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

Cave Story + Review

Cave Story probably doesn’t need much of an introduction. It was one of the earliest indie games to garner a cult following. A Metroid inspired adventure game, Studio Pixel’s effort was praised and landed on Steam, even the Nintendo Wii’s WiiWare service.

PROS: An excellent Metroidvania with a few new enhancements.

CONS: Subsequent releases added costs.

SWITCH: Between the original and enhanced content.

Released by Studio Pixel in 2004, Cave Story was originally a freeware game with some updates over time. It was continually praised in gaming magazines and sites of the time. Eventually, after being picked up by Nicalis, the game would finally see releases as a digital product in 2010, most notably on consoles.

The 3DS, in particular, has two versions of the game. There is the downloadable version off of the game which features a lot of the things represented in the + version here. The retail version, Cave Story 3D was rebuilt from the ground up in order to properly take advantage of the console’s 3D effects.

Which takes us to Cave Story +. What makes this version of the game different than the original release or its other many ports? Well out of the gate there is a big one: Graphics. Cave Story + has an updated look. Things look much sharper and as a result, you can make out a lot of little details you might have missed if you’ve played one of the earlier releases. The soundtrack has also been overhauled with enhancements. The result is the same songs you know and love, just in a much more produced form. It feels a lot like when you hear the difference between a stock Sega Master System soundtrack and the same songs on an FM Sound Unit. Undoubtedly some will prefer the original sound or look of either the graphics or audio. So Cave Story + will allow you to choose the original release’s video and sound or these enhanced versions. They also add a famitracker version of the soundtrack so if you want more of an NES -esque sound that is also an option. Other than that, there are challenges you can unlock as well as characters to use in a two-player version of the campaign.

Cave Story + is basically the same game as the original release with the minor tweaks outlined above. Though there is also a new Wind Fortress area here. If you’ve never played Cave Story, you play the role of a Robot named Quote. You start out in a cave (hence the title) but before long, you’ll find yourself in a village of creatures who resemble rabbits. These creatures are called Mimigas and are quickly terrorized by a mysterious mad scientist. He calls himself “The Doctor”, and employs a couple of traitorous Mimigas to do his evil bidding. They kidnap one of the key Mimigas from the village, and so it’s up to you to rescue them.

And from here the game begins to open up in the way the classic Metroid games do, allowing you to explore new areas as well as finding new ways to enter previous ones. One of the big hooks in the game are teleporters that let you fast travel between these sections. Combat in the game is entirely different than in Metroid or Castlevania though. While this is often thrown in the hat of names when the word Metroidvania comes up, there isn’t any real melee combat to speak of. It’s much closer to Mega Man in some respects, as well as early Commodore 64 games like Turrican. You will need some pixel-perfect jumping skills. And you’ll also have to become accustomed to the floaty gravity of Eurocentric computer platformers of the 1980s. Quote has a little bit of slide momentum when landing so when you need to land on that one tiny brick, keep that in mind.

Most of the weapons in the game allow you to shoot horizontally in a line as well as vertically. Though it is much like their later game, Kero Blaster. So there are no arcs. It’s straight up and directly in front of you. There is also an interesting leveling system in Cave Story. You have health pickups. You can also find items to lengthen the health bar. But you also have a weapon upgrade system. You can fill the meter of any of your weapons by picking up chips that resemble Doritos. Eat enough of them and they’ll become more powerful. You can max them all out at level three where they will do an insane amount of damage. It’s imperative you do this when encountering bosses as most of them are proverbial tanks and you’ll need to take down their health quickly.

But there is a twist. When you take damage, not only does your health meter go down, so does your weapon meter! That means your weapons can actually decrease in power and if you get swarmed by baddies not only will you be coughing up oil, you’ll also barely break their skin when you shoot them. Fortunately, as with Metroid, there are times you’ll be able to farm small enemies to fill up before you move onto a tough horde or a boss encounter.

One really nice thing Cave Story has going for itself is the wealth of secrets and multiple endings. Depending on your decisions and on your puzzle-solving skills you can find a slew of items to give you a competitive edge near the end of the campaign as well as end your quest with a few different ends to the story. The best of which has quite a bit of fanfare and pizazz going along with it. It also gives the speedrunner crowd a lot to shoot for as well as anyone who is obsessed with 100 percent completion of any game they play.

As mentioned earlier the cleaner graphics are quite good. But the original game was no slouch either. No matter which aesthetic choice you decide to roll with, the character designs look great. And no matter which version of the OST you play it’s going to feel right at home with everything else. All of this said, Cave Story is a lot of fun, but it also isn’t something you’ll blow through on your first run. There are certainly some difficult challenges near the final areas of the game you’ll uncover and while it can feel cruel at times, it is fair about it. The game also gives you a few difficulty settings to choose from.

Overall, there’s a reason why this game has been so lauded for over 15 years. While I don’t know you need to pick up the + version here if you’ve played an earlier version, those who have never played it would do well to pick up this one for the bonus content. And with the Switch version (That I played here) the added portability of being on a dockable tablet makes it versatile. But if you don’t have Nintendo’s hybrid, the game is equally viable on any platform it appears on. And with fairly low requirements nearly anyone with a computer can play it there. In short, whatever way you have to play it, you should play this one. The general greatness overshadows the minor problems. Sure, it doesn’t have the most original story, but the character dialogue and design are top-notch. You’ve explored in a ton of games, and yet many don’t do exploration as well as this does.

Final Score: 9 out of 10

Rogue Legacy Review

I’m really late to the party with this one, as it’s been in the backlog for quite some time. But after seeing fellow blogger Esperdreams (whose stuff you should also check out) live stream the PlayStation 4 version a while ago, I fired it up. I’m pretty glad I did. Rogue Legacy is another game that mixes Rogue elements with bits of other genres.

