Reviews for H3I5T

[Whatevaperson]

Looks great, for a flash. However...

It's just not very fun.

This awkward control scheme reminds me of Doom. It was fine back in the early 90s, but feels very out of place now for me. Even with customizable key bindings, it just feels awkward. Why can't I just use a mouse to turn left/right... and shoot/stab? I mean, I think it would work out better if I plugged in a USB gamepad and used joy2key to mimic they keyboard controls. That said, the game, from what I've seen, is easy enough to not have that really be an issue.

The animations, particularly the running one, just looks silly for what I think the tone of the game is. Plus, since that animation happens while running backward as well, it's just... strange. 2d in a 3d environment looks bad in general to me though.

Speaking of the environment, it looks nice for a flash. What I've seen of it anyway. Draw distances and whatnot feel a bit short, but it's somewhat understandable.

While I like fanservice, the outfit in general is overkill. Especially for the type of mission this sort of should be. And come on, in a snowy area of all places?

I understand the limitations of gameplay mechanics for a flash game... but why do cameras equate to instant failure? I want to shoot them.

For my gun, I want to know how many round I have left, not a meter. Why can't I store extra ammo clips either? The fanservice suit not have enough space to keep extra ammo along with money? I want a gun that reloads, not a maximum ammo powerup.

I haven't gotten far at all, but getting caught by the first cameras at the gate because I take one step too far is plain annoying. I'm betting I have to find a random spot in the wall or something to get past... but I've already gone through both sides for 15 minutes. Found a health powerup and ammo powerup, but it's kind of pointless, since I just can't progress and I'm bored.

I also restarted and literally ran around gathering all the enemies to one corner. It worked out reasonably well until I ran out of ammo (I wish I had clips). They couldn't seem to hit me while I was firing at them too, which I found strange.

I understand a lot of time must have been spent on this project of yours. And that I've only seen the beginning. But a bit more polish and direction to get the player started would have made this a far better experience.

Also, I found it somewhat annoying how much clicking to skip the beginning animations actually skips. One click for everything was too large of a jump; I did enjoy the opening movie of this.

[Crystalpistol]

Good effort!

After reading in one of your other comments that you, or at least one of the two of you, are not an avid gamer (which seems strange given what everything you do is related to. >.<) I have to say that it definitely shows. While it was certainly ambitious to create a 3D Flash with 2d art, and it does have kind of a cool look, it just doesn't play well. That's why you don't see many other games like this. Flash works best in a top-down or side-scrolling format. The best thing you could have done is research, research, research! That, and, well, listen to your playtesters! You said they brought up some of these complaints, well, don't just release the game anyways. I'm sure you just wanted to get it out, but it would have been much better to release a polished game instead of this entirely underwhelming project. It could have been so much more. I know that I for one, was SUPER excited to see a new Pikanjo flash, and a fully-featured game no less, but I came out of it disappointed. I'm not very far in yet, and I also can't figure out how to pick locks. I can get all the tumblers to stay at the top... but then what? And as another reviewer mentioned, if you ever patch this, add English to the menus and such. That should be too great an undertaking. Most of the things have mouseovers, anyways, so you could leave the static text in Russian, and have it turn to English on mouseover. Overall, it was still fun, though, and I look forward to seeing what you guys do next! Glad you've moved from a little pink blob to hot chicks! ;D

Pikanjo responds:

You don't actually have to know any Russian to complete anything - I may have rushed this somewhat to get it out - but it's taken me 10 times longer than I originally planned and I wanted to move on.
Thanks,
-Richie

[NyttAura]

Good concept, but...

The game is painfully jerky and the controls are overly complicated.

[pspman45]

Ummm

I'm sorry, you probably put a lot of time and effort into this, but it wasn't realy that
good, the idea of 2D images navigating in a 3D space made for a strange visual style, and the lack of a tutorial mission left me constantly checking the controls, and having to die a whole bunch of times before realizing how to actually play the game.
Despite my previous complaints, it was at least entertaining and was a break from all of the 2D sidescrollers that this site is host to
7/10- good, but needs improvement

[GoldenDeagle]

Many things to say

I was very surprised to see that the game was in 3d. However I was instantly dissappointed by a very wild camera and running and confused by the amount of buttons. Speaking of buttons it was a good move to make them customizable, but I really hate that # button wasn't changeable. I have a laptop and full numboard doesn't fit, so I don't have the # button and I couln't progress farther than the keypad, unless that's not the way to solve it.

Speaking of progress, I was slightly stuck at the pick locking part. Didn't realize you had to tap the button, it just wasn't too obvious. Also disliked the fact that I couldn't backtrack out of the vents, I wanted to check the other doors in the mansion, but I guess they just had more guard behind them. Speaking of the guards- they were relentless. Crouching and sneaking didn't help. Died a lot. Was surprised (and glad) they didn't respawn. Jumping over the fence was very tough. The ground seems so slippery and the camera just swings everywhere. The guards had the same problems as me. There was a time on the first floor of the mansion when two guard were alerted by me but they couldn't run up the stairs- they just slided in a 300 degree circle around the ladder bumping into its sides while running. Also about the degrees, it was 23 degrees Celcius outside while snowing but inside it was -2 at times (0 celcius = freezing water). And I didn't find any use for the nuclear bar, but that's probably because I didn't finish the game.

About the camera. in small rooms it goes behind walls and shows the white void outside. So it gives away the flaws of the engine easily. Making it a first person perspective would have solved that. Also I guess there's no hide or cover system and the trees and elevations are there for decoration. And I guess the alarm system was just too much. It seems impossible to never die or trigger an alarm.

Im a kind of a linguist and English is my third language, Russian is my second and my first is Kazakh (suprpised to hear a brief mention of a Kazakh politic mentioned in the intro). So as a person who spoke in russian pretty much my whole life I was relatively fine with the written russian. The girl who did the voice in the begining did have a noticable accent (as if she spoke at one point but the forgot the language partially) but didn't make any mistakes I noticed and spoke understandably. But I was horrified by the sheer amount of swearing in the gameplay. Here's a typical encounter with an enemy: "Bitch" blam! "Fuck you!" blam! "Bitch!" "Fuck you!" Blam! Blam! "Bitch!" "Fuck you!" blam! and he dies. I think it took me about 3 million rubles to get my jaw off of the floor. So the amount of russian language used in the options led me to believe you were making this game for russian audiences as well. If not, then you used too much of, what americans will see as, unreadable font clustered in the menus.

So in conclusion this game just begs to be a 2d side shooter. Somehow I found the 3d engine in Sierra7 a lot more impressive, even though it didn't have too many textures or details, but then again that game had predetermined paths for the player. Some wall designs looked like a grade schooler drew them but that's just nit picking. It's a shame I couldn't finish the game. Please do something about the # key. Changing it to "C" would make a nice square of buttons to work with. So anyway very good effort. But there's a lot of improvement or you just need to reconsider the dimensions for the sequel. Then you will have a game above 4.00 and reviews aknowledging your hard work.

Best of luck to you

Pikanjo responds:

You can use the keypad, number keys, or the mouse to play the keypad game. The num-lock key itself is just left out of any configuration. The guard logic is pretty simple so you can learn them and fight accordingly. I think a 1st person shooter would keep the 3D feel a lot better in closed rooms too - maybe being able to switch between 3rd and 1st would let people find their preferred perspective. It is next to impossible to never trigger an alarm or die.
I made the game engine all in-house, and this was kind of an excuse for me to learn more about creating an entire game and get better at programming.
Thanks for the review,
-Richie