First Impression: Accident (PC – Steam) ~ Let us Learn About Saving Lives

Steam store

For those who do not know yet, I work as an IT Admin in a big art high school (secondary school) in Belgium. Also, I have a lot of games in my PC collection that are part of the “edutainment” genre of games. So, when Duality Games offered me a free press copy of their newly released “Accident” game, I was extremely interested. As usual, the developer asked me to give my full 100% honest opinion, so that is what you are going to get in this article. So yeah, does this game hold up while being reviewed by somebody who is working in the education sector for 7 years now? Let us find out and let us find out if it is fun to play as well as a game. Personally, I want to find something out as well from you, the reader. I want to find out what your thoughts and opinions are on the game and/or the content of this article so feel free to leave them in the comment section down below.

Reviewed version: Build 1.05

Let us Learn About Saving Lives

In this game, you play a nameless person who is working for a nameless company that started a new project called “Roadside Heroes”. In this VR-experience, you are set in the shoes of a person who encountered a traffic accident and it’s to you to make sure that the people in the accident make it out alive.

In terms of story, this game is a bit lacking. Since it’s unclear if you are working for a game company who is working on a VR-game about traffic accidents or if you are a part of your police training or if it’s for the emergency workers or if it’s part of a recreation program for reports and journalists… It is all a bit vague. On one hand, this can help to insert yourself in the game and make the story whatever you want but on the other hand, I felt a bit disconnected from the game since the story didn’t immerse me. (Now, I am going to completely ignore the fact that the store page gives more story since I mostly focus on these articles on what is told to the player through the game itself.)

While writing this article, I was asking myself: “Should this game even have a good story?”. And this is a tricky question to answer. For reasons I will explain later, this game can be a perfect teaching tool to help people what to do in the event of a traffic accident. It can also be a great “shock game” for people who feel that traffic laws are only a suggestion. So yeah, in that case, the fact that this game does not have a too in-depth story is a good thing since it does not get in the way of the actual intention of the game.

Most of the story is being told through your phone on your desk. After completing a case, you get a text from Mark telling about the next case. A neat detail in this game is that the clock on the mobile phone matches the real-time of the system clock.

In terms of writing, this game is decent even for a “lacking story” (which again, is not a negative for this game for the reason I explained earlier). There is some minor voice acting and voice work but most of it is nothing special to write home about.

So, this game starts off with a tutorial case. In this case, you learn the basic operations and mechanics in this game. It teaches you the controls and the steps you should take during the other cases. The tutorial is a little bit hand-holdy, but I noticed that this only happens during the tutorial since you are mostly on your own during the other cases. You do have objectives to complete, but it is up to you to find out how to complete these objectives with what you learned during the tutorial. So, let us dive right into some cases and start saving lives.

Teaching tool?

Each case starts the same way. You drive towards the site and you call the emergency services. The reason why I feel like this game can be a great teaching tool is that in various moments, a non-intrusive box appears on the top in the middle of your screen with the reason why you would do such actions in real life. For example: “Turning off the engine will stop the chance of engine fires in real life.” This can be very helpful advice and maybe save lives in the real world. This is not the only occasion that this happens.

This game can teach you a lot of things but there is no backend for the teachers. So, there is no way to see how your students reacted or if they had to redo certain cases or how they failed… Honestly, if this would be added to the game, it would make this game a very powerful teaching tool for those traffic lessons. But teachers can be creative and maybe this can be used in group work.

Before I ramble too much about that, let us put the focus on reviewing this game as a game. This game has been localized in different languages. You can play this game in English, French, Chinese, Polish, German, Spanish, and Russian. Since I know some French, I tried this game in French and I can tell you that the translation is done extremely well.

So, what do you have to do in this game? Well, you play the role of the guy or girl who was the first person that intervened when the accident happened. You must call the emergency services and provide first aid to the victims if needed. After that, you must piece together what happened and why the accident happened.

There is something unique about each case. In one case, you are knee-deep in the Russian winter, and in another case, you are in the extremely hot desert. If I have to give a genre to this game, I would say that it’s a puzzle game since you need to find out what the right steps are to finish the case with the least amount of deaths. Sadly enough, when you did not provide the correct aid and somebody died, it is game over.

