Score: 8
"Good game, poor execution"
date: July 23, 2008
This is a pretty good game, I like that someone else is making a more traditional Contra style action platformer rather than going with the new mouse to aim fad, which I hate.
However there were a lot of flaws in presentation that I think dragged this down a lot. The first being the tutorial, that seemed far too long for such a simple game. It needed to be a lot more concise, arrows to move, A and S to shoot, ctrl to duck. If there is more than that I missed it because I got bored with how long it was taking to actually get to the game.
The stages themselves are good, but there wasn't a whole lot of variety between them (I got through most of the jungle area) Same basic enemies with maybe a few upgrades, the music was also nearly the same in all areas, and to be honest I didn't like the music at all, and it really didn't seem to match the game at all.
I liked that there were multiple paths to take in a lot of places, but in the end the game felt a bit lifeless, a combination of the static and generic backgrounds, bad music, and repeating enemies. The core gameplay is good though, but couldn't hold my interest through the entire game.
July 24, 2008
Author's Response:
Thanks so much for all your advices. Yeah, I tried to go the Contra style, it's good you liked it. And thanks for pointing out those weak points, I noticed some of them, and it's good to hear of the other ones I didn't notice. Yeah, the tutorial is too long, but I wanted to cover all the stuff the game involves there, that's why I created the quick help window when you press '9' if you didn't want to go all the tut long.
With the music I wanted to add some metal to the game as I like the way it sounds in some games, and I like rock :P but I know the quality isn't too good.
I'll take your advice in mind and again, thanks so much for the review :)