Breath of Death VII: The Beginning

The Short


Pros
- Entertaining JRPG parody that lampoons both the genre and other retro games
- A solid JRPG in its own right, with an interesting and unique "escalating enemy strength" mechanic
- Looks straight out of the NES era
- Dialogue is entertaining and its story is wonderfully stupid
- Music is decent, with a solid battle theme
- Only $1 on Xbox Live Indies

Cons
- Only about three hours long
- Random battles are frequent, and can get dull (except bosses)
- Some of the dungeons seem unnecessarily long and poorly designed
- Wish there was more dialogue and less of me wandering around stupid dungeons

 If you've played Dragon Warrior on the NES, this might look a little familiar. 

The Long

The minute I saw the title of Breath of Death VII: The Beginning I knew something was either very wrong or very right. When I booted up the game to an intro with captions about "20XX" I knew I'd made a right choice. Breath of Death VII is an entertaining if somewhat simple parody of ye olde JRPG days, and it does a lot right, a little wrong, and a bunch just ok. But for $1 and three hours of your time, you can't really go wrong.

Now that I've done my concluding paragraph as the opening paragraph, let's do the now-redundant innards of this review. 

This is really startin' to look familiar

Breath of Death VII's story is just about as nonsensical and silly as Final Fantasy VII's story (ZING!). In the bleak future of 20XX, all people are dead, and all that remains are...the undead? Yep, everybody in this game is a dead and some variation of ghost/zombie/skeleton/vampire/etc. Bleak future, I guess. Anyway your skeleton, Dem (as in "Dem Bones?") doesn't ever say anything except "..." (mostly because he doesn't have a tongue or voice box or any other such stuff...making him a literal "Silent Protagonist") and he sets off with a group of people to um...make things right? The story has a super-goofy story where it uses as many excuses as possible to lampoon tropes of the genre, all the way down to the melodramatic, totally absurd final plot twist. While not all the jokes are instant classics, for the most part they at least elicited a chuckle out of me, some causing me to laugh out loud. It's clever enough to push it forward, which is exactly what it needed.

Battle are straight out of Dragon Quest II/III, with a few twists.

Battles are the usual turn-based affair, modeling themselves after the NES Dragon Quest games but with a few modern additions. First off is the monster strength system. Every round that passes, all monsters gain 10% in strength. So your goal is to get done with battle ASAP, least that boss be double-powered very quickly. The second neat addition is the combo system, where certain special moves will gain bonuses based on the number of hits that landed before it, and "Deathblows" will reset the combo but deal massive damage if its high. You could say the combo system is meant to counteract the monster strength one, and it works.

Leveling up is very quick and very rewarding. You gain a set number of boosts, but then you have two choices for what extras your character will get. These allow you to build characters in different ways. Do you want a multi-hitting combo machine or just deal all damage at once? Do you want a mage specific in healing one person well, or all people just decently? Because levels are so fast you can change your specs pretty quick, and just going nuts doesn't screw you over since you can just level to the next boost and fix your mistake. 

Branching skill paths aren't exactly unique to WRPGs, but in JRPGs it's kind of a new thing.

While the core concepts are well and good, the game does stutter a bit. The random encounter rate is insanely high (but thankfully each area has a limited number of encounters; after it drops to zero you are free to walk around in peace unless you manually force an encounter) and in the later levels the limited number is so high it might as well not be there. Once you do knock that number down you'll find lots of them are long, obscure mazes, with stupid thinks like branches or bushes forcing you to maze about one way or another. It's an amateurish move to pad the length of the dungeons, and while I'm willing to tolerate it early on, the final dungeon is just so stupidly long it is borderline absurd. I can understand it's hard to draw graphics for multiple dungeons (I did make several pixelated traditional JRPGs in my day, you know), but the drag gets really frustrating really fast.

