Big Mean Flash Gamer

Fashion Expo

2009-12-03T00:20:00.003Z

Oh man, I really don't want to have to write this. I mean, I'm tired and I have a headache, and for the second time in as many weeks I've been foolish enough to venture onto the Games2Win website. I don't know what's wrong with me, sometimes - I'm clearly just a masochist at heart. Incidentally, I don't really like reviewing games from the same developers two weeks in a row, but I'm justifying this review of Fashion Expo with two reasons:

1. It's now December and therefore I'm not reviewing two G2W titles in the same month; and
2. This is Games2Win, and they deserve it.

OK, on to Fashion Expo. I'm going to try to get through this as quickly as possible, because quite frankly I'd much rather be watching Justice League Unlimited, but I'll give you the general rundown. The game is a poor imitation of Fashion Designer New York. There, done. If you really need more information, you play a fashion designer who has to put together three outfits for a show, trying to score the highest number of points as possible in order to move to the next level.

I know what you're thinking - I'm not a fan of dress-up games, so naturally I'm going to dislike this, and my review is nothing more than an attempt to take the easy way out this week. Well, you're wrong. I never said I disliked dress-up games (not totally, anyway); I'm simply not that interested in them. But Fashion Expo promised a challenge that my traditional competitive spirit couldn't turn down.

I'm no Coco Chanel (I highly doubt Audrey Tautou will be playing me in my biopic) but I know how to dress myself somewhat neatly. Plus, I kick ass at Fashion Designer (yeah, I've played it several times) and figured this would be just as much fun. I figured wrong.

You start off by selecting three models to dress for the show. I've had a thing red heads since my X-Files days, and I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to get a little "ethnicity" into the show, in order to hook the "urban" crowd. Personally I dispute the legitimacy of these models. For one thing, they all have actual hips, and some of them even have boobs. Everyone knows if a model doesn't possess the body of a prepubescent boy, she's too fat for clothes!

Each of the models must be dressed in a distinctive style - casual, professional or dressy. They should all be pretty self-explanatory, and it's not like this is rocket science. Just put trainers and a t-shirt on one, smart pants on another and a dress on the third.

This is what fashion designers do all day? Damn, I'm in the wrong business.

You also need to get the ladies' make-up in order, a fairly simple procedure, though I can't understand why most of the make-up seems so God damn garish, regardless of the model's skin tone. Now that I think about it, there's a remarkably small number of options available to the player, limiting your outfits and leaving you with a pretty uninspiring selection for each style. Perhaps more become available as you reach the second and third levels (oh yeah, only three levels) but as you'll soon see, I wouldn't know.

So here are my three models, all ready to go. I don't know about you, but I think I did a pretty good job. As Jean-Paul Gaultier might say, they look bloody awesome.

In Fashion Designer, each of your models go through a pre-show stage where you get advice on how to improve the outfit before getting a last chance to make some changes. In Fashion Expo, however, the pre-show is simply the above image. In fact, I can't remember if there's even any animation - it could very well be a single still picture.

Regardless, it's time for the show itself, where your models strut their stuff (or rather, just sort of stand there) while flash bulbs go off and you receive a score for each one. There's my casual chick, netting me four stars for her hip, co-ordinated look.

And here's my professional businesswoman, earning me a respectable three stars for a simple green and black ensemble. I think the lack of proper pants hurt me here, but it's still a decent score.

And finally, we have... hold on a second. Zero stars? ZERO STARS!? What the hell!?

Are you people blind!? She looks awesome, God damn it! The little black dress is a timeless number, you fucking Philistines! What the hell do you people know about fashion, anyway!?

Oh, to hell with this!

I honestly have no idea why I got a zero score there. Everything looks fine from where I'm sitting. Is it because I didn't pick anything from the Bottoms list? What the hell was I supposed to do, throw some red hotpants on underneath the dress? It makes no sense to give zero just because a player decides to put a dress on the Dressy model!

This really isn't helping my headache. Fashion Expo is an infuriating rip-off that will punish the player whenever it feels like it. The options you pick when dressing the models make no real difference; you could probably throw together the most ridiculous ensemble ever and it would still get a decent score for ticking all the appropriate general boxes. If you want to play a dress-up game that also provides a challenge, then play Fashion Designer. Treat this game like last season's wardrobe and toss it away.

Spooky Love

2009-11-25T22:41:00.004Z

I had a few ideas for what to review this week, and was all set to go with one title in particular from our good friends at Games2Win. But when I logged onto their website to get the screenshots for that game (which I'll almost certainly review next week) I came across Spooky Love. It's a Halloween game, and though we're now a month gone from that holiday, I couldn't help but notice the blank, face of the main character on the title screen. It reminded me far too much of a certain series of vampire "romance" "novels" written by a Mormon woman with a deep understanding of male homosexuality. With the movie adaptation of New Moon released last week, and Twilight mania taking over the entire internet, I figure that this is the closest I'm going to get to a Twilight themed game. I give credit to the producers of the movies, because to my knowledge there aren't any actual Twilight games, which would probably involve playing a shallow, selfish, spoilt little harpy who stares blandly into the face of a pale emoboy with the expression of someone who's painfully constipated.

But I digress. Spooky Love is a kind of dress-up game, kind of date sim that has you spin a wheel at random to determine who your date for Halloween will be. And what do ya know, here's Julian Fang, which might be the worst vampire name I've heard since Dr. Acula.

Once you've picked the boy of your dreams (or nightmares) you have to choose a costume that fits his - because, hey, who cares what your opinion is, right? All that matters is pleasing him, after all.

You know, I'm getting pretty peeved about how almost every form of media these days seems to be telling girls that the key to true love is to fall for an emotionally cold brute and descend into a co-dependent relationship built on physical and/or psychological abuse. If I wasn't an asshole on the internet, I'd probably be really offended and do something about it!

So, anyway, you pick your date, costume and venue (though I didn't realise anyone other than goths thought graveyards were romantic) and then set about having the perfect date. This is achieved by finding five spots that, when clicked, cause something scary to happen. Your character then screams and at the end you both kiss.

Yeah, I don't really understand it either. How exactly does that make for a wonderful date? Has it got something to do with the idea of fear as an aphrodisiac? Am I giving the developer of this game too much credit? I think it's because your date is secretly a violent misogynist who gets off on the screams of young woman, but that concept probably wouldn't sit well with the game's core demographic.

You click on the five spots, none of which will be hard to find as they're usually so obvious, the guy and the girl kiss, and then the game ends. That's it. That's all there is to this game. Click on five things and you win. I wish I could say there was more to it than that, but there isn't. I'm actually insulted by how ridiculously simple Spooky Love is. The only game I can think of that asks less of you is You Have To Burn The Rope, and it had an awesome song at the end. This just has ads for other crappy games.

I guess you could play it again and change things up a bit, but why bother? Nothing's really different. Stuff happens, she screams, he sweats for some inexplicable reason, they kiss and that's it. Looking back on it, I'm not sure why I thought reviewing this game would be a good idea, because there's nothing to review! What was I thinking?

Oh, I know. I was thinking that someone sat down and actually wasted time making this. Someone took time out of their lives to present a game so stupidly simple, so bland, so visually and technically uninspired that I actually feel cheated. I feel like this game owes me money, as well as the precious minutes I spent playing it. And I use the word "playing" loosely, because all I really did was click the mouse a few times. I could have done the same thing checking my e-mails and have made better use of the time.

The reason I find Spooky Love and the Twilight series so similar is because they're both ridiculously unoriginal and incredibly boring. There's as much going on here as there is in any of Stephenie Meyer's books. The only good thing is that Spooky Love probably won't inspire countless megabytes of slash fan fiction involving gay werewolves. Every cloud, huh?

Flame Puppy

2009-11-19T00:28:00.003Z

You know, I feel bad about this week's review. I rarely do about any of the games I review for Big Mean Flash Gamer, because I am a shell of a human being, incapable of compassion or love for my fellow man. But even I'm not made of stone.

The genesis of Flame Puppy was the meeting of Addicting Games and children's TV station Nickelodeon. As part of the network's animation festival, the folks at AG sponsored the I Got Game contest. The winner was one Debbie Scheller, who created Flame Puppy. The game itself was then made by software developers MadFatCat.

I'm sorry to Nickelodeon, who really had very little to do with the contest. I'm sorry to Addicting Games, who I've admittedly ragged on far too much in the past. And I'm sorry to Debbie Scheller, who simple wanted to make a dog that shoots flames out of its mouth whenever it barks. But MadFatCat made a game that sucks balls.

A side scrolling action game, Flame Puppy has you control the titular pooch through three levels of frankly insulting simplicity. Now, I will stop and note this: I understand that this game was not made for me. It was made for Nickelodeon viewers, who are largely children. So it would be wrong of me to expect Megaman here.

Actually, hold on - Megaman was a game that a lot of people reading this played as a kid. When I was eight I played Sonic The Hedgehog on the Sega Master System. You ever play those Labyrinth Zone levels, where you have to walk around under water and try not to drown? That shit was hard!

Or how about Shinobi? I beat the second boss in that game once. Yeah, once - that's how hard it was. And when I played these finger-breaking, controller-snapping games, I wasn't any older than your average Nickelodeon viewer. So I take it back - why should today's generation of gamers be mollycoddled? Life is hard, and their games should be too!

Anyway, where was I? Right, Flame Puppy. It's all really elementary. In the first level you use your fiery breath to torch postmen (the dog's natural enemy) and little boys who... want to hug you? Wait, why are we killing them? Those kids didn't want to cause us any harm! Flame Puppy just wants to have some fun, but apparently that fun involves turning Nickelodeon's viewers into charred corpses. This game is sending out really mixed messages.

Naturally, your flame breath is dependent on the amount of gas in your stomach, so Flame Puppy occasionally has to eat dog treats and Frisbees (the cornerstone of any nutritious diet.) As time goes on and you destroy more items and people you'll accumulate Puppy Points, which give you more abilities and increase the power of your flames.

The first level is a walk in the park (literally), culminating in a showdown with a giant postman that really shouldn't cause you any trouble. The real problems appear in Level 2, and they can be summed up in one word: cats. I know it's a cliché, but these cats are real assholes. They're led around by women in purple, for some reason, who occasionally release one of the felines. These little grey bastards will gang up on you in a second, and once one starts clawing at you it's really hard to get away from them. Every time he gets hit, Flame Puppy reacts with this silly frown that slows him down even more. I got killed more often by annoying little cats than by any of the other crappy enemies in this game.

The boss fights are irritating, but hardly a struggle. What annoys the hell out of me is that trying to shoot fireballs (an upgrade you earn early in the game) is a real hassle. To do it, you tap the space bar, but you also hold down the space bar to shoot a regular flame, so sometimes the game doesn't even know what you're trying to do. And when you have dog catchers swiping at you with nets, that's a real pain in the ass.

What might save this game in the eyes of its target market is Flame Puppy's ability to crap exploding poop. Yeah, if you thought a flaming bag of dog shit on your front porch is as bad as it gets, let me tell you, it can be a lot worse. This can be funny for about five seconds, but then you realise how long it takes to squeeze one of these explosive logs out. It would just be easier to use the flame or fire balls, but I guess if you're really into your potty humour it's a great addition.

The final boss fight got... weird. I don't know what happened exactly; I backed the giant snooty woman against a wall and she started walking backwards up it like some kind of well-dressed Spiderman. Or rather Spiderwoman. What's the relationship between those two, anyway? I guess that's one for Wikipedia, but I could also just not give a crap. I find it very easy to not give a crap about Spiderman.

