Get-A-Grip Chip Review

For full disclosure I was given a copy of this game from a friend who worked on this one. But that doesn’t sway my opinion on it, and I was not monetarily compensated for writing this review. All thoughts presented here are my own.

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to sit down and write a review. Hours at my regular job have been consistently high, and while things haven’t changed much in terms of the number of them I’ve been pulling, my schedule has been inconsistent. So I’ve focused more on getting some streaming in at night as playing games has always helped me decompress and talking to people who may hop in is usually a good experience.

PROS: Character design. Level design. Controls. Mechanics. Soundtrack.

CONS: A couple of cheap moments.

DON’T: Mistake this for a F2P mobile game port.

One of those games I streamed recently was Get-A-Grip Chip, an interesting game on Steam where you play as a robot who has to look for batteries using a magnet. It was given to me by a friend who did some of the work on it. It’s pretty fun. “Looking for batteries with a magnet? That’s supposed to be fun?” I can hear some of you asking. Well as simple as that sentence was, it’s a more complex idea with a lot of little ideas packed inside of that idea.

I’m told, that early on while working on something else, the team at Redstart Interactive found one really fun feature they had implemented, a grappling mechanic. They spent so much time on tweaking, and experimenting with it that they ended up building an entirely new game out of it. This game is ultimately what that game became. That story reminds me a lot of how a lot of Nintendo development stories go, start with something fun, then build the game, the world, the characters, and story around that. It works for Nintendo regularly, and it honestly does work here.

At first glance you might not see it. Visually, it has the crisp, flat, cut-out tones of something you might find on your cousin’s iPad. And what I mean by that is not the quality of the artwork, sprites, or character designs. All of these are very good with a blend of color depth and detail you might see in a South Park episode. Simply, that the way it is displayed could be perceived as a mobile title due to many of them having a similar look at first glance. That said, the world, the characters, and overall artwork is really good. And you’ll find a wide variety of different settings and environments in this factory as you play through this game. There are a few cutscenes in the game and these seem to have a more animatic vibe, animating a couple of frames to give you a sense of what is happening rather than a full-fledged FMV or animation. It’s something I’ve seen in many games lately even bigger ones. Monster Prom does it, Even Street Fighter V does it with its character story ladders.

Speaking of story, the one we are given here is that a company called RoboCo Manufacturing is making robots. Something I think is probably obvious. What isn’t obvious are the lack of failsafe measures. Because an accident happens on the line, a giant gear gets embedded in one of the manufacturing robots and this causes its programming to go haywire. This in turn causes the machine to go proverbially insane and begin blasting everything with death beams. One seemingly sentient robot named Chip needs to escape, but not before saving the ever so cute, also seemingly sentient batteries who look like Duracell gone Chibi.

Anyway, Chip has very limited mobility. He can move left, or right. In some cases up, or down. But 90 percent of the time left or right are your options. But Chip also has a magnet you can shoot short distances to latch onto things allowing you to swing around like Bionic Commando. The comparison to Capcom’s classic arcade game, its many home ports, NES pseudo-spinoff and even the newer ones that came out in the days of the 360 are appropos.

Because a lot like that series, this one will focus an awful lot on swinging around. Rivets, hanging rebar, there will always be something you’ll have to latch onto. Now while Bionic Commando focused on combat being an action game, this one goes more for mascot platforming. I was reminded of a number of them. Kirby came to mind because of the exploration element. While this is often far more challenging than Kirby, you still are going to be looking at ways to find creative solutions to seemingly complex problems. And some of them will not be so much seemingly complex problems as they are actually complex problems.

On the easier side of the scale, figuring out where the hidden batteries you need to save are is usually as simple as looking for a misshapen piece of wall. Or a sliver of a rivet just peeking into view. Actually getting to some of these batteries is quite a different story. Sometimes, sure, you can just roll behind a slightly off center looking wall and rescue your Rayovac friend. Often times, these paths will lead to new and far more challenging means to rescuing the battery in question. If and when you do successfully save a battery, you’re not in the clear because you still have to get them to the next checkpoint. When you do save one, the HUD will come up on the screen, and in the top left you’ll see a battery count. Each stage has ten batteries to save.