This isn't helped by the fact that battles have a weird balance. Sometimes just mashing attack will win, while other times something random will go wrong and you'll get completely blasted. I suppose it would be my own fault for not using abilities (it even gives you mana after battles so you are encouraged to use them), but the fact that the difficulty can spike from "easy" to "death" between identical encounters indicates a balance problem. It's either really easy or really hard, and once you find a routine you can just plow through 90% of the enemies without thinking. Level grind just a little and this game is cake. 

The graphics have a retro charm, but they could still have done better. 

The graphics are retro but not fantastic. It seems they aspired to the Dragon Warrior look of the NES rather than the Castlevania look (meaning: they picked a bland game for their pixel art inspiration rather than a good looking one). Enemies look fine but out of place, clearly not actual pixel art, and some parts of indoors areas have the same issue: they are drawn, and not pixel-by-pixel. The straight pixelation stuff is a bit bland, and while I can forgive a lot as it fits the theme, it could have been done better.

Music is excellent throughout, completely original and faithful to the genre it draws inspiration from. The battle song is catchy and fast (and has a kickin beat), and some area song are actually very moody. They aren't Nobou Uematsu or anything, but they work, and work well.

Not too bad for an indie game. 

Is Breath of Death VII worth your time? Well, it's a buck on XBLA games for a few hours of entertainment and old-school JRPG fun, so I'd say if that's your thing than absolutely. It's a bit more on Steam, putting you back $3 instead, but I still think that's a fair price. That's about $1 an hour, which is about the same deal you'd get on a game like Skyrim, so judge accordingly. 

You can bury a lot under nostalgia, throwbacks, and parody (hey, look at No More Heroes), but there is a limit to that. Breath of Death VII just barely makes it (probably due to its short length) so it's still worth checking out, just know it hasn't exactly beaten the tropes it lampoons so heavily.

Three out of five stars. 

Or maybe some better dungeons. 

Crayon Physics Deluxe

The Short


Pros
- Draw whatever you want to solve unique puzzles
- Follow simple rules to make things like levers, pulleys, etc.
- Fun idea that draw on both your inner artist and puzzle solver
- Lots of puzzles
- Playable on tablet PCs to get the authentic "drawing" experience

Cons
- Gets very difficult very fast
- Some puzzles seem to rely more on luck that actual drawing skill
- Physics can be a bit dodgy
- Drawing with a mouse sucks

Draw for the stars. 

The Long

Crayon Physics is a concept that "draws" on something we all wanted as a kid: what if our pictures came to life? What if we could draw something that was real? Using that idea and a system of simple rules, Crayon Physics is a puzzle game where you are only limited by your imagination. Or supposedly only limited. While fun for a while, the steep difficulty jump early on might turn a few player off, and those who just want to solve easy puzzles by screwing around might need to look elsewhere.

After a brief tutorial, you are on your own. 

Crayon Physics limits you to your imagination, with a few rules to make sure you don't totally screw it up. Draw a complete line (square, circle, etc) and it'll stick together; forget to attach it and it fall apart in a line. Draw a small circle and then something around it and you can create a swing, then attach circles to it to create rotating wheels. It eases you quickly into these rules, then sends you into more and more complex puzzles to utilize them. The first 15-20 minutes if Crayon Physics are downright magical: you really think this shouldn't work, but it does. For proof of concept, Crayon Physics does it masterfully.

Unfortunately, the fun sort of dies abruptly, mostly because the puzzles get irrationally hard very fast. I'm all for games to challenge me, but I also prefer to be eased into it, especially considering half the point of this game is the magic of just making stuff. By ramping up the frustration early, Crayon Physics turned me off pretty quickly, and getting stuck on a puzzle makes you feel less like a kid with a magic crayon and more like an idiot. 

You'd think with unlimited crayon powers this game would actually be too easy. 