And the way I keep going off on these tangents should tell you how easy it is for me to not give a crap about Flame Puppy. I will admit that it was nice to see the epilogue, where Flame Puppy releases all the dogs at the pound and finds a new home at the local fire station (irony!) But was this really the best they could come up with? I mean, Nickelodeon's got to have a few coins in the coffers - they could have afforded a better game than what they got. Sure, it's well made, but there's no innovation, no challenge and no originality, save for the main character - who wasn't even created by MadFatCat. I place the blame for Flame Puppy's failings squarely on the shoulders of the developers. This seems like it was thrown together hastily, and I think Ms Scheller deserves more.

King's Island 2

2009-11-11T23:19:00.003Z

I'm by no means a big RPG player. Perhaps I just don't have the patience, but computer RPGs have just never been able to keep my attention for very long. Unless it's something more original than "Thou must taketh thy longsword and slay the beastmen of Krignerak etc.," I have a hard time getting into them. Still, there have been a few RPGs over the years that caught my eye and kept me interested for more than ten minutes, largely due to their accessible gameplay and interesting stories. One such game was a Flash RPG called King's Island, which had you control a hirsute berserker across an idyllic countryside, beating the snot out of farmers and trying to locate the big bad guy as well as some pants. There was more to it than that, but not a lot, and I actually found myself engrossed in the whole thing.

Then King's Island 2 was released, and it was like the most beautiful woman in the world planting a kiss on your lips before kneeing you in the crotch.

King's Island 2 picks up where the first one left off. Our hero has stupidly jumped into a vortex that sends him through time and space to a Hell dimension, where a magician with an exposed skull named Kottom welcomes him as the Chosen One, the one who will set the prisoners of this world free. So far, so samey. But the wizard does grant you the power of a warrior mage, and that's got to be cool, right? I mean, who wouldn't want the brute strength of a melee warrior combined with the mystical knowledge of a powerful mage?

It doesn't work like that, though. It's not that you can play as warrior and mage; you really have to decide between the two classes. And speaking as someone who doesn't play a ton of RPGs, mages suck balls. Maybe that's a little harsh, but in my experience the magical characters have always been the weakest of any group, constantly sucking on mana potions so they can hopefully stay relevant. It might say more about me than I'd like to admit, but I've always preferred playing as a warrior. I'm not the type of person who stands back and attacks from afar; I enjoy getting in there with my battleaxe and splitting heads. So excuse me if I decide to forego your poxy spells.

Except I don't really have that choice. Oh, sure, I could play through the game as a warrior, if I really want to. But here's what happens if you decide to do that:

Gang raped by undead soldiers. Nice.

Aside from the occasional sword, you will find nothing for your warrior guise. No armour, no other weaponry, nothing to help build up your melée strength whatsoever. What you do find are lots of potions, clearly designed to make your mage persona as strong as possible. I call shenanigans on that bullcrap.

Anyway, Kottom sends you off on your first mission, to retrieve the Flower of Knowledge that will help him remember how he can get you home. What follows is an aimless wander around dark grey streets that all look the same, shooting blue energy orbs at monsters who seem to appear out of thin air. You have no idea where to go, walking in every direction, occasionally entering new areas where even more drab landscapes and unoriginal skeleton creatures await. One of the things that most annoyed me about the first King's Island game was the lack of a map or any other discernible way to figure out where you were going. It's a problem they haven't fixed in the sequel, but now it's even worse, because at least in King's Island 1 it was largely bright and colourful. This just looks like every other dungeon-based RPG in existence.

I literally found the flower by accident. I just happened to walk by and spotted it on the ground, right there in the first area. Can you imagine how pissed off you'd be if you travelled through numerous areas, slaying dozens of evil beings, only to come back and find the bloody thing was right there, almost at the start of the God damn game? You could easily miss the flower, as it's only just brighter than the surrounding scenery, and considering some of the weird crap you pass on your journey it would be really easy to not give it a second glance.

So I took the stupid flower back to Kottom, who then tells me I have to go find some other wizard, who'll tell me how I can start breaking the seal that keeps Kottom trapped in a pentangle. And then I upgrade to Level 2. That's right - I wandered around for fifteen minutes and killed everything in my path, but I couldn't level up until I brought this flower back to Kottom. Sure, nothing stops me from levelling up once I've gained enough experience points after that, but it's still military grade BS if ever I saw it.

Oh, and if that wasn't enough, every time you go back to an area you've previously cleared of bad guys, all of the monsters respawn in the exact same places they were last time. I can understand why you'd have creatures respawn - no one wants to have to trudge through empty room after empty room - but seriously, all of them? And every time you come back? This means that if you struggle and fight and manage to defeat a powerful enemy, something that drained you of energy, spells and mana, you'll have to fight that same enemy all over again when you next return to that area.

And you meet some real bastards in this game, really quickly. I was continuing my blind search through this giant Hell world when I bumped into not one, but two soldiers who were invincible to everything. I threw every spell and incantation I had at these assholes and they took it like I was attacking them with a fly swatter. And let me tell you, some of those spells cost a lot of mana. But that's OK, because your health and mana automatically replenish themselves over time - as long as you're standing still. I didn't really have that luxury, so what I ended up doing was running in a circle as these two pricks chased after me, using as many of the piss poor health and mana potions as I could, depleting my inventory of any worthwhile items. And even then I had to give up and retreat back to an easier area.

But at least they weren't the dark mages. Oh, let me tell you, I fired poisoned darts and fire lances at them for a grand total of one hit point! So I was left to just run around even more, trying to avoid their attacks, while all the time skeleton warriors and archers were turning me into Swiss cheese. Eventually I ran out of mana altogether and had no choice but to change into warrior mode, which went about as well as you'd expect.

For those of you interested, I did reach the other wizard on at least one occasion. After boring me to tears with what I think was an attempt on the writer's part at humour, the wise old wizard started listing about a dozen items that I had to obtain for him. At first I thought this was another joke, but no - you actually do have to find all of these things. Then, assuming you can find him again, you have to go back, at which point you'll no doubt be sent on another contrived scavenger hunt.

I guess this is why I don't play many RPGs - I'll run around to a certain extent, but don't send me halfway across the planet for a friggin' unicorn hoof, only to tell me I got the wrong one. What fun I found in King's Island has been completely squeezed out of its sequel, leaving a drawn-out, laborious affair that doesn't allow you half the customisation it promises. If you really like playing as a mage and have the patience to work your way through the confusing maze of dull grey city streets, then maybe you'll really enjoy King's Island 2. Just don't expect an invitation to my guild.

Micro Rider

2009-11-05T02:04:00.003Z

As I’ve noted before in Big Mean Flash Gamer, I’m a really big fan of “tilty” games, straightforward time killers that have you driving a vehicle over a bumpy surface, trying to keep balance. They’re pretty much the perfect online Flash game because by and large they keep things very simple. There isn’t much need for flash nor any bells and whistles - tilty games are designed to be as easy to play as Pong.

So screwing up a tilty game takes a remarkable amount of skill (or a remarkable lack of skill, whichever you prefer.) And since I’m writing about it, no one should be surprised that Micro Rider is part of that miniscule minority.

You only need to look at the title screen on the top of this page to see the paucity of effort or ideas that’s been put into this game. There’s no image of the bike you drive or the landscapes you travel across; it’s just a blank blue screen, reflecting the emptiness of the game itself. And then, once you actually start playing, it doesn’t take long to discover that this is no more than a rip-off of Max Dirt Bike, which would be fine if Max Dirt Bike hadn’t been released about three years ago.

I’d definitely advise Max Games to call up a lawyer, because this is about as blatant a theft as I’ve seen. The sound effects, the animation, entire levels - all are eerily familiar. It seems the only thing the creators of Micro Rider didn’t steal was Max Dirt Bike’s solid gameplay.

You’d imagine a game that uses no more than four buttons wouldn’t have control issues, but you’d be wrong. When the controls aren’t unresponsive, they’re too responsive, sending your little biker spinning through the air before crashing headfirst into the ground. Speaking of the ground - I’m not too sure why it looks so bumpy, as it doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as rough when you’re driving over it. But then, it doesn’t need to be - I crashed at the very start of Level 7 by driving forward.

A lot of the levels are frustrating, but none are particularly difficult until you reach Level 20. Of course, with the bugs in this game, reaching Level 20 takes more than good balance. I stopped playing at Level 25, not because I wanted to (though, to be honest, I really did) but because the game wouldn’t let me go any further. A glitch meant that even when I completed the course, the game still thought I had crashed. So explain to me how I’m supposed to enjoy a game that’s not only ripping off another, better game, but which I am incapable of finishing due to some crappy code?

If this happens, you can always just reload the game and pick up where you left off thanks to the handy level codes. But something about these codes just doesn’t make sense to me. For instance, why does the code above have a pound sign in it? Are you trying to tell me that the programmers ran out of different codes using the numbers 1 to 5? Why not use all the numbers on the bloody keyboard, then? Mixing this stuff together makes as much sense as Glenn Beck on that TV show where takes acid.

What do you mean he’s not on acid?

Micro Riders is a scrappy, unfinished game that apes a similar title almost completely. Padlock Games are so brazen about it that they even have Max Dirt Bike on their website! That takes some serious amount of testicular fortitude right there. But it doesn’t make up for the fact that Micro Riders sucks.

Death Penalty

2009-10-28T21:43:00.003Z

Here we are, once again, in the Halloween season, and as has become custom I've caved and stuck to the general pattern that every other writer on the Internet has followed and tracked down a crappy Halloween-themed game to review. It seems to me that, more often than not, my Halloween pick has tended to have something to do with zombies. I'm not entirely sure why - perhaps it's the popularity of zombie movies and my own fondness for the genre that makes me gravitate towards them so much. There's also the fact that most zombie games tend to be violent shoot-'em-ups that allow the player to pile up huge numbers of bullet-riddled, undead corpses, which I for one can attest is quite cathartic after a long day.

Unfortunately, like so many zombie films, zombie games are an incredibly mixed bag. For every fun-filled romp like Zombie Hooker Nightmare, we get a dull and frustrating title like the subject of this week's review, Death Penalty. Taking its cues from the superior Zombie Baseball, which had you decapitating ghouls by smacking them with baseballs, Death Penalty goes for an English variation. You take on the role of a soccer player who has arrived to find the opposing team have succumbed to the zombie plague. As your team mate throws you balls from the sideline you try to land a well-placed volley into the faces of the deranged cannibals. The game is nice enough to let you play in your favourite team's colours, so I went with my childhood favourites Blackburn Rovers, figuring that if they got devoured no one would miss them.

The first level is a perfectly fine introduction to the finer points of play. Using the mouse you can move the player back and forth, and a click of the left mouse button will have him kick with all of his might. The trick is to time your kicks just right to get the maximum force behind the soccer ball, sending it across the pitch and into your undead opposition. And hey - while the game may have other faults, the controls work. Hitting the zombies won't really be much of a problem, and you can get a second kick of the ball if it bounces back towards you, effectively doubling the damage. You also have the ability, once per level, to kick a zombie in the balls and put it down permanently. I'm pretty sure that's a red card offence, but I guess the referee has more important things to worry about, like trying to find his missing liver.

So, I don't have anything bad to say about the actual gameplay. Once you've successfully completed a level, you get the opportunity to improve one of your stats, either kicking power or the speed with which your team mate throws in the balls. And as the game progresses you'll get new types of ball that will help you kill zombies faster. But it's from the second level onwards that things get a bit iffy.

At first impressions, it looks no worse than before. Naturally, there are more zombies, including one or two who climb out of the ground (what they were doing there in the first place, it's hard to say, but as far as I know the Stadium of Light isn't built on an Indian burial ground.) But really, it shouldn't be a huge problem - just make sure every shot counts and use the metal-plated ball for maximum damage. No, it shouldn't be that much harder than level one. And yet, it is - much harder, to be exact.

