Big Mean Flash Gamer

Achievement Unlocked 2

2010-08-20T00:56:00.003+01:00

Plenty of games, from the cheapest Flash programs to the most expensive console titles, have implemented achievements and bonuses as an incentve to keep playing, sometimes long after you've completed the game. This week's good game, Achievement Unlocked 2, takes this concept to its natural result by making a game where the goal is to collect every achievement possible. It's metagaming at its finest as you bounce around numerous levels as a blue elephant intent on gaining every worthless but welcome pat on the back.

The achievements come thick and fast almost from the first go, but there are 250 to collect and they aren't all so easy to pick up. Achievement Unlocked 2 does a great job of expanding on its predeccesor. You're still a flat blue elephant in a large white room, but now you can actually travel to other levels, collecting coins to unlock new areas.

Some parts of the game are downright weird, like the hamster wheel that you have to spin around in and the big button on the roof that lets you flood the floors below. Actually, that last one has a purpose, as there are some spots you can't reach otherwise.

I suppose I'm giving myself an easy week, as there isn't a whole lot to write about. You jump around, you collect coins, you try to avoid and land in spike pits - it's about as straightforward as you can get. There are no enemies, no big bad at the end, no motivation other than to score all of the achievements. But what makes Achievement Unlocked 2 so damn impressive is just how far it's come since the first game, keeping things simple while expanding the title for new and old fans alike. That alone is worth pressing the "Play" button - and yes, you get an achievement for that, too.

Axis Football League

2010-08-04T22:33:00.004+01:00

In the past I've always had praise for Armor Games, a site that maintains a consistently high quality of online titles. Of course, we all make mistakes from time to time. Nobody's perfect, after all - just look at Idi Amin. And so Armor Games has sadly suffered its own wave of psychotic, xenophobic deportation, by which I mean they're hosting a game called Axis Football League and it sucks.

This is a game that clearly has the best of intentions. In fact, it describes itself as the "first, great online football game," which made me chuckle heartily, as there is nothing great about this title. I guess it looks nice, but if you're a long time reader of Big Mean Flash Gamer, you'll already know that looks can be deceiving. Sometimes that hot chick is really a man and sometimes a pretty game is really a pile of garbage. But only one of those events will change your life and make you ask questions on the concepts of gender and sexuality, and it's not the second one.

I suppose, being someone with little interest in American football, this game wasn't going to appeal to me too much. But hey, there are plenty of sports I don't follow and as long as the game based on it plays well, I can still have fun. Obviously they couldn't use the names of real teams due to copyright purposes (because, you know, the Steelers worry about Flash games stealing their logo.) I decided to play as the New England Volunteers. Wow, that name must strike terror into the hearts of their opponents.

You pick a play to run and then you go to the game screen. Here's where things start to get tricky. I've never seen a game with so simple a control system sound so complicated. I can't even tell you what the problem is; it doesn't seem natural, you don't find yourself slipping easily into the controls like you might with other sports games. I think part of the problem lies with the use of both keyboard and mouse controls. That works fine for me, since I played it on a laptop. But if you've only got one hand to take care of the keyboard buttons while your other is occupied solely with clicking the left mouse button, it would no doubt be a big hassle.

The nice graphics come back to bite you on the ass at this point, too. So determined were the programmers to show as much of the field as possible, we're left with a top down view seemingly from the bottom of the Goodyear blimp (oh, wait, we can't use copyrighted names. Um... the Nice... Month... Balloon.) The animation is fluid, but there's just one problem that would sour my opinion of any football game: I can't see the God damn ball!

I'm doing my damnedest to block passes and take down the other team, but how do I do that when I'm not even sure who's holding the ball? Usually, by the time I know, it's too late to stop my opponents from gaining another twenty yards.

The vast array of plays you can use is impressive but hammers home the feeling that this is not a game for casual fans. I have no idea what most of these names mean and was randomly picking whatever play I thought gave me the best chance of success. Odds are this approach was no less effective than if I'd known what I was doing. In the end, Axis Football League is a frustrating game for anyone but the commited pigskin fan. Even then, I'd probably suggest throwing a ball around with some friends before wasting your time on this well-intentioned mess.

Zombies Took My Daughter!

2010-07-29T00:13:00.003+01:00

Zombies! As I've mentioned time and time again, I love 'em. While vampires sparkle and wolfmen lose their teeth, zombies amble on regardless, as cool today as they were when George A Romero popularised the modern zombie flick. So a game called Zombies Took My Daughter really can't fail to entertain, and thankfully it does just that.

Your daughter Anna is trapped somewhere in an infected city. Mutated ghouls roam the streets; you've got 36 hours to search for Anna and get her to safety. One of the coolest things about Zombies Took My Daughter is that the game map randomly changes every time you play, so you never experience the same levels twice. It also means that, no matter how experience you gain, there'll always be new surprises and challenges waiting for you.

The game features an abundance of mêlée weapons and firearms. While it's always satisfying to cave in a zombie's head with a Ming vase, however, my advice to find a shotgun and keep it fully loaded. The shotguns may not have much range but they make up for it with pure stopping power, taking down numerous ghouls in one shot.

You're not alone in the abandoned city. While the zombies are a given, you can also rescue other survivors, who will then help you clear out an area. This will save you ammo as well as reduce the risk of getting hurt. Dying is something you definitely don't want to do often. Every time you go down for the count, you lose two hours. Considering it can take one or two hours to reach each new destination via the subway system, that's time you can't afford to lose.

Thankfully, there are ways to cut down the search time. Examine dead bodies and you may find evidence of where Anna hasn't been spotted, eliminating numerous spots around town (and making one wonder how Anna got so popular that everyone in the city seemingly knows her.) There are also quests that you can complete, gathering a certain amount of supplies to eliminate a whole block from your search. These supplies aren't always in the easiest to reach spots, but then that's part of the challenge and the reward is definitely worth it if you want to get in and out of the city on time. Convicts are on the loose, and taking them down can earn you money you'll need for rope ladders and energy drinks.

While it's not the prettiest game in the world, Zombies Took My Daughter still has a certain charm. It's the sound effects that really get to you, though - hearing an undead mutant's pig squeal as it tears into your flesh isn't something you'll forget easily. It must be said that there's something very unnerving about watching a gang of zombies race towards you like you were slathered in BBQ sauce and you have only a crowbar with which to defend yourself.

Zombies Took My Daughter is a frighteningly addictive game - hell, I stopped writing this review at one point to have another go at it. If you platformers, shoot-'em-ups, puzzle games or zombies (or all four), then this is the game for you. Grab your hatchet and your AK-47 and take to the streets!

Ice Bike

2010-07-25T13:17:00.002+01:00

Oh man. You may notice the extreme lateness of this review. I guess I'd just been putting this off. Not for any real reason, if I'm honest. Ice Bike isn't an awful game. It's not particularly good, but it isn't rage-inducing. If anything, the game doesn't incite any emotion whatsoever.

Let's face it: that's far worse than pissing people off. Surely your goal should be to cause some kind of reaction in the player, right? Not so much here. It's a shame because Ice Bike is actually a pretty well made game. You drive a snowmobile around a course in the shortest time possible and everything looks pretty nice.

Nothing jumps out at you, true, but it's perfectly adequate. That's the best way to describe Ice Bike - a thoroughly adequate game.

The graphics? As I've noted, perfectly adequate.
The controls? Turning can be a little slow, but otherwise adequate.
Difficulty? Well, there aren't any penalties (you can't even really crash) and you're not up against a time limit, but the tracks get a bit longer and more twisty, so I suppose it's... adequate.

You see my problem here? How do you review a game that has nothing out of the ordinary? There's nothing about Ice Bike that makes it memorable. It just kind of sits there, like that ornament your aunt Brenda bought you that one time she was on holiday in Cypress and that you never notice until it's time to clean the living room. Why would you bother playing a game like this?

Maybe if you like snowmobiles, you'll get something out of it. But then, depending on where you are in the world, you could just drive a snowmobile. It reminds me a lot of a scene in an old episode of The Simpsons. Bart, forced to stay in school while everyone else goes to the chocolate factory, has to help Principal Skinner seal envelopes. Skinner suggests that Bart make a game of it, seeing how many he can seal in an hour, then trying to break that record. To which Bart replies, "Sounds like a pretty crappy game."

Ice Bike is that crappy game. The only competition is yourself, and I don't mean you have to overcome some inner demons to achieve success. You ride around a course, you see how quickly you did it, then you try to do it faster. Since all of the course are unlocked from the beginning, there's no incentive to beat your record. You do it just because, for want of a better reason.

In a world where there are great games and awful games, Ice Bike ranks somewhere right in the middle. Neither good enough to be a fan favourite nor bad enough to cause waves of gamer rage, it sits on the Information Superhighway like a petrol station you only stop at if you need to stretch your legs, quickly forgotten as soon as you leave.

Doodle God

2010-07-14T21:31:00.003+01:00

Like many people I picked up Peter Molyneux's literal God sim Black & White. The concept of being a deity - choosing whether I wanted people to worship me out of love, respect or fear; raising and training a monster to carry out my godly duties and occasionally eat someone - really piqued my interest. After years of Sim City allowing you to just be mayor, here was a game that allowed you to be the ultimate divine being!

Which was great, except it eventually got a little boring. You see, being a god in Black & White was a lot like being the mayor in Sim City. You did an awful lot of resource gathering and general day to day problem solving, interspersed with the odd monster battle or, if you were bored, people throwing (which, of course, you couldn't really do if you wanted to be a nice god - as if anyone cared about that.) I never played the second game because it apparently took all the things that were fun about the first one and made them kind of suck, but my memories of Black & White remain a few hours of fun, then an ever increasing urge to do something less godly and more fun. I will say, however, that it makes Old Testament God's regular mood swings a lot more understandable. You'd raze a city to the ground too if Geoff from Crop Gathering kept bugging you about the annual reports.

Anyway, this week's game puts you back into the position of god without having to worry about all that administrative stuff. Doodle God simply focuses on the fun part of being the Creator - namely, creating stuff. It's an intriguing little puzzle game that asks you to make a myriad of items by mixing and matching different elements. Starting with earth, wind, fire and water, the goal is to create 115 brand new elements (though the word is used loosely - I don't remember seeing "tree" on the periodic table."

It's a disarmingly simple concept that's easy enough to get sucked into but tricky enough to keep you guessing as you mix up different elements, branching out from the original four to develop more advanced items.

The graphics aren't much to write home about, but then a game like this doesn't really call for anything flashy. Instead, things are kept clear and simple: two columns of elements, pick one from each column and watch them smash together to make something new. Most of the early elements are pretty obvious, but as things get more complicated the combinations become trickier to discern.

Fortunately, you can ask for a hint every now and again that helps point you in the right direction. It's definitely needed, as is some serious lateral thinking. It allows for a nice mental workout, but not one that will leave you screaming at your monitor.

All in all, Doodle God is an intriguing little puzzle game that your Creationist cousin will love. Little touches like the inclusion of a quote by famous figures make for a classy title, and the ability to download the game as an App means you can create the Universe on the move. A wonderful little game.