Difficulty aside, Crayon Physics is a decent little indie game. It made a splash when it came out, mostly because the concept is so unique and cool, and it still impresses simply on that fact alone. It looks straight out of a kindergarten kid's sketch book, and alternating the colors of crayons as you use them is a nice touch. The music is simple as well, which provides a good backdrop to the visuals, and sort of takes the edge off the fact this game is brutal.

Doing weird stuff is the best part about this game. 

While I really wanted to love Crayon Physics (and everybody I've ever shown it to has been entranced for the 10-15 minutes they play it), it just isn't fun enough for me to really appreciate it. Luckily you can make or import levels of your own (or others), which helps you feel better about the difficulty, but I really feel like they had this great idea and didn't know how to utilize it. Like The Ball, Crayon Physics has really cool ideas that are poorly executed. I was hoping that with the "Deluxe" version of this game they'd rectify some of these problems, but they don't.

I still think it's a game looking into, because of the concept. But paying $10 for it is a bit much; I'd wait until it was on the cheap.

Two out of five stars. 

And thus the puzzle was solved. 

Bit.Trip RUNNER

The Short


Pros
- Difficult "runner" style game similar to games such as Canabalt 
- Multiple levels will test your dexterity as the game quickly gets hard
- Has a fantastic visual style and awesome music
- Timing moves/jumps to musical beats was a clever addition
- Bonus levels inspired by the original Pitfall made me smile

Cons
- Relatively simple concept
- Can get really difficult really fast
- No mid-level checkpoints make the longer ones frustrating
- Getting all the items is a near-impossible task
- Why isn't this game on iOS?

I'm trippin' bits here. 

The Long

"Runner" games have quickly become extremely popular, especially on mobile devices. The general gist of these game is simple (and started by the indie flash game Canabalt): your character automatically runs to the right, and you get control over jumping and maybe a few other abilities as they charge forward. It's a simple, addicting concept, usually used on game to shoot for maximum distance travelled in attempts to dominate leaderboards. 

Bit.Trip RUNNER, the next in the Bit.Trip series of games, capitalizes on this budding genre by taking their trademark style and applying it to a runner style game. The result is a fun, simple, and extremely taxing experience.

Like a rainbow in the dark.

As stated, these games are simple, and Bit.Trip RUNNER is no exception. As Commander Video, you can jump, press down to slide, press back to kick, block, and...that's about it, actually. It's a simple collection of controls, but these all combine to create a surprisingly difficult platforming experience. As stated before, he auto-runs to the right, so it is your goal to make it to the end while collecting as much cash gold money (since he needs to pay off his student loans, or something) and bonus multipliers (which is how you get the rainbow to follow you) before the end. Once you beat a level you are scored, and if you got all the gold you get to do a bonus game that looks a lot like Pitfall on the Atari. I like it. 

Again with the gold. He really needs the cash. 

It starts simple and gets very taxing very fact. Even before the end of the first world you'll probably be throwing your keyboard (or controller, if you are on the Wii or 3DS) in frustration as you get so close to the end and then fail. While the initial levels are simple and relatively short, the later ones go on for a very long time, and with no checkpoints if you fail it's all the way back to the start. The lack of checkpoints is actually sort of a bummer; while I agree they shouldn't be on be default, it would have hurt to include it to help ease frustrations (I have world 1-11's first half committed to muscle memory by now I played it so many times).

That's essentially the gameplay in a nutshell. Simple, but extremely taxing dexterously. You'll need to get some lightning fast reflexes in order to beat all the levels, and even more if you want to collect all the treasures. 

The game has a really cool, retro look about it. 

The game looks and sounds retro, without resorting to the "Look, we made it in 16-bit graphics!" thing that seems to be all the rage in indie games these days. While Commander Video is pixelated, the background are blocky and colorful and look like a hybrid between old and new (kind of like 3D Dot Game Heroes). It looks really good, especially on a high resolution PC version, and makes your inevitable failures a little more tolerable when you get to run by stuff that at least looks cool. 

