Score: 6

"Something to admired more than enjoyed"

submission: Neverending Light

date: March 8, 2009

Flash games are simple things in comparison to mainstream video games. Your average flash only provides about 5 minutes of innovative game play before you either beat the game or just find yourself doing the same stuff over and over. Because of this most flash games don't even bother including things like plots or story lines. Neverending Light is among the few that do.

The game takes place in cave, when the lights go out and a bunch of creatures start killing people. It's then set upon you the player to navigate and escape the cave while picking up fairy droppings that serve no purpose what-so-ever in the game itself. The game essentially just consists of navigating the cave with you flashlight, and to it's credit the flash light mechanics are really well done. The light bounces off objects the way you would expect it to in real life and creates really realistic looking shadows.

Other than that the game pretty much just consists of go here get that type objectives, with the really focus being on the plot and storytelling. The problem is, that with the exception to the first and last, scene the plot of this already short game doesn't really advance. It also doesn't help that the creator tried to mix corny humor with an otherwise serious survival plot which is sort of like mixing vinegar and chihuahuas. Combine that with overall poor and annoying voice acting, and the plot has been officially flushed down the toilet along with the games integrity.

On the other hand the graphics are pretty well polished, and the environments are well done, but as far the actually game part of this game goes it's mediocre at best. It's also occurs to me that with all the time I spent radding on the plot that not everyone 'gives a shit' and as far as game play goes it's still pretty cool. But me being the arrogant douche bag that I am still give it a 6 out of 10 for the above issues but it's still worth playing if only to admire the spectacle and detail in the artwork.

Score: 8

"Browser short"

submission: Cat Face 5

date: February 11, 2009

Back in the old days of television there existed things called shorts, little 2 minute cartoons with exaggerated characters and quick punch lines that would serve as comic released in between the actual programing. Cat Face is almost identical to those obnoxious flicks with the sole exception being that you view on your web browser instead of on your TV. And of course it has all the same flaws including an obnoxious intro that's almost as long as the actual flick with a corny and annoying theme song.

That said I have to admit actually liking Cat Face. So it's only 2 minutes long but that works for a simple little in browser video and it's a hell of alot better than alot of other movies on this site that helplessly outstay their welcome by dragging out jokes that were never that funny to begin with. It's hard to to criticize something that's so short but for the same reason I can't justify giving a particularly high score either so lets judge it for it merits. The voice acting is superb, the illustration is adaquit, and worth a laugh or two, so you might as well check it out.

Of course in the time it takes to read this review you could have already watch the whole thing which makes wonder if there was any point reviewing it in the first place. Then I remember that everything on this site is pointless in one way or another so quit complaining and watch the damn movie already.

Score: 9

"An amasing specticle with only a few flaws"

submission: Fallen Angel Ep. 1 (Pt3)

date: October 29, 2008

When I saw Fallen Angel on the fount page I had to double check to make sure it was by the same author that released the fallen angle teaser more than years 4 years back. Generally when somethings in the works for that long it's safe to say it's not going to come out at all or at least not meet the expectations set by the trailer and considering the amount of time the developers had, such was the case with fallout 3. Rob however seems to have disproved my theory with the release of the first chapter of Fallen Angel.

So a big nuclear war that results in the downfall of civilization and deaths of hundreds of millions of people, it's a concept that's been used over and over by the film and video game industry in hundreds of productions, but Fallen Angel still distinguishes itself in my mind by having the most realistic apocalypse I've ever seen. You can truly feel the shock wave of a nuclear explosion as it turns New York to dust, and the accurate depiction of modern weaponry and warfare made this first chapter all we could have hoped for. Fallen Angel brings us sunning environments and illustrations to rival Adam Phillips, and an opening plot which appears to pave the way for an epic story line, although only future episode will really prove that because many a stories have had fantastic intros with story lines that royally shat themselves by the end. But lets not criticize on what may be wrong in future chapters and focus on whats wrong with this chapter.