PROS: Great character designs. Humor.

CONS: Minor hit detection issues.

WOW: Some of the randomness is worth checking out alone.

In the case of Rogue Legacy, the Rogue elements are blended with Metroidvania game play. But beyond that, there is a very creative twist that sets the game apart from other Rogue like/lite style titles. In pretty much every game of this style, if your character dies, even once, for any reason the game is over. You’ll get to keep some of the items you ground for. But you’ll be starting the game over again.

In Rogue Legacy this is still the case. However, upon your next play through, you’ll get to play as one of that characters next of kin. So that means, a son or daughter of the previous combatant. It gets better though, because there are pros, and cons each child inherits. Some children will have vision problems. Some children will be easily confused. Or see everything in a mirrored perspective. There are a lot of these traits, and each one of them effects how the game is played.

Another common trait among this style of game is procedural generated stages. This idea is used in Rogue Legacy as well. Like Rogue Stormers, this game rearranges pre-designed rooms in new patterns to create new maps. One pretty cool thing the game does with this is self-referential humor. Often times you’ll find journal entries where the fighters will get information about the current castle layout from their ancestors. There is also a room with a jukebox you’ll randomly find where you can change the background music. Kind of like the record room you see in VVVVVV.

There are other cool in-jokes like the clown target test. The obituaries when you lose. There are many, moments that will make you laugh. In spite of the fact that this game shares many of the same tropes seen in the trilogy of NES Castlevania games. Or the original three Metroid games. As you go throughout the map each time, you’ll find new areas upon every play through. Dark, demonic cavern areas. Giant haunted forest sections. Haunted towers. You name it.

Of course, once you die, the castle will look completely different. But you can use the gold you’ve earned during the last play through on upgrades for your progeny. You can upgrade your life bar, the amount of mana for using special weapons (a la Castlevania), as well as getting other things. You can unlock a bunch of possible classes for your future generations. Ninjas, Miners, and more. You can also upgrade the damage level you dish out, the amount of gold you can collect, and even get shops that come up before you go to the castle.

These shops will let you bulk up your armor,  and add new abilities like dash attacks to your characters. Eventually you’ll find a third shop where you can exchange your gold collecting percentage for the option to lock the castle map in place so it repeats the exact same layout. Every time you explore the castle not only can you collect gold, but you can find chests with blueprints that can be used in shops for more armor, and weapon types. Some chests will only open if you complete a small mission like clearing the room of enemies, or getting to the chest without getting hurt. And while these aren’t long affairs, many of them can be quite the challenge. Others can’t be done until you have the right item or power ups.

Of course once you start getting the hang of the game, you’ll find boss rooms. These fights can be insanely hard. Not so much because of the bosses themselves. Though they are a challenge. But getting to them with a full bar of health, and a full bar of mana is a challenge in of itself.  Over time you’ll figure out that combat is mastered through timing. Timing not only when it’s safe to swing, but when to jump to avoid something. When to back away. The time in between any given enemy’s attack.

But even when you learn this it isn’t a cinch to win. Because any given random layout can place you in a room with 50 different bad guys. Plus death-traps, spike pits, and other nefarious things in the environment. This is the kind of game that relishes high difficulty, and requires the patience to learn how everything works. Some have compared it to Dark Souls in that regard. And that’s fair. Mind you they’re two completely different games, with different rules. But both do require some patience to learn those rules.

Over time, of keeping with it, you’ll begin to improve, and find yourself enjoying  yourself more. Even when you lose, there is enough humor, and charm to keep you coming back. Plus you’ll spend your gold, bulk up some stats, and items making enemies easier to slay. There is a point though, where the game decides just how easy might be too easy. So after a while you’ll notice beefier versions of enemies, or even find harder enemies showing up in the castle sooner. So most players will not be blowing through this one in a few minutes. It can be a grind. But the game obsfucates it pretty well most of the time. It also doesn’t feel like a carbon copy of the base formula. There is a wide variety of enemies, and the jokes can be really funny at times.

The only big issue I have is that in some spots the collision detection is off just enough to make those sections feel cheap. You’ll take spike pit damage, but your character might not look like they actually touched the spikes. Some times you’ll swear you did a downward stab on a switch in time, but it doesn’t count as so. So these few moments can be a bit frustrating. The rest of the challenge comes from having the right tools for the right job, and the right amount of hand, eye coordination. Which is fine, this is a game that is about a challenge after all. When you do accomplish something in it, it just feels wonderful. You’ll scream “I FINALLY DID IT!” only to then realize you’ve got a long way to go yet. But it’s still satisfying.

Also satisfying are the chip tunes throughout the game. Each area has its own background song. Like I mentioned before, if you’re lucky you can find the jukebox room to change the current song, but each sector does have its own theme. Which gives it some of that Metroid vibe. It isn’t quite the same, since almost every time you play, the layout is different. But it does at least help make each background feel different from the last.

Rogue Legacy also has a very crisp look reminiscent of old flash animation. Sprites have some bright colors, and nice details. There are cool visual touches on everything as well. The game even has an element of Paper Mario, as you watch your character flip over like a card whenever you turn them around.

Overall, this is a really inventive take on a popular idea. If you enjoy challenging adventure games, or you can’t get enough of games with rogue elements Rogue Legacy should be on your list. Just make sure you pay close attention around switches, and spikes.

Final Score: 8 out of 10

Freedom Planet Review

Sonic The Hedgehog. He’s seen a number of ups, and downs over the years. The consensus seems to be his earliest adventures on the Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Sega Master System, and Game Gear were his greatest glory days. Fast, frantic, platforming action that involved any number of paths to victory. But after the Dreamcast faded into obscurity Sonic went in all kinds of directions. Many of them terrible. A few of them average, and a few that were pretty good. But I’m not here to talk about Sonic this time.