The music is also excellent. Every level starts off with just a simple beat, with every successful jump adding a chime to the song (jumps/slides/pickups are all on rhythm, so if you are musically inclined this game might be a little easier for you). Every time you picke up a multiplier the song gets additional instruments, and your jumps offer a bit more than chimes. Max out the multiplier and you get the full song, done in a similar style as the backdrops: retroesque, but still modern. The soundtrack is excellent, and mixing the beat with the gameplay was a great bonus. 

Karate kick action!

If you dig super hard games like Super Meat Boy, you should give Bit.Trip RUNNER a spin. Aside from the unfortunate lack of checkpoints and the general simplicity of the game, it plays extremely well, looks and sounds great, and provides you with a challenge. For $10 on Steam you can't go wrong, and the game is also available in a collection on the 3DS and on WiiWare. 

Four out of five stars. 

"Run, Forrest, run!"

DEFCON

The Short


Pros
- Nuclear war simulator based off the movie Wargames
- Builds a decent sense of tension as it slowly ticks up to DEFCON 5
- Fight on many fronts, against computers and people, and mobilize a variety of units
- Unique RTS experience with more focus on immobile missile launchers rather than units
- User interface is relatively simple and easy to get a hang of

Cons
- Can take a while to fully grasp the strategies of the game
- Often winning feels a bit more like luck than actual strategy
- Fun for a while, but can get dull quickly

That's not going to end well. 

The Long

Plenty of RTS games have nukes in them. Starcraft, Red Alert, Command and Conquer; it's kind of a genre staple after a while. But usually in those games nukes are used on a closer, more "personal" style of war. DEFCON (with the subtitle "Everybody Dies" being oddly appropriate) is more of a simulation of what all out global nuclear warfare might be like. Based off that movie Wargames, it's a clever idea that has more than a few unique touches, but a difficult learning curve and a few other small inconveniences hold it back from being truly great.

Heads up!

DEFCON starts with a feeling of dread. You are given a limited amount of time as the DEFCON slowly escalates from five to one, and during these stages you can set up your fleets, your towers, and your units. It's fairly simple: radar detects incoming missiles, launchers can be set up to either defend against or shoot missiles back, fleets can also deflect or fire missiles (such as nuclear submarines) and so on. While boats, etc. are useful, the main tactical bit comes from knowing where to put your radar (so you can see what is going on) and your missiles (so you can fire/defend yourself). Dropping your defenses to counterattack for only a second can mean instant death, and knocking out a key radar location can be the means to a victory. 

You don't have unlimited nukes, so you have to fire smart. 

It's a cool concept, but one that isn't fully explained in-game. The first several wars will feel like you are grasping in the dark, and computer players will be more than willing to completely nuke you back to the stone age at the slightest sign of weakness. Figuring out how the boats/subs/fleets, etc. thing works can be difficult, and knowing how to best position your immobile launchers and radar often feel more like luck than actual skill. There is a sense of realism in that you have almost no idea what your enemy is doing (minus it giving you a sort of "glow" to indicate where they are building en masse), but that also means its harder to strategize. At times it feels like the results are totally random which, if we are going for realism here, is how I'd imagine an actual full-scale nuclear war would play out: lots of missiles, lots of death, not a whole lot of precision. 

It's like the Cold War all over again. 

The winner is the one with the most "points," which is based on damage done, stuff destroyed, etc. It's kind of morbid, actually; you win based on how many people you kill, not on actually conquering your enemy. That's something this game does very well throughout: being dark. Most of the DEFCON levels are done in complete silence, with just a few small background sounds. There's no fancy explosions or sound effects when nukes hit; you are watching a war map, so you essentially just get the death tally. The simple visuals and sort of "laid back" approach to nuclear war makes it all the more disturbing, and it works for what the game is trying to convey. Nuclear war sucks, and you'll have to be distanced from it or else the reality of what you are simulating is a bit horrifying. 