On one hand, I dislike this mechanic and on the other hand, I don’t mind the mechanic too much since you can rewind time at any moment to redo a certain part in case you can do it better or faster. When you press “R”, you can rewind time to a previous decision point. The longer you press “R”, the further you go back.

Sadly enough, this means that there is only one way to complete each case. I silently hoped that this game would have worked with some sort of rating system where you could see if your actions saved the most lives or were the best way to handle the situation.

The whole package

If you look at the credits of this game, most of this game is created by Paul Dyvel apart from the music and the 3D art in this game. I must be honest, for the result is rather impressive. Let us first talk about the controls of this game. Thankfully, I was able to rebind them since this game does not recognize the keyboard layout “AZERTY” from Belgium and France… But that is a nitpick I have in almost every game.

Sadly enough, I do have to complain in terms of the controls. The first complaint has to do with putting out fires. I feel that this is a bit too pixel perfect. I had to redo the tutorial several times because I was unable to put out the fire. I honestly do not understand how to put out the fires since there is not enough feedback to the player in my opinion to tell them if they are actually putting out the fire or missing it completely.

The second complaint is about CPR. It took me a while to get into a correct rhythm for the chest compressions but when I learned that the heart rate graph is a nice indication to get in the correct rhythm, I didn’t have problems with chest compressions anymore. But here is the most annoying issue. It is the breathing mask and its controls. You must drag your mouse up and down. But that dragging up and down… Well, I know I have a small mousepad, but I almost must drag it all the way up my desk. It is a bit much. Also, as soon as you let go of dragging up, you must restart that breath… It is a bit too finicky. Apart from those two issues, the controls are quite responsive and easy to learn.  

Let us talk about the audio-visual design. In this game, the music is created by artists over at SoundStripe.com. It is extremely kind of the developers to list in the credits which artists were used. But I am unable to track the actual tracks down. It is a shame since I really enjoy listing to the tracks, and I would love to hear more from the artists. In terms of sound design, I think Paul did a very nice job. I have to say, I highly recommend that you play this game with a headset since it enhances the sound design and the music so much more.  

Something else I would like to talk about is the difficultly of this game. This game rides that fine line of being too easy and too challenging. Some scenarios are a bit too easy in my opinion. The scenario in America was over before I knew it while the two other unlocked scenarios were trickier to finish.

It is time now to talk about the visual presentation of this game. This game looks amazing for being created by such a small team. The models look extremely detailed and they are nicely animated. I love that there is some attention to detail like the chest slightly moving when you check if the victim is breathing or not.

It pains me to say that in some cases, I noticed that some corners were cut. For example, the textures for the clothes look less detailed than the other parts of the game. Another example is the car mirrors, it is quite clear that a less detailed version of the road is playing in it.

While this game has high attention to details, there are a few mistakes in terms of details that can break immersion. For example, the Wi-Fi symbol on the phones while there is no Wi-Fi access point nearby. Or the fact that the kilometers per hour do not make any sense on the dashboard of the car, I have even seen it go into the negatives several times during the Russian case. And let us not forget to mention that you can enter cars while holding victims without an issue.

Thankfully, these are small little things that are not a big deal breaker in terms of immersion and gameplay. Since overall, the atmosphere and the visual design of this game are good. The environments like quite real and apart from what I mentioned above, I barely have any complaints or suggestions to improve.

This brings me to the final part of this game I want to talk about. And that is the UI. There are a few things I would like to say about the UI. Overall, the UI is pretty good apart from several minor issues that give the game an unpolished feeling. Let me give you a few examples. Granted, some of these examples are visual issues combined with UI things.

Number 1: the “return” button can clash with the feedback button. This results in being able to return from the accident screen and opening the feedback screen.

Number 2: the feedback screen is strange. You do not get a message if your feedback has been sent or not and you have to select a thumbs up or down when you want to report a bug…

Number 3: you are unable to open the pause menu during the rewinding of time.

Number 4: there is no “reset to defaults” button in the video settings of the options menu.

