoots a laser, or an orb. You can shoot the orb with the laser to make an explosion. In the case of the Bio-Rifle you can shoot slime on the ground, walls, ceilings, etc. If people touch it, they get injured. But, you can hold the secondary fire, you can charge a single glob of slime. When you let go of the button, it shoots it off in an arc. If that glob touches someone, more often than not they’ll die, or be on their last 5% of health.

Each version of Unreal Tournament has a different design, and physics for the weapon, so you can’t expect to be a whiz overnight going from UT to UT2004 or from UT2004 to UT3. But the point is it became my de facto weapon in the series. And I honestly became pretty good with it. I was no Fatal1ty by any means, but I started finding myself in the top 5 in a full death match game of 20 people more often than not. At least on public games. Well imagine my surprise when a couple of other players noticed this, and asked me to be on their team. I ended up not only improving my own skills for my own personal goals. But I impressed players who were even better than I was. As someone who has always had self-confidence issues, low self-esteem, and other problems this was a pleasant surprise to me. Anyway, for a good four years or more we frequently played against other teams in scrim, and had fun trying to master the game together. Improving trick jumping skills, getting better at other modes, and mods. At one point our head player rented server space where we had our own public server, where we hosted our own maps. They weren’t the best maps. But they were our own!

We disbanded after the UT series went dormant where others moved onto other games. Though from time to time I may see them online playing something else. But the bigger point is that competitive games can really drive you to want to keep playing them when their formulas gel with you. Some of the early Battlefield games were like that for me. Chivalry: Medieval Warfare was like that for me. It may have had some issues that kept it from perfection, but it was a blast to play, and the melee combat was, and still is quite novel. Not too many games make swinging a sword deeper than a left mouse button click. Toxikk was probably one of the better attempts to bring back the movement focused arena shooting that the Quake, and Unreal games gave us.

But even long before these games I’ve found competitive games compelling. As a teenager, and young adult I gorged on Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, World Heroes, Tekken, Soul Calibur, Virtua Fighter, and other fighting games. I loved Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, and Rise Of The Triad campaigns. I loved calling my friend via a modem, and 1v1 deathmatching even more. I’m not the biggest sports fan out there, as a casual fan. But NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, NHL Hitz, and Sega Soccer Slam gave some of the most intense gaming moments ever when they were new.

Even when I was growing up, there were a plethora of great competitive games I played with my younger brother. And I’ll admit, I often hated it when he’d beat me. Here I was, putting in time to try to master stealth, and ricochet tactics in tank mode on Combat. He somehow just knew where I was on the screen. To this day, I cannot defeat him in Warlords, one of my favorite Atari 2600 games of all time. And this is a man who rarely gets the game time I do, due to the fact that he owns, and operates a small business. Sometimes you just end up with a sibling who picks a game up like it’s second nature.

Be that as it may, whether you’re going for a high score in Kaboom!, trying to place first on Rainbow Road, or blow up the enemy cache in Insurgency, there’s something enthralling about competing against friends or strangers. There’s the joyous feeling of riding high when you’re victorious. There’s the humbling nature of a soul-crushing defeat. There’s a stressful, yet entertaining feeling you get when it’s neck, and neck, and that last second, or last frag, or last goal is about to transpire.

Obviously, not all of us handle a loss like a civilized person. I would argue that at one time or another we’ve all been guilty of this. Flipping the chess board. Screaming like a petulant five-year old. But there’s no place for the awful stuff some spew over a chat microphone. You never know who is on the other end of a headset, so one really needs to behave as if they were walking through a crowded mall. Not be a nuisance who is going to regret saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Fortunately, in most cases you can mute all of the instigators. But in the end sometimes it pays to remind oneself to take the loss like a grown up. Set down the controller afterward, and go do something else for an hour or two. Competition should feel exciting, and even cutthroat at times. But it should also come with a feeling of enjoyment. If it stops feeling fun, it’s time to take a breather.

Of course, there are going to be those who get a rise out of getting others upset in any given game. And it ruins the experience. But this falls in line a bit with sore losing too. In the sense that after the round ends, stop playing, do something else. Don’t rage quit, and further worsen things for other people. Don’t flip out, and give the bullies what they want. You have to be the bigger person. Which is admittedly easier said than done sometimes. That’s what made this classic Family Guy moment so funny.

In spite of these circumstances, I still find myself constantly going back to competitive games. It doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy solitary experiences. I like a single-player experience as much as the next player. And in some cases one could argue, you can even get competitive with yourself. Can you speed run a game faster than before? Can you get the best possible ending? Can you find every last item? Can you complete every side quest? Can you get a kill screen going for a high score? Can you speed run a kill screen?