PROS: Really amazing pixel art, chip tunes, and the game play you remember.

CONS: The shortcomings you remember. Padding.

BIKES: If running fast isn’t enough you can speed around like Chris Pine in Star Trek.

When Sonic The Hedgehog was released it was only a matter of time before the imitators would come about. People dump on Bubsy, but that game was far from the worst clone. Awesome Possum, Aero The Acrobat, even The Road Runner had a Sonic inspired game. So with so many others that didn’t hit the mark, what makes this game stand out in the sea of Sonic contenders?

For starters, Freedom Planet absolutely nails the feeling of Sonic The Hedgehog. The physics, the sense of speed, all of it. If you’re a big Sonic fan who longs for a return to the 16-bit glory days of yesteryear, buy it. I could end it there. I’m serious. This is bar none, one of the best Sonic clones you can get. But there are a lot of things that set it apart from its biggest inspiration.

Freedom Planet has a deeper, darker, storyline than the Sonic games. Most of the Sonic games feature Dr. Robotnik/Eggman imprisoning animals, stealing emeralds, and holding the world hostage. Freedom Planet instead involves a much more detailed plot. It opens up with a King being killed by a despot in cold blood in front of his son. Who is then taken hostage, and forced to fight for the despot. It wasn’t something I was expecting going into this. But it got my attention for sure.  From there you discover that there is an all-powerful stone that three kingdoms on the planet safeguard, and of course the despot wants it for himself.

From here the game opens up, and you can choose to play either an adventure mode or a standard mode. Playing the adventure mode, will let you experience cut scenes, and the stages are played in different orders depending on which of the three characters you choose. Going with the standard mode eschews the cut scenes, and you play every stage in order. Like a traditional platformer from the era the game pays homage to.

The interesting thing with the adventure mode is that you’ll get a slightly different experience each time you play through it. That’s because the game is played through the eyes of each character. The three characters are: Carol, a green wild cat. Lilac, a purple dragon, and Milla (an unlockable character), a dog. Each of the characters has their own attacks, and abilities making each play through a little bit different. Carol has some speedy punches, and kicks. She can also ride a motorcycle if you find gas can power ups. Lilac has a useful double jump. Milla has a shield, and can throw cubes.

Once you start playing though you will immediately be reminded of Sega’s most popular mascot platformer. The same sense of speed. The same loops, twirls, and crazy tracks fill the game’s 14 stages. With all of the collectibles, 1-Ups, power ups, and health items in each of them you can opt to try to find everything, or you can try to clear everything as fast as possible. I know I’ve waxed on about how many Sonic influences there are, but the game also has a surprising number of similarities to Capcom’s Mega Man X series too. This becomes apparent in the game’s combat, and enemy designs. Instead of jumping on bad guys to defeat them, you’ll punch, kick, or hit them several times to take them out. Freedom Planet is also a big fan of putting in multipart stages, and mini-bosses. Some of these are really imposing, and lead you to believe you’re at the end of a stage. Only to discover you still have a way to go.

Boss fights themselves are grandiose in Freedom Planet. These moments feel more like playing an arcade beat ’em up than they do a platformer. Although you’ll discover they have attack patterns, again in the vein of a Mega Man X title. But some of these, especially toward the end of the game can be really impressive in both challenge, and visual flair.

Freedom Planet also has the courtesy to grant players four different difficulty levels. If you’re absolutely horrible at this sort of platformer, or even platformers in general the Casual setting is for you. It is nearly impossible to lose a life if you’re even remotely good at these kinds of games. But from there you have Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulty settings. With the latter going very much into the “Get good!” end of things. Aesthetically, everything in the game is beautiful. Galaxy Trail’s pixel artists should be commended for just how well they’ve recreated the look of games of the early 90’s. As you play through this one, you’ll be constantly reminded of those days on the Genesis, and Super NES. It really is a beautiful game to look at. The soundtrack is just as good, going for the twinge lo-fi synth of the Sega Genesis, and early computer sound cards like the AdLib. The tunes themselves are filled with hooks, and melodies you’ll want to hum along to. If you want a game that will satisfy your nostalgia, while giving you something new, this fits the bill.

There are also some other small galleries you can visit when not playing the main game. Throughout the main game are cards you can find, and these will unlock sound files, songs from the soundtrack, and concept art in these galleries. Not something that the average player might get into. But for players who become big fans of the story, characters, and lore, it gives an incentive to replay the game a few times.

Of course, I did have a few minor complaints with this one that may be bigger concerns for someone else. First off, because it adheres so closely to many of Sonic The Hedgehog’s rules it has some of the annoyances. There are times you’ll have to make blind jumps, only to land on an enemy or a hazard. This can lead to some moments of trial, and error. While not a major problem that ruins the game, Some might feel it detracts from an otherwise enjoyable experience.

Another issue is near the end of the game there is a shoot ’em up stage, and it doesn’t feel up to the same standard as the rest of the game. The bigger issue is there is no checkpoint after completing it. It is considered a part of the following stage, which is a pretty long one. So if you run out of lives, shut off the game, and come back to it later you’ll have to play the entire shmup part again. So unfortunately, instead of feeling like some variety, it ends up feeling like padding. Again, not a problem that makes the game unplayable by any means. But it really could have used a checkpoint at the end.

Overall though, Freedom Planet is a wonderful platformer. It feels like an homage to Sonic, and Mega Man X while also being unique enough to stand on its own. It has some of those mechanics, but it adds enough of its own original ideas, and tweaks thus avoiding becoming a forgettable wannabe. In fact, the game did well enough when it launched three years ago that a sequel is around the corner. So whether you play it on the Wii U, PC, or the recent release on the PS4 you won’t regret it.