Number 5: the credits text is a bit hard to read. Speaking about the credits, they do not wrap. So, you must scroll up to restart them. And the strange thing is, that this does not always happen… Sometimes I can easily read the credits. I think it depends on the resolution.

Number 6: when you complete a case, the complete sticker appears over the name of the case. Making you unable to read it.

Number 7: you are unable to skip the intro to each case.

Number 8: you are unable to scroll in dropdown menus.

Number 9: you do not get an error message when you try and double-bind keys.

Number 10: you are unable to save during a case. You must do them in one sitting. But after finishing the case, it autosaves.

So, in general. What do I think about this game? Well, I honestly think that this is an enjoyable game and a nice concept. I think it would be a shame if this game does not get more cases or some sort of a sequel. Thankfully, there are high hopes for that! Since this game is in early access now. There is a demo version available but reading from the reviews, that’s less polished than the final product.

Would I recommend this game? Yes, I would. I think this game is a great adventure/puzzle game that also teaches you several things about car accidents. While the game takes some liberties on how to save people, the game always tells you when the game and reality conflicts. Also, each country works quite differently… But that is a whole other can of worms where I do not have the right knowledge and specifications to discuss. So let me say this, always call the emergency number when you come across an accident and ask what you should do and follow their instructions. 

So, I am quite curious about which improvements this game will get when it is in its final state. There are going to be more cases, tweaks, and improvements. If I have the time, I will write a follow-up article and review this game but for now, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game. So, with that said: thank you so much for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

 

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First Impression: Nightmare Reaper (PC – Steam) ~ Can You Sleep Through This?

Steam store page – GOG page

I can’t tell you exactly why, but I’m a big fan of old school 3D shooters. Last year, I took a look at Ion Fury and Wrath. Honestly, I think that it’s because these games stuck the right balance between modern game design and old school gameplay. Now, one day I stumbled across this game. A game in Early Access that released last year to GOG and Steam. A game that presents itself as a game inspired by Blood, Doom, and Duke Nukem 3D. That’s quite interesting in my eyes. Currently, only the first episode has been released and episode two is coming in the near future. At the moment of writing, the developer said that they are aiming to release the second episode at the end of the summer. But, is this game worth your time and money? Let’s take a look at this game while I invite you to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article. 

Can you sleep through this?

You play as an unnamed girl who is stuck in a psychotic ward. Her story is being told through small notes that you unlock after beating each level. In order for you to enjoy the game, you don’t need to pay any attention to the story, at all. But, I can tell you out of the experience that it enhances the game tenfold. My imagination and the spare bits of story that I got gave the world-building quite a lot of meaning. My imagination filled in some gaps that made the story quite interesting.

Now, I can understand that some people won’t enjoy a story that is this bland where it’s quite clear that you need to protect yourself on the character or fill in some of the gaps yourself. But, I didn’t find this a problem at all. Since this game focusses itself a lot more on the gameplay than on the story and in that case I don’t mind a “weaker” story.

I always find it quite difficult to review or criticize a story when I know that you don’t have every piece of the puzzle. A story can start off strong and end up quite weak. Currently, I’m quite interested to see where the story is going to go and if it wraps up with a nice conclusion or if it leaves it up to the player to figure out.

As I said before, the story is mostly told through small notes that you can read on your table after beating a level. You unlock one note for every level you beat. Each note builds on the previous note painting a more complete picture of the situation. There is no voice acting during these notes, but that doesn’t mean that there is no voice acting in the game.

The girl you play as is voiced by Marie-Claire Lavertu and I haven’t found anything about her. Now, this might raise some red flags but don’t you worry. The voice actor nails the voice acting of the main character flawlessly. The grunts, the smirks, the laughs… It’s all done pretty well. She did a pretty amazing job of bringing this troubled character to live without saying one line. I wonder if she also did the screams of the other patients you hear when you are in your room.

So, how do you play this game; since you start off in a hospital room? Well, as the name of the game suggests, you are going to reap some nightmares. So, it’s time to go to sleep and you get transported to a randomly generated level where your goal is to beat your enemies and reach the goal.

Retroception

This game features randomly generated levels. Well, to a degree. The developer created a whole slew of rooms and the random level generator just fits them together in random order.