HeadShot

2010-07-08T21:42:00.002+01:00

As long time readers will know, I'm a big fan of sniper games. There really is nothing more satisfying than watching the head of someone you've never met explode due to a bullet fired from 300 yards away.

Um... anyway, you'll also be aware that when I come across a crappy sniper game (and I've come across many), I like to point it out for ridicule and abuse. What can I say? I'm an jerk like that. That brings us to HeadShot (yes, all one word, and yes, with a capital "S" in the middle, bringing to mind some 90's EXTREEEEME superhero.) The plot goes pretty much like this: with gang-related crime tearing the city apart, the mayor has hired you to secretly kill off all of the gangsters in town. Legal issues aside, what makes the mayor think one guy with a sniper rifle can eliminate all the gangs in his city? If the police and elected officials can't stop the crime wave, what makes him think this one sniper can? Is this guy The Punisher, or something?

Starting the game, I was instantly reminded of another, better sniper game, simply called The Sniper, and set during D-Day. This isn't really surprising to me, as HeadShot is a carbon copy of The Sniper, save for a few missing touches, such as the realistic twitch of the sniper scope, the ragged breathing of the man behind the rifle and kickback after every round. HeadShot has none of these elements and the rather plain, uninspired graphics as well as the basic gameplay doesn't make up for it. It's perfectly serviceable, but "serviceable" just doesn't cut it when a game two years older than yours is five time better.

Also, can someone tell me what's going on with some of these gangsters? What the hell is this guy doing? Is he breakdancing? Is he praying? Some of the characters take the most laughable poses that shooting them in the head is less like execution and more like saving them further embarrassment.

Not that you should really bother aiming for the head. You may be surprised to learn that a game called HeadShot awards you bonus points for shooting gangsters in the head. But no matter how carefully you aim, nine time out of ten a head shot won't register, so it's really not worth the time and effort.

Definitely not the time, anyway. That's another thing that grinds my gears: the time limit on each level. Level one has you searching for five Latinos (oh, that's another thing - all the gangs are handily split up into distinct racial minorities) in an eighty second time limit. Certainly not impossible, though it may take one or two attempts before you spot all the gangsters. But how about when you get to level three and have to shoot 25 "Afros" in the same amount of time? True, that many makes it more like shooting heavily armed fish in a barrel, but there's always going to be those one or two that are hiding behind a wall, or the gun won't load fast enough for you to nail every single one. And what happens when you start to panic and miss shots? That's more time wasted. Why no one thought to increase the time limit in relation to the number of targets, I can't say, but I have the sneaking suspicion they were just too damn lazy to do it.

HeadShot is a bog standard sniper game brought down by unimpressive visuals and stupidly short time limits. I'm sure the guys who made it are really proud, but the guy who makes Tactical Assassin won't be losing any sleep over them.

Exit Path

2010-06-30T23:52:00.002+01:00

All right, I'm starting to get back into the rhythm now, this week reviewing a game that turns the rock all the way up and the suck all the way down. Exit Path is a fun, fast platform game that presents us a tale of a lone individual trying to achieve freedom in a cold, oppressive world.

OK, so it's hardly the most original of concepts, but let's give the game a chance. It sports a very pretty look, with a somewhat stylished, simple layout that's functional while retaining a certain sense of style. True, nothing particularly jumps out at you, but it's a good, consistent look that fits the game's plot.

What really impresses, though, is the gameplay. The animation is fluid and dynamic, with our hero racing through numerous violent death traps in an attempt to escape. What makes things more interesting is the use of the "Flow," a meter that allows you to move at supersonic speeds for a small amount of time. Used effectively, the flow can shave seconds off your time. But if you don't watch your step, you could end up meeting the business end of a flying axe, which makes the game much more frenetic.

Don't worry if you do end up tasting a laser beam or getting crushed by a spiked platform. There are checkpoints on every level to save you the trouble of going through the same obstacles again and again. Plus, like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, death in Exit Path results in time reversing to the last time you weren't being mangled by a giant circular saw. It's a nice little touch and, while we wouldn't miss it if it wasn't there, it's a good example of the effort put into making a high quality game.

Completing levels and collecting caution signs opens up a bunch of options for customising your character, including everything from paper bags to bunny ears. But if you want more, or if you're just tired of the single player game, Exit Path contains a sweet multiplayer option that lets you face off against four others in a race through a number of unique levels. I'm not really one for multiplayer games, what with my general misanthropy, but Exit Path makes it so simple that it's not surprising to lose a lot of time trying to outdo others in a series of high speed contests.

All in all, Exit Path may feature plenty of things we've already seen before, but it's a finely crafted game that offers plenty of entertainment. If you're looking for thrills and speeds through a technological wasteland that seeks only to eviscerate you, then Exit path is the game for you.

Oil Spill Cleaner

2010-06-23T22:30:00.003+01:00

Here I am once again, finally slipping back into my regular schedule after starting a work placement a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, I'm ready to write a review this week. So, is it good game or bad?

Oh.

Well, that's depressing. And with that in mind, I decided to subject myself to a game based on the most depressing news story of the last month, that of the unending oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Yep, Oil Spill Cleaner is a light-hearted (at least, I think it is) little arcade game that I think was trying to transmit an environmentalist message but that got too caught up in upsetting people deeply. Crude oil is flowing into the Gulf at an alarming rate and, in a move that will surprise no one who watched the response to Hurricane Katrina, you and you alone have been given the job of cleaning it up.

Your little boat is equipped with a vacuum designed to scoop the oil out of the water and you work eight hour shifts, between which you can buy upgrades. Above all, you have to stop the oil from reaching the Louisiana coastline, where it will destroy the natural habitat of the animals there and result in those photos of oil-covered seagulls that make my fiancée cry. I will say that Oil Spill Cleaner plays pretty well, but it's no more complicated than having the boat follow your mouse pointer around the screen. It isn't exactly pretty, either. Maybe games that look like they belong on an Atari 2600 are in vogue right now, but in my view the retro thing should be done lightly. At the very least, upgrade your graphics to Commodore 64 level, guys!

The ship upgrades are all effective, I suppose, but what annoys me is how one can't skip an upgrade level, even if you've got the cash. You've got to buy each upgrade in its correct order, which sounds like a waste of money to me (but then, I'm not a government official or the vice-president of a multinational corporation, so what do I know?) What really grinds my gears is that, with every level, the oil spill naturally gets faster. So all you're really doing is keeping pace with the oil. You never really get an advantage over it - in fact, it's pretty depressing to clear up a section of water just to see it turn black again almost instantaneously.

In the end, sometimes you just have to approach the oil in the same manner any self-respecting D & D gamer approaches trolls and kill it with fire. This is actually a lot of fun, but it costs you 10,000 points a shot, so know when to use it - usually when you reach the point of total boredom.

Yes, that would be Oil Spill Cleaner's biggest flaw: for all of the frenetic bouncing back and forth, scooping up crude oil to help save the turtles, the game is remarkably dull. Every level is simply the same slog for 96 seconds, just a little faster. And as the game goes on, you start to understand how those dealing with the real oil spill must feel when they watch millions of gallons of black death seep into the ocean. You never, ever get ahead of the spill and you'll never, ever finish cleaning it up. It's only inevitable that oil will hit the coastline and then you'll have to focus on cleaning that mess up, too. I don't know if this game was supposed to educate or entertain, but it did neither. All it did was make me flail angrily and curse the folly of man. I'm pretty sure video games shouldn't do that.

Destructo Truck

2010-06-03T00:41:00.002+01:00

So here I am, lucky enough to have a few pretty darn good games over the last few days, and thinking about which one I should review for this week's Big Mean Flash Gamer. Tough call, really; adventure, action, puzzles - I've played a pretty wide variety this past week and been thoroughly entertained.

But only one of those games allows me to drive a lorry down a ramp and crash it into a never ending line of buildings. That game is Destructo Truck.

Destructo Truck gets points immediately because it reminds me of the always wonderful Indestructo Tank series. But while those games have you driving along, merrily smashing into enemy aircraft and vehicles, Destructo Truck eschews any meaningful narrative or in-depth character development and instead focuses on building bashing goodness. It's a bit like when Michael Bay told the screenwriters of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen to remove anything that slowed down the pace or gave a hint of character development. Except Revenge of the Fallen was shite and Destructo Truck rocks your socks off.

Still, I expect Mikey boy would appreciate this game. It taps into something that I believe all men have, which is the innate desire to burn things and jump on stuff. All that Destructo Truck asks of you is that you drive as fast as possible down a long ramp, sail off the end and then sit back as your truck barrels through building after building, creating the longest "Smash Streak" possible to access power-ups and bonuses. With the salvage from destroyed buildings you can purchase upgrades for your truck, even redesiging the chassis and body of the vehicle.

That's really all there is to it. In that regard, Destructo Truck probably doesn't have a lot of replay value. But there's something deeply satisfying - even cathartic - about watching a bright yellow truck smash its way through 57 buildings and businesses before rolling slowly to a stop. It's the same reason a game like Burnout is so popular: all the thrill of a grinding car crash straight out a Bourne movie but without the annoyance of serious injury or insurance claims.

Controls are simple - the right arrow to accelerate and the Space bar for everything else. Upgrade rockets, your engine etc. and watch the truck roll trough buildings like they were made of paper. Can't get much better than that! The graphics are exceedlingly simple, but then nobody's playing this for its remarkable visuals. Everything does the job just fine, so while it doesn't win any awards for innovation, one can't fault Destructo Truck for focusing simply on getting the fundamentals right.

Destructo Truck is big, dumb and lots of fun, so it gets a thumbs up for that. It cares little for your serious Earth, revelling instead in a ridiculous concept. and can't help but entertain.

Human Centipede: The Game

2010-05-26T20:24:00.003+01:00

No. No, no, no, no, no. No. Sorry, but no.

I refuse. I refuse to accept this. My eyes are sending me messages but my brain is flat out ignoring them completely. This isn't happening. Jesus, if you're reading this, please come convince me that this isn't happening.

No one would have done this. No one is such a sadist nor such a masochist that they would do this, and certainly not take any kind of pride in this. So, no. This isn't real. There can not possibly be a Human Centipede game.

Oh, God damn it, there is! Why!? WHY!? What kind of monster would do this to the human race? For those fortunate few who have no idea what Human Centipede is, I will try to explain in ways that don't lose you IQ points. Human Centipede is a film about a mad German doctor who decides to create - yes - a human centipede by sewing people together in a messed up conga line, sewn anus to mouth.

There's a trailer; I'm not linking to it. I want you to stop for a moment and consider that someone out there sat down and wrote a script called Human Centipede. That writer then sold that script to a producer who clearly sat back and said, "You know what? I'm gonna take a chance on that centipede film." A director was hired, a director who was serious about working on a film about people who get their mouths sewn to someone else's ass. A cast was brought together, a crew filmed it, it was edited and then released to the world. And now there's a game. A game based on Human Centipede.