Final Score: 8 out of 10

Mighty No. 9 Review

Released last year under a mountain of controversy, Comcept’s, and Inti Creates’ spiritual successor to Mega Man was met with reactions from reviled to merely tepid. Suffice it to say, people didn’t like it. This didn’t come without good reason. But now that the dust has begun to settle, there’s a question left over. Is Mighty No. 9 really that bad?

PROS: Voice acting, character designs, a few inventive moments.

CONS: Unbalanced stages, poor graphics, technical issues, dash mechanic.

LUCK: You’ll need a lot of it in key areas.

In some ways, yes Mighty No. 9 is that bad. I listed many of the reasons under the cons. Graphics are the first thing we notice when firing up any game. In this game your first thought is going to be “Oh no.” Remember the later Mega Man X games on the PlayStation 2? Mighty No. 9 has a very similar look. 2.5D with low quality textures, and simple geometry. In this game everything renders at 1080 p so it looks a lot sharper. But it also makes many of the games sprites look grainy, as they don’t appear to have been made in HD. So the higher resolution actually makes some parts look worse.

This is especially true of explosions, bullets from your arm cannon, menu items, and background touches. This results in some really jarring moments. On the plus side, the character designs are pretty cool. Especially when you meet the other bosses. These are the moments that remind you of classic Mega Man games, fighting robot masters in confined spaces.

Gameplay is about what you’d expect. Like the Mega Man, and Mega Man X series you choose the order of stages in the hopes of finding the best route through the game. Every boss has a weapon you can assimilate, and you have to figure out which weapon defeats which boss. Unfortunately, even this aspect of the game isn’t nearly as good as it is in the games it borrows from.

There are several reasons for this. The most obvious being technical issues. For whatever reason, Mighty No. 9 suffers from terrible slowdown in certain spots. Reportedly, some versions are far worse than others. I played the PC version, so I can’t comment on any of the console versions. But I think it’s safe to say no matter what version you play, you’re going to get frustrated. There doesn’t seem to be any particular reason why the slowdown occurs. I tried lowering the settings to rock bottom, it still happens. And there are a fair number of options you can change in the PC version. You can also play it with a keyboard, but you really do want to use a game pad. Especially with some of the problems here.

These issues don’t make the game impossible, but they immediately begin to sour you on things. Lowering the fun factor further is the unbalanced nature of stages. When playing any given level you’ll often find a spot that has over the top difficulty in it. Usually involving enemies that swarm you, a pixel perfect jumping section surrounded by traps that kill you instantly, or both.

Now, the Mega Man series has sections filled with death traps that require pixel perfect jumps, and maneuvers. The differences are that 1.) in most cases they don’t come out of nowhere, and 2.) the controls are tighter. In Mega Man, these areas often come up after you’ve been eased in. A room will introduce you to something new to learn. You’ll use that in subsequent rooms, each gradually adding onto the challenge until you learn well enough to feel comfortable taking on that giant trap. Case in point, the infamous death beams way back in the Quick Man stage in Mega Man 2. You got a taste early, but after figuring it out quickly, you played through the stage, and when it brought it up again, only harder, it was a challenge. But it didn’t feel insurmountable. You got a feeling of persistence.

In Mighty No. 9 these sections seem to just come out of the blue. Moreover, you don’t have quite the same level of control. So you’ll get into an area, have no idea what to do, and just be plunged into it. No teaser, no taste, no feeling of “Oh THAT’S what I need to do.” When you finally do figure it out, it won’t be a sense of discovery, it will be a sense of dismay. “Are you kidding me?” is probably the most common question you’ll scream aloud. Your fun will be decreased even more when you discover that instead of refining things, the game brute forces you through by giving you random power ups as you near the end of your lives. As if to say “Here, take a lot of damage, but scrape by with some beefed up power, and E-Tanks.” That doesn’t make it more fun, that just cements the fact that the designers realized they’ve created a chore rather than a challenge. There are also a few gameplay moments that get repeated throughout stages, the biggest being what I call swarm rooms, where you have to clear a wave of enemies before you can continue.

Another difference between this, and Mega Man are how you find replenishments. In the Mega Man games, you gain health, and ammunition two ways. Finding them drop out of robots when you kill them, or else in the play field. Sometimes you might have to solve a puzzle or have a certain robot master’s weapon to get them. But pretty straightforward. In Mighty No. 9 you have to use the game’s dash mechanic. This works like the one in Mega Man X. You can press the shoulder button, or double tap. When you shoot low-level bad guys enough times, they’ll glow blue, red, green, or yellow. Then you have to dash into them. The blue ones fill your E-Tank (of which you can have two), the green ones speed you up, and the red ones make your arm cannon more potent. Yellow reduces the damage you take from getting hit. You’ll also have to use the dash to get over a lot of the game’s pitfalls.  The thing is, the dash is also a tad bit slippery here. So you’ll sometimes hit spikes you wouldn’t have in Mega Man X, or fall into pits you wouldn’t have in Mega Man. This makes those aforementioned death sections all the more infuriating. So again, it’s no wonder this game has the bad reputation it does.