Now while the visuals were stunning the audio was overall very poor, some of the sound effects, while fitting, sounded staticy, and the voice are so muffled it's impossible to keep track of the dialog. It's almost as if Rob's goal was to make as much of the three movies silent as possible. OK so maybe that's going a bit far, but honestly a little music wouldn't have killed it, as opposed that annoy droning sound in the background, or at least give us something to make it feel more like the pulse pounding action movie the teaser promised us. Actually this is something I've been meaning to bring up. For a movie that's been classified as an action movie there really isn't much action in this first episode, but maybe this is just supposed to be a build up, something to set the scene and get us engaged in the plot. Unfortunately this is let down as well by the before mentioned muffled dialog and the complete lack of explanations of the events that take place in this first episode, which ultimately left me confused, and I refuse to believe it's just because I'm thick (even I am). How exactly did a conflict in Iran become a world war, and who deployed those "first nuclear weapons"? Those disjointed bits of text in the first part of the chapter don't really give much incite into whats going on, and it only get worse as chapter goes on. The first chapter is supposed to set scene and give us viewers some incite into the plot rather than keeping everything behind a closed door. Over all I'd say this first episode of Fallen Angel seems to lack a hook to draw the viewer in, and it certainly didn't have me on the edge of my seat with the whole action element.

But really, I'm just nitpicking because the gripping setting and incredible visuals will ultimately overshadow any criticism I can throw at it. The settings incredibly atmospheric, the graphics are stunning, and all the characters are incredibly well drawn and detailed. That said however the camera does seem to be more interested in Sarah's ass than anything else.

Score: 10

"A story to put Stephen King to shame"

submission: Exmortis

date: October 27, 2008

Horror games have a huge advantage over horror movies when it comes to trying to scare someone because a game can actually give the player the illusion that it's actually their life that is at stake, as opposed to a movie where the viewer is completely isolated from the main character. It's just a shame that most horror games don't uses this their advantage. Considering some of the best horror game titles (Condemned, Silent Hill 2, and Resident Evil Outbreak to name a few), your always playing as some one else who is often complete unrelatable to you the player. That said here's Exmortis, a point and click adventure game of all things, that puts most main stream horror games to shame.

I like to think I'm the type of the person who doesn't scare easy, and so it comes as something of an embarrassment to admit that the night after I played this game I was unable to sleep and found myself jumping out of my bed frantically searching for the nearest weapon when my radiators started acting up. Not only does Exmortis make you the player the main character, but photo quality images and incredibly atmospheric sound effects make you truly feel like you are in the game. Exmortis never relies on cheap jump out scares, instead building this claustrophobic feeling of being trapped in a house with something that hates you.

The plot itself is surrounded in mystery and this is probably the part I like most about the game. All you know is that your stuck in house filled with weird things that seem to be toying with you and there this other things that's been killing people and your probably going to be it's next victim. The unpredictability of the plot make the story balls tighteningly fantastic, despite and possibly because of the unreasonable amount of text your called on to read. I often criticized games for having to much emphasis on reading (and yes I'm aware this is an ironic bit of criticism considering how lengthy my reviews are), but in Exmortis it actually contributes to the atmosphere. Because the game has left us so much in the dark (both literally and figuratively), we are eager for any bit of information we can get our hands on, and it raises tension having to read all these different books and journals when there's a murderer on the loose.

This is the part of the review where make I make a few nit picks to make myself feel more like a critic but for once I can't find anything wrong this game. I was expecting the plot to fall apart near the end, but that ended up being the scariest part of the game, with the most ingenious plot twist I've ever seen. The game keeps up it suburb level of quality and horror throughout and is so immersive that you'll forget your really just at your computer. The puzzles are genuinely challenging, the visuals spectacular, and it has some the most horrifically realistic looking murder scenes I've ever seen. Despite having been most likely permanently scared from this game I'd still hold it as the best flash game I've ever played. It truly sets a new standard for horror that does not wear off after you've finished playing.

Score: 2

"A bit of potential drowned in pretentiousness"

submission: PMP Blog 2

date: October 12, 2008

Just for the fun of it, I watched through this whole thing counting the number times you guys repeated yourselves needlessly. The grand total came to 31 times. 31 times!!!!! That would be president Bush making a speech and repeating every sentence and point twice ... oh wait, that actually happened. On a similar note you guys used other filler words such as 'like', 'uh', and 'yeah' a total of 44 times for a grand total of 75 useless filler phrases. In other words about half this blog was Bull Shit.

Right, so now now with cards on the table hard enough to bonce off and slit some one's throat let's get down to the juicy criticism shall we. Now I was about to criticize the animation or perhaps lack-there-of but on reflection an animated blog doesn't necessarily need much animation, and there are plenty of other more poorly animated blogs on Newgrounds and some of are actually genuinely funny. What a blog does need though is humor and this is where you two seem to have missed the mark.

Lets make one thing clear, inside jokes are only funny to the people you know personally, and as a rule of thumb you should never use them in a public blog or any form of media for that matter. I found this flash on the portal under the top 50 of all time and I'm still somewhat bewildered as to how it got there, but the fact that it's on the portal would suggest it's meant to be viewed by all, and yet most of the jokes were inside jokes that will only be funny to you two and your closest friends. It completely isolates everyone else and will not earn you any fans. Sure you could try explaining the joke like you did with that pun thing but it still won't be funny cause you didn't tell it right in the first place.