My God.

Thankfully, the game differs slightly from the movie. You play the doctor and unfortunately your creations have turned against you. Who knew that if you forced people to survive on the waste of someone else for the rest of their miserable lives, they would get upset? Anyway, it's time to grab a gun and get shooting before your mockery against nature comes back to kill you. All the while you'll need to avoid police officers as well as cars and other items that fall down the screen towards you.

I get the 8-bit look that they're going for, but the bare game screen doesn't do much to capture one's attention. I guess the image of people crawlling down the screen like a deleted scene from the movie Freaks was arresting enough. All the same, there isn't much to say about how the game looks.

There's even less to say about how it plays, either. The controls for Human Centipede are functional but the gameplay is flawed. Firing is especially problematic; you usually have to wait until a shot has hit a target or disappeared before you can fire another. There's not rapidfire options here, which makes the game a far more difficult prospect. The enemies continue to move faster and faster while you remain at the same speed. There's nothing wrong with a challenge, I know, but this gets very frustrating once you get past Level 4.

Maybe I'm being unfair, as I was going to be biased against this game from the moment I first read the title. But you know what? It's Human Centipede - what other reaction was I supposed to have!? This is a crap game based on an offensive film - not offensive in that I'm disgusted by the concept (though I am) but offensive in that this piece of crap got made while I'm still trying to get producers to pay any attention to me! Human Centipede is everything that's wrong with film, the movie business and the human race. Human Centipede: The Game is like a spit in the face after being kicked in the balls.

Enough Plumbers

2010-05-12T23:11:00.003+01:00

Hey, you! Yes, you, the person who isn't my fiancée (thanks for the hits, baby)! You always loved Super Mario Bros. when you were a kid, right?

Sega player? Oh. Me too.

Hey, whatever! What I'm trying to get at is that the Mario games were and remain a perennial favourite of retro gamers. Something about the totally ridiculous concept of of an Italian plumber jumping around a weird, brightly coloured mystical realm in search of a kidnapped princess just struck a chord with people. Well, if you liked guiding one plumber across platforms and pitfalls, you're going to love doing that with fifteen plumbers! Or at least you will if you play Enough Plumbers, a game that combines puzzles, platforms and genetic cloning.

Plenty of games let you create copies of your character and have them carry out tasks to overcome obstacles, but I haven't seen many that have you controlling all of the clones simultaneously. Herein lies some of the challenge in Enough Plumbers. It's up to you to reach the flag on every level, which usually involves creating and sometimes sacrificing clones in order to cross pits and remove walls. Taking its cue from the Mario games by which it is clearly inspired, Enough Plumbers has a bright 8-bit look, simple controls and plinky-plonky MIDI music that you can thankfully mute if it gets too annoying.

This paragraph break is so I can post the above screen shot. Allow me my indulgence; watching the hero take a Superman pose and fly off to the next level can't help but raise a smile.

What helps Enough Plumbers break up the monotony of repetitive jumping, dodging and cloning are numerous power-ups than can help or hinder you if used at the wrong time. Become metal and smash through bricks, down fizzy cola and inflate into a human balloon, or eat mushrooms and experience wild hallucinations where everything is topsy-turvy, left is right and right is left! And while I may be exagerrating the extent of that last power-up's abilities, at least it's a more accurate depiction of what can happen than the Mario games ever gave us.

Just because you feel ten feet tall, doesn't make it so, man.

I will say one thing about this game - it can be a damn struggle to get through. Good hand-eye co-ordination is a must, as is a certain amount of lateral thinking. Even then, sometimes luck just doesn't go your way. Trying to complete the same level again and again is always stressful, but there are some puzzles here that can't help but raise your blood pressure tenfold.

The above level is a perfect example. I need to guide one plumber across the platforms and hit a number of buttons while a second plumber floats perilously close to rows of flame. To make things just a little harder (because hey, why the hell not?) two jumping assholes are also in the way. Maybe you'll manage it on your first try, though the more likely scenario is keyboard smashing and language that would kill a Pope. Fortunately there is a walkthrough for those puzzles that leave you simply dumbfounded.

I don't even know what to say about the final boss. He looks a bit like a cross between Mick Jagger and a gargoyle, and he shoots blue flames that turn you to stone. Difficult to beat, yes, but like everything else in the game there is a strategy to defeating him.

At the end of the day, I really enjoyed Enough Plumbers. It's clever, it's fun and it's challenging without being totally unbeatable. It's the type of game that'll help you easily kill time while also pondering the contribution of gold coins to scientific experimentation.

Ninjack

2010-05-06T18:39:00.003+01:00

I took an impromptu two week break from Big Mean Flash Gamer, but I'm... happy to announce I have returned. And no, I won't be ducking out of the crappy game I should have given you two weeks ago. However, I refuse to give it any more time than I already have, so let's crank this review out in record time as I take a gander at Ninjack.

Or is it NinJack? Jesus, what a pun. Rodney Dangerfield would have turned his nose up at that turd. I can only assume the title comes from the main character's name being Jack and the fact that he's a ninja, though he looks more like a Street Fighter cosplayer from where I'm sitting. The game is a traditional arcade platform affair, with our hero facing off against enemies while trying to gather gold and treasure. Pretty solid concept, but pretty lame realisation.

My problems began almost immediately with that title music. I appreciate going for the old school, retro feel, but good God, that theme is annoying! All the more reason to press the Play button, I guess. You're thrown right into the thick of it almost immediately when some flying ghost thing shoots a blue fireball at you. That's all good, no point wasting time. You have the power to fight back, of course, using the Space bar and directional keys for a variety of attacks. And herein lies our next problem: Ninjack can't fight for shit.

The controls just end up being more complicated than you'd first imagine. You have to hold down the Space bar before pressing one of the directional keys, meaning you can't move and attack. Having to stand there and hope for the best would be OK if almost all your opponents had highly effective ranged attacks. While you have to get close enough to do any damage, then stand absolutely still before striking, these assholes can hurt you from the other side of the screen.

Oh, you've got throwing stars - a whole three. After numerous embarrassing deaths I finally realised that the best strategy is to avoid confrontation whenever possible. Yes, in the arcade game that sees you play a human killing machine, the best way to survive is to run away at every opportunity.

The overall design of the game is packed with flaws. Jumping in tight corners is one of the most frustrating parts of the whole thing - if you don't leap off a ledge at exactly the right spot, you can often find yourself falling back to the platform below you. In Level 2 I came across a phantom platform. Yeah, it looked like it was there, but as soon as I tried to jump on it I sank through the son of a bitch. And to top it all off, the game loves to toss little power-ups and bonuses in places where you have no way of reaching them. A refill for my precious throwing stars sat on a ledge just out of jumping distance, mocking me. Considering neither your health nor your weapons reset between levels, you really need these bonuses.

It all looks pretty, but then people say the same thing about Tila Tequila and she's still a useless waste of organs. By the time you finally figure out the controls, you've already reached the point of not caring. But that's OK - the game's developers clearly reached that point long ago.

Case in point: the third and final level sees you wandering in circles before finally reaching the exit point. Once you've done it, the game... goes immediately back to the title sequence.

That's it? No victory screen? Not even a "You win!"? No, you managed to complete the game and nobody, not even the people who made it, gives a damn. Well, gee, thanks Ninjack. That totally doesn't want to make me toss my computer out the window in anger!

Ninjack is a shoddy, frustrating, pointless little game, its only positive being that it's mercifully short and easily forgettable.

Ghost Guidance

2010-04-14T21:07:00.003+01:00

I want to spend this week looking at a game that I feel has a ton of potential to be a truly great title in the future, but which manages to be pretty entertaining even now. Coming to us from Arcade Bomb, Ghost Guidance provides old school side-scrolling action with an interesting twist on the typical Artificial Intelligence character. Rather than playing a lone warrior trying to tackle an evil supercomputer, this time you are the supercomputer, or at least some kind of self-aware energy orb. Realising that humans are the biggest threat to your continued existence, but that wiping out the entire human race is impractical, you instead decide to escape by taking possession of a rocket ship and hauling ass out of the secret government lab that birthed you.

This is one of the intriguing elements of Ghost Guidance: the ability to jump from one ship to another (as long as it doesn't have some kind of forcefield around it) means you can play in several different ways, utilising each craft's strengths and weaknesses. Effort has been made to really ensure the different vehicles actually feel like different vehicles. The smallest craft are faster and have a higher rate of fire but can be destroyed with a single hit, while tank-like flyers shoot rockets that fly off in all directions. It's possible to play through an entire game using just one kind of ship but finding out what everything does is one of the pleasures of playing.

The game plays and looks really swell, though complaints of lag are justified in Challenge Mode. Still, with a huge number of ships, projectiles and explosions on screen at any one time, it's remarkable that slow down in gameplay was so rare in my experience. When you've got dozens of aircraft whizzing across the screen, it's satisfying to see it all look so damn good.

The old-school feel under a fresh paint job means Ghost Guidance should be popular with older and younger gamers alike. It keeps things simple and is all the better for it. My biggest complaint, however, is that the game is just too short.

There are only three levels overall, with checkpoints in all three so that you don't have to repeat a whole level should you die. That's all well and good, but the levels are hardly long enough to justify checkpoints, anyway. If the game was longer then this would make sense. As it stands, though, the whole thing is over in less than ten minutes. Great for coffee breaks, but not so great if you're looking for something with a lot of replay value.

Another issue is the ease with which the bosses can be defeated. Sure, they're big and you have to avoid falling debris as they break apart, but more often than not there's a single spot where you can stay and fire continuously at the boss without fear of being killed. For gamers who enjoy a real challenge and like the sense of accomplishment that comes with defeating a boss, this would be a major letdown.

Still, I can see great potential in Ghost Guidance. Many times I deride a game for its compelling concept but wasted opportunities. Ghost Guidance has a similar, though less extreme, problem. It embraces some of its innovations and unique elements but doesn't go quite far enough. Hopefully a sequel is imminent - something greater in scope and longer in duration, but still featuring the excellent tweaks that make the original a small pleasure.

The Robbers

2010-04-08T00:32:00.002+01:00

Oh God. I hate this. I hate this whole thing. I hate reviewing these awful, awful games, even it is down to once a fortnight. I can't believe there was a time when I did this twice a week. What was I thinking? See, the "bad game" reviews are always posted so late because I just can't bring myself to actually write about these monstrosities. Every word is like an ice pick through the temple. It inspires nothing but pure, unadulterated rage and depression, and that usually gets directed straight at the source of my anger. This week, that would be The Robbers.

Oh Jesus, how I hate this game. Hate it with the fiery intensity of a million suns! What an ugly, awkward, frustrating game this is. It makes one wish they suddenly lost all five senses so none of them would be sullied by this terrible game. Yes, even the sense of smell, such is the horrendous stink of The Robbers.