I don't think the zombies are moving any faster, nor are they any stronger. Indeed, I should have the advantage here, what with my upgrades. So how come I kept getting eaten again and again by the zombies? Well, the first reason could be because the stat upgrades are of little benefit. I tried increasing the speed of throw-ins - no luck. I tried upgrading the power of my kicks - same result. The metal ball certainly did a better job than the original leather one, but other than that I saw no significant change in skill between levels.

Another problem might have been the sheer idiocy of my team mate. Although I could move my character more than halfway across the game screen, the other guy only threw balls to the same spot. So if I can't control where the balls will be thrown, and if the guy throwing them only ever picks the same spot, what's the point of moving around? Sure, I guess it gives me a chance to kick the ball again, should it roll back to me, but other than that there's no real reason.

I wouldn't mind except, even when I'm trapped at the very edge of the screen and a zombie is bearing down on me, that son of a bitch still throws the ball to the same damn spot. What am I supposed to do, weave around the zombie? This isn't the FA Cup final - I don't really have that option!

I probably wouldn't get so annoyed about dying so often if there was some kind of save feature. Considering the overwhelming likelihood of death, having the chance to save the game or including a lives system would have been a godsend. Naturally, the developers of Death Penalty don't bother. So I was trapped in a vicious cycle, playing my way through the piss easy first level only to get chewed up (literally and figuratively) in the second. And if you do happen to get through level two, things don't get any better. From zombies wearing road cones over their heads to a weird combination of a soccer player and the Black Knight, you're not just thrown into the deep end - someone forces your head under the water and keeps it there. And of course, dying only means you're sent all the way back to square one.

I know for a fact that it is possible to make a decent game like this, and I know that there are plenty of zombie titles that entertain gamers the world over. But, once again, I have stumbled upon a putrid pile of rotting flesh, the electronic abomination that is Death Penalty. There's no fun, no scares, and no way I'll be going back to this game any time soon.

Miss Manhattan

2009-10-22T12:48:00.004+01:00

Wow. Um, OK… Look, I usually don’t review dress-up games, largely because they’re self-explanatory. I know they wouldn’t interest me and I’m not in their target audience, so it really doesn’t matter. I may be a dick, but I’m not a total ass, so I leave dress-up games to the eight-year-old girls they’re designed to entertain and focus on more general fare.

But this…

This warrants further investigation.

Just so I know we’re on the same page here, a short history lesson. For those of you who don’t know, in 1986 writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbon, with the assistance of colourist John Higgins (who doesn’t get enough props), created Watchmen. A twelve issue limited series comic book, it was eventually compiled into a graphic novel, and is considered one of the finest pieces of 20th Century literature. Concerning the lives of a bunch of middle-aged former superheroes in an alternative universe America who are forced back into spandex when one of them is murdered, it’s a remarkable read.

Of the masked heroes, the only one with any actual superpowers is Jon Osterman, who was involved in a lab accident that turned him into a being able to control matter at a molecular level. Dubbed Dr Manhattan, he spends much of the book walking around naked, so cut off from society that he no longer sees the need for clothing. This proved to be a quite the bone of contention when Zach Snyder's film adaptation was released earlier this year. But the important thing to remember is that Dr Manhattan is basically God and he has a real desire not to wear pants.

So how exactly do we get from this:

To this?:

I really don't know what the train of thought was here. I'm honestly stumped, and I've played some really out there games in my time. I mean, if this game was based around any other superhero I wouldn't bat an eyelid. If this game was based around any other hero in Watchmen, I'd probably be more amused than anything else. But... why Dr Manhattan? Dressing up is the one thing he doesn't do. Is this the product of a Watchmen fan working for GirlsGames.com who really, really wanted to do something to celebrate the movie? Or is a clever net nerd giggling away at the thought of little girls playing with Rule 63 Manhattan? Or maybe this is just a precursor to the eventual Saturday morning Watchmen cartoon show? Don't you want to see a spunky, young female sidekick to Dr Manhattan? No? Oh.

I don't want anyone to think I'm upset about this, just confused. I guess, as dress-up games go, it's pretty good. I don't really know - like I already noted, these games usually aren't on my radar - but you can pick a few different poses for Miss Manhattan, each one with a slightly different skin tone. The faces are kind of cool, varying from from ice cold evil devil queen to cross-eyed blue-skinned Valley Girl. I was able to make a really nice sparkly Manhattan with an outfit made of stardust and rainbows... or something.

And then I went in the total opposite direction and made an evil space bitch with an S&M style bikini. Wow, I just read that last sentence back and it's only hitting me now that I made a female Dr Manhattan with a fetish for leather and BDSM sex games.

Just when you think you've finally got a handle on things, the Internet finds another way to out-weird itself.

So, Miss Manhattan - it's... I don't know. I mean, it's well-made, for what it is, but God damn, why? Seriously, why Dr Manhattan? Why the naked blue guy that blows people up with a thought? I always figured there was very little overlap between the readers of Watchmen and the players of dress-up games, but clearly I was mistaken. I'm sorry, but you can only look at this game for so long before you have to say "What is going on here? What am I looking at? Why am I bleeding from the ear?" I accept a hell of a lot as a comic and sci-fi fan, but this really doesn't compute. Am I overthinking it? Am I putting too much energy into trying to rationalise what cannot be rationalised? I don't know. All I know is, I need a lie down.

Professional Sniper

2009-10-14T20:46:00.004+01:00

I must apologise for my disappearing act last week, but I've been incredibly busy working on a project these last couple of weeks. I had fully intended to write a review, but alas it, like many of my other pieces, had to be postponed. I was pretty much drained of all energy last week, and then, after playing Professional Sniper, I was practically comatose.

Now, I'm a big fan of sniper games. I think I would have made a pretty kickass sniper, if I had decided a career of killing strangers was preferable to screenwriting. So it takes an awful lot to make me dislike a sniper game to the point of reviewing it on Big Mean Flash Gamer. In that way Professional Sniper is unique - it has found a place here that few other sniper games ever will.

All in all, it's a pretty straightforward stick figure sniper game, hardly all that different from any similar titles. But Professional Sniper has a couple of big handicaps. The first is mentioned on this notice screen, the little note that you have to keep your sights on the target for 0.4 of a second to make the shot register. It might not sound like much, but that half a second will make all the difference in later levels.

My second problem is this. I hate any sniper game that fills most of the screen with black nothingness. There isn't any option to see the whole screen or zoom in on specific spots, and you aren't able to increase the size of your sight or the accuracy of your gun. All you can really do is swing your sight back and forth across the screen searching for your target, never sure if you've already missed them. It gives the game an unfair advantage, like being forced to bob for apples using only your tongue. And the apples have razors in them.

The earlier levels, ones that don't require lightning fast reflexes and a psychic ability to tell where a target might be, are actually somewhat enjoyable. I quite like the level where you have to shut up some noisy neighbours without killing any of them. While I can understand how annoying a belligerent neighbour can be, I can't help but feel shooting their television with a sniper rifle is the appropriate response. But hey, I just work here.

While the first half of Professional Sniper doesn't blow my mind, it does come across as a decent, efficient sniper game. But that's because the player doesn't have to deal with that tricky 0.4 second delay. Without warning, it pops its ugly head up and smacks us across the face with the chain mail glove of hopeless frustration.

Naturally, it begins with that staple of the sniper game, the moving car level. Finding the driver you're supposed to shoot isn't a problem. Actually nailing the son of a bitch, however, is - a really, really big problem. Trying to keep your sights on the driver as he speeds across the screen, trying for that one good shot (and you will only get one good shot) inevitably leaves you screaming in agony as you repeat the level over and over again, your hand slowly cramping while you grip your mouse. But that's nothing compared to the Chinese water torture that awaits anyone lucky enough to kill the driver.

In this level you've been hired by a film director who wants you to shoot a stuntman while he jumps between two buildings. Apparently the director really needs this to make his movie awesome and doesn't realise that you can recreate this stunt without having to shoot your stuntman in the face. You have to shoot the stuntman while he's jumping; nailing him during takeoff or just as he lands won't count.

Just two small problems:

1. Depending on where you place your sight, you won't see the stuntman take off.
2. The stuntman moves too fast for you to perfectly track him all the way, so you really don't have any choice but to pick a spot and hope for the best.

Sniper games are supposed to be a test of a player's skill and reflexes, but all this level tests is your luck. Keep in mind that you still need to keep your sights on the stuntman for half a second before firing, by which point he could have moved completely out of shot. I really can't tell you how many times I had to repeat this level before I finally managed to beat it once, and I think if I counted I would probably break down and cry. I've dealt with many a difficult level in a sniper game, but this really just takes the piss. For something that looks so simple, it's a huge pain in the ass to complete, and I wouldn't be surprised if most people gave up at this point. Hell I gave up the first time I played. And it's not like there's much incentive to beat it anyway, other than some stubborn desire to win.

All that's left is this final level where you have to kill all of your former clients, just in case any of them rat you out (classy.) This isn't that hard to beat once you've figured out what order to kill each figure, but you need to hit each one with a single shot or you'll fail the level. The slow rate of fire never gets more frustrating than right here, and you'll feel royally ripped off when all you get at the end is some bullshit congratulations on becoming a professional sniper. It's the final spit in the face after having your gonads pummelled for the better part of ten levels. With its combination of uninspired art, overly simplistic gameplay and unresponsive controls, Professional Sniper is decidedly amateurish in design.

Box Office

2009-10-01T00:55:00.003+01:00

It's almost 1:00AM as I write this and I'm still up for a reason that only baby Jesus knows, but since I am awake and as lucid as I ever get, here is this week's Big Mean Flash Gamer. The target of my never ending rage this week is a title from our buddies at Free World Group. Now, usually I'm a fan of FWG; their games are never overly complicated, well-designed, and generally entertaining. They don't produce many games that I'd call all-time favourites of mine, but I have enjoyed a lot of their stuff. However, it seems that on an almost weekly basis Free World Group release a game like Box Office: a title that perfectly captures the soul-sucking, mind-numbing reality of life in the retail industry.

Box Office puts you behind the counter at the refreshments stand of a cinema - pretty much the worst job outside of chasing away the bums who sleep in the screening rooms. As customers step up to the counter it's your job to put together their orders, clicking on icons around the stand to collect popcorn, drinks and tickets. The goal of each level is to earn a certain amount while pleasing as many customers as possible. Naturally, this is done by getting orders as quickly as you can before pocketing the cash.

On a related note, while I'm well aware that cinemas charge an exorbitant amount for refreshments, this place is just taking the piss. $560 from maybe a dozen customers? That better be some damn good popcorn! Every level is the same monotonous pattern of jumping from one corner of the box office to another, only with more customers and shorter time periods as the game progresses.

As soon as you start raking in the dough you'll be able to buy upgrades such as different movies, new and more varied snacks and special items such as VIP tickets. You'll need to buy a few of these things as it means more money from customers, but it's not like it grossly raises the difficulty. And one thing I've never been able to figure out about games like Box Office - how come you can buy all sorts of crap to sell, but you can't hire some staff? I'm making all this money; are you trying to tell me there aren't any acne-riddled sixteen-year-olds I can have come in on Saturdays? I guess not - even though I'm investing in this one box office, I'm still clearly so low on the ladder of power that I can't even hire a part-time assistant. Either that or my character is paranoid that any new employee might steal his job. I'm pretty sure a committed lemur could do this gig, given the right training.

