Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

meh

meh...

Mario's BP Bashing Adventure

Once again, I-Mockery has created another brilliant video game spoof; and who better to plug up the leaky pipe that has caused one of the greatest environmental disasters of the 21st century other than the world's number one plumber? As Mario, your job is to swim around collecting dead fish to plug up the massive oil leak before time runs out, dodging mines, divers, and submarines all the while. As a game concept, it is pretty engaging, but even though this is an 8-bit adventure, I found the game doesn't have the best control response if your computer feels bogged down by bandwidth, and this will ruin your experience with the game causing slippery control and imprecise movement, costing you lives. Super Mario BP Oil Spill works also as a pretty scathing commentary to this latest corporate fuck-up that has affected our world, and even after you have defeated Tony Hayward, you can still play progressive levels to get a high score.

Challenging enough to keep me coming back for more

I played this off and on all through December and kept from writing a review until I beat the damn thing. IT FINALLY HAPPENED.

For starters, the concept alone is HILARIOUSLY dark...I love it enough from that alone. Thankfully, the team involved knew what they were doing, and the gameplay didn't disappoint.

It began smooth and easy, letting you get all comfy and acclimated to the controls and hazards one step at a time. While this might annoy A.D.D. morons who don't have the common patience to enjoy a game (example: "bawww by the third level we only get one diver? no! no! it's too late :'C" <--I bet gamers like this hate Tetris lol), it succeeds in gently establishing the hook before yanking the hook now attached to our jaw violently. By level 3-2 it's a maritime WARZONE...and by GOD I LOVE ME SOME MARITIME WAR- OORAH!

Seriously, there is no shortage of dangers in this game, and that makes it absolutely exhilarating. By going for the "Employee Mercy" achievement, you set yourself up for the greatest danger; a cluster of divers shooting waves of harpoons. Because they kinda follow your movements and don't precisely swim in a formation, you could potentially have to avoid a near endless stream of harpoons, influencing you to get lower and lower to avoid death until you have nowhere to run. Furthermore, they're ingeniously unpredictable; while trying to coax them into swimming beneath a predictable sinking mine, they can sometimes stray away from them from their own will seemingly. Not all the time, mercifully, but don't think I didn't notice when I didn't get my way :P

The mine's can kill you, the diver's harpoons, mines from above, submarine-launched Bullet-Bills...your ONLY AMMUNITION can potentially kill you if it's not dead enough, even time itself poses a very realistic hazard if the ceiling gets low enough.

The programmer also had the right idea to only allow fish to spawn in a safe zone...I only know this because I didn't hear any phantom "putunk's" (fish dying noise)...but the fact that the ever-growing oil slick is pitch black effectively emits a very ominous, subtle evil in the game. Alright! We plugged the hole!...next world! Well, that MASS of oil that's there because it wasn't plugged in time is still there...and sometimes the fish are STILL dying while my victory music plays...it's a brutally, viciously honest truth depicting what's actually going on in the Gulf...and that's of a Mario with gills and a resiliance to oil is stuffing numerous crude-oil leaking pores on the gulf's floor with oily fish carcasses.

Throwing dead fish turned out to be an incredibly necessary maneuver to keep from getting harpooned to death. I never really had a problem with the mines, but I died numerous deaths from the harpoons and SURPRISINGLY the slow-ass Bullet-Bills...though I guess they are still kinda huge menaces. I only wish one could have more of a directional influence as to WHERE you could throw the fish...too often would I want to hit something above me, but it only goes very slightly down. I adjusted, and learned to work with the fixed trajectory we have to throw with, but if we could aim up, that means we could have a shot at taking out one of those helicopters. This would be very badass.

But like I said in the very top of this review, the challenge kept me coming back. I would often die at 3-3 and sometimes 3-4. I had no idea the end was right around the corner until today, but I'm refreshed it keeps you going with the 4-X worlds. When I first played, I though five lives were a lot, but I was mistaken. I entered the 4th set of worlds with one extra life to spare, and I lost both chances at a mere 4-2. I have yet to see if Submarines are in this expanded realm. I suppose I'll have to keep playing to find out.

I still have REALLY hard medals to unlock too; this thing has a fuckton of replay value to it. For that, it's historical relevance, and the fact that it's straight-up fun and challenging, this should go into Flash Portal History of 2010. It's nostalgic with original gameplay somehow too! I love this! 5'd

fun

though it got tedious after a while as expected to be honest. still a fun game that hooked me for a good 30 minutes.

Diver

Isn't that the diver from the Jaws NES game?