Why is it so bad? Look, can you just take my word for it this one time and save me the hassle of writing another 500 words on the subject? No, of course you can't, because anyone who reads this on a weekly basis is a sadist and I am your bitch. OK, where to begin. First of all, it's a puzzle game that wants to be a platformer that wants to be... I don't know, Kitten Cannon. You've got three robbers, and each of them has a skill. One can climb walls, one bounces off walls and one can push things. None of that sounds the least bit impressive, but you don't need a PhD in theoretical physics to smash in a window.

And by God, does this game look ugly! They were probably going for something gritty, urban, stylised. They ended up with garbage. Are the robbers even human? I can't tell. The big one looks like some kind of ape creature. You've got a limited amount of time to reach a big jewel and you move the characters around by clicking and dragging the mouse. In a miniature golf sim, that works fine. In anything else it's slow and annoying. In The Robbers it's so frustrating that it makes me want to chew a pigeon. Jesus, that last sentence doesn't even make sense! Why would anyone do that!? This game is driving me insane!

Half the levels aren't even possible! I should have known exactly what I was getting myself into when I was trying to get bouncy boy past a rotating platform. Nine times out of ten it can't be done. No matter how strongly you throw the characters they don't jump for squat. When this guy hits a wall he goes frickin' crazy, bouncing off every available surface. But you've still got to get him over this platform and he just doesn't move fast enough to do. If you could jump again in mid air things would be much easier, but you can't do that either. Even if you manage to land on the platform, you'll never jump off it fast enough to keep from slipping back down to the ground. It's a good thing the first eight levels are unlocked from the start or I wouldn't have seen any more of the game.

Wait, that's not a good thing at all!

Most of the time all you can do is set the power to maximum and pray for a miracle because God knows there is no way the average human gamer could figure out a real strategy for success. Half the time the puzzles are just completely moronic, anyway, like the level that sees the big guy Brute overcome obstacles by jumping up again and again and again. Or how about the climber trying to reach a jewel as one of the walls closes in? The wall moves so fast that you can't possibly reach the jewel in time, and even if it didn't get caught behind the wall you're not able to climb up there anyway. You'd think if the walls were closer together it would make jumping from one to the other easier, but apparently The Robbers is set in Crazy Cuckoo Land, where common sense doesn't exist!

To hell with this game! Let it burn in the pits of Hades for all eternity! Oh God... God, this game is awful!

Robot Wants Kitty

2010-03-31T23:32:00.002+01:00

Welcome back to Big Mean Flash Gamer, and after last week's vitriol I'm sure you're all set for awesomeness. Well, I've got it in spades with today's game, a wonderful little puzzle/platformer from our good friends Max Games entitled Robot Wants Kitty.

Sometimes it really is the simplest concepts that make for the best games. Take Robot Wants Kitty, for instance. There's a robot and a cat. The robot really wants the cat. Like, really wants it. But there's a snag. The cat is stuck at the end of a hallway which has been bricked over by monsters. Why did they do that? They're just assholes, I guess.

When the game begins you're not able to do much more than run left and right. You don't even have the ability to jump, so all you can do at first is try to avoid the baddies completely. Fortunately there's an upgrade that gives you a spring in your step not too far away; others are dotted around the large, labyrinthine level and you'll need every one if you're going to rescue that kitty. Better get a move on, though, because time is of the essence and your score is dependent on how quickly you can complete the game. The bad news is that dying adds twenty seconds to your final time. The good news is that you can cut a second for every monster you kill with the laser upgrade.

As if I ever needed a reason to shoot red monsters with a laser gun. But once you've got the laser in your little metallic paws none of the beasties are particularly troublesome, allowing you to figure your way around the many twists and turns of the level as you try to locate keys, upgrade your system and get to that cat.

Which isn't to say Robot Wants Kitty becomes a cakewalk as soon as you have some firepower. You still need to watch your step, lest you fall into a pit of boiling acid or get caught off guard by a roaming monster. But checkpoints have been kindly placed throughout the game to save you having to march all the way across the level to get back to wherever it was you died. Other games should take note of this - it saves time and keeps the player from screaming curses to your good name late into the night.

Don't tell me I'm not the only one who does that because I'm not.

The look and feel of the game is charmingly retro, with clunky 8-bit graphics and a plinking MIDI soundtrack that amazingly doesn't make one want to swallow their own tongue in annoyance. I will admit that if you don't pay attention you can get the controls mixed up; on more than one occasion I rocketed towards an enemy when I had planned to vaporise it. If you ever kicked back on a Spectrum or Amstrad, however, Robot Wants Kitty should bring back fond memories.

Death is naturally inevitable and, to be honest, some areas just set you up to fail. For example, don't shoot at the giant multi-eyed blue blob that spits laser bubbles into the air. Just don't do it. You can't kill it, even with rapid-fire shots. You're just going to piss it off and then it's going to crush you. Likewise, the ceiling decked out in acid-spitting stalactites is just taking the piss. You can get through there with a rocket pack but if you don't figure out the almost non-existent pattern of drops you'll be melted before you ever get close to the other side of the room. And no, you don't have to run through that room, but what are ya, chicken?

Still, it's all worth it when you reach that end game scene and see the robot happily hugging his kitty. Squeezing it ever so tightly, kitty's eyes bulging out of its sockets... um, maybe we should take the kitty away from the robot? We can't? The lasers? Oh, right.

So, yes, Robot Wants Kitty - proving once and for all that even metal men are capable of love.

Games2Win

2010-03-24T23:40:00.002Z

I'd like to try something a little different this week. I know there have been some changes with Big Mean Flash Gamer recently, and I know I'm expected to review a crappy game this week, but I have something else in mind. It's actually a review I've wanted to write for quite some time, and since I can't be bothered to spend any more time looking for something to review I might as well do it this week. Instead of focusing on one single game that raises my ire, I'm going to review an entire website of games - games so consistently bad that I could pick one at random every week for the next year and still have enough to see me well into 2011.

What site could possibly produce so many steaming piles of dung, week in and week out? Who else but Games2Win.com?

Games2Win have a very shrewd business plan, one that keeps overheads low and income high: just keep making the exact same game over and over and over. And I don't mean games that are similar; I mean the exact same game. If it's a Games2Win title, then it's either about kissing, dressing up or taking photographs. Maybe you have to park a car, but that's as complicated as it gets (and my hatred of parking games should come as a surprise to no one with a brain.) Every new game is simply the last one with a new paint job - it's the equivalent of a shady used car salesman selling you back your own car with a new chassis.

But who cares if the games are all the same? AC/DC have been making the same record for almost forty years and no one gives them crap about it. The difference is AC/DC rock your socks off while these games blow chunks. Oh, they're put together well, but it's still very basic stuff, lacking the spark or ingenuity you find in online favourites. You'd think, after 18,000,000 attempts, they'd at least know how to make a fun dress-up game, but you'd be wrong and I'd laugh at your gullibility.

Another issue I have with Games2Win is its depiction of men and women. They can't decide whether women are shallow ditzes with only boys, shopping and more boys on their mind or evil harpies who tear your heart into pieces while cackling maniacally. Men fare no better; depending on who's coding the game males are either wimpy nice guys (even when they're bad boys) or total bastards. Three-dimensional characters? Games2Win need not such things.

It's actually depressing in a way, because all of their games directed at girls and young women are based around pleasing men, while all the games directed towards guys see you hopelessly debasing yourself for a dream girl (that is, when the game isn't trying to entice you with pathetic attempts at titillation.)

I know, if the games are so bad, I could have just picked one, knocked out a few hundred words and kicked back for the rest of the evening. But Games2Win produce titles of such consistently poor quality that I finally snapped. This is a site that produces more rubbish than Addicting Games and FOG.com combined and it shows little sign of slowing down. The only word to truly describe Games2Win is ricockulous - that any game site can be so totally devoid of innovation, imagination or fun boggles the mind.

Sushi Cat

2010-03-18T11:49:00.003Z

I don't know what it is about the Japanese and extreme weight gain. I mean, I know compared to some of the things you find in Japanese media, that's pretty damn vanilla, but it's still kind of weird. Ironically, becoming ridiculously fat is the goal of this week's good game, Sushi Cat. A product of Armor Games, who rarely put a foot wrong when it comes to their titles, it's a Flash version of Plinko with the disc replaced by a gelatinous blue cat. This is not as terrifying as it sounds.

Said cat is trying to meet the tabby of his dreams, but through several twists of fate he can never seem to reach her. His solution is to become incredibly fat. No, I don't know what the thought process is there, but it is a cat, so naturally we're not going to understand everything he does. Actually, there are real reasons as to why he attempts to grow bigger, but I just find it more humorous if you think the cat's just weird and his would-be girlfriend is a feeder.

The game is composed of fifteen levels; in which one you must eat thirty pieces of sushi to continue to the next. This is done by deciding a place to drop your cat and releasing him with a click of the left mouse button. Down he tumbles, bouncing off platforms and nomming his way through many a piece of raw fish. I am always amazed at how fattening sushi is in these games. I can only assume it's based on reality, though I always thought fish was a pretty low fat dish. Still, there are other elements that might contribute to the high calorie count...

Big Mean Flash Gamer - where pointless tangents equal good copy.

It must be said that Sushi Cat looks very, very pretty. The levels are grouped together into three separate zones and each zone has a distinctive look. They also have bonuses and obstacles specific to their zone, helping to deflect accusations of repetition and giving the player a real sense of progress.

The cut scenes are also wonderfully rendered and tell a charming tale that starts out cute but actually becomes slightly disconcerting by the end. When the cat loses sight of his love, it's kind of strange that his reaction is to try collecting lots of dolls that look like her. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but... no, wait, that is what I'm saying. That's kind of creepy, Sushi Cat.

Of course, good looks don't mean squat without good gameplay, and here Sushi Cat acquits itself well. This is a game that's easy to learn but hard to master, and especially around the halfway mark there are a couple of levels that might prove difficult. But, in all honesty, this isn't a hard game to beat. If you've got fifteen or twenty minutes you shouldn't have too much trouble completing it. Fortunately there's enough to hold your attention for that long - in the latter levels, certainly, watching your tubby kitty get squeezed, stretched and bounced around is amusing. It's also pretty crazy to watch just how fat this cat can get. I mean, this is one cat who needs to run his ass around the block a few times.

A combination of cute and creepy, then, Sushi Cat tells us that it's OK to become morbidly obese for the one you love. I'm not really sure if that's a message we should be telling our children, but at least the game is fun. If you're a fan of Japanese cuisine, Plinko or Tarepanda, you might be a fan of Sushi Cat.

Mobster Roulette 2

2010-03-11T20:41:00.003Z

Apologies for the late edition, folks, but I'm catching up on work and here with a scrappy, crappy game for your perusal (or rather, dismissal.) Coming hot on the heels of its predecessor, Mobster Roulette 2 is that most idiosyncratic of things, a strategy game with no strategy - or fun, for that matter.

It seems you lost $30,000 in a crooked card game and now you've got 24 hours (well, 2400 seconds) to pay it back to the gangsters you borrowed it from. Sounds like hard work, doesn't it? Well, it is, made all the harder by the minimal methods by which you can raise the cash. Mobster Roulette 2 is composed of several mini-games, none of which have had a lot of thought or effort put into them.