And so on it goes, with each level marginally more complicated than the last. There's no real puzzle or strategy involved; it's all just based on reaction and your speed with the mouse. It's one long, continuous chain of repetitive, pointless effort. If Box Office is supposed to entertain, it fails miserably. Indeed, the only thing it did do was remind me how much I hate working in retail.

I mean, look at that facial expression. Anyone who's ever worked in customer service will instantly recognise it as the rictus grin of a man who is dead inside. This is a character who's one difficult customer away from pulling out a shotgun and hitting back at a cold, oppressive world. Why would I want to play a person like that? Hell, there have been occasions when I was a person like that, and it sucks balls. So not only is Box Office a tedious waste of time, it also perfectly captures the feeling of helplessness experienced by anyone wearing a name tag and hairnet. Thanks for opening old wounds, Free World Group. Thanks a whole lot!

Go Go Diet

2009-09-23T19:16:00.003+01:00

As some of you may know, my Big Mean Flash Gamer reviews are also available on the Way of The Geek website. A few months back, while I was celebrating 100 reviews here, I posted a special WoTG exclusive review for a woeful game called Mall Flirting. The game was technically sound, but the concept - run around a mall firing lightning bolts at boys to make them fall in love with you - was so repugnant that nothing could salvage the game in my eyes. (Incidentally, I recently came across the Japanese version of Mall Flirting, which is even more messed up, as you actually kill the boys and have their ghosts mindlessly follow you through a school.)

To make a long story even longer, fellow Geek scribe Devin de Gruyl mentioned finding another game on the girlsgames123.com website called Go Go Diet. Running this way from the Far East, it proves to be just as offensive as Mall Flirting ever was. I was reminded about it today by my fiancée, and since it's a quiet enough week for crappy games, I thought it was time to go back and call out this piece of garbage.

Go Go Diet puts you in the running shoes of a cute little girl on a treadmill. By tapping the left and right arrow keys you can make the girl run, and the goal is to stay on the treadmill for as long as possible. Nothing too worrying about that, right?

Well, the problem begins when sushi and Coke starts rolling down the treadmill towards you. You have to avoid the food at all costs, and apparently sushi is ridiculously fattening, because if the little girl ends up eating just one piece, her body weight seemingly doubles.

I can imagine a meeting between the developers probably went something like this...

Programmer #1: "So, what sort of game should we make now?"
Programmer #2: "How about something that preys on female insecurities about weight and body shape, and market it towards young girls?"
Programmer #1: "Sounds great! Man, I love being evil!"

Let's not beat around the bush here - you have to be a real asshole to make a game like this. Seriously, just a total dick. The type of guy who kicks puppies or tells women he loves them just so they'll have short, unsatisfying sex with him before he never calls them again. That guy apparently now knows Flash and is using it to make even more women feel bad about themselves.

Wonderful.

There's hope for fat chicks, though! All they've got to do is wolf down some magic weight loss medicine from a cute blue bottle! Because, you know, why stop at making young girls feel fat when you can also push the idea of diet pills and other garbage on them? I mean, if you're going to tear down their confidence, you might as well go all the way and make them mindless consumers of useless drugs that make them poop fat.

I'm really not sure what the goal of this game is. If you're trying to bring attention to childhood obesity, this is a pretty ham fisted way to do so. If the idea is to get more girls exercising, there has to be a more effective message than, "Exercise and never eat, or you'll get faaaaaaaat!!" And to be quite honest, the game isn't even all that well-made. The alternating button mashing I can deal with, but then you have to worry about moving up and down across the treadmill too, and as you play for longer more and more food comes tumbling towards you. It reaches a point where you have no choice but to take a hit and eat some food, leaving yourself open to the derogatory prodding of the mean girls at school.

All the cute artwork might appeal to little girls but it's just vomit-inducing to the rest of us. And the fact that the sweet outer shell contains such a potentially harmful message just makes it worse.

This game is just awful; there isn't a damn thing about it that I could recommend. The message it conveys can only damage the self-image of any young girl, and it lacks any interesting gameplay elements. Its only saving grace is that it's very small, less than 1.5MB of memory. But that's 1.5MB that could have gone to a game that wasn't a shallow, pointless borefest.

Canabalt

2009-09-16T23:21:00.003+01:00

Hold up on the hate mail for a second; allow me to explain. I know my schedule is fairly erratic, but I didn't plan on posting this week's review so late in the evening. Oh no, I intended to get this thing written up nice and early so I could spend the rest of the evening playing Psychonauts and wondering what the hell happened to my life. Unfortunately Fate intervened to prevent my fun-filled night of telekinesis and self-loathing.

As I've mentioned before, I never do any research prior to my weekly Wednesday post. I mean, I write a blog - research would be anathema to the entire process. So what usually happens is I surf a few of my favourite Flash game sites, find a really bad game, and then write up a quick little rant. This method has worked for almost two years now, and I've never seen reason to change it. Except maybe now, because I've just spent the last four hours searching for a shitty game and I've come up with nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Sure, I've found some bad games, but nothing worth a post. And I did find one God awful game, but it's four years old so I've got to give it the benefit of the doubt. But a contemporary, terrible Flash game? Maybe I've just been too nice this week, but nothing jumped out and truly disappointed me. So, I did what any online writer with a dearth of material would do - I said, "Fuck it" and did something else.

So yes, this is one of those rare occasions in Big Mean Flash Gamer where I actually get to enjoy myself. For you see, dear readers, this last week I fell in love with a game called Canabalt.

If I told you that Canabalt has been made in five days, you might be a little wary. That's a remarkably short amount of time, unless the game you're producing is a pile of crap. However, with a talent like Adam "Atomic" Saltsman at the helm, using his own Flixel software, Canabalt is a wonderful game.

The secret is in its simplicity. You play a little black and white figure who races across the rooftops of a crumbling city, trying to avoid pitfalls and obstacles thrown in your way. The longer you run, the greater your speed, pushing your concentration and reflexes to the limit.

Canabalt endears itself to you almost immediately, from the first satisfying leap through a window, shards of glass scattering through the air. Rendered in a solid eight-bit style, this is classic one button gaming. All you have to do is press the jump button; the sprite does all the rest. Sometimes that's all you need, and when most people play these games as a distraction from work, it's nice to have a game that doesn't feel like a chore to play.

It's probably a bit hypocritical of me to like such a minimalist game, especially when I've denigrated other titles for not giving players some kind of plot or context. Canabalt doesn't bother to do it either, but it's so addictive that you hardly notice and you care even less. I have a feeling, however, that Saltsman had a story all laid out for this, one he had to remove at the last second for fear of a lawsuit:

Manhattan, 2059. Having faked his death fifty years before, Michael Jackson is finally woken from cryogenic suspension. Doctors have reconstructed his face, giving him the opportunity to now live out the rest of his days in peaceful anonymity. Unfortunately, robot Glenn Beck's 9/12 Destructobots have launched their full-scale assault on the New York liberal elite. Then the call comes through. It's Tito. The Shah of Kuwait wants the Jackson 5 to perform at his daughter's birthday. Tito really needs this gig, man.

Michael must run.

Naturally, there are all sorts of nasty objects in your way. Most of these are just boxes, designed to slow you down, which makes long jumps more difficult. There are also crumbling buildings that collapse under you as you run across them, but for my money the most difficult obstacle is the giant mangling machine that drops out of the sky when you least expect it. These things will turn you into a fine mist before you know what hit you, so make sure to keep your finger on the button.

In truth, though, you'll more often than not die because you mistimed a jump. Whether it's overshooting a small building, misjudging a wide gap or just missing a window, your little guy will usually end up falling to his doom.

I suppose I should point out some faults, since that is the whole point of Big Mean Flash Gamer. And indeed, Canabalt isn't perfect. A lot of players have commented that they'd like to see a high score table, and while I'm not too worried about how I measure up to the mutant super players who tend to post record-breaking scores, it would be nice if it recorded your best runs for posterity. I've also found problems when it comes to loading Canabalt; if you have a slow connection you might be waiting for a while. I have to suspect, however, that this had less to do with the game itself and more to do with my wireless internet connection, which can go on the fritz if the wind is blowing the wrong way.

The greyscale landscape is pretty to look at for a while, and fits in with the stripped-back feel of the game, but as the screen shakes and things begin to blur it can start to wear on the eyes. Of course, this might only be a problem because I can't stop playing the bloody game.

But searching for reasons not to like this game would be like searching for a happy goth. What strikes me most about Canabalt are the little touches that you probably wouldn't miss but which just make the game feel more well-rounded and complete. Flocks of birds fly from rooftops as you land; the sprite grunts as he jumps, runs and rolls; and even the sound of his footsteps change depending on the surface he's running across. There's also a brilliant theme that has a great retro feel but that never gets annoying.

I know that people expect me to rant and rave about crappy games - why else would you be here? (Unless you're my fiancée - hi, honey.) But hey, sometimes I play good games, too, and Canabalt has taken up a lot more of my time this past week than any online title should. I wholeheartedly endorse this game, and if even a grumpy son of a bitch like me can enjoy it, you know it must be good.

I promise to return to reviewing garbage next week. But for now, let's make one more daring escape from Tito.

Flash Runner

2009-09-09T21:22:00.004+01:00

Flash Runner. Well, it doesn't win any points for originality, but then we are talking about the world of casual games, so perhaps the direct approach is to be applauded. Before we begin, this is not a Flash game based on Blade Runner; I know the likes of Flash Portal or Flash Mirror's Edge might have caused you to get your hopes up as you dream of chasing down Replicants in a nightmarish, dystopian future choking on smog and drowning in acid rain, but you can stop that right now and prepare for horrible disappointment. Flash Runner is about exactly what it sounds like: running, then running some more, then stopping. There isn't actually any plot behind it to explain why it's so important to run. It's minimalist gaming, stripping away all the unessential items like story or graphics or fun.

The first thing you do is select the runner you wish to play as. There are only two differences: each one is noticeably faster than the last and only one of them doesn't look like a reject from a Pokemon cartoon. Once you've made your pick you can go straight to a tutorial level.

Here's where you really see what you've gotten yourself in for. The levels are flat, uninspiring geometric shapes with terrible colours vomited on screen. I've made more attractive looking things in MS Paint while drunk. Look, I'll show you:

He's standing next to a pond.

Anyway, Flash Runner. The tutorial level is where you discover that you're not actually running in any races, which makes this need to run through strange landscapes even more bizarre. Also, you control your (pretty frickin' small) character by holding down the left mouse button; the runner will speed up or slow down depending on his distance from the cursor. I'm a bit put off by this method of control simply because it makes the character harder to, well, control. And considering the speed at which you'll be moving through the levels, trying to get the runner to move exactly where you want him can prove more than a little frustrating.

There are all sorts of obstacles that you need to avoid, but they whizz by so fast that you barely notice them and it's almost impossible to avoid any that get your way. Luckily your character will automatically jump over logs and rocks, but he won't continue running unless you take your finger off the mouse button and click it again. Since every level is a race against the clock, this break in momentum can be a real pain in the ass.

Also, don't you dare think about running through water - this is Flash Runner, damn it, not Flash Swimmer! Seriously, though, this will piss you off more than anything else, because you have one narrow bridge that you can cross, and if you miss it by so much as an inch, you'll be sent back to the nearest checkpoint before you know what happened. It's a great way of creating a false sense of increasing difficulty, as if this game actually has a learning curve. No it doesn't - it's just forcing you to be more cautious, which means you'll move slower and take longer to complete a level. That's not the same as solving a new puzzle or measuring a jump in a platform game, it's simply screwing with the player.