But I will say it isn’t all bad. The bosses, and subsequent fights are generally pretty cool. These are the parts of the game where it starts to feel a little bit more like a good Mega Man game again. There are some interesting patterns to learn, and the designs of the bosses are honestly pretty awesome. They also make some of the death sections moot if you play them in the correct order. This is because they come back to help you in the story, which clears out some of the hazards. In these moments, Mighty No. 9 becomes pretty fun, and entertaining. This is in part because of some wonderful performances from the actors. All of the characters have personality, and flair because of them. Even Steven Blum shows up in it, as a boss!  That boss fight is also interesting because they do something original with it. You have to explore the level, and find him three times before it unlocks the boss room for you to face him. It’s a genuinely fun moment. Of course, the discovery of boss order is also ruined when you realize that the correct stage to play adds a second advice tab on its description. If you click said tab, you’ll hear the boss you defeated last, give dialogue. At this point, you just look for whichever level has the extra audio log displayed before entering.

Another fun moment, (aside from an infuriating death trap section) is when you get to take control of the Roll stand-in, and infiltrate a base. It’s a Metal Gear themed stealth mission. But it’s done well, and shows off a completely different play style rather than just slap Mighty No. 9’s mechanics onto a different model. Even the boss in the level takes advantage of that. The final stage is a hodgepodge of everything you force yourself to learn throughout the game, and without giving too much away, the final encounter both requires you to know the mechanics, as well as getting lucky with item drops. At least in an initial play through. I will also give the soundtrack a nod in that the end credits feature a really cool performance from Mega Ran, as well as a chip tune OST you can turn on in the options. None of them are as memorable as the ones in early Mega Man games, but they aren’t half bad, and fit the action well.

Mighty No. 9’s story isn’t too much different from the original Mega Man’s either. All of the robots in America go haywire, and Mighty No. 9 has to go save the day. The alterations here are that the enemy robots aren’t destroyed. Instead, their defeat somehow removes the computer virus making them go awry, and they grant Mighty No. 9 their weapon program afterwards. There’s even a Dr. Wily stand-in, although they throw in a twist you can see coming from a mile away.

If you do happen to become a super fan somehow, Mighty No.9 does have other modes that unlock as you play. These are a combination of timed challenges, co-operative challenges, and then some competitive internet speed runs. The trouble is, that with the lack of online players you’ll likely never play the speed runs, or co-op challenges.

Mighty No. 9 made a lot of Worst Of 2016 lists. Really, the game itself probably isn’t the worst released last year. It has numerous problems, no doubt. But it’s still functional enough to play through. There are bright spots in it where it becomes fun as well. If not for the technical issues, and design flaws, this could have been above average. And you can see while playing where whatever happened behind the scenes during development killed potential. If the game looked as good in those early teasers, and played as well as the NES Mega Man games like it was supposed to, we’d be looking at a really good game. Instead, we’re looking at a barely average game marred further by a controversial development cycle. We’ll probably never learn what went wrong, or why it took so much money to give us something this ugly, unbalanced, and hobbled. If you’re morbidly curious about it, you could do worse. But you should probably invest in that Mega Man 2 Game Pak  for your NES instead. Or any of the Mega Man collections. Really any Classic Mega Man game will do.

Final Score: 5 out of 10

Atari Vault Review

Ah, the video game compilation. Every few years we see them, bundling games of yesteryear for a budget price. We’ve seen them for Mega Man, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Super Mario Bros, and so on. Lately we’ve even seen Re-mastered collections for Uncharted, God Of War, Gears Of War, Halo just to name a few. Over the years we’ve seen a lot of collections centered around the Golden age of consoles. Especially the Atari 2600.

PROS: Online multiplayer. Content for enthusiasts. 100 games!

CONS: There could have been some better titles included. Limited controller options.

PADDLES: Sadly, nothing has compared to them in nearly four decades.

So what makes Atari Vault stand out from other Atari 2600 compilations that have come, and gone over the years? There are actually a few nice features here. This is one of the biggest compilations of Atari games yet. In the past we’ve seen a disc of 20 games or a disc of 80 games. Usually dumped ROMs in a sub par emulator for whatever platform. The game shows up in stores, you pick it up. Done. Every so often a better than average one would show up with nicer emulation, and maybe some historical backgrounds. Other times there would be a terrible remake bundled with the original game.

Atari Vault doesn’t feel slapdash at all. You get 100 games. Some of which are not Atari 2600 games, but Atari arcade games. Right away this shows that effort went in. Why? Because Atari actually had a complicated history after the crash of 1983/84. The company was originally founded by Nolan Bushnell. Eventually Time-Warner (Warner Bros.) bought the company from him. But when the crash happened, Atari was essentially broken up into two entities. Time-Warner sold the home division to Jack Tramiel. He had been ousted from Commodore, the company he founded. So from 1983 to around 1997 his family owned the half of the company that made the 2600, 5200, 7800, Lynx, and the Atari Jaguar. As well as a long line of successful  computers 400/800, XE, and ST. Time-Warner still owned the arcade division which they eventually sold to Midway. When Midway exited the arcade business Atari Games became Midway Games West. In a bit of irony, when Midway hit hard times they ended up being bought out by Time-Warner. Of course after the Jaguar tanked, the Tramiel family ended up selling Atari Corporation to JTS, a hard drive manufacturer. JTS started to flag, and sold Atari to Hasbro. When Hasbro had no success with it, they sold it off to Infogrames, who changed their name to Atari.

In short, there were probably many months figuring out what Time-Warner has the rights to, what Infogrames/Atari has the rights to, and what may have slipped between the cracks. So it is pretty astonishing to see that this collection does give you both, arcade, and 2600 games to play. That being said, this is also the reason why you may not see some of your favorite games included. It’s disappointing. But at least it is understandable.

Still, with 100 games in the compilation you’re bound to find several you do like. There are the commons like Combat, Flag Capture, Canyon Bomber, Haunted House, Breakout, and Warlords. Interestingly, they also have a couple of prototypes, and unreleased 2600 games included here. There are even a number of uncommon games that came out near the end of the 2600’s long life cycle. Basically you have over a decade of 2600 history here.