It may just because I work as an audio tech, but I found the recording quality to be abysmal. The audio just needs alot of touch up. I can tell you guys are using a cheap radio shack quality mic without a preamp, and while that's forgivable you could at least be consistent with the way you talk. Half the time your yelling into the mic and the other half you talking to a wall causing the volume to waiver so much I'd swear you goal is to blow out our ear drums. It's like you guys are mad at us or something. I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything to offend you two, except maybe this review, but it was written after the fact so point null and void. A little touch up on the audio would have gone a long way.

It's not just the above issues either the bulk of the flash is just announcements and pleads for comments, which all and all amount to the creators (to use a clique term) 'whoring' out their comic. It does have a some things going for it though, there was some pretty cleaver sarcasm buried in there that would have made a good flash better, but as it stands just make a bad flash pretentious. The two creators seemed to be getting a kick out the whole thing, in fact a considerable amount of time was spent just listening to them laugh. In fact all and all this flash blog seems more like something made for the creators and not the viewer.

I suppose I feel more obliged to go all out on the criticism since this flash had a very high score at time of reviewing, but in truth it's not that bad in comparison to alot of the other turds that pop onto the portal 50 at a time, but when you compare it to the shinning gems that normal populate the top 50 the little pebble that is PMP just doesn't stack up. There certainly is plenty of room for improvement, as well as better audio tuning, it would help to actually plan out what your going to say so you don't interrupt each other or spend as much using filler phrases that make the whole thing very boring, and who knows maybe you could even crack a few jokes that the rest of us will find funny.

Score: 5

"A decent P&C adventure game if nothing else"

submission: Escape from Crystal Lake

date: October 12, 2008

It seems that at this point in time Afro-Ninja stands as the NG god of P&C adventure games (P&C stands for point and click in case your wondering), what with the escape series, nightmare house and now this. Certainly over time the quality of the illustrations have improved vastly, but it seems that the set pieces are starting repeat themselves. There wasn't a single puzzle or trick in this game that hasn't been used in a previous escape game, and if you've played previous Afro-Ninja games than the puzzles presented in this one will be second nature to you by now. Then again that's a piece of criticism that could be leveled with most P&C adventure games so lets move on to the whole horror aspect.

Escape from Crystal lake is a game that's really trying to be a horror game, but all the horror elements are let down by game play issues. One of the biggest problems with the horror is how pathetically easy your fights with Jason are. A serial Killer ceases to scary when they are unarmed and remain in your sight at all times. Every time you fight him your armed and he's not and there a little text box and flashing indicators telling you exactly how to beat him, and it's hard to be scared when all Jason ever does is dance around on the screen and throw a really slow punch ever now and then. It's a shame really because there was so much potential for a great horror game, things like the letter drop mini game and the murder scene in the bathroom really set up the atmosphere for great horror game, and I'm not kidding when I say this game has one of the best soundtracks of any horror game out there, but in the end it's all let down by a pathetic villein.

Another major issues plaguing Escape from Crystal lake that was also a problem in nightmare house is the linearity. The free roaming environment the map implies is an illusion, the game is essentially linear, all locations are locked initially and you will find each key in order as the game progress. You the player never really make any decisions which kinda takes away the whole adventure element.

The shame of it is that Escape from Crystal lake truly had the potential to be a great horror game where it not for some truly bad design choices that failed to make it scary. There was so much the designers could have learned if they just took some time to look at some good horror games and what makes them scary. Take Exmortis for example another P&C game here on Newgrounds. Exmortis keeps the player in the dark about the plot and whats going to happen. All you know is that there are these weird things that occupy this house and are evil, and there's this other thing that's been killing people, and your probably going to be it's next victim. This game on the other hand is depressingly predictable, you can see every event coming if you watched any Jason movie, there's no plot twist, and the game always tells you exactly whats going on at all times. Afro-Ninja certainly could have taken a number of pointers from games like Condemned and Resident Evil Outbreak as well, such as villains that jump out at you rather than staying in your sight at all times, and why Afro-ninja do you give the player control of the lights, in a good horror game the lights turn off at the worst possible time, a murderer is alot scarier when you can't see him half the time, Condemned proved that, and yet whenever I'm fighting Jason there's plenty of light and I can always see where he is. In Outbreak the player is often forced to run away from fights and complete objectives with zombies in hot pursuit. Your always being chased by something which makes the game alot scarier. In this game we're allowed to take our dear sweet time and Jason patiently waits until we have a new weapon to attack us, your never forced to run and once you figure this out, he ceases to be scary.