Half the game involves collecting these... things. Really, that's all they are - things, with no relation to anything you'd see in real life, except maybe the planet Saturn. The tutorial says they're magic eggs, but I like the idea of collecting miniature Saturns a lot more. Hey, if you're going to make a game this brain-splatteringly ridiculous, you might as well go all out.

So, with no story and no character background, no explanation for the tiny Saturns or races to win, what exactly is the player trying to achieve? What is your reward for successfully completing a level?

Giant. Gold. Bunnies.

Wow.

I don't know what it is about Flash Runner that I hate the most. Is it the awkward controls? The total lack of pleasing visuals? The sheer pointlessness of what you're doing? The answer, of course, is "Yes." Because these all come together in a game that bores and frustrates in equal measure. Eventually the only glimmer of satisfaction comes from ramming your character headlong into a wall.

Ah, that's better!

Axis of Evil

2009-09-02T20:05:00.005+01:00

Although I'm a pinko Commie liberal scumbag in my day-to-day life, I do enjoy turning to the dark side on occasion. I can still remember playing Dungeon Keeper in my teens, siding with the bad guys in Command & Conquer, and in more recent times exploiting the capitalist system in the wonderful Oiligarchy. But why are these games so popular? Well, d'uh! They're fun! Sure, doing good to your fellow man is important, and everything, but sometimes you just want to let your inner bastard out to play.

That's why I had such high hopes for Axis of Evil, a game that allows you to be an evil dictator hell bent on becoming a nuclear power. Of course, it wouldn't be in this week's Big Mean Flash Gamer if it was any good, and its rating on Addicting Games told me as much before I even clicked the Play button. But since I'm a glutton for punishment, I had to give it a shot.

The first job is to name and design your dictator. Here's my guy, Gregory McAsshat; although he is a prick, he does have a bitchin' beard and pipe combo going on, so it's hard not to give him some kudos.

The next decision is to choose what region you want your dictatorship to be a part of. There are three choices of varying difficulty, each area described by a man who sounds almost exactly like Eugene Hutz, lead singer of gypsy punks Gogol Bordello. This was the best thing about the game, other than the ability to name your character McAsshat. I decided to go with the easiest region, which is the Far East.

So we get on with the game proper, and before doing anything else I'm asked if I want to set up a statue to commemorate my victory in the entirely fair elections. Well, sure, why not? I suppose it isn't such a hot idea, because every time you build something it reduces your support among the people. I don't think it's actually building stuff that gets them down, but rather what you build. Hospitals and schools would be a good choice, but in Axis of Evil the emphasis is on firepower, and lots of it.

You're going to need it, too, because you start getting attacked almost immediately. I don't know who these guys are, but since I haven't bombed any neighbouring countries I can only assume they're rebels. There's some crap about managing resources and setting a price for them on the world market to raise funds, but really the most important thing is killing anyone who tries to get close to your city. So I guess this is some kind of war game, right? Well, I sure hope not, because if it is, then it's one of the worst war games I've ever played.

For one thing, you're only allowed a certain number of units, whether it be infantry or tanks. And while I can understand only having what you can afford, I'd like to know why the hell I can't build as many tanks as I want? Aren't I the Dear Leader of this nation? Gregory McAsshat will not stand for this slur on his honour!

But then, it might not be a bad idea to limit the troops, since so many of them are dumb as posts. Both your units and the enemy can only travel along roads (you know, like armies in real life) and your boys will travel up and down the same road until you tell them to go somewhere else. What makes this so frustrating is when three or four enemy soldiers march towards your capital city and your entire army is on the other side of the God damn country.

What the hell are those assholes doing!? I've got rebels and other nations knocking down my door, and my tank units are trundling around like they're in Canada! I'm trying to build a WMD over here!

If your popularity dips below 15% NATO start carpet bombing the country, as if I didn't have enough problems already. And just so we're clear, all this happened in less than five minutes. I had no idea what was going on until it already happened. I felt less like a dictator and more like a child king, with no control over anything. Which is ridiculous, because there are basically only three things to control.

Like all great dictators (with the exception of the smug bastards who died in exile, sipping tea with prime ministers before suffering dementia and dying in their sleep) I ended my reign of terror hanging from a lamp post. My dictatorship lasted three and a half minutes. Hoo-rah.

Axis of Evil has plenty of flash but there's absolutely nothing underneath. What strategy you can find is minimal at best. It reminds me a lot of a bad tower defence game, as all you're really trying to do is stop enemies from reaching your city. I'd expect a game like this to involve international relations, balancing your budget, quelling dissent, forming alliances - all the stuff world leaders do. But instead all we have is a poor man's war game with infuriating controls and a difficulty curve that's practically a cliff face. Definitely one to avoid.

Strip The Difference

2009-08-26T16:37:00.003+01:00

Games 2 Win is quickly becoming my favourite website, simply because they make this job so easy. I can pretty much guarantee that at any point I can log onto the site and find more than one duff game on the homepage. Really, I could review a different game by them every week for the next year, such is the poor quality on offer. But because I like to spread the indignation around, I'll just focus on Strip The Difference this time.

Strip The Difference - do I really need to write any more? This is yet another lacklustre attempt at titillation that wouldn't stir the loins of a twelve-year-old Amish boy. What's new here is that the game is "spot the difference," every correct answer offering you another glimpse of poorly-drawn cleavage.

Does the artist even have the faintest idea of basic human anatomy? I mean, the guy looks OK, but what's up with the woman? Why is her head so big? Why is her head so big?

So, with a limited number of guesses and a timer running down at all times, you need to locate the differences between the two pictures. And why are you doing this? What is your reward?

Stuff like this. Wow, sexy.

You know, if I wanted to check out upskirt shots, I could just go to Google Images. It's not like women wearing skirts with underwear is all that unusual (unless those women are friends of Paris Hilton, I suppose.) But as pathetic as the attempt to raise male eyebrows might be, what makes it even worse is that the game is just frustrating to play. You can click on some differences over and over again, but if you don't click in exactly the right spot it won't work. And sometimes that spot is moving, which only makes things more annoying.

I don't know about you guys, but I don't really see what's so sexy about falling off a treadmill. Dangerous maybe, but not in a sexy way. I suppose you could say that Strip The Difference and its ilk aren't meant to be taken seriously. After all, no one could really get aroused by this! (Of course, I'm sure Rule 34 will no doubt kick in here.) Strip The Difference is simply harmless comedy, like the Carry On films. The only problem is, it took thirty years for the Carry On jokes to get old; this game didn't last 30 seconds.

The last level not only rehashes an old fantasy figure (come on, guys - the sexy policewoman was the best you could do?), it's also quite confusing. For one thing, where are we? The neon lights might say Las Vegas, but the Oriental writing makes me wonder if we're in Hong Kong. Yet none of the people in the picture look Asian. And in what city do the police officers walk around in miniskirts?

Yeah, watching a drunk play motorboat with a policewoman's breasts on a crowded city street is neither sexy nor humorous. In real life, this usually results in pepper spray to the face (not that I'd know anything about that.) This is the kind of humour you'd expect from those guys who make all those "_____ Movie" flicks. And just like those turds on film, Games 2 Win keeps churning out wastes of bandwidth like Strip The Difference.

Potty Racers

2009-08-19T20:02:00.003+01:00

On those occasions when it's a slow week for crappy games, I often find myself looking for something a little off the wall that I can rant about for 700 words. This isn't always easy - it took me quite some time to track down a game woeful and/or stupid enough to review. But then it hit me like a shit-powered slap in the face: Potty Racers.

I don't know what it is about Flash developers, but previous evidence points towards a huge interest with faeces among this community. I suppose I should take solace in knowing that the closest anyone has come to a game concerned primarily with crap (as far as I can tell, and I hope to God I'm right) is Pigeon Revenge, and at least that involves bird crap.

But anyway, Potty Racers. The name is something of a misnomer as there are no actual races. The goal of the game is simply to kit your portable toilet with some nifty wheels, push it down a steep slope and then zoom off the end of a ramp, trying to soar as high and as far as possible.

So let's go through that again. First, you put some wheels on a Portaloo and push it down a hill:

Then you fly said Portaloo through the air:

Before making a smooth landing, whereupon you are given a score and the chance to buy upgrades to improve performance.

I...

I've got nothing. I honestly have no idea what to write. I just... wow.

Can you stop for a second and imagine how anyone - anyone - came up with this concept? I'm not reviewing this game because it's bad (which it isn't); I'm reviewing this game because the developer of Potty Racers has balls of granite and the mind of Karl Childers from Sling Blade. This is such a fantastically ridiculous idea for a game that one can only stare slackjawed at the link to it, only to click said link and find that, yes, a game is loading and it is called Potty Racers.

Oh, and you can do tricks!

Handstands and loops and all sorts of crazy tricks! You're driving a portable toilet through the air and you're doing a handstand on it. I am having serious trouble forming sentences to express how I feel right now.

I mean, the game is no different to many other similar titles, except IT'S A FUCKING PORTALOO! How!? How did they reach that point!? How did they get there!?

If you saw this in real life your brain would not know how to interpret the messages your eyes were sending it and immediately shut down. There is a stick man driving a portable toilet down a street, with crap and toilet paper flowing out behind it. And this Portaloo is tricked out! If you score enough points you can make this portable toilet look like Xzibit got his hands on it.

I usually end a review by writing, "Try it if you want, don't say I didn't warn you." But not this time. You need to play Potty Racers. This game should be in your life, scorching its name into your very soul for all eternity. Because when in life are you going to get to fly a portable toilet into space? I rest my case.

Wolverine Adventure Factory

2009-08-12T19:10:00.003+01:00

This just seems wrong. Of all the superheroes in the Marvel universe, usually the one you can always rely on is Wolverine. Spiderman? Total emo boy. Iron Man? He's fine when he's not off the wagon. Captain America? Dead - dead as the hope that Civil War would be good.

But Wolverine is a total badass - an invulnerable berserker wielding adamantium-covered claws in his hands. Wolverine isn't the kind of guy to have a crisis of conscience when it comes to kicking ass and taking names. If Wolverine was a US President, he'd be Teddy Roosevelt.

So what the hell went wrong with Wolverine Adventure Factory? Well, for the many flaws in this game, I blame you. Yes, you - the online gaming public. You, who demanded player customisation to the point where now developers don't even create a game. They merely provide you with a bunch of simple tools and allow you to make whatever the hell you want. And what do you make? Crap, that's what!

Game players are not the same as game developers. I can bitch and moan all I want about badly made games, but at the end of the day I concede that I'm just a whining fanboy who lacks the technical skills to produce anything beyond basic, um, BASIC. And I'm fine with that - I, like many others, register my opinion and then the developers can either listen to the feedback to produce a better game next time or they can tell me where to go.

But this is what happens when you put the tools to create games in the hands of people who think it would be cool to have six Magnetos running around. And when the programme itself is poorly developed the problems are doubled. Actually playing one of the user-generated levels can be akin to pulling teeth with a length of wire and a Mack truck. The controls are incredibly simple - arrow keys to move, space bar to attack - but they're also ridiculously clunky and the reaction of your character is far slower than expected.

Plus, the more stuff on screen, the slower everything runs. Take the shot above as a perfect example; with so many characters and moving platforms it all slows down to a crawl. Now, maybe that's just my system - for all I know, people with high-end computers won't have the problems I did.

Consider that last sentence for a moment. You now need serious hardware to play a Flash game. Yeah, maybe we've gone a little too far.

Some of the animation is just ridiculous. Watch as Ice Man races around like a tired toddler, his gangly legs and arms swinging wildly back and forth. His proportions are all out of wack whenever he's moving. This is what would happen if Rob Liefeld made a video game, only with fewer pouches.

