in theory it would be a good game but theres too much repititoin more user input thats not as much user input would be nice
Reviews for "ControlCraft 2"
this game is incredibly buggy and the interface is terribly user-unfriendly. i ended games so often by accident. strange ki, annoying item-system, inconssistent upgrade-part, no level-scrolling in pause-menu
all in all, boring, not original, buggy and no what so ever reward at the end for completing the game.
2 stars for the graphics and because it is more then nothing..
I think this is a good game but the click and drag to make half your units attack thing is outdated and boring. You put so much effort into making this game so I find it strange that you didn't come up with something more fresh and original.
The level of quality and polish on this game manages to fall just past the point of "completely embarrassing."
-The controls, while intuitive at first glance, are incredibly buggy and frustrating. Frequently I found that the camera would continue scrolling even after I had let go of one of the arrow/AD keys. The single level that had vertical scrolling showed me that the up/down/W/S keys were completely useless. Nice. Pair these facts with the necessity to funnel units to the far side of the map, and you have a recipe for an incredibly frustrating experience. I also found myself madly streaming every available soldier to one or two different bases at a time, as that was the only way I could achieve a constant advantage on certain maps. I really would have liked a way to automatically stream soldiers from one base to another somehow.
- The upgrade system is poorly designed and felt like there was no thought put into it. I maxed out my unit upgrades, but I left the item upgrades alone for a few reasons I'll state later. It also seemed like the computer quickly gained upgrades that made mine look like garbage, adding to the frustration.
- The AI is complete crap. Their "item usage" (freeze bomb and nothing else) is completely random and unlimited. The AI almost constantly had better units and unit production than I had available at any given time, which was kind of annoying. Pair that with the fact that your "AI" is nothing more than a simple priority queue, the obvious strategy of expanding in all directions as fast as possible is the wrong one on many of the levels. In fact, I found a couple levels impossible unless I blatantly ignored one tower that was literally right next to my spawn, while funneling every *single* unit to the tower that the AI seemed to be tunnel-visioning into when instead he could have jet-packed past my front line and overwhelmed me from multiple directions. If the AI was that smart, however, at least one level would have literally been *impossible*. In all, the AI was weak, predictable, and overpowered to compensate. This removed any element of "strategy" that I thought the game had (and what was advertised) and turned each level into something akin to a boss fight in a platformer or action game. You know, the ones where you memorize patterns.
- The whole item system was completely awful. The money you earn trickles in at an obscenely slow rate, and spending money on items becomes more of a gamble than anything ESPECIALLY if you're having trouble beating a stage since you lose any item you use, whether you win the stage or not. Using any of the items is more of a risk than a reward as you're taking precious time away from micromanaging your little army, a task that requires your constant attention in the later levels. The range is short on items and, as far as I could tell, the upgrades for them didn't even work.
- Finally, the point that is most possibly the cause of each other point, you're a lazy developer who doesn't take the time to accurately test things. The amount of bugs in this game is appalling. Achievement notifications pop up dozens of times even if I have already earned them, resulting in an annoying little box in the top left corner that won't go away. Releasing the mouse button over your "FunnyGames" logo on top during gameplay when trying to direct troops opens up a new window to show me their crappy website, which ends up hurting me once I finally get back to the game. Your upgrade screen is ridiculously bad, with inconsistent upgrade placement, and even tooltips that don't match the item or upgrade that I'm mousing over.
The two stars are for the neat art style and the fact that it kept me entertained enough to beat it. Do yourself a favor and don't even dare to release anything this unpolished ever again. Just because this is a flash game does not mean it doesn't need a proper beta.
The reason I went so in depth with my review is because I felt this game squandered a lot of potential. I don't exactly know why, but I enjoy games of this ilk. In fact, Tentacle Wars is probably my favorite flash game on the internet. Don't underestimate the power of testing and polish.
Badim responds:
Ty for a review - i read it and made a list of things to fix and add.
Some of them - we fixed and added today - some of them soon or in 3rd chapter.
Awesome game, a great take on the concept. My only gripe is with the controls, you'd have a much more manageable interface if you had:
a) a hotkey to switch between sending half units and all units
b) keyboard camera controls that aren't so temperamental (buttons frequently either fail to move the camera or the camera keeps moving after the key is released)