The problem with the industry at the moment is that it’s saturated with
rubbish like this, however in amongst the majority drivel there are some
genuinely good games. The problem is heighted by the fact that everyone seems
to review short games like they have descended from heaven to offer up some
enlightenment to us pathetic masses but this is just more contrived bullshit. This
has been true for previous games I’ve reviewed like Gone Home and Dear Esther
and I’m not sure why these have been received in such good light when they are
both developed by twats and offer little to no game play.
Anyway, this selection serves to act as a demonstration as to why it’s
best to avoid these games altogether unless the critical world decides to write
some balanced reviews on actual games.
Anyway, that’s enough of my personal drivel. Let’s kick off where I
started and that’s with a game called Scalextric
Scalextric
I’m sure many others were sucked in to this for the reason I was and
that’s nostalgia. This could have been a great concept for a game with lots of
options to expand on an established formula, however in reality, what we have
is a piece of shit that gets everything wrong from the menu onwards. Getting
into a race is difficult, racing around the track is luck based because the trigger
sensitivities are well off and the AI varies from completely retarded to
borderline cheating.
Oh, and every time I completed a race, the game would get stuck and I was
have to exit to the console home page and relaunch it. It takes less than an
hour but most of that time was spent reloading the game.
Summary Review: Piece of Shit.
Rememoried
Rememoried has a level skip
function which allows you to breeze through the achievements in a matter of
minutes. However, I do have some integrity so I thought no, I’m going to play
it the way it’s meant to be played. That lasted for three ‘levels’ which
comprised of horseshit gameplay and narrative so pretentious and contrived that
if my ears could commit suicide, they would have. It seems the developers agree
with this assessment as otherwise, they wouldn’t have put in the level skip
feature.
Summary: Pretentious Contrived Garage.
Storm Boy
This is 50:50 one because as a narrative device, it is effective and
pelicans have now become my third favourite game-animal behind cats and foxes.
There is a genuine attempt at generating an emotive reaction from the player
and it is effective. However, a game should be a game first and Storm Boy could achieve all have achieved
all of its goals by being a children’s book. The gameplay elements are just
drivel and kill the pacing the story.
Summary: Emotive but not a real game
METAGAL
Why the title feels the need to be in capital letters, I don’t know. This
one is a game where you shoot stuff as a girl android in 2D retro environments.
The gameplay is actually quite difficult but the achievement list doesn’t
require you to get very far. This is a blessing because when I say it’s
difficult, it’s mainly down to terrible jump controls and having to avoid a million
bottomless pits. It’s another cheap cash grab and perhaps the easy achievement
list is intended to get people to buy it. If that is correct, it’s a poor
business plan as only 1% of the gaming community care about Gamerscore.
Summary: Lazy Cash Grab
Hexologic
This is the exception that proves the rule. Hexologic is a game where you have to solve number problems by
placing up to three dots in a hexagon to get a line of Hexagons to add up to a
given total. I’ve made that sound more complicated that it is but essentially;
Maths plus Logic equals good puzzle game.
As you progress, more rules come into play and the puzzles get more
complicated. The interface is easy to use (though quickly flicking through the
90-plus levels can cause motion sickness) and the puzzles are very rewarding.
It is the diamond in the rough as far as this post is concerned and, it’s
actually a proper puzzle game with rewarding payoff.
Summary: Solid Puzzle Game
NORTH
Almost saving the best to last, I would say NORTH summarises everything wrong with quick completions. I’m not
even sure what the concept is. You play as… someone who goes to a poorly
rendered environment for some bizarre reason. There is a story told through
letters to your sister and it’s effectively a walking simulator which one
arbitrary speed racing gameplay section thrown in. How anyone would publish
such utter drivel is beyond me.
Unlike the above games though, NORTH
was critically panned by most people and no one I know that’s played it has a
nice word to say about it. Honestly, I played it to see what the fuss was about
which probably makes me part of the problem where even bad press is good press.
However, this will help me massively in the future, because now I know who to
listen to when it comes to selecting games to buy.
Summary: What the Fuck
Achievements – 6,000 Points – 65
Achievements
So 6,000 points in around five hours… but it’s really not worth it. If
you’re keen on points and don’t care about having fun then go for it but it you
want to be choosey and like puzzles, then Hexologic
is the only one worth playing here. Storm
Boy does offer an emotive story but it’s not the main purpose of a game.
No comments:
Post a Comment