Get hit, fire back, everybody dies. 

While DEFCON is a pretty cool game to play for a few rounds (and a few more, after you finally get how to play properly), it doesn't have much staying power. It's entertaining to show off and decent for a spin every once in a while, but the randomness of the strategy mixed with the general simplicity of how you play it are a weird juxtaposition, one that doesn't suit this game very well for hardcore online play or any serious competitive multiplayer. It's fun against friends if you are just wanting to have a good time and nuke the world, but the learning curve is so high it alienates most people, so I don't think most players will take the game very seriously. 

It's fun for a short ride, but after that you'll delete it and forget it's on your Steam account. 

Don't let the Russians win!

As it stands, DEFCON is certainly a unique and interesting game, with a really cool premise and a lot of great ideas and visual style. But while it works on its concept for a good while, eventually you'll set it down and probably never pick it up again. It stands as an excellent example of what indie games are for: quick, unique ideas that make you go "hey, that's really cool!" play it a few times, and forget it exists afterwards. 

But still, if this looks interesting to you, the $10 Steam pricetag isn't that high a bar of entry. And if you can convince some friends to tag along, you can all have fun nuking the whole world together.

Three out of five stars. 

And everybody died. The end. 

Atom Zombie Smasher

The Short


Pros
- Addicting tactical zombie-killing, survivor-rescuing simulator
- Lots of play modes and difficulties to appeal to any level of player
- Handful of unique units all play differently and require different strategies
- Tons of maps
- Risk inspired "board game" mode where you fend of regions from infections is quite addicting
- Modding support allows for some zany enhancements

Cons
- Minimalism graphics work, but still come off as a bit cheap
- Difficulty is off the charts, and the game gets really hard really fast (unless you mod it)
- In the main mission, the game chooses for you what items you get, which is really obnoxious

Keep the yellow alive. 

The Long

As I've said before, one of my favorite things about indie games is the fact that they can do crazy ideas that would never fly on a full-on published release. Atom Zombie Smasher is an excellent example of that philosophy. A relatively simple game with a neat premise, there is no way this would get green-lighted by any major publisher. But as a small, cheap independent game, Atom Zombie Smasher is balls of fun (see what I did there? Indie game joke.). 

Don't let the zombies take over the world. 

The core concept is simple: Zombies are invading, spreading like a virus, and you have to try and keep areas quarantined and save as many yellow dots...I mean people as possible. It starts out on a Risk style board, where both you and the zombies are spreading to try and take over as much map as possible. The first to getting the max score wins, with every milestone (indicated in white dots on the bottom of the above screenshot) earning either you or the undead a bonus. Get the most score first and you win. Get overrun and the zombies win, and you get your brains chewed on. 

This is where you'll do most of your work. 

When fighting for a province, your goal is to get a set number of people out alive. You are given a handful of supplies ranging from snipers that set up in buildings, timed explosive and mines, bait to distract the zombies (or "Zed"), and a rescue chopper that will pick up groups of people. Zombies will cross anything besides buildings, but eventually nasty ones will show up that can knock down buildings (or you can blow them up yourself) and take out large groups of people. So you have to be careful, because your supplies are limited.

There's no way to kill all the zombies. Ok, it is possible, but odds are low that you'll pull it off, especially in later missions. So instead you have to strategically decide how to best rally up the yellow (for if they are so much as touched by a purple Zed they turn purple themselves, adding to the horde) and get them out. Sacrifices will have to be made for groups too far out, and this game quickly becomes a desperate wait for the heli to come back and haul your people away. It's a rush, even if the graphics are just little bips, and I actually kind of felt bad when I had to abandon a small group of yellows to die for the greater good. 

Nuking zombies with artillery is always a good plan, just try to not kill too many civilians. 