Now while you don’t have to save every battery to clear a level you do need to find so many of them to truly get further in the game. There are five floors, represented by levels of the building currently in the process of being destroyed. Each of the floors has five stages and a boss battle, each of which have the aforementioned batteries hidden within. Save enough batteries and you’ll unlock the next boss battle. It’s something that along with some of the boss battles, reminded me of Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams. In that game, you need to collect so many gems on your first run to unlock future stages, and also like that game there are sections where some grave danger initiates an auto scrolling section. The boss battles here are often like those sections in Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams. A wall of lava, acid, or other nefarious substance will follow you forcing you to rush through as fast as possible without perishing.

Doing that in of itself can be pretty daunting especially considering you have to do all of this by grappling. Doing all of that, and getting all of the batteries requires some Godlike reflexes and quick witted thinking on your feet. It is here, that I also really have to commend the games’ level designs. They all have a great blend of thinking fast to solve problems, and also trying to execute things, and discerning patterns as fast as possible. It really does lend itself well to speed running. But it also doesn’t really feel unfair except in maybe one or two instances where the game drops an unexpected enemy or obstacle your way. The game controls fairly well too with the WASD keys moving you, and you can use your mouse to aim your grappling hook. The game recommends using a game controller, so you may find that moving with a D-pad instead of keys on a keyboard is easier for you.

Get-A-Grip Chip also gives you unlimited lives, so the only thing that can ever really stop you from being able to beat the game is a lack of perseverance. It’s the kind of game I can see anyone really enjoying as you can clear the game by sheer determination. But I really think those who love a super difficult game will find a lot to like too, as trying to get some of the batteries rescued requires a LOT of dexterity, especially near the end of the game where you have to solve puzzles and solve them FAST. One nice thing is once you’ve saved a battery you don’t have to save it again on subsequent attempts. So you can 100% the game by focusing on only the batteries you didn’t find in previous attempts. Speed runners will get a lot of mileage out of this title though because trying to get through each stage in a really short period of time without dying is going to be quite the feat.

Clearing the game does also give you a satisfying ending, and it even shows you how many of the batteries you were able to save before escaping the collapsing factory. I quite liked Get-A-Grip Chip. Save for a handful of moments where they surprise you with an obstacle you have no way of knowing is coming, it’s generally very fair. When you die, more often than not you’re going to know it’s because you were unable to grab that ledge fast enough, or didn’t wait for that electrified lever to fully discharge or any other number of things. Everything is defined pretty well too. There was one instance later in the game I didn’t realize a background object was not a foreground object I could land on. But that could have easily been me being a dope.

And through it all I found myself really enjoying the soundtrack. There’s a pretty good variety here too. While everything could probably fall under the umbrella of Electronica since there are clearly a lot of compositions that were made on a computer that also would be far too much of a simplification. There are a lot of elements of different genres and subgenres here. Sometimes you’ll get some Techno. Sometimes there are moments that will feel more New Wave. Other times there are background songs that are decidedly Hip-Hop, or Heavy Metal. All chosen for appropriate sections. It’s pretty cool stuff, and as it turns out you can also buy the soundtrack on Steam too if you enjoy it enough to listen to beyond the scope of the game.

The characters are pretty cool, and it does a lot with the color palettes it employs. And with the control scheme I could easily see a sequel or prequel where they expand on some of the ideas presented here. I could even conceive a scenario where the company could potentially make a homebrew style version for older consoles and computers seeing how the set up works essentially on two sticks and a button. Seeing an Atari 2600 version, a Commodore 64 version, NES version, even a Colecovision or Intellivision version could be interesting. But now I’ve begun to ramble. The point is, Get-A-Grip Chip is one of the (to borrow a phrase from Metal Jesus Rocks ) hidden gems on Steam. If you’re looking for something a little bit different give it a shot.

Final Score: 9 out of 10

Deadcore Review

Deadcore is another game that combines elements from different genres. It has the first person platforming of games like Metroid Prime. It has the parkour feeling of Mirror’s Edge. It has some puzzles that rival the complexity of Portal. Most of the online store descriptions you’ll find for the game describe it as a First-Person Shooter. While you do eventually wind up with a gun, shooting isn’t really all that lethal.