The simplest way to guarantee some money is by smuggling weapons across the border, which pays a cool $1,000. The game itself is simple enough: drive your car down a perfectly straight piece of highway, avoiding road signs and oil slicks as well as the cops, and reach the border before time runs out or the vehicle suffers too much damage. As far as driving games go, it's not the worst but I've seen far better, and winning isn't all that difficult. You could easily raise $30,000 just by doing this over and over again, but that would get as monotonous as it sounds, so let's see how else we could make some dough.

Ah yes, gambling - because that's worked so well for us so far. Again, there's nothing mind-blowing about these games. The blackjack game is straightforward and technically fine. It's a perfectly acceptable and adequate mini-game. But I could play far more interesting versions of blackjack online and not have to worry about some time limit coming down on me. Mobster Slots has the same issue - it isn't a bad game, just not a great one either. To be honest I've never seen the appeal of slot machine games online, unless you're working for some kind of reward, so there wasn't much motivation to keep on playing.

Strangely, I had my best success on the roulette table. I was able to guess correctly most of the time and tended to go with safe bets rather than pick a specific number, so I won a pretty penny. I suppose it makes sense that a game called Mobster Roulette 2 would feature a pretty decent roulette game. Perhaps if they'd focused on that instead of a bunch of lame mini-games, it would have made for a better final product. As it is, the roulette is simply good. But whoever runs this casino may want to read up on child labour laws, because the person in charge of the table sounded a lot like a little girl.

There's one other method of raising cash that I can't help but feel was added in the vain hope of causing a little controversy. If you get tired of running guns to Mexico and losing cash at the blackjack table (and you will), you can always grab your gun and just start shooting people on the street. There aren't any consequences for doing it, so grab a 12-gauge and blow 'em away! It's a bit gratuitous, all things considered, and you never earn more than nine or ten dollars per person. As a way of breaking up the tedium, however, it's great.

On the off chance you actually have some spare money, you can spend it sprucing up your home, which is looking remarkably bare; I guess borrowing from the Mob really was the last resort. Why you'd do this and what it has to do with the main plot of the game, I have no idea, but I'm guessing it awards you bonus points at the end. Regardless, it's just an unappealing garnish on a meal that didn't look very good to begin with.

In fact, nothing in Mobster Roulette 2 is very appealing. It's a game that looks and plays in a very workmanlike fashion. It's almost as if the developer released a beta, having not yet added the final touches to make the game more interesting. As it stands I just couldn't be bothered spending forty minutes to find out how it might end. There isn't enough to hold your attention for forty seconds, if I'm completely honest. Mobster Roulette 2 is a functional, acceptable game that holds little appeal and less staying power. In terms of gangster games, this one barely ranks as a common hood.

Robot Unicorn Attack

2010-03-03T21:52:00.003Z

You know, I'm ecstatically happy that I've started alternating my reviews between good and bad games because I don't think I could have waited until Christmas to comment on the sheer awesomeness that is Robot Unicorn Attack.

Robot. Unicorn. Attack. Jesus Christ. Why did it take so long for this idea to come about? This is what the internet was made for, people! There's no way to objectively examine this game, so excuse me while I figuratively fellate this piece of insane genius for the next 500 words.

Robot Unicorn Attack has you - oh God, do I even need to explain it!? If there's any justice in the world, you've already played this game! You should already know what it's about! But for the three of you who might not be aware of this incredible game's existence, I will try to outline the concept for you. You play a robot unicorn. You have three wishes (lives) that you spend racing across purple platforms, leaping through the air and leaving a rainbow trail behind you. You score points by collecting fairies and running through stars. Meanwhile "Always" by British synth-pop duo Erasure plays on a continuous loop.

It is the most amazing thing I have witnessed in my twenty-five years on this Earth.

There are only two buttons: Z to jump, X to dash. You must dash through stars or you will crash. What happens when you dash through stars? They friggin' explode! YEAH! You travel at the speed of sound, leaving a sonic boom with every mid-air leap. You become a robot unicorn Flash every time you dash. Like Canabalt, another awesome game that received the thumbs up from me, you can't stop running and must continue forward no matter how fast and chaotic things get. But why would you want to stop!? You're a shooting star, leaping through the skies, like a tiger defying the laws of gravity! You're a racing car, passing by like Lady Godiva!

What does that even mean? Who cares, it's awesome!

And there are dolphins! Dolphins who fly through the air and are your friends! This game has everything! It even has a violent death for the robot unicorn, exploding upon impact with walls or stars, the robot head flying towards the player. And through it all Erasure continues to play, until you have no choice but to sing along, determined to live in harmony, harmony, OH LOVE with the rest of humanity... just as soon as you have one more go.

But it'll never be just one more. Oh no - you play Robot Unicorn Attack once and you're hooked for life. There's no one thing that brings you back; it's the collective brilliance of everything coming together in one perfect package that makes Robot Unicorn Attack so God damn addictive. Take it as ironic humour or an earnest desire to spread joy into the hearts of cynical gamers.

This is you.

This is you after ten second of Robot Unicorn Attack.

That's how good it is.

Oh God, why am I even writing this!? I should be playing this game! We should all be playing it! Reading such heart-warming motivational phrases like, "Shoot for the Moon!", "May all your wishes come true!" and, um, "Persistence is futile!" Destroying stars, collecting fairies, running and dolphins! This is what all games should aspire to!

Robot Unicorn Attack. God damn...

Immortall

2010-02-24T23:38:00.004Z

Well, here we are once again, and observant readers will know that this week I look at a game that sucks. As per usual, I spent my evening frantically searching for something sufficiently awful to rip into. But on my journey into the heart of mediocrity I found something far more intriguing - the second most depressing game I've ever played.

The most depressing game (if you can call it that) was developed by Nifflas and had you take on the role of an executioner killing a man by firing squad. If you shot the man, every time the game loaded you would be presented with his corpse, still blindfolded and tied to a post. The game's message was that all actions had long-lasting consequences and made me examine the fragility and importance of life in a new way. It also left me utterly despondent.

So congratulations to Evan Miller and Armor Games; with Immortall you almost made me feel just as much despair.

Immortall starts off with a pretty simple premise: small alien crash lands on Earth and meets a little girl. The little girl introduces the alien to her big brother who's too cool for school, but not too cool for apple picking. They kind of hang out and walk to their house, where the alien meets the children's parents.

The parents kind of freak out at first, but they're OK after a minute. So everyone is chillaxing and you all decide to just go for a walk. So far, so good; the alien has ingratiated himself to a bunch of cool humans and is getting a taste for Earth and all it has to offer. That's about the time our group walk into a war zone and start getting shot at.

Woah, woah! What the hell just happened!? Did this family not notice the fucking war happening right next to their house? How is that possible? And why are all the soldiers so desperate to kill them? Did the alien befriend the Von Trapp family? Jesus!

With no other way to defend themselves, you have to use your body to shield them. And there's a lot to shield them from! Twenty seconds ago you were strolling through an orchard. Now you're riddled with so many holes you look like Martian Swiss cheese!

You spurt green blood everywhere as soldiers, tanks and bombers blow the crap out of you and the family huddle together, shaking in fear. This is an emotional 180 the likes of which I've rarely seen. It's like watching Big Bird cut himself or Bugs Bunny get the shit kicked out of him by a bunch of rednecks outside a truck stop.

Naturally, the more you get shot, the weaker you become. As you get weaker, you move slower. You move too slowly and members of the family start to die. A shell took out the father and son; the little girl got taken down with machine gun fire. And still you walk on like a retard, knowing that everyone is dead and it's all your fault.

And then you die. And it begins to snow. And the snow covers your corpse as women cry. That is how the game ends. Regardless of how many people you save, you always die at the end. The music slows to a crawl until the player is left watching a scene of death and destruction in total silence. But it's not over yet, because then you get the message, the raison d'etre for this game's existence:

"Live." Live? How am I supposed to live when I stroll into a battleground and no one thinks, "Maybe we shouldn't shoot at the ten foot tall alien?" God damn this game! I know I should make the most of my life - you didn't have to blow children up to tell me that!

I can't complain about the graphics; it looks great. I can't complain about the gameplay or controls; they're perfectly adequate. But such is the soul-crushing despair and hopelessness of the game that I'm left emotionally numb by it. I honestly don't know whether to recommend you play Immortall or avoid it completely. All I do know is, I want a hug.

Balloon In A Wasteland

2010-02-18T00:24:00.004Z

So here it is, the start of a new era in Big Mean Flash Gamer history. Remember the date, 17th of February 2010: the day I started reviewing games I regularly enjoy. Never fear, every second week will see me spitting vitriol as per usual, but in an attempt to keep things interesting (and for the sake of my own sanity) I've decided that it's time to relax a little and enjoy my online gaming again. And where better to start than Armor Games' delightful shoot-'em-up adventure Balloon In A Wasteland?

Rarely does a title fully convey the true nature of a game like Balloon In A Wasteland. The plot is simple and to the point - you play a figure who looks remarkably like Mr Game and Watch wearing a snazzy hat. While floating along on the crisp evening breeze in your hot air balloon you hit a spot of bother and crash land on a desolate grey landscape. Now you must repair the balloon and fly away as quickly as possible.

And when I do mean quickly, because the wasteland is populated by strange gelatinous creatures that intend to very slowly eat you. Fortunately you have two things they don't: a gun and an unlimited supply of ammo. And since Mr Game and Watch has no concept of right and wrong I wouldn't be surprised if this ammo was intended for Marxist guerrillas hiding in the mountains beyond the wasteland.

From this simple seed (fix balloon, kill monsters) grows a remarkably satisfying game. With every creature you kill you are rewarded with cold, hard cash, which you can use to buy upgrades from the many travelling salesmen who pass through (why none of these men don't just give you a lift to the nearest town is unclear, but chances are rescuing the only customer in a hundred mile radius would be bad for business.

Items like the fort will come in very handy because, eventually, the number of beasties onscreen during a wave reaches ridiculous levels. Fortunately you can't be hurt while in the fort and you also get a chance to sleep, regaining some much needed stamina. The bad news is you can't shoot from the fort, but once you've earned enough cash to buy some turrets they can fight back against the creatures while you get some shut-eye.

Of course, the waves just become more ferocious as the creatures get bigger and tougher, which is why my advice to anyone who plays this game is to save up your money for one of the greatest inventions in history - the automatic assault rifle!

Mow down wave after wave of jelly monsters as they try to navigate your fiendishly placed traps! Curse under your breath as your clip empties in two seconds and you have to wait at least three for it to reload! Revel in how easy the game becomes as soon as you've got your mitts on this glorious weapon!

Indeed, if there was one fault with Balloon In A Wasteland, it's that the game becomes far too easy once you have the more effective weapons. There’s an achievement for repairing your balloon in four days, but the truth is you could easily do it in two. Once you've got a fort and a decent gun, as well as a few mines and barbed wire fences to slow down the baddies, you're sitting pretty for as long as you want to blast away at the monsters.