But the point is competition is one of the highlights of gaming. Sure, not every game needs to cram a death match or tower defense mode into it. Especially in games where a story driven experience is the focal point. But competition can be its own reward. Giving players a drive to improve, little by little with every match. Learning more about the mechanics, or building a strategy with each setback. Getting that feeling of accomplishment waving over them with their first big win.

And you don’t have to be a professional player to get that kind of experience. You can find it in your inner circle of friends, and relatives on game night. Or on a holiday gathering. Or when you all get out of work at 9pm. Competitive games are also something anyone can enjoy. You don’t always have the time to devote to a 60 hour RPG, or a 10 hour campaign. But most of us can squeeze in an hour of ten minute matches into an otherwise busy week with friends.

But I’ve done enough long-winded rambling. Hopefully I’ve opened up a point of conversation, or have given someone something to think about. What about you? Do you have the drive to pop more balloons in Circus Atari than your siblings? Get more frags than your friends in Quake? Shut down your Aunt in Mario Kart? Sound off below.

Turbo Pug Review

I love this time of year. I’m always reminded of the gifts of love, forgiveness, along with the people in my life. I can’t get them out of debt, or solve their complex problems, but I can try to give them a few moments of joy. So seeing how we’re mostly fans of gaming, I nab a bunch of stuff during Valve’s annual sales for my gift giving inventory. Often times I’ll use Steam Wallet cards to do this, since I’m not a big fan of interest fees.

Anyway, often times those cards leave nickels, dimes, and pennies in the wallet at the end. “What to do with forty-one cents?” I ask myself. Usually the answer is to just leave it there, until I want to buy something else. But this year, sorting the game list from cheapest game to highest price game revealed a really fun, and interesting title. One trading card sale later, I had enough coins to dive in.

PROS: Probably the best endless runner this side of Robot Unicorn Attack.

CONS: Intrusive Unity pop ups need to be toggled off.

WHAT?: There is an unlockable penguin who is seemingly useless.

On its surface Turbo Pug is little more than a cobbled together Robot Unicorn Attack clone. Since Adult Swim’s flash game, there have been countless endless runners. Some, like Bit Trip Runner, have been great, adding their own spin to the formula. Others like Meme Run have had mixed reaction to say the least.

But Turbo Pug is actually one of the best endless runners you’ll probably ever play. Not only is it as addictive as Robot Unicorn Attack. Not only is it as fun as the Bit Trip series. It is oozing with charm. Turbo Pug puts you in the role of a pet pug running through randomized environments for points. There is a jump button, and that is pretty much it. All you need to do is time your jumps accordingly to avoid pits, lava, and more.

The longer you go, the more dangerous the traps become. By the time you get around 2,000 points or more you’ll begin to see spikes, buzz saws, and other nefarious plots to kill you. You can also find spinning pug coins that will give you 50 or 100 points depending on what axis they are on when you land on them.

But Turbo Pug goes even farther than that. It has a real time, day, and night cycle. Over the course of a few minutes you will see the sun set, the moon rise, and the sun come up again. It also has weather cycles. At any given time the game will decide to rain or snow. When it rains, there is also the odd chance that your pug will be struck by lightning. If this happens you won’t be able to jump for a few seconds. But you also won’t fall from your current height until the sting is over.

“Wow!” you might exclaim.”That sounds pretty deep for what could pass for a cell phone time waster.” But at the risk of sounding like a game show announcer, that isn’t all. Turbo Pug also has a multitude of unlockable characters. Each character has its own properties, that may or may not help you in your quest for a high score. Super pug has a cape, and a double jump. Pumpkin pug has a light that comes on during night cycles. The penguin is slow, and will probably fall to his doom rather quickly.

Turbo Pug also scratches your retro itch with its Amiga like sprites. The game looks like a 16-bit computer game through, and through. It has a great color palette, and the sprite art has a lot of great detail. The end result is beyond cute, and adorable. The audio really only features two songs, and some small sound effects. But the two songs are very catchy compositions that combine the soft rock sound of lite-FM, and Atari 2600 era chip tunes.

The only real problems with Turbo Pug, are the intrusive Unity tool tips that come up the first time you play. You’ll want to disable them right away. Aside from that, while the game does engage in Valve’s Steam Trading Card program pretty well, it doesn’t have achievements. It seems like a game that would take advantage of achievements well, but they’re nowhere to be seen. There is a high score leaderboard though to motivate you to keep shooting for the stars.

I highly recommend Turbo Pug. It could have easily indeed been a quickly churned out piece of shovelware. But it isn’t. There is a lot of effort on display for such a simple game. It’s engaging too. It will easily make you lose an afternoon to its cute protagonist, challenging jumping puzzles, and soft music if you allow it to. Let your actual pug have a well deserved nap, and fire up some Turbo Pug.