So that means, that you might find the same layout once or twice but in most cases, each level and each playthrough is quite different. But, this isn’t the only thing that stands out in this game.

The Steam Store page boasts that this game has over 32 weapons and is going to have 80+ weapons. Now, before you think that this is going to be an overload to manage them all… You don’t have to manage them all. That’s because you can only carry over one weapon from one level to the next. Yes, one weapon.

It gets even better, each weapon might have special abilities and has a certain level. So, you need to think and strategize about which weapon you want to keep and which weapon you want to sell for those precious coins.

These coins can drop from destroying the environment, defeating enemies, selling weapons at the end of a level, finding treasure, and playing the Gameboy Advance Skilltree minigame. Oh yes, the minigame. One doesn’t simply unlock new powerups in this game, you have to earn them by first having enough coins and then beat the mini-platform level. Only when beating a level, you lose your coins and earn your sweet powerup. Trust me, these power-ups are worth it! After defeating some levels, I felt more equipped and stronger to beat my enemies.

If I would take a look at all the enemies and weapons, I think I would be here all day. Let’s first talk about the weapons. You have swords, staffs, shotguns, rocket launchers, tomes, pistols, rifles… It’s a whole lot. Personally, I rarely used the bows since I found their fire rate a bit too slow since this game can get pretty hectic and intense with some enemies and a strong gun fits my playstyle more in these types of gameplay situations. And my preferred weapon was a double-barreled shotgun with the chance to shock my enemies I picked up in one of the earliest levels.

Obviously, I’m going to talk about the enemies right now. You have a whole range of enemies. From hit scanning enemies to enemies that take you with melee attacks. It’s essential for you to learn the patterns of each enemy so you can play accordingly for which enemy you should take out first.

There are some enemies I absolutely hated during my playthroughs. These Dragon Plants that not only spit acid but also spit little egg projectiles that hatch smaller dragons. These didn’t die fast enough for my liking. And then I’m skipping over the enemies who throw what I assume mutated blobs of themselves to you and these blobs track you and when they explode… You lose a LOT of your health. And these blobs are so freaking small and annoying to kill…

Now, would I remove these enemies? Absolutely not. They ramp up the difficulty of this game to a very rewarding level. For having so many different possibilities, I’m surprised how much work there has been put into the balancing of the game. New enemies are introduced one by one so you can get used to them, learn their patterns, and try to manage them in the chaos of a whole enemy filled room.

The “punishment” for death in this game isn’t that harsh. Thankfully, since you will die quite often since this game can be quite rough. But I mean that in a good way. The punishment is that you have to restart the level with the weapon you choose to keep from the previous level. But, you don’t lose your gold. So, if one level is a bit too tough, you can grind up your coins, beat a few skill tree mini-games and try again with some new powers.

During my playthrough, I regularly felt the urge to play just one more round, to try to beat that annoying level. I found that most of this game is quite fair and balanced apart from the fire boss. I’m sorry but I find that boss battle just too difficult. That boss hits a bit too hard. My biggest complaint is that this boss appears after quite a challenging level and then you have to try and beat quite a difficult fight. Thankfully, the developer said that he is going to take a look at how the fight can become a little bit easier. And also, he has given us some helpful advice to beat it. It’s the biggest frustration I have with this game since I have gotten so close several times… But one of these days, I’ll do it and defeat that – CENSORED –

So, would it surprise you if I said that I’m not even done talking about all the mechanics yet? Oh, I haven’t mentioned the power-ups, the random events, and the possible bonus gold you can earn by killing all the enemies, finding all the gold and secrets… Well, I’ll leave these interesting and fun game mechanics up to you to find out. There must still be something to discover when you play this game after reading this article, right?

Shoot everything

You might have noticed by looking at the screenshots, that this game doesn’t have the most modern graphics. This game goes for a more retro aesthetic with some modern vibes. And the game succeeds in that quite well.