All these aspect just whittle away the whole horror aspect of the game. It's still a decent point and click adventure if nothing else, but it could have been so much better, and as far horror goes it's not nearly as scary as Kelly Osbourne's face.

Score: 7

"Can't match up to it's predeseesor"

submission: Momentum Missile Mayhem 3

date: September 26, 2008

I mention in one of my previous reviews that MMM2 is about as good as an arcade game is going to get. Well I am happy to say that Momentum Missile Mayhem 3 caused that opinion of mine to stay exactly the same. Momentum Missile Mayhem 3 is worse than it's predecessors in many ways. Dz seems to have pulled the old stunt of trying to change a game that isn't broken by adding a bunch unnecessary gadgets to it or in this case game mode.

OK so now we've got those cards on the table lets start by looking at whats new in MMM3. There are 4 new game modes added, as priorly mentioned, which all looked great in the teasers dz posted on his news blog, but it seems in all the excitement of these new game modes the beloved old gravity launcher from the first two games was give the shaft and forced to sit on the side lines while 4 new weapons failingly tried to imitate it's awesomeness, and on that note, lets start with the first weapon, the gravity manipulator.

So this first weapon looks kinda cool, an energy ball similar to those used in the last two games only this time it fallows your mouse around. Looks cool, but actually using the damn thing is about as intuitive as learning quantum physics while piss drunk. Your not really given any hint or useful instructions on how to use the damn thing either. Alot of jargon and ambiguous terms make the brief description of the controls useless and so the briefing at the beginning of the first mission left me more confused than anything, and even once you master the controls though you'll find the gravity manipulator behaves somewhat unpredictably, sure it's fun to swing around but actually trying to hit something with it is more frustrating than it is challenging, and considering how much harder this game seems to have gotten that's saying alot.

Next is the artillery, a game mode where you pick different kinda bombs off a menu and try to time where you drop them with the enemy's movement. You can expect that most any time you hit with a shell it will kill it's target and even if it doesn't you won't be able to predict where it launches the tanks it didn't kill taking the momentum aspect out of the game. It sorta feels like something added just for the sake of having another game mode. This type of game play has been tried before and has been proven to be wildly unsuccessful. I thought modern arcade games were moving away for the whole bomberman style of play, it adds nothing to the game and just adds frustration.

Next is the Singularity cannon, which was probably the only game mode I actually liked. A gun that rapid fires projectiles like the ones from MMM2, that's Awesome! There are still plenty of nitpicks I could pick at it though like how it only has two types of the projectiles and the alternate fire, while fun to use, is completely useless for actually killing anything, but a least I was having fun with this one.

The next game mode killed my enjoyment however by giving me a little disk and telling me I had to kill things with it. The biggest problem with this game mode is that it's impossible to predict where the bloody things is going to go and this becomes especially problematic when you upgrade it more allowing to bonce around longer, often forcing you to wait around while it bonces uselessly on the wrong side of the screen, and since explosions slow the damn thing down upgrading speed isn't much help either.

I think it's fair to say that just about everything that was added to the game since MMM3 made it less fun to play. The terrain is glitchy often slingshoting tanks to their destination, the teleporter often cuts the distance the tanks have to go in half, and when tanks are coming from all directions setting up massive chain reactions like you could in MMM2 becomes near impossible. MMM2 had the right level of difficulty, MMM3 is just plain frustrating.

To summarize this ridiculously long review, if something isn't broke don't try to fix it. It's still a cool game which why I gave it 7/10 in weak justification, but MMM2 was fine on it's own, and didn't need a sequel.

Score: 10

"WARNING! Dangorusly Addictive"

submission: Amorphous+

date: September 18, 2008

Amorphous is one of those games that can be played for hours on end without getting boring, which can a be a bit of a problem when I have actual work to do. The game itself is pretty simple; swing a unreasonably large sword at little blobs of goo un-ironically named "gooples". There's more to it than that obviously, any idiot with a drawing program can draw blobs, but Amorphous+ mixes it up a little by having 18 different kinds of blob. It's actually pretty innovative, each blob has its own unique and distinct appearance, it's own behavior patterns, and its own unique way to kill you (or distract you so something else can).