This is where boredom can set in, so eventually you'll complete your repairs and float off to new adventures. And hey, it couldn't happen to a nicer silhouette. While Balloon In A Wasteland can get repetitive, there's no denying it's a fun game. The graphics excellent and the animation is fluid, while the controls are simple and the game mechanics solid. I do wish the bloody high score table that doesn't seem to work properly for me wasn't there and the achievements didn't reset every time you loaded the game, but they're just niggling complaints. Overall Balloon In A Wasteland is a great way to kill fifteen minutes and comes highly recommended.

Advanced Ninja

2010-02-12T00:03:00.003Z

You've no doubt noticed the rather sporadic updates over the last few weeks, as well as the numerous missed deadlines, and I'd like to apologise for that. My timekeeping has been haphazard at best recently, but that's no excuse not to get a review up every Wednesday, as I have done almost every week since October 2007.

The truth is I'm probably feeling some serious burnout right now. Plus, you can only play so many awful games before you just never want to look at one ever again. So how do I tackle this issue? I suppose the answer is pretty obvious - balance out the garbage with games I actually enjoy playing. That's why, from now on, Big Mean Flash Gamer will look at the best as well as the worst, alternating between good and bad every week. Next week I'll review a game I like. This week? Oh, this week, you better believe I'm bringing you some crap.

Advanced Ninja is a platform game in which you control a stick figure ninja through some weird pseudo-futuristic underground labyrinth, using a grappling hook to overcome obstacles as well as your natural ninja skills. Sounds decent, right? Well, yeah, it does. But in practice it's about as enjoyable as dental surgery without anaesthetic.

Actually, I take that back. At least with the dental surgery you'll eventually black out.

The game looks... OK. I've seen worse looking titles, and at least the character gives the appearance of a ninja. But let's be honest here - if you had the choice between playing this simplistic platformer or something that looks and plays brilliantly like Nitrome's Final Ninja, which would you prefer?

Actually, if I remember correctly, the hero of Final Ninja also uses a grappling hook occasionally, except when you use his the controls don't seem broken as hell. For a game that essentially uses five buttons (W, A, S, D and the left mouse button) it doesn't say much that only three of them work all the time - and no, the jump button isn't one of them.

I lost count of the number of times I'd fall fifty feet to the floor (or even better, into a vat of acid) because my character suddenly lost the ability to jump or grab hold of a ledge. What you find yourself doing, then, is applying the grappling hook to each and every situation. You use it to jump over walls, to navigate platforms and - my favourite - to climb up slopes, because either the entire ground is layered with oil or your ninja lacks the ability to walk uphill.

And could someone tell me what the hell is going on here?

How did he end up in an asteroid field? This level just appears between two underground zones without rhyme or reason. And it's frustrating as all hell because, naturally, you can't just jump from one rock to the next. No, you have to grapple your way across the screen to the door - then grapple your way back because the door is locked and you have to find a button to unlock it. Not that I mind doing stuff like that; I just don't appreciate getting thrown into a random situation without any understanding of what the hell I'm supposed to do.

But the worst moment, above all the others, was this point with three collapsing platforms. Collapsing platforms, you think, what's the big deal? You just jump from one to the next and you get where you need to go. Oh, sure, that's what you'd do in any other game. But in Advanced Ninja the platforms fall if you so much as set a foot on them. And this is where the broken jump button really comes along to screw you over, because it's almost impossible to jump off fast enough. I was starting wonder why a game this amateurish was called Advanced Ninja, and then I realised it's because you need the reflexes of an actual ninja to win.

You have to have the patience and poise to overcome the God awful control system and deal with the jerky, unappealing graphics to achieve victory. It's a game designed to separate the true ninja from guys who just like dressing in black. Which is fine, if you really want to know your ninja level. Me? I wanted to play a good game. My advice is to grab your grappling hook and swing away as quickly as possible.

Pro Skate

2010-01-28T00:09:00.003Z

Another week, another sub par skate game. I know, with my crappy balance and crappier knees, I'm never going to tear up a half pipe any time soon. Still, I like to pretend I could grind my way down city streets, usually living vicariously through the characters of games like this week's victim, Pro Skate. Except when I fantasised, I was never a gangly drunk apparently without a skeleton.

Pro Skate isn't really a skating game. It's more of a balance game, riding from one end of a two-dimensional track to the other without falling. The goal is to do this as quickly as possible while picking up stars for extra points and grinding along rails. All in all, there isn't much to the skating; your mode of transport just happens to be a skateboard, but it could be anything and it wouldn't make the game any less enjoyable than it already is - by which I mean, not at all.

In fact, sticking this loose-limbed relative of Forrest Gump on a bike or in a car probably would have made the game slightly better. The controls are so damn sensitive that he spins left and right with the slightest of taps, crashing in a heap of barely attached body parts. He moves like someone dressed up a crash test dummy and nailed it to a skateboard. Why the game designers thought a rag doll was a good idea, I'm not sure, but as the skaters arms flail wildly back and forth I'm left feeling rather confused.

The one thing that gets you more than anything else is the complete lack of sound. There's no theme music; there are no sound effects save for one grunt at the beginning of each level, like it pains the game every time it has to load the next track. Well, I'm sorry, Pro Skate, I didn't realise I was being such a burden on you!

It's so unnervingly quiet that I actually had to put on some music just so I would have a noise, any noise - anything but the awful silence that filled the room while I played. That's never something I've had to do before. I got through Platform Robot 2 without sound, and that's unquestionably the worst game in human existence! But Pro Skate's eerie quiet left me feeling as if something was trying suck my brain out through my eye sockets.

The game takes place in a construction yard for reasons I couldn't begin to fathom. Most skating games take place in, well, skate parks. Some take place on city streets. Not many are set on building sites for the simple reason that it would be retarded to skate in a bloody building site. Regardless, you skate one, trying not to fall over (and failing, repeatedly) while collecting stars. The stars, it seems can only be gathered if you touch them with your skateboard; I went right through plenty in the course of playing with no result. That's really all there is to it. Unlike other games of this type, Pro Skate doesn't feature any tricks. You can hold onto the board by pressing the "C" key if you want to flip in the air, but why bother? You'll probably just land on your head and you get more points for just finishing the level quickly.

I found that the best strategy was just to move slowly across the screen, not attempting to do anything other than reach the end. It got me to the later levels but it was, naturally, about as exciting as Sundays with your grandmother.

Lacking good gameplay, good controls and good graphics, as well as any sounds at all (which I don't normally comment on, but which in this case just bugged me) Pro Skate is an ironic title, if ever I heard one. There's no real skating, and none of it happens in a professional environment. Every level is the same bland grey with a generic city silhouette in the background. There's no enjoyment to be gleamed from winning, and losing is far too easy. Considering there are already some really great skating sims out there, Pro Skate had to deliver far more than a slapdash balancing game to garner anything other than apathy.

LOLCat Escape

2010-01-20T23:59:00.002Z

So I didn't post a review last week, probably due to fatigue and/or laziness. OK, laziness. Unfortunately, while I was away the Internet got all freaky with its bad self. LOLCat Escape is why you don't let memes breed. It takes two random items and throws them together in an attempt to be funny but is eventually nauseating.

LOLCat Escape combines something I find harmless and sometimes funny (LOLCats) with something I generally find annoying (escape games.) I don't hate all escape games, you understand. What irritates me the most about them is that the puzzles so often lack any logic. Without a walkthrough there to guide your way, you can often find yourself randomly clicking on every available spot in the hopes of finding some clue as to what the next move is. Now add to that cat macros, which by their very nature are nonsensical, and you have a recipe for disaster.

The goal is to locate nine cats hidden somewhere around an MS Paint house. I know it's pointless to say, but God damn, this is an ugly game! Most escape games have the simplest graphics possible, but Jesus! It didn't help that the music from the "Hamster Dance" played over the title screen. If you're looking for a game that slowly leaves you rubbing your eyes and nursing a migraine, then LOLCats Escape is the game for you. God, I can't even look at these screenshots!

LOLCats Escape lulls you into a false sense of security. The front door is locked, so you look for a key. Where is the key most likely to be? Under the welcome mat. Along the way, random points on the screen can be clicked to reveal LOLCats. These are, by and large, the best thing in the game. I wound up searching for these pictures, because God knows I couldn't figure out the puzzles. I'd throw random items at more random items and hope something happened. I'd try to determine whether certain macros were clues and later find I was right, but I was clicking the wrong spot on the screen so nothing would work. I was left as confused as a pensioner looking at 4chan. I had almost no clue how to get anywhere in this game, even when I could see the solution right in front of me.

My only other option was to try the game's walkthrough, but you look at that thing and tell me if it's of any benefit! Look, I already feel like crap having to use a walkthrough; I don't need the walkthrough itself talking to me like I'm a retarded Muppet.

Wandering aimlessly around a badly drawn house full of LOLCats for twenty minutes is not fun to me. I don't think it's fun to the people who made this game. This is yet another shoddy, confusing, illogical puzzle game, and really, those guys at Addicting Games have only themselves to blame for being mentioned in another review. A little quality control never hurt anyone, fellas. To them and the game's developers I have but one thing left to say.

Smash Boxing

2010-01-06T23:34:00.003Z

Hello and welcome to the first Big Mean Flash Gamer of 2010 - indeed, of the decade. Following last week's abomination, I hope you can understand when I say this week's game isn't as woefully awful as you'd usually expect. Honestly, I don't know if I'll ever find anything that reached the heights/plumbed the depths (delete as appropriate) of Platform Robot 2 ever again.This is not something I cry myself to sleep over. But so great was that - ugh - game's impact on me, I retreated to something that was poor, but which didn't make me want to eat my own face.

Smash Boxing is a 2D flash beat-'em-up in which four gangs vie to be kings of the street, or something, through a series of bareknuckle boxing matches. Naturally it's all very dark and gritty, with tough hoods engaging in no holds barred fisticuffs. Or at least that's the idea.

One positive thing that struck me was the impressive number of characters available. Each gang has five members, giving you a full roster of twenty to choose from. What's not so hot is how every character looks so ridiculously stereotypical, meaning it's hard to take any of them seriously. They remind me of what network executives working on 1980s TV dramas thought inner city gangs looked like. If these guys making stupid macho faces actually walked through South Central LA, they'd probably end up stripped of their clothing and tied to a lamp post outside the local VFW hall. Those characters who don't look like idiots just look scared and/or stoned, neither qualities one looks for in a street fighter.

The game itself looks OK. It's not great, but it doesn't annoy or induce a migraine. The graphics are pretty much like everything else in Smash Boxing. The controls? They're OK. The animation? It's all right. The music? Generic, but it's not awful. Such is the paucity of ideas or innovation that Smash Boxing becomes a victory in mediocrity, if nothing else.