I figure I should probably write about the level editor itself, but in truth this isn't all that bad. Like I've already stated, the tools here are basic and therefore easy to use. You simply place your hero and decide on your goal, whether that be collecting jewels, fighting bad guys or just getting to the door. Then you arrange platforms, obstacles and bad guys.

I put together something simple and fairly easy to complete, because I didn't want to spend too much time on it and I don't hate the rest of humanity. I stuck a few faceless soldiers in there and a laser gun before figuring, "Oh, what the hell?" and including Magneto (one Magneto, because there is only one Magneto, you assholes, and he's awesome. Though, as a master of metal, I don't understand why he never just twists Wolverine's adamantium skeleton into a slinky and leave him that way.)

Maybe I'm just being mean-spirited, but then you could say I'm being mean-spirited every week, so what else is new? Wolverine Adventure Factory is based off a similar game simply called Adventure Factory, which for some reason I found a whole lot more fun. But the honest truth is that this is just another shameless plug for another TV show, and therefore had about as much forethought put into it as the last Transformers movie. What could have been a lot of fun is actually a frustrating, sometimes boring mess. Wolverine Adventure Factory is the Flash equivalent of Ikea furniture, and about as exciting as a flat pack coffee table.

Luis Launch

2009-08-05T18:25:00.003+01:00

You've got to give credit to anyone who fills half their title screen with an advertisement for another game. Wow, that shows confidence. All snark aside, Luis Launch comes to us from those good, good people at Newgrounds, the home of the equally talented and depraved. Because so many members of Newgrounds are actually really good at programming Flash games, it makes reviewing one of their titles a bit difficult. After all, their crap is many other websites' gold. But hey, I'm not the Big Mean Flash Gamer for nothing, so let's jump head first into the inevitable shit storm!

Before I write anything else, I must admit I enjoyed playing Luis Launch. I enjoyed it more when it was called Hedgehog Launch and had a lot more features to it, but then that's just me. In all seriousness, no one who regularly plays games like this could miss the huge similarities between the Armor Games favourite and this knock-off.

You play Luis (based on the creator himself, which makes me worry) and your goal is to get into space to celebrate Luis Day. That's right, Luis has such a huge ego that he dedicated a day to himself. Anyway, most people would consider astronaut training if they wanted to visit space, but not Luis! No, he's going to propel himself into the heavens through the use of one giant elastic band.

Oh, and the the power of his own farts. hey, I'm a guy - I understand that farts are funny. But it seems like flatulence occupies way too much of the average Flash developers' minds. Luis powers his gaseous discharge by eating beans, because there's absolutely nothing stereotypical about a flatulent, bean eating Hispanic man.

I can't really write too much about the gameplay. It's pretty solid, using either the arrow or A and D keys to control Luis' movement and setting off farts with the left mouse button or space bar. And hey, that works perfectly fine.

What I don't understand is why Luis explodes in a mass of blood and bones every time he hits the ground, then reappears without a scratch on him. Does Luis possess advanced regenerative powers? Does he reincarnate? Are these merely Luis clones, forced by the original Luis to play this horrifying game of death? These questions are never answered.

There are, of course, upgrades you can purchase to make space flight a little easier (a Saturn V rocket is not among them.) My problem here is that everything costs exactly the same, whether it be a stronger rubber band or extra beans. Strategy goes out the window in cases like this, and to be honest there isn't a whole lot of strategy involved to begin with. Each level is technically a crap shoot where you might get a string of beans that send you sky high in one level, then barely any in the next.

I can't find any fault with the art, which is simple but effective, and it might raise a smile as you whiz past aliens and Superman through the power of your intestinal gases.

I've also got to admit that the ending appeals to my sense of humour. But again, this is too similar to the end of Hedgehog Launch, just like so much else in this game. Even the titles are almost the same! I know derivativeness makes the Flash game world go round, but you do have to draw the line somewhere. Use your influences, but don't ape them. Luis Launch isn't a bad game - maybe a little boring after a while, but by no means awful. Its problem is that a far superior game in this same vein already exists, and if they want to take that particular crown the developers are going to have to try harder.

Gangland

2009-07-30T17:19:00.003+01:00

My apologies for the twenty-four hour delay in this week's review - I was busy last night shooting a short film that makes a David Lynch movie look straightforward. But let's forget about terrifying art films and focus on the real reason people come here - ~~pity~~ bad Flash games!

Gangland is an arcade shoot-'em-up that sees you enact vigilante justice on the criminal underworld of Unnamed City. So it's kind of like a Flash version of Death Wish with about the same amount of care and creativity put into it.

It's not that I have a problem with mindless violence - I grew up on Schwarzenegger movies. But even Commando required a modicum of skill to make it decent. Gangland simply plants you in front of generic backdrops and has you shoot at a never ending army of respawning hoodlums. Despite never needing to you're given the ability to move your character around with the arrow keys, but all you'll use that for is ducking behind the nearest cover. You control a set of crosshairs with the mouse and fire with the left button, and then it's just a case of shooting bad guys until an invisible timer runs out.

Between levels you have the option of restocking ammo (which isn't really necessary at first, since you'll only use one clip per level and you've already got three) and boosting your health. The cost of this comes out of your score, but even if you don't have the points you can still get the power ups; your score will just go into negative figures. Since when do games accept IOUs?

Sure, if you're worried about your score, then you won't want to do this. But don't tell me that this doesn't come off as just a little sloppy. No well-made game is going to let you get away with this, but since so little effort was put into Gangland, I don't know why I'm so surprised.

And that's it - four identical levels, save for the different backgrounds. There are no other weapons, no bosses, nothing but an endless wave of machine gun-wielding gangbangers who drop like flies with a single shot. There's no way you can die and there's no way you'll ever run out of bullets, so where's the challenge? Where's the satisfaction in beating this game?

And because my score is -1,000 I fail the job (that's the job of being a psychotic vigilante with a shotgun.) I didn't fail because I died or didn't reach a certain number of dead crooks. No, I lost because I took advantage of a bug that the developers could have easily fixed.

Not that you get much congratulations if you do manage a decent score.

"Hey, I killed all the gangs!"
"Oh, that's... that's great, Bob."
"I saved the city from its slow destruction!"
"Yeah, I know, it's awesome..."

But why would such a disappointing game have a satisfying conclusion? Gangland really has nothing to add to the shooters already out there, and is yet another example of why even mindless time killers require a little thought.

Apollo 11 - Mission To The Moon

2009-07-22T21:43:00.003+01:00

On July 20th, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first people in human history to step onto the surface of another celestial body. This achievement cannot be underestimated, and no words exist to fully convey how monumental and how important it truly was. Naturally, as Monday saw the 40th anniversary of that small step and giant leap, celebrations across all media have been presented. Indeed, even in Flash games one can find a marker for this incredible moment, with Apollo 11 - Mission To The Moon.

So who is responsible for this special game? None other than our old friends at Games 2 Win. If you don't who they are, well... You know all those really ridiculous games that involve stealing kisses or putting hot teachers in compromising positions? Yeah, these guys make all of them.

I came across this game thanks to this ringing endorsement: "NO ONE EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER PLAY THIS GAME!!! ITS LIKE 30MINUTES I WILL NEVER GET BACK! long story short dont play this game" Well, when I read that, I knew what I had to do!

Apollo 11 takes you through the important moments of that important journey, putting you at the controls as you take off, travel to the Moon and splash back down to Earth. That actually sounds like a really cool concept for a game, providing a significant challenge, but one that could be tailored to most gamers if done correctly. Plus, you get to learn a little about the actual Apollo 11 mission, which is no bad thing. For instance, I learned that travelling to the Moon is piss easy.

From the very beginning, you're given no challenge whatsoever. Everything is controlled through the cursor keys and the space bar (that's kind of appropriate, at least.) During the take-off sequence, you're told exactly what buttons to press and when to press them. There's no chance of making a mistake, as the entire procedure is laid out right in front of you.

So apparently launching a Saturn V rocket with three men strapped to the front of it is easier than you'd think. No wonder so many chimps were used at first; you'd have to be pretty far down the evolutionary ladder to screw this up.

Once you're in space, it's just a matter of orbiting the planet and picking up enough speed to escape Earth's gravitational pull and slingshot your way to the Moon. Man, when you think about it, that sounds really dumb. But then that's why I don't work for NASA!

Anyway, one thing I learned from this game was that the spacecraft had to be turned occasionally to prevent any one side from overheating under the unfiltered rays of the Sun. There's a little more challenge here, but you're still told exactly what to do and when to do it. The spacecraft even slows down so you have more time to press the space bar!

There's also a mini game where you have to find and photograph the Moon. Somehow I thought that would have been pretty easy - you know, what with it being a lunar mission, and all.

Landing the lunar module is actually kind of fun, if only because it provides something akin to a challenge. Look, I understand if the main focus of this game was to educate the player, but you still need to include a little fun. Remember that - fun? It's why you call it a "game" in the first place? Never mind - this level is over way too quickly.

And then suddenly we're back hurtling through the Earth's atmosphere, trying to keep our craft level before releasing the parachutes that carry us gently back to the bosom of our beloved home planet. Did you know that the inside of that thing smelled like a portaloo on the third day of a music festival? Now you do.

Even the final screen congratulating you is as dull as Henry Kissinger reading the dictionary. And I don't know if I like the jingoistic tone, either. Come, comrade - surely we can stand together as brothers?

You could argue that the Apollo 11 mission was the most important event in human history, the culmination of a technological evolution that had been going on for millennia and which continues today. And there's nothing wrong with a game trying to teach us all a little about this incredible event. But Apollo 11 - Mission To The Moon is edutainment without the entertainment part. With a grand vision but an amateurish approach, its only saving grace is its brevity.

Wolfi Trip

2009-07-15T20:52:00.003+01:00

I should probably tell you that I have a bit of a headache, so if I'm not my usual cheerful self that's why. Still, I should take solace in knowing that no matter how much my head hurts I am not suffering the kind of vigorous mind fucking that spawned this week's gaming abomination, Wolfi Trip.

Despite what the title and menu screen might make you believe, this is not some kind of murder mystery, nor are we about to experience the world through the eyes of an 18th Century opium addict (though you'd be forgiven for thinking you are.) Wolfi Trip asks the question on precisely one person's mind: if Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had a nightmare, what would it be like? The answer, apparently, is a poorly rendered, poorly designed platform game that crimps most of its visuals from other, better titles.

Wolfi Trip was created by a computer scientist who should therefore know better. You play Mozart, jumping around four flat, uninspiring levels collecting seven musical keys to complete the game. Naturally, since this is a nightmare, you have all sorts of demons, ghosts, floating heads and pigs chasing you. There isn't much of an explanation as to why you just can't wake up and forget all about this shitty dream, but then I suppose there wouldn't be much of a game if you had that option, and since there isn't much to begin with the developer wants to keep as much as possible.

The controls are simple, with the cursor keys allowing you to move and jump, while later on you get the ability to shoot notes at the monsters. The controls can come across as a little sluggish at times, usually when you're trying to jump over a gap and accuracy is key.

In Level 2 we get to explore Mozart's house, though I have a sneaking suspicion that this is not an accurate portrayal of Mozart's real house. For one thing, I don't think Mozart's house is composed entirely of a maze, nor does it contain a ghost whose sole reason for existence is to stop you grabbing an E chord. Even that seems beyond its spectral grasp, and you're quickly back out into the psychotic candy land.

This isn't so much nightmarish as ridiculously weird. If my nightmares involved jumping around a field in the Zargos dimension firing music at demons I probably wouldn't mind. At the end of this level you're asked to jump into a portal with creepy hands, which instantly transports you to Level 3.