PROS: Beautiful environments. Challenging game play. Interesting concept for a story.

CONS: Possibly too challenging for some due to a high difficulty. Minor glitches.

CREEPY: Sentient blocks that float around hoping to make you fall.

Deadcore has two modes. There’s a story mode, and a mode for speed runs. You can also play the story mode in the speed run mode if you want to try to see how quickly you can beat the entire game. Speed Run mode also lets players time attack individual levels, or sections of levels called Tracks. Of course you won’t be able to do much in this mode right away, as most of it is unlocked by going through the story mode. If you do play through a speed run setting, you’ll be competing against others on the leaderboard. There are score categories for each of the levels, tracks, and story mode. Deadcore also has a lot of achievements dedicated players can shoot for. There is even one everyone will likely get called Digital Barbecue. This is because dying five hundred times will unlock it. You will more than likely die over five hundred times in this game.

The story in Deadcore is honestly pretty cool. It centers around your character trying to escape a mysterious tower that reaches high into the Thermosphere. As you go through the game you’ll stumble upon icons. Most of these open up entries in a log book. When you go into the log book, you can look at the entries you’ve discovered. It’s like a lot of other titles in the sense that you’re finding journals. Some of the entries will be logs from previous climbers who died trying to escape the tower. Some of them will be discussions between your unnamed character, and a computer. Other entries detail some of the power up items you’ll discover during the game. Deadcore also takes a page from Valve by letting the world craft a lot of the story. It’s cold, soulless, and yet feels like there was life wiped out by this twisted, technological tower. The music in the game is some of the eeriest electronica heard in a soundtrack. While there are some thumping tunes during hectic times, Most of the time it’s brooding, and creepy. It captures the mood of isolation, and the desperation of the story nicely.

Some of the other things you’ll find are power ups, and Easter eggs.  Deadcore is very much a First-Person Adventure game. Obviously, the object of the game is to climb your way to the top of the tower to escape. The aforementioned gun is predominantly used as a tool. There aren’t any traditional enemies to speak of. You won’t be scoring headshots, or getting into fire fights with space pirates. Instead, the enemies you face are more or less parts of a security system. Sometimes cubes will show up to try to knock you off of a platform. Other times these electronic pods called Mosquitoes will gang up on you. Or you’ll find yourself turning off fans with shots from your gun while you’re trying to evade lasers.

The story mode is only five levels long. But these are some of the longest levels of any game you will ever play. Each one is broken up by several sections. These are referenced as tracks.  The first stage is the approximate bottom of the tower where you begin the game. The second one you’ll begin to see some progress as the world textures get smaller. Stage three things really heat up, as you’ll be inside a large chunk of the tower. Stage four is a tremendously large stage, with several tracks, and there is even a substantial amount of back tracking. The final stage is fairly brief. You will be very thankful about that fact because Deadcore is not an easy game. Frankly, it becomes the Dark Souls of puzzle-platformer hybrids by the middle of the game. Some of the sections in the game even put the hardest Super Mario Galaxy stages to shame.

For many, this game may even prove too hard, resulting in broken controllers, mice, keyboards, and monitors. But if you can keep calm, and practice you can eventually figure out exactly what to do. This game will force you to think under pressure.  Each area of each track is a puzzle. Yet there isn’t always only one way to solve it. Sometimes you’ll have a choice of which path of pitfalls you wish to take. But again, getting around each pitfall is its own challenge. I already mentioned the lasers, cube bots, and bug bots trying to make you fail. But it gets even more difficult.

Along the way the game will present you with new mechanics. For example, you’ll come across gravity switches. These create areas where you’ll be able to temporarily walk on the walls. Sometimes you’ll have to go through a modified gravity area, into a non-modified gravity area, into another modified gravity area. All within a few seconds. Other times you’ll run into flipping blocks, right out of Super Mario Galaxy, where one side is electrified. Landing on this side is instant death. Other times you’ll find fan blades that you need to shut off while avoiding moving boxes with laser beams on them. Because not shutting them off will blow you off of a surface. Leading to a subsequent death. Or go through a anti gravity area with a ton of enemies, while trying to avoid moving laser walls. Or any other number of difficult scenarios.