It's a simple game in concept that quickly gets complex, especially with added units, zombies, and maps. In addition, time passes, and when night rolls around hordes of zombies start crawling in, which basically means you'd better be close to winning before night or else you are hosed. It's quite addicting and very fun, giving the whole "come on, one more game" hook that many games strive for and few accomplish.

A negative, however, is that this game is hard. Even after several hours of playing I still hadn't really figured out the best strategies, and would fail from time to time. This is especially frustrating on the single player Risk game, for two reasons. First, your units have a "cooldown," so you can't use the same batch twice in a row, and also I swear it just randomly assigns them to you so you could get totally boned on what resources you have for a mission. Second, there's no reloading, so if you fail a mission the zombies get your land and you don't get to retry. Considering the zombies already have the tactical advantage (there's like four groups of them moving to cover the map vs your one move a turn), failing once can mean you've failed the entire game already and just don't know it. The idea of adding momentum with the unlocks is good, but it means if they get too much early on you are basically screwed and should start over. 

That's a lot of Zed. 

This unforgiving gameplay is frustrating, also because you can't always control where the yellow dots go. They tend to be really stupid when it comes to seeing purple Zed, and one slip-up can turn an entire group of survivors into enemies. Had the game been more forgiving throughout (maybe having an easy mode that actually is, I dunno, easy?) then I wouldn't have been annoyed, but as it stands it is very easy to get frustrated. 

Luckily you can ignore this frustration because the game not only has tons of maps and single-mission modes, but tons of mods as well. So if you think the game is too hard, some friendly Steam member has posted up an "Easier" mod! (there's even one intended for children to play) You can also have it so people fire faster and redeploy quicker, another big frustration, and basically anything you can imagine. I'm not giving Atom Zombie Smasher a pass because its community retroactively patched up the difficulty problems, but the fact they are so open to it certainly helps alleviate the pain.

Moral of the story: zombies don't fight fair. 

Graphics are simple, as you can see, but get the job done. I actually think it works better with them just being dots, because seeing people eaten or turned into zombies would have been stupid, and there's some weird emotional resonance to seeing groups of betrayed yellow dots turn purple and then head back towards the yellow ones. It isn't a graphical masterpiece by any means, but it's supposed to be a hardcore tactical zombie evacuation simulator, so it doesn't really need to be. It gets the job done, and has a clean and easy to use interface. It works. 

These screenshots all look so similar, I bet I could post the same one six times and nobody would notice. 

So is it worth the asking price of $10? If you are into this kind of super-hardcore tactical game, than absolutely. There's also a demo on Steam to try out if you aren't sold, but despite me sucking really, really hard at this game I had a blast for several hours fending off the damned Zed in my attempt to save humanity. It's a really clever concept executed very well, and despite the few balance problems (and total lack of music, now that I think about it) it works. I'd personally suggest modding it to make it a touch easier least you get frustrated and hate it, but that's just me. 

Yellows unite! Four out of five stars. 

Tell me about it. Here's hoping Atom Robot Smasher is on its way. 

The Ball

The Short


Pros
- Interesting puzzle mechanic that reminded me of Portal
- Use a magic gun to control a large ball through a variety of puzzles and combat situations
- Looks really good and has a cool visual style
- Exploration is enjoyable and you see some neat environments
- Really has a lot of neat ideas

Cons
- Despite its uniqueness, no one part of this game feels polished
- Puzzles are usually pretty bland, with even the new elements they added not being utilized to their full potential
- On that same note, combat with the ball seems tacked on, and is usually more frustrating than fun
- Game is short, but feels longer than it should
- Story is stupid, for what little there is
- Load times can be a bit long
- Feels like it was a great start with wasted potential

Spoiler: There is a Ball in this game

The Long

I love little puzzle games, especially ones that do something unique. Portal turned everything on its head by offering a clever story, brilliant puzzles, and a different perspective than that normally used in puzzle games (first-person) to carve a unique niche for itself. The Ball seems to be trying to attempt the same thing, using a simple mechanic (use a magic gun to pull or push a giant iron ball around) with varying situations to provide a new, unique puzzling experience.