Anyway, the game takes place in some kind of basement or alley with a boxing ring surrounded by barbed wire ropes. Doesn't that sound just a little bit like overkill, guys? Every street fight I've ever watched on Youtube has been little more than two fat men stripping to the waist and throwing wild, drunken punches. Even Fight Club kept things simple with a padded floor. It doesn't really matter, as the ropes are nothing more than a barrier for the sprites and you don't get hurt for walking up to them. It just seems so over the top that, again, any sense of drama is erased. The characters' movements are solid, if unspectacular, but hit detection and character reactions are poor. You can easily find yourself eating half a dozen punches without any chance of escape. Not being able to punch as you move backwards is also a problem; in fact, if you want to punch or hold guard, you have to stop moving completely. Attacking and defending on the move is a big part of actual boxing, so it doesn't say much for the developers of Smash Boxing that they couldn't do anything to improve the lacklustre controls.

Winning this game isn't actually all that difficult. Victory comes down to stamina above all else. Pick the guy with the highest amount of stamina and you'll be able to throw more blows for a longer period of time. Your gameplan should basically be this:

1. Step in.
2. Throw a jab.
3. Step out.
4. Repeat.

You can go in and throw haymakers and uppercuts if you want, weaving around your opponent's punches, but why bother? You're just going to tire yourself out, leaving yourself defenseless. Walk in, punch, walk away - as long as you don't get caught up in an actual fight, it's the surest path to victory.

Now, tell me this: What does it say about Smash Boxing if you can throw any and all challenge out the window within a few seconds? I'm not one of the OCD gamers who absolutely must win at any and all difficulties, so I'm not about to go back and try to beat the game with a weaker character. Besides, most of the characters have very similar stats, and none of them possess unique moves or qualities that might differentiate them and maybe allow an added layer of fun. No, Smash Boxing walks proudly down the middle of the road - not awful enough to raise your ire, but certainly not good enough to warrant repeat plays.

Platform Robot 2

2009-12-30T21:57:00.003Z

Right, that's it. You know, I've played a lot of weird, crazy, messed up and downright awful games, but I've reached my limit. I've had enough - I have been broken. You win, Internet; you've finally beaten me.

After more than two years, I've realised just how pointless my reviews really are. In fact, I could probably say my very existence, and the existence of all other beings in the cosmos, are equally unimportant. Because in my search for a bad game to review this week, I hit the mother lode. I came across a game that just might be the single worst piece of data on the Internet.

Worse than 2 Girls 1 Cup. Worse than Goatse. Worse than Manga Watchmen slash. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the apex of bad. This is Platform Robot 2.

What you see in these screenshots? That is the game. That is all of the game, contained in just a few simple images. Just looking at these pictures angers me. OK, so you control a passport photo in a really bad MS Paint world that consists of one room. Who is that guy? Why is he staring into my soul like that? Stop it, strange man! Stop it!

I think I may be suffering from some kind of mental breakdown. My brain has decided that it doesn't like the images my eyes are sending it and has decided instead to use memories of puppies running around a garden to the sounds of the Banana Splits theme. I don't think I'm alone, either; here are examples of the comments that have been left for Platform Robot 2:

"This is not a game. Do you own a gun? buy one; kill yourself."
- cheeseyrice

"im so scared ;["
- GanjaGuruSmurf

"You Sir, are a genius."
- Magical Zorse

Platform Robot 2 is kind of like the video tape from Ring - you play it, and then several days later you collapse into a quivering heap, mentally devolving to the state of an infant as you ponder the time you gave this game. The strange middle-aged man creeps out of your monitor to steal your life force, which is then used to promote the game on other websites. It's a vicious cycle that will never, ever end. In five billion years the Sun will explode and die and the only thing in the entire Solar System to survive will be an external hard drive containing the complete works of Emily Dickinson and Platform Robot 2.

I don't know how I'm supposed to review this game when there's nothing to review. If you fall off the platforms or the ground or even just walk to the edge of the screen the weird man falls off and disappears. The only thing you can do is reload the page, asking yourself, "Why are you reloading the page!? What's wrong with you!?"

The answer, of course, is that you've been sucked in. You've finally discovered a game so bad that it makes you want to punch orphans and you can't take your eyes away. It's like when 9/11 happened and every news network on the planet continuously showed that footage of the second plane hitting the South Tower - it made you sick to your stomach watching it, but you still watched it, trapped in a state of unfathomable shock. Platform Robot 2 is the 9/11 of online games.

Naturally Geirki, the creator of this abomination, had something to say to all the haters:

"FOR EVERYONE COMMENTING ON THIS: Nobody ever said you HAD to play this and I am trying to make an actual game but I don't know how. I am currently learning how, anyone that would like to help with that process, please leave a SHOUT on my page"

So what we have here is a person barely capable of writing a "Hello World!" program uploading their half-ass attempt at a platform game on an unsuspecting world and getting upset when the world doesn't electronically fellate their genius. Well, I've got a shout for you, Geirki - YOU RUINED MY LIFE! You took my very being and put it through the God damn wringer! I will hunt you down with dogs and then I will shove pineapples into every orifice in your body!

GRRAAAARRRGGHHHH!

But just when you think it can't get any worse, you remember that this game is called Platform Robot 2.

2.

As in, the sequel.

Oh God! It's the exact same game! It's the exact same game!

Geirki made the same game twice!

OK, I'm done. I... I just don't know anymore. I don't know what makes sense now. I need to be alone for a while. I'll be back next week, but... I don't even know why.

The Company of Myself

2009-12-23T21:14:00.004Z

So here it is once again - Christmas is less than 48 hours away, and has become tradition on Big Mean Flash Gamer, I'm taking a little time out from my usual constant stream of bile and disgust to review a game from the past year that I loved. Christmas spirit, and all that. Of course, considering I'm a cynical, bitter twenty-something whose father still thinks a bottle of Old Spice he bought at the supermarket the day before I arrived home is a good present, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the game I review this week is probably one of the most depressing of 2009 - The Company of Myself.

At first glance, there isn't much to differentiate The Company of Myself from any other 2D platform puzzle game. You control a man in a snazzy top hat through a strange, dream-like world full of platforms and bottomless pits, trying to reach a green door that will take you to the next level. It's all very simple and remarkably well-assembled, but that isn't any reason for me to mark it out for special treatment.

What most endears me to this game is the gentle humour that begins right from the preloader and on through the first few levels. It might not be laugh-out-loud funny, but it does raise a wry smile and it makes the tutorial sections seem like a lot more fun.

But The Company of Myself has more going for it than a few witty lines of text. The puzzles usually require you to reach places that seem unreachable, necessitating the use of "shadows" that replicate your movements. In the simplest terms, you perform an action, press the Spacebar, and the level will reset, but with the addition of a transparent sprite who mimics your previous actions.

You can use this shadow as a platform or to walk through barriers that block your way. They can even pull levers and activate the green doors for you, both skills that come in handy as you progress. The puzzles are simple to understand but difficult to solve, making for a challenging experience that nevertheless satisfies. I've played a lot of God awful puzzle/platformers this year, and it's always refreshing to find a title that gets the formula right.

Still, is that enough to give The Company of Myself my annual Christmas thumbs up? Probably not, but what really wins it for me is the poignant and frankly heartbreaking story that emerges in the later levels. We learn about the protagonist's lost love, a girl who helped him overcome obstacles in the past before tragedy intervened. This tale is recounted in the form of flashbacks, hazy memories that play with the conventions already set up, giving you two independent characters to control instead of numerous automatons. I don't want to give away too much about this doomed relationship, but I can say you will feel partly responsible.

Straightforward gameplay, logical puzzles, great humour giving way to an emotional final act - The Company of Myself is one of the best all-round games I've played on the Internet this year. With twenty short levels there's enough to provide a good challenge that can still be completed during your coffee break. You'll probably come back to it numerous times, however, drawn to the wonderfully constructed narrative and the incredibly sad conclusion. Because hey - sorrow and disappointment is what this season's all about, right?

Happy Christmas to all. Don't overdo it on the eggnog.

Xnail

2009-12-17T01:11:00.003Z

You know, with Christmas fast approaching (too fast, in my view) I thought about letting bygones be bygones for the next couple of weeks and turning my attention to games I really enjoy. But then I thought, "Bah, humbug" - I'll be doing that in next week's review, and one is enough. So, with that settled, we can turn our attention to Xnail.

This comes to us courtesy of GirlGamesNow.com, yet more proof that girl gamers get the short end of the stick every single time. First of all, how do I pronounce that title? Is the "X" pronounced in the same way one would say, "xylophone"? It makes sense, since the main character is a snail, and in that regard Xnail works (even though I thought poor spelling in titles went out with the Spice Girls and Tamagotchi.) Or is it pronounced like the "X" in X-Men? I mean, the snail is pretty damn big and he's holding a gun, so I could accept that. But then, that opens up a whole host of other questions, like what the hell "X-Nail" stands for? It sounds like bad pig Latin!

However you pronounce it, Xnail is a straightforward platform game. The story behind it tells you that, as the heroic molluscan, you must stop the evil Cid Capezza (awesome name) from "cutting the woods." The arrow keys control movement and the Space bar allows you to hide from Cid's "brainwaved animals." Sorry, do you mean "brainwashed"? The last time I checked, brainwaves were a pretty natural phenomenon. It could just be that all the animals in the wood were so impressed with Cid's name that they immediately joined him. Or maybe they're all just dicks.

There isn't much to say about the controls; they work pretty well and things are kept nice and simple. But I knew there would be problems pretty quickly when I tried to draw my weapon and discovered I didn't even have it. Yep, for the first two and a half zones (or five levels) you don't have the biggest equaliser between you and the numerous enemies you'll face. What makes things worse is that even the easiest bad guys, like these hedgehogs who occasionally run back and forth brandishing their spikes, are fast as hell and difficult to kill.

Hold on a minute. Incredibly fast blue hedgehogs that run around like they suffer from ADHD? Where have I heard that before...?

At first I thought my only defence was Xnail's ability to retreat into his shell, which protects the character from enemy attacks. I wasn't aware that you could kill bad guys by jumping on them until I found out accidentally. If you're not going to give us the only weapon in the game until the third zone, could you at least clue us in on our other options? I feel these things are important to know, especially when everything in this forest is out to get you - even the flowers. The really annoying thing is that, even when the enemies aren't attacking you, they can still hurt you if they touch you. So in the case of the hedgehogs, they don't even need to have their spines out to kill you - those sharp spikes are there only so you can't kill them. Give me a break!

There are lots of things to collect throughout the game, including coins, apples (which, when you've collected enough, will give you an extra life) and health packs shaped like the little boxes you get from Chinese restaurants. There are also gold chests that provide random treasures, but it was only by opening one of these chests that I discovered another slap in the face from this game. Apparently, somewhere in each of the first five zones is a chest containing one of the letters in Xnail's name. To unlock the final zone you must collect all five of these letters.

Forget about surviving every level. Forget about beating bosses. Unless you have every one of these letters in your possession you can't finish the game. Oh, and of course, the chests containing these letters are so far out of your way that you inevitably have to backtrack across a level to reach an elevator that will take you to a platform that might lead you to this zone's letter.