In the visual presentation, I find this game quite exceptional. I really like the visual presentation and animation of this game. From the enemy design to the animations on the weapons, I really think they are well done. Especially, when I saw some early footage of the game and compare it to what’s on offer now, it’s impressive how far this game has come. The only minor complaint I have in the visual department is a timer. Yes, a timer of how long your power-up is lasting. Since there is no inventory in this game for power-ups and health pickups, so it would have been nice to see how much a powerup is going to last when you want to use it to rush a boss or a difficult room.

To finish up my thoughts on the visual presentation, let’s talk about the UI. Overall, it’s quite well done but there are a few minor things that I would change. First of all, the “Reset Default Settings” is a great future but I would rather have that feature reset for example only the game features instead of resetting everything. Another minor complaint I have about the UI is there are no page numbers on the achievement page.

Speaking about achievements, it’s lovely that these give you coins in-game but I find them to also have them as Steam achievements. I mean, there are over 80 already. Maybe this is just me, but I almost got an achievement in every round, if not two or three. Maybe I look at achievements in a totally different light but I found them not rewarding to earn at all.

There is one thing that I haven’t talked about yet and I usually talk about quite early in my articles and that’s the audio of this game. First of all, let’s talk about the sound effects. The sound design of this game is close to perfect. On quite rare occasions, I didn’t hear some trap or pickup sound effects playing, especially during fights but that isn’t such a big deal. These fights are hectic enough when you try to manage large groups of enemies, the sparse health pickups, and the great sound effects of the enemies and weapons.

But I want to talk about the amazing soundtrack by Andrew Hulshult. Now, if this name doesn’t ring a bell. Well, let me just say he created the soundtrack of a little game called Dusk and Wrath: Aeon Of Ruin. Let me just say, if you enjoy the DooM 2016 soundtrack, oh man you are going to enjoy this quite a lot.

Overall, I would recommend this game to people who enjoy retro games and shooters. At its current state, I found this game quite addictive and I had a hard time putting this game down during my summer holidays. Before I knew it, I had put in 11 hours in this game and I’m not bored with it yet. I can’t wait to see what the second episode will bring to the table.

To be honest, I had a really hard time finding negatives to say about this game apart from the fire boss being too tricky for my liking. All the other things are things that are either quite minor or can change because this game is still in active development. I’m going to keep an eye out on this game and maybe you too.

And with that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in a future one but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

NekoJonez’s October 2016 update

So, quite a lot is happening lately. And I honestly think it’s time to update you guys and girls. Since there are a few things I want to talk about on my blog but don’t really fit into a gaming article. We are nearing the final moments of 2016 and I have to say, time really flies. While we have two and a half months to go, this year has been quite an adventure. A lot has happened that made my life more exciting. So, be ready for an update with a lot of good and some bad news. And at the end of the article, I’ll reveal what game I’ll be writing about next week! So stay tuned.

My desktop issues

Warning: this part of the article can be a bit PC tech-heavy. I’ll indicate when I stop talking IT. Since, give or take, ten days ago, my desktop started to act up. I was playing Bioshock Infinite again, and suddenly my screen goes black and when I look towards my desktop, I noticed that it had shut down. After a few seconds, it reboots. My desktop can easily handle Bioshock Infinite on very high settings. Since my rig is better than the recommend specs for the game. So, since that crash, my sound jacks refuse to play sound.

I have reinstalled drivers from the official website and the CD that came with my motherboard, and nothing helps. To make things even stranger, when I connect a HDMI cable on my graphics card, the speakers of my monitor are able to play the sound. So, I honestly think that my sound chip on my motherboard hasn’t died since it can pass sound to my graphics card and so to my monitor. But when I try to record the sound of my speakers with using Stereo Mix, Audacity can’t pick up any sound. At all. So, I’m totally confused.

Since the reboot of my PC was caused by my graphics card. So, how can it cause the sound chip to misbehave? Also, I have reinstalled Windows and checked the cables on my motherboard and checked my motherboard for damage; I can’t find the cause. Thankfully, there are very cheap fixes for this issue. There are USB-sticks that can act as a sort of external sound card. I bought one for 20€ and I got the same sound quality as I got from my chip on my motherboard.