If Level 3 looks familiar that's because it's the Jungle Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog. There's no use trying to convince yourself otherwise - this is just a blatant theft of a level from a whole other game, except nowhere near as much fun. It's populated by these green flying worms that are almost impossible to hit because they always attack from above at a high angle.

This isn't a glitch; it's just a rip-off of a scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. There's absolutely no reason for it, and don't try to justify it by saying, "But it's a dream, woooooo! Anything can happen!" Sure, anything can happen, but anything can also happen in the conscious realm and this still looks stupid.

You jump and Level 4 just appears, like it got tired of waiting and shoved its way to the front of the queue. After the world made of Skittles and the 8-bit theft this is a surprisingly dark playing field, but still piss easy. Sure, you've got killer tomatoes, zombie snowmen and those flying pigs, but it's still just running from left to right and occasionally killing something.

After killing one more giant pig, who I guess was supposed to be a boss, this platform appears and then that's it. After four boring levels, their brevity the only good quality I could find, you have this incredibly anti-climactic ending.

To be honest, Mozart himself is probably the most frightening thing about this game. I mean, look at those eyes!

So that's Wolfi Trip - an adventure through the mind of a musical genius, which turns out to be a lot more disappointing than one would have imagined.

Big Mean Retrospective

2009-07-08T23:17:00.003+01:00

This is an important day for me, folks. What you're reading is the 101st post in this blog, meaning that this is officially review #100! Since October 2007 I have played 97 of the worst (and 2 of the best) games available online, and as I type this today I still have no explanation as to why.

Why in God's name have I subjected myself to such a barrage of disappointment on a continual basis? Why do I keep returning to this place, ranting and raving about games that few people will ever play, anyway? Why must I warn people of the horrors of Nuclear Fart Bear or the weirdness of The Great Raccoon Escape? The answer, dear readers, is simple: I'm an idiot.

Or maybe, deep down, I enjoy it. I get a kick out of ripping into these games, an avenue for the frustration that plagues everyone, a productive means of venting some anger. In that regard, Big Mean Flash Gamer has been a lot of fun, and hopefully it will continue to be for a long time to come.

But anyway, enough idle chit chat - what am I going to do for this very special edition of Big Mean Flash Gamer? Well, as mentioned in last week's review, I'm going back to five games that were victims of my anger and seeing if a second glance might change my opinion of them. And what better game to start with than the one that kicked this whole thing off?

1. Kogent Knight

I WROTE: "Do not play Kogent Knight - there are a dozen better platform games out there. This may look pretty, but it's boring as all hell."

AND NOW: Do not play Kogent Knight.

OK, we're not off to a good start. Playing Kogent Knight for the first time since 2007 has only reminded me why it was the first game ever reviewed on this blog. What the fuck does "kogent" mean, anyway? I looked it up on dictionary.com but the only word they could come back with was cogent, which is defined as "convincing or believable by virtue of forcible, clear, or incisive presentation; telling."

How does that relate to an illiterate, asthmatic knight? Everything I hated about this game still grinds my gears, now with even more things to piss me off. Enemies of the same type never take the same number of hits to kill; one black knight may require three strikes, while another might only need one. The controls are even worse than I remember, and the sluggish pace annoys me more now than it did back then. All the bad memories came flooding back, and I can only repeat what I wrote back then - keep away from Kogent Knight.

2. Rock and Roll Space Monkey

I WROTE: "My advice is to play Rock and Roll Space Monkey at least once, so you can hear the kickass theme song and give the game a go. The concept is ridiculous and the gameplay is flawed, but the plot is certainly original, and that's got to amount for something."

AND NOW: This was a reader request, and only for that I wouldn't have included Rock and Roll Space Monkey on this list. Why? Because I fucking LOVED Rock and Roll Space Monkey. It was the best bad game I've ever reviewed, and no matter how much its flaws annoyed me, I could never hate it, just for the game's balls. What other Flash game features a guitar playing monkey, giant lizard cats and aliens dressed like the French? Rock and Roll Space Monkey is like the Flash version of Psychonauts - utterly demented, frequently frustrating, and in the end a whole lot of fun.

3. Butt-Ski Lift

I WROTE: "What is wrong with you people?"

AND NOW: Butt-Ski Lift left an indelible print on my psyche, a stain that will never be washed away, much like the giant testicles of the hero in Little Boy Adventure. To this day, I have no idea how anyone came up with the idea of a game where the goal is to swing upside down from a ski lift while mooning everyone back at the lodge.

It just staggers the mind that Butt-Ski Lift even exists. Think about it - someone had to come up with this idea. Someone had to think about making a game where you hang from your pants on ski lifts. Maybe that person told a friend or two about it, then quickly stopped mentioning it when everyone around him said the idea was shit. He had to draw the characters, animate the sprites, write the game code. All in all, we're talking about a couple of hours of work. Then that person had to upload their game onto the Internet. And at no point during any of this did they think, "Actually, the world might not be ready for Butt-Ski Lift."

Who knows - perhaps one day, many years from now, we will be. But I highly doubt it.

4. Planet Platformer

I WROTE: "I didn't hate Planet Platformer when I first played it. But now that I've played it repeatedly, only to face disappointment at every turn (compounded by the fact that, without a save feature, you have to start from the beginning every time you play), it has worn down my resolve."

AND NOW: When I posted this review over on Way of the Geek, I was surprised to receive a response from the creator of Planet Platformer. He took umbrage to my remark that you have to run through each level twice to complete them, and even included walkthroughs to prove his point.

I like to give a game the benefit of the doubt before I rip it apart completely, but these images only supported my view that you do need to backtrack to complete levels, unless you understand the exact strategy to complete each level perfectly the first time out. Playing it again, the controls still frustrated the hell out of me and the level completion screen still gave me a headache. There is a sequel now, which I must say is something of an improvement, but my original opinion of Planet Platformer still stands - it's a disappointment.

5. Achilles

I WROTE: "If you end up playing the games I review anyway just to see if you agree with my assessment, or if you're thick, then go play Achilles."

AND NOW: I'm kind of cheating here. While I played all of the other games today, I actually went back to Achilles about a month ago. My review of this game proved to be contentious, and there was quite a bit of disagreement between myself and some readers. So I decide to go and check it out, just for old time's sake.

And you know what? Maybe I was too harsh on Achilles the first time around. There's still plenty about the game that annoys me, but then there are lots of games out there that annoy me, and they don't all get reviewed here. It's not a game I'll go back to again and again, but at the same time it's not a game I can honestly say is so awful you'd never enjoy it.

I think this proves that at the end of the day, these are only my opinions. For some people these games are awesome, while others would agree with me that many of these titles should never have existed. My job here is to give you the information you need to make your own assessment and give you the chance to either say I'm right or wrong. I'll do my best to stay big and mean, and hopefully I'll be here to tell you all about the worst of the worst for another 100 reviews, at least.

Normal service will resume next week with review #101. In the meantime, I'll be posting an exclusive review of Mall Flirting on Way of the Geek, so keep your eyes peeled for that one.

S.W.A.T. 3

2009-07-01T18:48:00.007+01:00

This isn't easy to write. Normally I can take some kind of perverse pleasure from tearing into a bad game, but sadly that isn't the case this week. You see, I'm a huge fan of the first two games in this series. S.W.A.T. is an exciting shoot-'em-up that has you utilising a bunch of different weapons from a semi-automatic to grenades that stun enemies with electric shocks. S.W.A.T. 2 is a more traditional sniper game, but certainly a pleasant one and a good distraction if you're looking to kill some time. But all S.W.A.T. 3 does is show that Spiderman and the X-Men weren't the only franchises with crappy third acts.

The gameplay is a throwback to the original, which is still one of the best Flash shoot-'em-ups I've had a chance to play. Using the mouse, you aim your crosshairs at the terrorists and fill them full of lead, dropping back behind a wall before they shoot you. Though it takes a while to get the hang of it, these controls work pretty well, and when combined with a few keyboard buttons for added actions it quickly becomes quite intuitive.

The problem with S.W.A.T. 3 is that you'll spend a lot less time shooting up bad guys and a lot more time like this:

Cowering behind a wall like a little girl as masked hoodlums fire at you with AK-47 assault rifles. In the first game you could time your attacks by listening to your enemies' fire, jumping out and firing off a few quick rounds whenever they paused. Also, because you could still see half of the enemy base while taking cover, you had a good idea of where the bad guys might be, meaning you could plan ahead and reduce the amount of damage you took.

No such luck in S.W.A.T. 3; not only can you not see much of anything from behind the wall, but the enemies only stop firing for a split second, never enough time to attack while avoiding damage.

Also, I don't know what those gas masks are made of, but it must be titanium since it takes about three shots to take the bad guys down. In the first two games it was often one shot, one kill, but here your weaponry is largely ineffective (as opposed to the enemies' AKs, which will tear you to shreds in short order.) In the opening animation the developers make sure to show the wide variety of weapons you can use - everything from standard pistols to shotguns and M-16s. Finding these weapons, however, is a total lottery. You aren't able to upgrade your side arm and you're at the mercy of whatever power-ups are sprinkled through the levels.

Sometimes the terrorists will throw a grenade at you, and by hovering over it with your mouse you can throw it back, Call of Duty 4 style. I will admit this is a nice addition, but I enjoyed having my own grenades to throw back when I had that option a whole lot more. In S.W.A.T. 3 you can pick up throwable items such as knives and machetes, but you can only hold one at a time and you have to be very accurate with your throw. If that's the case, why not just pop off a few rounds? Same result in the same amount of time.

Death comes often and with little dignity attached. Unless you have the reflexes of a ninja you're not going to get very far in this game. I never even got through the first mission; in the end, all that was left of me was a red splat on the wall.

The last thing that just confuses the hell out of me is this incredibly redundant Game Over screen. First it tells you in no uncertain terms that you are dead (you know, just in case watching your character spill his guts across the ground didn't give you a clue.) Then it asks if you want to go back to the main menu. Better decide quickly, though, because in ten seconds it's going to... take you back to the main menu. So what exactly is the point of asking?

It's such a shame to see an excellent series like S.W.A.T. descend to such a low. A few of the tweaks are nice but they've been replaced by a horrible learning curve and a tiny arsenal of weaponry to use. It becomes less fun and more of a chore as you try to survive long enough to see one more stage. If you want to play any game from this series, play the original S.W.A.T., and avoid this poor sequel.

Before I end this week's review, I'd like to let you know that this is the 100th post in Big Mean Flash Gamer, and the 99th game I've reviewed. Next week I'll be doing something a little special, going back to five games I've previously reviewed and giving them a second chance to entertain me. If you have any particular titles you'd like me to review again, leave me a comment and I'll see what I can do.

Road Hunter GT

2009-06-24T21:27:00.003+01:00

I looked up the definition of GT, or "Grand Tourer" ("Gran Turismo" in Italian) because something about its use in the title of Road Hunter GT just didn't sit right with me. So here's what I found, courtesy of Wikipedia:

GT - "Grand tourer (Italian: gran turismo), usually a high-performance luxury automobile designed for long-distance driving"

And that's probably what it was; though you do indeed drive long distances in this game, there's nothing luxurious or high-performance about it.

The plot is simple: you're about to carry out a bank job, after which you must weave through traffic while avoiding the police and the Mafia. You begin by stealing a taxi and driving it 150 miles to the bank.

Seriously, 150 miles. You are robbing a bank in another city - in another part of the country! I'm willing to suspend my disbelief up to a point, but that point comes long before driving a stolen taxi 150 miles on the straightest road this side of the autobahn to rob a small-town bank.