Final Score: 8 out of 10

 

Pigs In Space Review

The Muppets. What children of the 80’s didn’t love them? Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, and of course the theatrical films. Even when they weren’t all that great, they weren’t completely lamented. Except for maybe the time they tried to remake The Wizard of Oz. Anyway, Muppets have been plastered on everything for decades. T-shirts, flat ware, a rather excellent toy line from Palisades Toys, the list goes on. Muppets even made their way into video games. Most of them have been simple, edutainment fare. Things for toddlers to learn shapes or colors or numbers from. After all, Sesame Street has been a pre school staple. But now, and again they’ve ventured out into traditional video games. This week I stumbled onto one of the more interesting, and yet disastrous ones.

PROS: Based on one of the best parts of The Muppet Show.

CONS: Inconsistent visuals. Poor controls.

PSYCHIC GAME: Predicted Gonzo was an alien 16 years before Muppets From Space.

Pigs In Space is loosely based off of one of the Muppet Show’s greatest skits. In it Miss Piggy, Captain Hogthrob, and Dr. Strangepork go on adventures in space that parody popular science fiction. One of their most notable skits, featured Mark Hamill reprising his role as Luke Skywalker, even bringing C-3P0, and R2D2 along. It was pretty funny, and something a lot of kids looked forward to back then. The game however shouldn’t really elicit that sort of nostalgia. Because it isn’t very good.

This is probably going to be a fairly short review because there isn’t very much to Pigs In Space. It’s a compilation of three games, two of which are fairly shallow. The game starts out with a title screen with none of the design of the skits’ popular moniker. Upon starting the game, you will see three heads appear underneath, and a scoreboard on the top of the screen. Just below the scoreboard are some X’s. These represent the number of lives you have left. Choosing each of the heads will bring you to a corresponding game. The first of these is Captain Hogthrob’s game. It’s the best game on the cartridge, and the only one that could possibly pass for an actual skit. It’s a parody of Space Invaders. The alien ships have all been replaced by Camila the chicken, and the space station that flies across the top has been replaced by a spinning Gonzo head. The Gonzo head is interesting, because not a lot of Atari 2600 games were doing the rotation effect this does. In any event, you move the Captain along the bottom eliminating chickens for points. Instead of landing on the ground for victory, they just push you below a certain barrier. The other thing they do is shoot at you the way you would expect. If you get shot, you turn into a chicken, and fly away. The game is the only one that doesn’t end until you lose all of your lives.

As a parody of Space Invaders it works, but the clunky movement, and single joke will have you wishing you had just played Space Invaders instead. Next up is Miss Piggy’s game. It’s a really bad Frogger clone. If you can even call it a clone. Floating across the screen are spaghetti, and meatballs. Because “Spaghetti Western” I can only guess. The object is to get Miss Piggy across the fast flying food, and into the ship. Once you do that successfully it’s back to the title screen. The faster you do it the bigger the point bonus. Of course if the ship makes it all the way across without you, you’ll lose a life, and have to try again until you’re out of lives. It’s short, you’ll probably play it once, and forget about it.

Finally there’s the Dr. Strangepork level. Strange doesn’t really begin to describe it. It’s a vertical shooter. You pilot the Swinetrek through what one can only guess is a cave. Gonzo appears on ledges firing laser guns. If one connects or you touch a wall, you have to start over again. You can shoot at the Gonzos but the game has you do so in the most asinine way possible. It shoots in the direction you last steered. Even more baffling is the arc of the shot is odd. It will go left or right, but also fall back. So landing shots requires pixel perfect timing. With enough practice you can clear the stage. There are no bosses, or tougher enemies on replay. It’s the same thing every time. Clearing the cave again, takes you back to the title screen. There isn’t much else to go over here aside from one crucial point. Points aren’t tied to any one game. Your score carries over between them until you run out of lives.

One interesting note about the game is that it is one of the few 2600 games to come out just before the industry crash of 1983. Which makes it one of the rarer games in the library. Although not so rare that you’ll pay a mint for it. It doesn’t have the status of scarcity of other noteworthy 2600 games. Pigs In Space is a morbid curiosity. Something that you may pick up to say you’ve experienced, or to boast it’s in your collection. Outside of those uses though it isn’t a recommended game. You’ll get a competent Space Invaders knock off, a bad Frogger clone, and a really strange vertical shmup. There are far better 2600 games to play. Really, really good 2600 games to play. Get this only if you’re into rarities, and collecting pieces of obscure video game history.

Final Score: 4 out of 10