But that wasn’t the end of my problems. So, for some reason, games I was able to run flawlessly like Rise Of The Tomb Raider, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and Bioshock Infinite now shuts down my PC after a few minutes (most of the time less than 5 minutes) of gameplay and then reboot it. And to make things even stranger, when I play older games, I have no issue at all. But hey, I’m trying to look for a solution. So, I can play new PC games again, so I can talk about them on my blog. I hope I find a fix soon, without having to buy new parts. End technical talking.

So, the TL;DR, ten days ago: Bioshock Infinite crashed my whole PC. A game I’m supposed to be able to run on ultra settings. After it has rebooted, my sound chip started to act up to the point of me buying a USB external soundcard to have sound and mic stuff again. But, now I have a problem with high demanding games. I was able to play them, but now after less than 5 minutes of gameplay, my PC shuts down and reboots.

The reason why I talk about this is if you read this and you have an idea what could be the cause, feel free to get in touch with me. I would love to hear possible solutions I can try. Thanks in advance!

So, what will the rest of 2016 bring?

So, this last week was a special week for me. I won’t go into details on my blog here but the people who know me personally know what I’m talking about. To make a long story short: besides writing, blogging and gaming, I have another hobby. And that is being a part of a theater group. We wrote a play ourselves, and beyond all expectations of everybody, it was very successful. So, we got the opportunity to play it for schools. This was a very interesting experience. Sadly enough, we performed the play for the last time yesterday. Anyways, enough about that. I want to focus now on what 2016 will still bring for my blog.

Now, my schedule is still pretty filled up with activities and evening classes & work. I honestly hope that I don’t need to cancel too many articles.

While I have to admit that I have been playing games I have already reviewed and talked about in the past couple weeks, I have also played games I’m going to review in the next couple of weeks. In the past few weeks, I have also been playing games I have started and still need to finish.

Also, I have received a few interesting e-mails in my inbox that can possibly turn into articles. I’m really sorry to the people who mailed me in the last two months for the late replies but I had a very busy schedule.

So, what have I planned for 2016? Well, I have been thinking about some console and handheld games I still have to review and talk about on my blog. I have been considering to use the rest of 2016 to write about games I have played in the past but I haven’t reviewed yet. Or to talk about a game from a series I haven’t talked about yet. Like last week’s article. I have talked about so many Zelda games, but one of the most important Zelda games to me, I haven’t talked about yet. But, I fixed that last week with talking about the Phantom Hourglass game.

Before I close off, I want to reveal the game I’ll write about next week. And that’ll be a first impression article about Paper Mario Color Splash. And I have the game for the week after that also in my mind. So, I’m working on two articles at the moment. So, stay tuned for that!

In any case, I think I said everything I said everything I wanted to say in this update blog. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this. If you know anything that might help me fix my desktop, feel free to leave a comment/tweet me or mail me. I also hope you are interested in next week’s article. Until I may welcome you in another article on my blog but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

First Impression: Ratchet & Clank (PS2) ~ The First One

Wikipedia entry

Today I want to talk about a game I started playing in my holidays on the PS2. The name is Ratchet & Clank and I’m playing it on PS2. I realize that with the recently released movie, there is a new game on PS4. But I haven’t seen the movie (yet), I don’t have a PS4 and I don’t own the PS4 game either. So yeah. In any case, it’s time to take a look at Ratchet & Clank on the PS2. A game I bought at a garage sale. At that same garage sale, I also bought the third game in the series. Sadly enough, I was unable to buy the second one. But, that game is on my “to look out for” list. And I’m quite sure I’ll find it in the near future. In any case, enough stalling. It’s time to talk about Ratchet and Clank. A game I haven’t finished … yet. In any case, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the content of this article and/or the game. 

The story of sci-fi

 If you read my blog from or when you know me personally, you might know that I’m a big fan of stories in my games. While I do enjoy the characters and the jokes that are thrown around, I feel that the story is taking a backseat to the gameplay. Honestly, the story doesn’t 100% click with me. I think the biggest problem is that the story doesn’t really help build the world and atmosphere.

When I play sci-fi games, I want the story to explain how certain things work. But so far, nothing is really explained enough in-depth. Yet, there is some techno-jargon that gets thrown around. Take for example an “infobot”. From what I can gather, it’s a sort of advertisement billboard, but I have seen it play recordings of people’s video calls. And what didn’t help is the fact that some infobots have coordinates of where some people are. So, what’s the purpose of an infobot? That left me very confused.