You drive your stolen taxi incredibly slowly through some very uninspired quasi-suburban landscape that seems to stretch into infinity. There are puddles and cracks all over the tarmac, but these are entirely aesthetic and have no effect on the handling of your car. For some reason just driving to the bank earns you cash, like perhaps you decided to pick up some fares as you went to commit acts of grand larceny. One thing you'll no doubt notice is that your life bar is constantly decreasing, so you need to keep topping it up by collecting hearts that lay across the road like the aftermath of some terrible accident involving a sixteen-wheeler with a load of donated organs.

At first I thought the life bar was actually supposed to be a petrol gauge, which would make sense - if you're driving 150 miles, you're going to need to fill the tank at least once. But if that's the case, why not just call it the fuel gauge? Why not use little canisters of petrol rather than hearts? The answer is because it really is supposed to be a life gauge, and much like the human body this taxi is hurtling inexorably towards the end, constantly postponing the inevitable with tune-ups and stolen organs.

It is, in all honesty, bullshit. Why should the life bar go down when you're avoiding the other cars? Why should a player be punished for doing well? And you better hope to God that you don't crash, because if you hit more than one other vehicle you'll never see past the first level. So you do what anyone would do in real life to avoid an accident - you drive slowly and keep as much of the road in front of you so you don't get caught off guard. The result is a slow, ponderous game, and it doesn't get any better after you've reached the bank.

After stealing the money (a scene represented by your character walking into the bank and then walking out of the bank) our young robber ditches the taxi and jumps into a sports car that I can only assume was sitting there waiting for him.

OK, so if there was a car there already, why steal the taxi? I mean, is this guy such a prick that he can't just spend a little cash on a train ticket, or something? Or better yet, if he's already been there to arrange the sports car, why not just stay there instead of travelling 150 miles to some other town? This probably explains why he works alone - not because he's a tough loner incapable of trusting others, but because none of the other robbers are willing to put up with his stupid ass.

So now the Mafia are after you, for reasons that are never fully explained, and they're chasing you in cars armed with ballistic missiles. Strangely, the numerous police cars that you pass on this endless highway show not one ounce of interest in the Mad Max road war taking place before them. I know the police can be apathetic at the best of times, but surely they're going to respond to the cluster bombs pockmarking the highway?

Fortunately you're not just a sitting duck. Someone was kind enough to leave missiles all over the road, which you can pick up and use against the numerous Mafiosi. But you can only shoot in one direction, straight up, and that's a real pain in the ass if the enemy is on the other side of the screen. At moments like that your only hope is to drive by as quickly as possible and hope you don't get hit. You don't find any other weapons that might make destroying the other cars easier, so it's a case of hoping for the best, and that rarely gets you anywhere.

For a game boasting only three levels Road Hunter GT is surprisingly difficult to beat. Like anything else it just takes a little practice, but why would you want to spend your time beating a game so ugly and plodding? There are a hundred games just like it, and most of them are far superior to this. Throw this one on the scrapheap and forget it even existed.

Transformers: Megatron Face-Off

2009-06-17T22:45:00.003+01:00

I should state right off the bat that I was never a big fan of the Transformers. Sure, they were cool - no young boy could say no to robots that turned into things and fought each other - but they were a product of the Eighties. I, as a child of the Nineties, was too young to watch He-Man when it was still a blatant twenty-five minute action figure commercial and too old to experience the untold violence wreaked by Pokemon cards. So, although I've always appreciated the show and once owned a Transformers action figure, I've never been a fanboy for it. That's why when the first live action Transformers movie came out I was willing to give it a shot. But I should have known it was going to be a steaming pile of donkey dung as soon I saw the words "A Michael Bay Film" written across the screen.

OK, I know it's easy to make fun of Michael Bay films and that everyone does it. But have you ever thought to ask why? Well, one look at his past credits should answer that question. From the lard-like dripping sentiment of Armageddon to the "Golden Hour only" shoot of Bad Boys 2, Bay's movies have been full of style but lacking substance. That his first director credit listed on IMDB is Playboy Video Centerfold: Kerri Kendall should tell you everything you need to know.

Anyway, Transformers. One of the few things Michael Bay does better than anyone else is blow shit up. So you would have thought a film based around giant robots beating the tar out of each other would have been simple for him. Yet, somehow he still managed to screw it up! How? Because apparently none of the test audiences wanted to see CG robots fighting. No, they wanted to see Shia LeBeouf running away from the robots! Oh, and when we do get to see the actual robot wars, make sure to shoot everything with shaky, handheld cameras and extreme close-ups, like Optimus Prime was suddenly Optimus Bourne.

Anyway, I digress... a lot. The inevitable sequel, Revenge of the Fallen, is set to explode in our faces on June 24th, but while we wait for that car crash clusterfuck, let's play Megatron Face-Off!

The game is a pretty straightforward beat-'em-up. Megatron is chasing after Sam Witwicky yet again (because God forbid we make the Transformers the main focus - sorry) and it's up to you to stop him. You can choose to fight with Ironhide or Bumblebee at first, with Optimus Prime becoming available should you beat the game. This implies that the game's designers thought people would want to play it more than once. Hey, you can't fault their optimism.

It doesn't really matter who you pick, as they all have similar controls, including the same special move. In all honesty, Ironhide probably looks too much like Megatron for you to easily tell them apart, so you may prefer to play as Bumblebee.

Regardless of who you use, they're all poorly drawn, including Megatron. OK, so there's nothing technically bad about the way they look. But there's something about them that just doesn't sit right, like they're all cardboard cut-outs fed into Flash and made to perform stiff, jerky movements.

The backgrounds are nice, but they just emphasise how out of place the robots feel and how poorly composed they are.

The game also breaks the cardinal rule of beat-'em-ups by having really bad controls. Hit detection is hard to see, and though you only have two attack buttons you'll be bashing them as if this was UFC Undisputed. The AI sucks; more often than not Megatron will stand there throwing punches into the air, allowing you to step back to a safe distance and pound him down with your special attack.

All of the characters, including Megatron, have some kind of laser attack. You'll be using yours a lot, mainly because it's the fastest and easiest way to win. While you can easily dodge Megatron's blasts (on the rare occasions he uses it and doesn't just beat up nothing) he doesn't seem too fazed by you blowing chunks of armour off of him until he falls down. It sort of subtracts from Megatron's menace when, every time you beat him, he stands back up as if someone is inflating him with helium and then flies off into the sky.

If you ever needed proof that Michael Bay doesn't give a rat's ass about Optimus Prime, this picture should put away any doubts. There's just something about this depiction of Optimus that makes him look like a wimp. Maybe it's that he's airbrushed more than Beyonce Knowles, but just putting him side by side with Megatron makes you realise why he needed Shia to save his ass at the end of the first Transformers flick.

On the bright side, he does have his kickass laser sword, so at least that's something. Nobody can look like a pansy when they're swinging around a blade of pure energy.

See?

Transformers: Megatron face-Off is a perfectly fine game if you really love Transformers and/or bad beat-'em-ups. Otherwise, it's as bad as a Michael Bay script and had about as much thought put into it. If you're desperate for your Transformers fix, my advice is to close the curtains, grab your action figures and create your own robot spectacular. Hey, it's not like you could do any worse than the other guy.

Shopping Street

2009-06-10T21:33:00.004+01:00

Man, I've been waiting all week to review this game.

You know, what with the economy being so far down the crapper, now more than ever we have to amuse ourselves without breaking the bank (any more than it already is.) That's when we really see the value of the millions of Flash games available to play for free online. Hours of entertainment are at our finger tips, waiting for us along the Information Superhighway. And because the economy will eventually start to recover (right?) it makes perfect sense to check out a game that might help us develop our own business savvy so that we don't find ourselves in this situation again. With that in mind, let's take a look at Shopping Street.

I want to make one thing clear - I knew this wasn't going to be a good game before I ever saw the title screen. I can't really put my finger on why, but if you do click the link above and check out Shopping Street, maybe you too will feel a little weirded out by the Flonga robot as it glides silently into the centre of the screen and stares at you with its beady green eyes. In fact, there's no music or any sound whatsoever until you press the start button and are presented with the level select screen. The goal is to build a shopping empire, starting from a simple mom 'n' pop business and eventually reaching the heights of Manhattan. Every level requires that you earn a certain amount within a fixed period of time to carry on to the next stage. I played through the whole game, amazingly, so I'm going to go right to the final New York level for the rest of this review.

I'm doing that because at no time does anything in Shopping Street change - not the background, nor the colour scheme, nor any of the shops you can build - so by going straight to the last level I can show you everything without boring with you with how I got there.

And believe me, you'd be bored. I was, and I was playing the damn game. Not even Stephen King could make describing this game anything more than monotonous, but maybe if you see how little there is to write about Shopping Street, that might put you off playing the game. Either way, I've done my job.

You start every level with the same amount of money - I guess inflation can't be that bad if you can set up a pet store in Manhattan for $3,000. The pet store should always be your first purchase, as it can hold more customers and earn more money than the boutique, which is the only other shop you can buy at the start of the level.

I'm going to review this game as best I can, but I might as well show you a sure-fire way to beat any level in this game. This method is foolproof and guaranteed to succeed every time.

Anyway, build your pet store and a couple of benches (and a "music ad" which is supposed to attract people to your store) and then the happy little people will come along and buy stuff. Once you've got the cash you can buy a boutique, upgrade your stores a little and then build a bus stop. The bus stop will grant you another dozen shoppers, which is always handy. The bus should only stop there once a day but on more than one occasion I came across a glitch that meant a constant stream which theoretically could go on forever. Clearly, whoever programmed this game has never experienced the US public transport system.

Keep on building and upgrading your shops and... well, that's it. The money will come in slowly at first, but as you build more your earnings will grow exponentially. Just remember not to waste your money on a restaurant until you've got most of the other stores, as they have very little return and people will hang around inside them forever. Even on fast mode it took ages for any customers to leave, which is a great complement to the food and service but utterly useless to me when I've got to raise a million bucks in thirty days.

Which reminds me of the most important advice I can give - switch to Fast Mode immediately and turn off the annoying music (first they give us no music, then they give us music we don't want to hear - great.) The customers move at an arthritic pace, meaning the greatest challenge is one of patience.

Shopping Street is like a Flash Field of Dreams - if you build a shitload of stores, people will come and spend obscene amounts of money. Nothing ever goes wrong in Shopping Street; there's nothing that the customers won't buy. It's weird watching someone who can't get into a furniture store deciding to visit a jeweller's instead. I've never seen such a large group of people so desperate to get rid of their money. By the time you've got all the shops built, you don't even need any of the crap designed to slow shoppers down, like benches or news stands. They just keep walking from one place to the next, regardless of what that shop is, until they run out of money and scamper off with big smiles on their faces.

I've played some really easy games in my time, but this is ridiculous. Once you've completed one level, you'll complete the rest without any difficulty. If capitalism was this easy we wouldn't be in a God damn global recession!

Sure enough, on the last day - just like always - I meet my goal. Such is the demand for electronics and puppies that I was guaranteed victory from the start. I think I deserve an award just for playing all the way through this mind-numbing, coma-inducing bore of a game.

But no, this is all I get - one last half assed graphic to let me know I'm the new Donald Trump. But then, I suppose you get out of something whatever you put in, and since I didn't have to do squat to beat Shopping Street I should be thankful for generic smiley faces.

This was the first game from Flonga that I've had a chance to play, and it goes without saying that it didn't make a good first impression. With slow, boring, repetitive gameplay and uninspired graphics, it seems the recession is even hitting Flash games - as far as ideas go, we're bankrupt.