The game bases a lot of its maneuvering on platform jumping. If you’ve played a lot of Metroid Prime, or Mirror’s Edge you’ll have a good idea of what to expect. Much of the level design is focused on pixel perfect jumping, mixed with the aforementioned challenges. All of which will force you to complete them as quickly as possible. This is also why there is a focus on speed running. If you do choose to speed run in Deadcore you’ll need to master the dash mechanic once you find it. Dash acts as a fast travel, as well as a third jump. You can jump, then double jump. But once you find the dash power up, you’ll be able to dash after double jumping. Plus, a lot of the difficult sections pretty much require using it. There is a handy meter on the gun that measures how much dash power you have remaining. So you’ll have to decide on the fly if you need to do short dashes, or hold the dash down, and use up the entire bar. The dash recharges if you hold still. Unfortunately, the gun’s ammunition does not. So you also have to keep an eye on the number of shots remaining.

In between tracks there are checkpoints. Like many of the 2D games that celebrate the difficulty of 8-bit NES games, Deadcore gives you unlimited lives. You can re-spawn at the last checkpoint you’ve reached  at any time by pressing R. If you die you will also re-spawn there. You are going to be pressing R a lot, as well as suffering many deaths. Every missed jump will lead to a fall to your doom, the path of an enemy, or to an earlier point in the track. Similarly, you’re going to want to master the mechanics, and power ups as soon as you can. Because the difficulty only amps up. Especially since none of the traps, or enemies you shoot stay off. Everything you disable eventually turns itself back on.  It’s kind of like Evil Otto, from Berzerk in that nothing can be killed. Even the bosses can only be temporarily disabled.  So you’ll find yourself disabling something, and moving. Fairly often. Especially near the end of the game. You’ll also want to seek out the power ups, and some of the Easter eggs.  Some of them are actually messages from the developers instructing you to email them information from the secrets you find. Doing so gets you some cool media like music from the soundtrack.

Along with the high difficulty, Deadcore does have some minor problems that will add to some of the aggravation. Sometimes there will be some slight hiccups in the game’s response time. This means it might not recognize you’ve pressed the jump button, leading to a seemingly cheap death.  It isn’t the worst thing in the world. But this is a game that relishes the idea of speed running. Any little interruption in performance can result in the loss of precious seconds. There were also a few rare times I ran into clipping problems in my play through. As such, I found myself stuck in walls, and forcing a re-spawn. Sometimes this happened when I was ever so close to a checkpoint, which became really frustrating.

Some players might also dislike the lack of customization options. You can’t choose things like the kinds of filters, or post processing. You have to go to the custom setting to even see them, and even then everything is a low, medium, or high check box.  You can re-bind your keys, set screen resolution, and your field of vision. But you can’t do much of anything in terms of audio settings. These problems don’t ruin the game, or stop you from being able to complete it. But will lead to a few really grating moments for some of you. A few more checkpoints could have also been used. Because some of the sections between them are so long they begin to feel like levels themselves. This is especially true during the next to last stage, where backtracking becomes a big part of the game play.

When you do finish the game you will be treated to one of two endings depending on which paths you took, and what areas you’ve discovered. It’s certainly a satisfying finish for the story given here. It also leaves you with a sense of accomplishment. Overall, Deadcore is a really well made game. The rare glitch aside, it functions pretty responsively. The difficulty is high, but the game feels rewarding when you complete tough areas. It has an engrossing look, and sounds that pull you into its world of uneasiness. The mechanics, for the most part are fun to use once you’ve gotten a handle on them. There are versions for all three major computer operating systems. You can play this on Windows, Macintosh, or Linux. Plus, the system requirements aren’t very high. Most computers built over the last seven years should be able to run it.

5-Bits Games has really put out something special. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that it isn’t for everyone. If you are the sort of player who is turned off by a high difficulty, you will probably not like the experience 5-Bits Games has delivered to the world. If however, you thrived on games like Dark Souls you’ll want to play this game. If you’ve got the patience, and love dystopian settings it’s certainly worth picking up.

Although you may want to purchase a spare keyboard in case you lose your cool.

Final Score: 8 out of 10