So yeah, while I do enjoy the interaction with the characters and the actual plot of the game, I feel that there is so much lost potential with the story. I felt that the focus was too much on the characters and not enough on the world that they created.

The voice acting of this game helps to bring the characters alive. The jokes of a naive robot Clank work so well in the robot voice. It feels real and genuine.

So, in conclusion about the story, I’m in the middle. Like I said earlier, I do like it, but I feel that they could have gone more in-depth with it. Also, some characters are underused. Like the Captian Qwark figure. He looks like an extremely popular marketing thing, but I have only seen him on one island. So yeah.

Two or more ways to objectives

It surprises me how I managed to fall in love with the gameplay of this game. Usually, I play adventure games like Broken Sword and Monkey Island. I even said in some articles that I don’t like platformers. But this game is something really different. In this game, you have to travel to various planets to finish missions.

But here is the thing. On two planets, I managed to miss secondary pathways that lead to other objectives. While this could lead to frustrating “find the right way” gameplay, I love that the map shows in yellow the places you have visited already. Too bad that it also shows a “?” mark exactly where a trigger for an objective is.

I have one problem with the gameplay that made me put the game down for a while. That are the respawn points. When you fail a jump or die, you sometimes respawn way too far. One time I was on the other side of the planet., and I misjudged a jump. When I respawned, I was back at the start, which was on the other side of the planet.

Also, I find it an interesting mechanic that the boxes and enemies only respawn when you leave the planet. Apart from one exception though and that is when you have a mission where you need to kill for example all sand sharks.

Maybe it might be just me, but the hit detection is sometimes a bit strange. I have seen several times where I was sure I was hit but didn’t lose health. A minor thing I would have changed is that I would have made the health always visible. There have been moments where I though I had more or less life and misjudged a situation. But then again, you can see it easily when you press a button.

The controls of this game are really good. The only thing I felt could use some polish was the grabbing of platforms. That didn’t always work for me. What I really liked is that this game didn’t force the tutorial on me. When you get a new gadget or a new item to play around with, the game briefly explains how it works and you can read it again in the menu. Also, you are able to shut off the help feature completely. I haven’t tested if the help section then still updates or what happens if you use a weapon where the explanation hasn’t popped up for it yet.

Something that would have improved this game is a sort of indication from where you are hit. I felt cheated when I died because an enemy was attacking me from behind. Speaking of which, some enemies are quite stupid. When you aren’t in range, you can easily kill them with bombs and not having them chase you.

The manual aiming of the special weapons is a big issue for me. I think I’m too spoiled by playing games with a mouse or a Wii Remote. It’s really clunky on a controller. Thankfully, there is a sort of auto-aim feature that works really well.

A big plus in this game is that you are free to explore the game at your own pace. Sometimes you have two different objectives and you choose on which one you focus first.

Planet Life 

The sound design and the music are pretty decent. I would have changed one thing around to make it a bit better.

I would have given the enemies a bit more sound effects. Now, they can sometimes be soulless. It feels like they don’t have a personality. What I mean here is that, in other games you can easily hear if the enemy is a weak or a strong enemy. That isn’t too clear in this game.

The soundtrack of this game is really fun to listen too. While I feel that the soundtrack doesn’t always fit the world or presentation like a glove, it gets the job done pretty well and it’s a joy to listen too from time to time.

Speaking about the presentation, that’s something I really have to praise this game. I feel that the level design is extremely well done. From what I have seen so far, this game provides moments of action and then moments of rest. This game is a platformer at hart, but it changes things up here and there with some mini-games.

Graphically, this world aged pretty well in my opinion. I love how some things are animated in the background and how ships fly around while you are exploring the world. It makes the world come alive that much more.

I think I have everything I wanted to say about this game for now. There are a few things I want to talk about, but I’m going to leave them for the review. When I have to give my opinion on this game: it’s a really good game but it lacks some polish. It’s an amazing platformer that made me come back for more several times.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing this. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article and until then… Have a great rest of your day and take care!