And it comes so close to almost working it hurts. But, unfortunately, The Ball falls short on many points. 

Why would a magic, ball-controlling gun have a giant skull on the back? Sadly, this plot element is never addressed. 

The story is nonexistent. You are an archaeologist who falls down a deep hole while your crew is digging. Rather than wait and see if your friends could get you out, you decide to explore and stumble upon this magic gun and giant ball. You decide it would be brilliant to go squish things with it rather than, I dunno, get out, so you move forward solving puzzles built around the ball mechanic and fighting enemies until you get free. It's basic stuff, but something could have been put in here to help push it forward. Even crappy one-liners from the hero "I've got balls of steel!" would have made the ride more interesting. Instead you get a ball, some puzzles, and then it ends. 

The Ball's mechanics are actually pretty clever. You have two options: you can push or pull the Ball from any location, through walls, or whatever. You can also charge up a push to shoot it forward with a burst, helping it make jumps or squish guys or whatever. A meter in the corner says how far away and what direction the Ball is relative to you, meaning you'll never lose it. These are the fundamental control mechanics, and they never change. 

What a surprise, a giant metal ball doesn't float. 

The Ball is at the center of everything you do in this game. All puzzles rotate around either having it ram something, be put into a groove and spun around to power something, or be put on a button. As the game progresses it adds more things like oil you can dip the ball in to create fire trails, and other such things. Unfortunately it doesn't really maximize it's potential. Most puzzles are easy and even a bit boring, the biggest challenge simply being to get the damn Ball to do what you want it to do. They never utilize the new mechanics they introduce in any ways other than the most basic, meaning there's never any truly exciting moments or times when you feel satisfied by beating a particularly hard puzzle. It's a decent concept, but the execution is stale.

The same goes for the bland combat. Since you have no weapons, your way of killing stuff is just squishing it with the Ball (which is also how this game earned its "M" rating). It's stupidly bloody and sort of pointless, and while I'll admit there's a satisfaction to running some guys over with a giant metal orb, the finicky Ball controls make combat more frustrating than fun. It also never really utilizes the Ball's uniqueness to create exciting or interesting enemies or bosses. Just squish em. Done. 

This civilization must have been unable to function unless they hauled massive balls around everywhere. 

This game looks really good graphically, pulling no stops on the Unreal 3 engine, though it does have that annoying texture pop-in that comes with it. The art style is pleasing throughout, though it could have mixed some of it up more. the whole "skull on the back of the gun" just makes this game seem like it's trying too hard for it's "M" rating, when it really would have probably worked better trying to be clever and silly instead of violent and HARDCORE. As it stands, however, this is one hell of a good looking indie game, as the screenshots are showing.

See you, space ball. 

Despite my massive number of complaints, I actually really enjoyed playing The Ball. The challenge mode where you fight waves of enemies might be fun for some, but seeing as I thought the combat was stupid I didn't really dig very deep anyway. The puzzles are decent and it's a short experience, so just when you are getting tired of it it ends, which is nice. But I couldn't get over the fact that this game seemed to have no ambition. It's like it burned all its ideas on the initial mechanic and the graphics, and then sleepwalked through the rest of the game. If they were to make a sequel where the utilized the fantastic ideas they had here with more unique puzzles, a sharp script, and more refined Ball controls, I could see it becoming a fan-favorite much like Portal. But as it stands, The Ball just doesn't try hard enough with what is most important, and so it provides a decent experience, but one that should have been much better.

Still, I got it for $5 on Onlive, and then bought it again in an indie bundle for Steam, so there's something for it there. If you liked Portal, you should absolutely check this one out when it drops to a $5 price tag, if only because the mechanic is cool and it still provides some genuine entertainment. 

Three out of five stars. 

To use the worst Duke Nukem Forever quote: "I've got balls of fail!"