But the inclusion of the arcade games is another big reason you might consider picking this collection up. You get a pretty good selection of them, and many of them were games that used a Trackball. Missile Command, Centipede, Millipede, and Crystal Castles are here in their glory. What’s really nice is that you can play these with the mouse. If you happen to have a trackball mouse you’ll definitely love playing these. The developers at Code Mystics have gone above, and beyond too. Because they retooled their emulator’s inputs to mimic the response time of the arcade machines’ trackballs. So if you have a high dpi setting, expect to see some lag if you spin your cursor around thinking you’re going to have an edge. You’re not. The games really do play pretty close to the original machines.

Only the players with an encyclopedic knowledge of how those games played will really see a vast difference. They play great. Every game in the collection does. On top of this, every game has the appropriate machine decals bordering the screens, and there are even start button models displayed below to make things feel as authentic as possible.

But the extra hard work doesn’t end there. They painstakingly tracked down Atari arcade cabinet art to scan in. The arcade manuals, and flyers are here to read. The arcade machines themselves, are modeled, and animated as you select what game to play. This carries over into the 2600 games too. Each 2600 game featured here has a box model textured with the original retail box art on it. Front, back, and spines. They also managed to track down every manual for every cartridge featured in the collection. So when you go to look at the controls, you’ll actually be seeing scans of the manual that came in the box when the game came out. They even have the original 1977 console manual scanned in here. They didn’t just dump ROMs into an emulator, and call it a day. They put in a lot of historical research, and time into getting a nice presentation down.

If all of that isn’t enough for you though, Atari Vault also has internet multiplayer. You can play all of the games in the collection against other people. For most of the games you’ll still prefer playing these games the way we did 30 years ago, computer hooked up to the Television, with controllers. But for some of the games like Combat, internet multiplayer can actually make things feel fresh. It’s pretty great, and in my tests I didn’t run into much in the way of lag. It’s really worth checking out.

If I had any complaints with the compilation it would have to be with the controller options. Every game will have different ways you can play depending on the title. Most of them will let you play with the keyboard, and the arcade trackball games give you the aforementioned mouse option, which again, works great. But Code Mystics doesn’t seem to like to put in options for a variety of game pad controllers. If you have an Xbox 360 controller, you’re gold. That controller works flawlessly. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the game to see my Steam controller, nor could I use my USB Retrobit controller, which is a perfect fit for collections like this one. These were the developers behind porting Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection to the PC, and I had the same complaint with that compilation. If you want to use a controller, you pretty much have to have Xbox 360 controllers.

The other problem, which I can’t really levy at Code Mystics, is that nothing compares to a paddle controller. You can play classic 2600 games like Warlords, and Demons to Diamonds with a mouse, keyboard, or Xbox 360 controller but none of them will give you the feel of a paddle. Paddle controllers had a dial that you would use to move your character, and it just has a spot on, responsive feel that nothing has replicated in almost 40 years. About the closest you can get is using the mouse controls, which I would implore you to do. These games simply don’t feel as responsive using a game pad or a keyboard. A mouse will give you the precision you need, even if it does come up a little short in the feel. If you played a lot of Circus Atari as a child, it is still a lot of fun to play here, but it might take you a few rounds to get accustomed to using something else.

Overall though, I highly recommend this collection. True, the selection of games could stand to be a little bit better. But considering the history of the company, and the rights hell some of those games may fall under it is understandable. There are a lot of good games here anyway. The internet play reinvigorates some of these titles, and finally having a legitimate way to play classic arcade games like Centipede is a boon. It’s a great bundle for older fans who might not have their physical 2600 collection anymore. It’s also a great bundle for younger fans who are interested in what came before.

While not every game featured here has held up, most of them have stood the test of time with their rock solid game mechanics. These games are fun. If you’ve played them before, revisit them again. If you’ve never played them because you weren’t around for them, have an open mind. Check them out, you might be pleasantly surprised. Just make sure you have some Xbox 360 controllers for the games that didn’t use a trackball.

Final Score: 8 out of 10

Audiosurf 2 Review

Let me start off by saying, I love music. I have a ton of it I’ve picked up over the years. Music games however, are another story. I’m not big on dancing, and so the Just Dance games, Dance Central, and even the hallowed Dance Dance Revolution were never my cup of tea. Oh I’ve played them with friends, and relatives. I’ve even managed to eek out a little bit of enjoyment while making a fool out of myself. I’ve actually had fun with a couple of the Guitar Hero, and Rock Band editions at family gatherings. I’m not calling any of these games terrible. They’re all pretty good, save for a few lackluster Guitar Hero, and Rock Band entries.

But why do these otherwise great music games fail to gel with me? The more I thought about it, the more I realized it isn’t the mechanics, or how they play. They actually play wonderfully, and are generally a fun enough time. I found a major reason has probably been the set lists in many of them. Before you start booing me, and throwing rotten vegetables at your monitor or smartphone in disgust I’m not calling all of the music in those games bad. I like a lot of the classic rock in the games of pretend instruments. I recognize the talent the choreography, and singing in dance music requires. A lot of the club music in these dancing games is honestly not bad, it’s just that some of it wasn’t made for me. Which is fine.

PROS: Multitude of modes. You can use your personal library.

CONS: You won’t pretend to play an instrument or dance.

ERASURE: Always + Runner mode = Robot Unicorn Attack reference.

If you were to peruse my music collection though, you might find a lot of it unrecognizable. Well, depending on who you are. I know there are many people out there with music collections much larger than mine. But a lot of the albums in my collection were originally put out by small labels like Lookout!, SST, Epitaph, and Sub Pop. I even have a few otherwise mainstream albums, and EPs that were originally self-published in my collection. Such as the Gin Blossoms’ Dusted. So while I love Rock Band for letting me play The Cars’ Just what I needed, or Just Dance for letting me fail at being Morten Harket during Take On Me, I could never jam on the esoteric stuff in those games.