I found the game to be pretty tight lipped about what it was about or even what the point was. I suppose this it to create more of a surprise element when your introduced to a new type of goople as it rips the top half of your body off. That's fine but I would hope it could at least tell me what the game is about before hand. There's no plot (probably for the better), just something of a theme where there are nest of gooples and you have to kill them for some reason, but we're not here for the story so lets get down to the game play. Here I have to admit for a game where you never have to touch the keyboard there is a surprisingly large amount of skill involved. At later points in the game there can be as many as 10 hostile gooples on the screen at once each with a different fate planed for you. Combat involves tactical maneuvering and timing and very little luck, all grounds for good gameplay.

There are still a few nitpicks point out like how difficulty ramps awfully slow which can get annoying when you take on harder challenges, and keep having to restart, and while the sound effects are perfect, the music isn't exactly fitting. When there 7 hostile gooples trying to hunt me down and tare me to shreds Jazz music just doesn't quite cut it. But these are minor flaws really and they can't undermine how much fun the game is to play. If I were to sum it up in one word, 'cleaver' would be the word of choice, it's well made and most importantly it's fun.

Score: 3

"Did this game really need a sequel?"

submission: Pandemic II

date: September 12, 2008

I remember wasting a good hour trying to beat Pandemic 1 back when it came out, and as a concept game it was actually kinda interesting. The biggest problem with Pandemic 2 is that while it certainly adds a few new trait and elements, it's still pretty much the same. The idea of creating a disease to wipe out all human kind is certainly the grounds to build a fun and interesting game on. Unfortunately this idea is let down in both games by completely dissociating the player with the genocide process. In both 1 and 2 the entire duration of the game is spent looking at a map watching different regions of the world change color. Never do you actually get to see the destruction your virus causes, or even a picture of what you unique disease looks like. It's like all the action is happening behind a closed door.

It's not just not the interface of lack graphics that make this game bad either, the game play is flawed as well, in fact it's pretty much nonexistent. The only control your actually given over the outcome of the game is how your disease evolves, and even that doesn't seem to have much effect compared to the huge dependency on luck. The real outcome of the game depends on rather or not your disease infects the more remote regions before boarders, airports, and shipyards are closed, I found this depends far more on luck than what traits you choose and it can get really frustrating in that way. After playing it for a certain amount of time the game just stops being fun and feels more like work. I didn't even waste my time trying to beat it this time around because I'm guess all get at the end is a "You wiped out Humanity!" text box like in the first one.

Pandemic in general is an example of great idea for a game that's been poorly executed, it gets boring really fast and even if you do menage to beat it there's really not much satisfaction in accomplishing a total genocide because at that point your probably aware that the game is mostly luck. After reading other reviews it would seem I'm going against the popular opinion here, which makes me wounder if people are really this easily amused.

I may not speak for everyone here but to me, a game that feels like work is not fun. A game where you loose over and over, not because you did something wrong, but because you got unlucky does not qualify as challenging. And a game in which your entire contribution is to click a few buttons is hardly a game at all.

Score: 10

"Flawless (and I don't use that word lightly)"

submission: Momentum Missile Mayhem 2

date: September 12, 2008

Momentum Missile Mayhem can best be classified as an arcade game. There is only one screen in which enemy tank are trying to get from one end to the other and it's your job to destroy them, the only thing that every changes as you progress through the levels is that there are bigger tanks and new ways to blow them up. This may sound like criticism to some but I respect it for that, because that's what an arcade game is supposed to be. Sometimes it's hard for people to get the concept of arcade games what with a dense overpopulation of FPSs and MMOs crowding the game market these days and that's where MMM2 fits in perfectly.

There's not really much to Momentum Missile Mayhem, there's no plot, only one level, and basically all you do is blow up tanks. But what more could you want from a game! There are over 20 different types of unique well draw tanks and countless way to make them explode, and if you don't think launching a tank into another tank and setting off a chain of explosions that takes up the whole screen isn't FUCKING AWESOME than it may be time to reassess your standards. You could only get this much satisfaction by driving over old ladies or setting a younger sibling on fire! Sure there's not much to it but what there is has been polished to a mirror shine; the sound effects are perfect, the animation flawless, the physics engine is amazing, and for a game with this much code in it, there's a surprisingly small number of glitches.

So it's simple sweet, it's keeps focused on one well made type of game play rather than trying to do it all and that's something alot of game designers here on NG could learn from. It's innovative and creative and that's something you don't see to often in flash games. Yeah there's not much to it but there doesn't need to be because what is there is done so well. The idea of an arcade is that it's simple and straight forward, and as far as arcade games go I'm fairly certain Momentum Missile Mayhem 2 is as good as their going to get.