Scoregasm

The Short


Pros
- Heavy score-based, Geometry Wars-esque duel stick shooter
- Music is awesome
- Branching paths based on how well you score in a level add replay value
- High number of levels and multiple endings
- Provides a genuine challenge on the "Insane" levels
- Very fast. Burst mechanic helps keep the action going.

Cons
- Requires a lot of repetition in order to fully master
- Steep learning curve
- Failing a run near the end can be very frustrating
- Have to replay certain levels multiple times in order to access the harder difficulties
- Title, as well as the female "moaning" sounds in the menus (while more goofy than sensual) seem a bit crass
- Graphics are bland compared to other score-based bullet hell games like Geometry Wars

If you like quick, score-based duel stick shooters, you might want to check this game out. 

The Long

Scoregasm, stupid name aside, does exactly what you think: is a duel-stick, bullet-hell shooter with an extremely heavy emphasis on score. For fans of games like Geometry Wars that provide a fun challenge while still being balls-out hard will find a lot to love here, though a few minor niggles take what could have been a hardcore score-based shooter and make it a little weak. 

Hope you are good at dodging bullets. 

First the good: Scoregasm is always fast and always has a very solid sense of progression. One of the main problems with score-based duel stick shooters is that they always start off really slow (Geometry Wars being a big offender). So when you mess up, you know you've got about five minutes of boredom before the game actually gets crazy. Scoregasm fixes this by having each stage be very short, and having the insanity escalate quickly even on the easiest difficulties. You have to beat a level with a specific score to unlock the next one, and the higher the score you get the higher difficulty stage you can unlock. You do get to pick, so if you do really good but still want to stay on Normal you can, or you can just blast your way up to Insanity and start praying. 

In order to unlock more difficult stages you have to play better and better. 

The overall concept is simple: use either a controller, mouse and keyboard, or just mouse to duel-stick shoot everything. The game also has a "Burst" mechanic, which blasts a small nuke within a radius around you that kills bullets and enemies alike. The more enemies you kill the more powerful your weapon gets (and the faster more Bursts unlock), so if you can keep a really long chain and protect yourself with Bursts you'll be able to blast your way to a great score. Each level is usually 3-4 minutes long at the most, which means replaying to unlock more levels isn't as frustrating as it might have been. With the levels displayed as branching paths, the incentive to unlock and clear them all grabs you right in.

Some levels have unique qualities, like this spinning wheel of death. 

Graphically the game looks decent. It doesn't have the same fantastic, flashy style of Geometry Wars or the 3D, gorgeous look of Super Stardust HD, but as it stands it is still decent looking. A big problem, though is that the background elements tend to look a lot like enemies, which can throw you off. I appreciate trying to make an interesting backdrop to my shooting, but when it interferes with gameplay I have to say "no thanks."

The music is excellent. Again, it isn't Geometry Wars or Super Stardust HD quality, but it provides a kicking enough tune to keep your blood pumping as crazy stuff goes on all over the screen. 

The weird girl screaming/moaning/orgasming whatever sound that happens in the menus and sometimes in the levels is pretty tacky and crass, though. I get they were going with their "Scoregasm" theme, but really? We already knew you named your game this to get attention out of the indie crowd, but that's kind of pushing it into "tasteless" territory. 

It does a good job keeping track of all your progress

At $10, Scoregasm is pushing it a little. For fans of the genre it probably would be a solid investment, but if you just sort of like these kinds of games I'd get the demo first. Again, I got it in an indie bundle, so for me it was totally worth the cost (and I plan on playing it again tonight, since the Mac Steam version finally showed up), but honestly I'd wait for a $5 sale, or if they package it in their usual Steam Indie collections during their sale months.

It's a solid game, but there are a lot of these types of games around, and this one only does a little to differentiate itself from the crowd. Minus adding "-gasm" to the end of its title. Three out of five stars. 

It's not easy being green...