Audosurf 2 lets me do that. Along with everyone else. It’s a different kind of rhythm game than most. You don’t need plastic instruments. You don’t jump on a screen printed mat. You don’t have to line up dance moves on a camera. Instead you get something that plays like a traditional racing game. Except not really.

Audiosurf 2 combines the racing of F-Zero, the obstacle dodges of Beamrider, the  colored blocks of Guitar Hero, and the key component of Vib Ribbon. You race a futuristic hover car over giant blocks for points, and try to dodge obstacles. Hitting obstacles makes you lose those points. What does any of this have to do with music? Well, when a song is chosen, the game creates a course based on the structure, tempo, beat, and even melody of the music within. Every song will resort in a unique track. Even a cover of a song will have differences over the original. Sometimes wildly. The layouts of the blocks you pick up, as well as the obstacles you need to dodge go right along in time with the song.

The hover car will even slow up, or speed up during tempo changes. It’s surreal. But don’t think you can cut corners, and make the game simple by using slow songs. Because no matter what you play, the game is crafty. It will put a bunch of obstacles near something you want to collect. It will start making the road bumpy because that slow song you chose has plenty of bouncy moments in the melody. And it still might get quick anyway. Not only are you collecting blocks, but there is a puzzle element as well. Along the bottom of the screen where your hover car moves are columns. Every time you collect a block you fill a chunk of a column. You want to try to combine as many as you can in a set number of time to score combo points. Hitting spikes impedes this, as well as cost you points. So you’ll need to do your best not to hit them. Although there are a handful of times you might want to do so to clear a space. There are also Turbo blocks that will speed boost your vehicle for more points.

The game has two ways for you to find a song to use. The easiest, and best way is to use your own personal collection. All you need to do is go through your music folder, or wherever else you may have put your purchased song files. Pick a song, and the game will let you preview it, as well as tell you if anyone has raced along to it yet. If they have, you’ll see a list of players who have done exactly that. Because the game will upload your score. Other people who have that song, can then race it, to try to beat your score.

This is where the game’s biggest strength is. Everybody enjoys music of some kind, and so nobody is left out. Obviously for the competitive internet aspect of it, popular songs are still going to be preferred. Because more people will have those songs, so it leads to more competition.  Sound cloud also has a major presence here. When you search for a song that isn’t in your personal library, it will scour the site for it. With so many independent people using it, you can get a wide variety of new experiences. There are popular songs on there as well, but these are going to be covers, with the rare exception.

Some people might be disappointed at that. But it works in the developer’s favor, since they don’t have to worry about the labels coming down on them for using songs they don’t have a license for. As a user you’re free to use whatever you want, so long as you’ve legitimately bought the music. And if you’re like me you’ve bought a lot of albums over the years. There’s also the fact that you’re not beholden to a game based e-merchant to buy the songs you want to use. Songs that you can’t export to other games or listen to separately.

But that’s not all, because this game keeps giving. The main game mode has variants. There’s an easier mode for beginners, as well as a Ninja mode, where you get bonus points for not hitting a single spike during a song. Then there is a unique mode where you ride a wakeboard, and can jump waves for more points. But one of the coolest modes is the runner mode. In this mode up to four people can play with gamepads. You have to jump over, and duck under hurdles sent your way. Each time you screw up you lose points. You start with a million points, and it counts down with every mistake. the person who loses the least points wins. You really should check it out. As with the main modes this mode gives you a track based upon the song that has been loaded.

I would end things there, but Audiosurf 2 has even more stuff. Puzzle games. There are four variants of the same mode, but each has you matching up color blocks that you race over during the song of choice. You have to try to set up combos the way you would in things like Puyo Puyo. You can drop blocks if you raise a column too high with the wrong color too. If you’re into balancing driving with puzzling it might be for you. Personally, I found this the least likable mode, but the game does get recognition for trying something.

If ALL of that wasn’t enough for you, the game has an extensive mod community around it. So there are even more modes, and skins you can get for the game if you’re not sated by everything you’re given from the outset. By the way, each mode already comes with some skins for you to use. I do like that there is an option to search for skins in the Steam Workshop. Audiosurf 2 is a very colorful bright game. The minimalist visual design really works in its favor, giving players something akin to an Electronica enthusiast jukebox look. Visuals still look great at lower resolutions, and with lower settings.

But the mods, and skins are a great way for people to personalize the game even further. My hope is that someone with talent makes a skin that removes the fast flashing, and replaces it with something equally cool. I have a friend with Epilepsy who would love to play more musical rhythm games, but doesn’t due to the flashing lights. Hopefully, someone eventually thinks of this, because the game is awesome. Even more people would be able to play it if it had an option for people with colorblindness, and for people with Epilepsy. If not, then maybe we’ll see it in a third game.

Aside from a missed opportunity, there really isn’t much to complain about. It controls well. The sound quality is great, and the tracks it designs for you to play are a wonderful balance between fun, and difficulty. If you’ve been waiting for a music game because your favorite artists have been M.I.A. in other series, then pull the trigger on Audiosurf 2.

Final Score: 9 out of 10

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

 

1001 Spikes Review

Over the past few years a subset of platformers have come to pass. All focusing on very difficult challenges, some may even call impossible challenges. 1001 Spikes is another one of these games to come along. It even brings along a few new features with its retro themed visuals, and chip tunes. Watch your every step. There are hazards everywhere.

PROS: Challenging gameplay. Crafty level design. A lot of content.

CONS: All stages need to be cleared to play the last leg. High difficulty.

PARODIES: Of popular video game characters galore.

Appearing first on consoles, 1001 Spikes recently made its way to computers. It also came to every major computer operating system in the process. Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. Developed by Nicalis, the game is another title that relishes high difficulty. Following the paths set by stuff like I wanna be the guy, VVVVVV, and Super Meat Boy, it focuses a lot on platform jumping through relentless traps. Nearly everything in the game will kill you, from the obvious spikes, to lava, chasms, buzz saws, spears, to boulders. Everything wants you dead. At first you might think it isn’t all too different from other NES themed indie games you’ve played. But given enough time, you start to see where 1001 Spikes does have its own identity.

1001 Spikes is a puzzle platformer. Instead of having difficult jumps or traps as small sections of any given level, the game makes them the entire level. Or more accurately they become puzzles. The game tasks you with trying to figure out where to jump, and when. How to time a landing just right or when to shoot a projectile. Projectiles are rarely used to actually kill enemies. Instead they’re used to hit switches, or knock an obstacle back so you can sneak through. Each stage in the campaign is little more than a room 2 to 4 screens in height or length. The object is to collect a key so you can open the door, and exit. As a bonus, each stage has a hidden skull. Collecting the skulls will not only add another life via 1-Up, but over time unlock characters, and features.

Many of the unlockable characters, and costumes are parodies of famous NES game characters. Among these, are a really spot on spoof of Ghosts N’ Goblins’ Arthur. He even takes two hits to die with the first hit knocking off his armor, revealing his underpants. There is also a Ryu parody (Street Fighter), who even throws fireballs, and dragon punches. There is a Master Chief parody (Halo), replete with armor, and weaponry. There are also many other parodies, and in-jokes.  Even Commander Video from Bit Trip Runner makes a cameo along with his Atari 2600 era Activision themed rainbow.

In a way, the structure is a lot closer to something like Wrecking Crew, Boulder Dash, or Bomber Man. It can be deceiving at a first glance because the puzzles resemble action games like Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, or Mega Man given the brutal nature of the traps. The game also keeps tabs on the time, and lives spent on completing each level. This lends itself to making the game appeal to people who love the concept of speed running. Much of the difficulty comes not from the obvious hazards themselves, but from the unexpected surprises. The stages are sadistic in that just when you think you’ve found somewhere safe to land, it turns out to be a crumbling block. Or booby-trapped with spikes. Or a switch that drops chunks of the ceiling on top of you. As you move on, the game quickly becomes a job in trial, and error. You’ll begin examining each room for potential treachery, expecting the worst with each landing. This may sound like an awful masochistic time. But you’d be surprised to find it is fun in its frustration. Each section is like a code you have to crack. When you do, sections that were previously impossible become much, much simpler. Again, setting you up for the challenge of trying to win with the best possible time.

1001 Spikes does have its own storyline that you can see unfold as you progress. It tells the tale of a young explorer named Aban Hawkins. His father is a renowned archaeologist who goes missing. Aban never got along with his father, and was always at odds with him. Nevertheless, when his sister calls him into the office to give him a box from their father, it leads him on a quest. Aban goes to South America to explore deep caverns. It is here he wishes he hadn’t gone, as of course, these caverns prove to be death trap central. If you can manage to beat all of the levels in the campaign, you’ll be granted access to the final leg of Aban’s journey. Fortunately, (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) you can skip any level if it proves too difficult for you. Any level you’ve previously skipped can be replayed at a later time. So you can move on, clearing a few later stages, then go back to a previous one that got a little too irritating.

In addition to the primary campaign the game does have unlockable arcade modes. It should be noted all of them can be played with up to four players. The first one is a coin horde mode, where everyone battles it out over a golden vase. At the end of the round it will explode. So players have to hang onto it long enough to get more coins than their opponents. Their opponents can try to claim it from them, but a bigger problem are the traps, and enemies in each of these stages. You can expect to lose a lot of lives here, as in the other modes.

The second arcade mode takes a little bit more of an action game leaning. You have to climb a giant tower to free a hostage from their captors. Each tower is a few stages long. You get 9 lives per stage, and if you lose all of your lives you have to start all over again from the bottom of that tower. Being that it is part of a notoriously difficult game, expect as many death traps, as you would during the campaign. But you’ll also have a lot of grunts trying to impede your progress. They’ll get in the way during crucial moments, They’ll shoot you. They’ll do anything they can to make you lose.

The final arcade mode is a long series of extra levels that aren’t in the campaign. Many of these are more difficult. Being designed more for multiplayer, instead of worrying about an exit key, and 1-Ups these stages have coins. So much like some of the recent Super Mario Bros, games, you’ll compete by coin collecting. But again, it becomes pandemonium as you also have to worry about the myriad of deathtraps. Coins you collect in the arcade modes, can be used for items in an unlockable shop. These items include aforementioned hidden characters, and costumes. As well as the ability to watch the game’s many cinema screens at one’s leisure.  I should also mention that some of the costumes can only be used in the arcade modes. Why this is I have no idea.

In any case, 1001 Spikes is a pretty cool game on whichever platform you choose to play it on. Although for some reason the Wii U version doesn’t utilize the popular off TV mode. There are reports that this may be patched in at some point. But if you pick it up for Nintendo’s box, at least for the time being, you will have to look at the TV. But again, it is an enjoyable, well crafted game. Just be advised it isn’t a game for the faint of heart, and that if you’re easily put off by games with high difficulty you may want to think twice about it. For everyone else, it’s certainly worth playing. You can play it in small bursts, or jam on it for an entire day off from work. It’s another soul crushingly difficult game, but a satisfying one.

Final Score: 8 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