What this means is that you can't miss any chests, no matter how difficult it may be to reach them. It's not like they give you much for your efforts - a single coin or an apple, maybe a health pack - so it's really tempting to say, "To hell with it," and just move on to the end of the level. But with this bullshit you're not given the choice. You've got to go find all five letters or you might as well have never bothered playing in the first place.

And you know what? There are other aspects of the game that are even worse! Let's take, for example, the inability to look up or down. I don't have this problem with most platformers because you're either given enough room above and below your character to see what's around you or, even better, your character can look up or down to see what's going on. Xnail doesn't give you either luxury, and this is a huge problem because quite often you'll need to make blind jumps to a platform that may or may not be under you. And even if it's there, how do you know you won't just land next to an enemy who'll sap you of your health before you can retreat to your shell? Not being able to look up becomes a real hassle after the first couple of levels when enemies start hurling rocks at you from above (and they're always from above.) You don't know where they are, you don't know when they're coming, and sometimes you can't even kill the guys who are doing it!

In fact, you have to be pretty friggin' accurate with your jumps if you try to kill any of these creatures. If you don't land on their head exactly, then you are going to get hurt. There's very little margin for error, and when they're still able to hurt you, even when you're stomping on their faces, that can quickly become a real pain in the ass.

"But it's OK," you might say to yourself. "When I eventually get the gun, it'll be open season, right?" Wrong! The gun is ridiculously ineffective. You're told as soon as you get it that it won't work on the final boss, so what the hell is the point of it, then? You've got limited ammunition and it doesn't even work half the time. But, just like the five letters, you need it to defeat certain enemies, and if you don't have it you won't succeed.

I don't mind a linear path through a game, but this is ridiculous! It doesn't help that every time something important is about to happen some pop-up box appears to tell you exactly what you're supposed to do. Does the game really have so little respect for me? Does it really think I'm that much of an idiot? Well, damn, I must be, because I spent my evening playing Xnail when I could have been doing more interesting things like watching paint dry or eating drywall. Prove that you're more intelligent than I am and give this game a miss.

London Minicab

2009-12-10T19:40:00.003Z

My apologies for the twenty-four hour delay in this week's review. Truth be told, it's been a slow week for crappy games. I've been pleasantly surprised by the number of enjoyable Flash and Shockwave titles I've played this past week. But while the gamer in me is pleased, the snarky asshole in me certainly isn't (but then, when is he?)

I spent quite some time last night searching for something, anything, that was bad enough to warrant a review. In the end, I went with London Minicab - not because it was particularly terrible, but simply because it seemed like it was the worst I could do this week. It wasn't until I really started playing that I realised my instinct for sniffing out electronic turds had come to my aid again.

London Minicab puts you in the role of a taxi driver in England's capital city. And man, they weren't kidding when they said minicab! Has every car in London been turned into a Matchbox toy, or are they just really concerned about congestion? I haven't been to London in over ten years, so for all I know this is an accurate depiction of the city.

Anyway, you drive your little taxi around, either waiting to get a call and go pick someone up, or stopping for passengers on the street (which I'm pretty sure a minicab isn't allowed to do.) The customers tell you where they want to go and then you're on your way. The only guidance you have is an arrow on the top corner of the screen, which provides you with the general direction to drive.

There's no map that I could find, so it's very easy to get lost, especially when you have to drive in a hurry to earn the highest fare. The target location is always marked by a yellow box, though I wonder if these boxes are always in the correct spot. I had one passenger that asked to visit London bridge and then directed me to the outskirts of town. I was wondering if this was going to end with me thrown in a ditch somewhere and my minicab swamped by little pixellated flames.

And so you continue driving about, picking up passengers and generally wandering aimlessly. I'm sure if you play the shorter five minute mode London Minicab is fun, but the untimed game leaves a lot to be desired. You never do hear from the dispatcher, so you're never racing against time to catch a fare or anything else that might make this more than a meandering journey through the ridiculously wide streets of London town.

Naturally, your fuel tank empties as you drive around, so you'll need to stop off at a petrol station and refill. From what I could see in my boring tour of the city, there is only one petrol station in all of London. You'll probably find it by accident, racing past as you drive somewhere else, and because there's no map for reference you have to memorise the path you took and hope you can find a way back. Finally, once you reach the petrol station, refilling your fuel tank takes forever. I spent the guts of five minutes just filling my tank. Why does this take so long? Are they refining the oil out back? Also, expect to pay hundreds every time you do this. I know there's an oil shortage, but come on!

The longer you play London Minicab, the more it will annoy you. I had just let off a passenger and was about to get moving again when a police car crashed into me. Despite not being at fault, I was still fined $100 for committing a traffic violation. What the hell did I do!? And why am I being fined in dollars? This is the UK - surely I should be fined in Pounds? Are you seriously telling me that someone made a game about driving around London and didn't bother to make sure the money was presented in the proper currency? Someone took the time and effort to code this piece of garbage but couldn't be arsed moving their finger the half an inch it would have taken to press the Pound symbol? I might procrastinate 'til the cows come home, but at least I get the basic facts right!

But the icing on this crap cake was when I picked up a passenger and they asked to be taken to "undefined." Seriously - undefined. I don't know what exactly happened, but when I tried to pick up another customer they too wanted to visit "undefined." At this point I was bored out of my skull, so I decided, OK - let's go visit Undefined! I had to see what was so special about this place.

And here it is - Undefined. That's right, it's a tree. In fact, it's a tree I can't even get to, because I can't drive onto the grass. Whether it's because every road is lined with walls or some force field is blocking my path, I could not get any closer to Undefined. I was stuck, unable to reach my destination and unable to pick up anybody else who didn't want to visit Undefined. Well, shit.

So I drove around with my passengers in the back seat, wondering why they needed to see this tree so badly, and waited for my fuel to run out. I thought maybe if I did that, the day would end and I would get to spend my hard earned money on possible upgrades for my car - you know, like in most driving games? But no - all I got was a Game Over screen congratulating me on having wasted another twenty minutes of my life. In many ways, that undefined location represented the great game London Minicab could have been, but never would be. Never would the player reach a point where they honestly enjoyed themselves. Never would you be able to justify the time and effort it took to play this game. With all the charm of a racist, middle-aged taxi driver, London Minicab makes you feel like you'd have been better off getting the bus.

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.

Strongest Truck 2

2009-06-03T16:41:00.003+01:00

A lot of companies apparently feel that it's very important to get the Flash game crowd on board. It seems that there is no product or service so niche that the corporations involved won't spend a little money getting someone to produce a short game to advertise their wares online. But these games are usually just low budget versions of the rushed tie-ins that accompany so many blockbuster movies these days, largely pointless wastes of time (and in a subsection of games that could all be called pointless wastes of times, it takes a lot to stand out.) Such is the tragedy of Strongest Truck 2, sponsored by Volvo, of all people, to advertise one of their trucks.

The first thing to note about Strongest Truck 2 is that it can take an age to load. If you don't have a decent internet connection, you could be waiting for any length of time (one comment on hallpass.com noted that it took them half an hour to load the game.) What I don't understand is why it takes that long? The game itself is only one level and that takes less than two minutes to complete. So what's the hold up?

Is it the graphics? It can't be, because they're just the sort of fake 3D you find in lots of Flash games. And don't start thinking it's because of the realistic truck physics, because there aren't any.

At least it's all kept really simple, with just two buttons to control the speed of the truck. You start off in this laboratory before accelerating up a ramp and inexplicably crashing through a waterfall. OK, at least that's pretty cool, if a bit random. Are all of Volvo's factories hidden behind waterfalls? What are they hiding from - the recession?

Too late.

So you drive forward for three seconds until you find a giant button on the road and once you press it a friendly arrow points you back the way you came. I really had no idea what I was supposed to be doing when I played Strongest Truck 2 for the first time, so I didn't really know what to expect.

However, the last thing I ever would have imagined happening was my truck flying over a small hill, landing too high on the back wheels and flipping backwards onto the roof. The reason this came as such a surprise is because trucks normally don't fall like that.

Oh, I know they can tip over and I'm sure if you drove fast enough and hit the ground hard enough from high enough you could flip forward, but the vast bulk of a truck's weight is on the front. It stands to reason, then, that its centre of gravity would be to the front of the vehicle and keep it from falling backwards. The only time I've ever seen a truck flip like that is in The Dark Knight and even Batman could only make the fucking thing flip forward.

Anyway, should you reverse into the shed without crashing you'll find a trailer filled with fragile objects, none of which have been properly tied down. This is the main part of the game, you see - getting as many of the items to the end of the bumpy course as you can in as short a time as possible.

But as the screenshot above shows, nobody thought to spend any time making sure the truck or trailer acted in any way like they would in real life. When was the last time you saw an entire trailer rise up off the ground like that? Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, or maybe Volvo are trying to tell us that their trucks have no suspension. No wonder sales went down 99.7% last year.

This image is in a toughly-contested fight with the waterfall jump for the title of Most Ridiculous Moment In Strongest Truck 2. What kind of customers is Volvo looking for here? Or maybe they're making a pitch for Speed 3: Swedish Crisis. It isn't like the truck ever moves fast enough to make this look cool. Apparently sluggish acceleration and slow top speeds are a hallmark of Volvo trucks.

So what was the point of this game? Apparently, other than to dig Volvo into an even deeper hole, people who scored highly were eligible for prizes. But now that the contest is finished, why keep the site up? This game in no way deserves to be left to posterity. Its poor graphics and non-existent physics, combined with its laughable shortness, make it yet another terrible example of what happens when a major corporation thinks the guy from Accounts who knows a bit about computers is the perfect candidate to make their shitty playable adverts.

Street Skater

2009-05-27T21:40:00.004+01:00

There was a time, right around the release of the very first Tony Hawk game, when skateboarding experienced something of a renaissance. For a few years it wasn't solely the preferred means of transport for disaffected teens who couldn't drive yet; everybody got into skater culture, myself included.

Unfortunately, I never did get to grips with skateboarding, partly because I lived in an area with no flat land and partly because I have the balance of a Wibble Wobble. Still, I got a kick out of the games and living vicariously through the biggest names in the sport.

Still, as much as I continue to enjoy those skating games, my passion for all things skateboard-related has slowly slipped away and returned to a state of mild interest. I'd like to think maybe that's why I didn't enjoy Street Skater - but I think it has more to do with it sucking ass.

Street Skater is a remarkably simple Flash skating sim that nevertheless proves quite frustrating and ultimately not worth your time.

You begin by choosing your skater. I decided to go with the first option, Jessy, who's either the most feminine man or the most masculine woman you'll ever meet in a Flash game. Surely such gender confusion is hardly going to help my chances of beating this game?

This doesn't help. Can you really get away with a name like that?

The levels on Street Skater are, as one would expect, very long, straight streets (or more accurately, footpaths.) You skate down the street until you reach the finish line, using the arrow keys to move and the A - H keys to perform grinds, kickflips and methods. The game is 2D, though it likes to pretend it's 3D because you can move your skater in and out of the background. Because you're moving from left to right this makes gauging jumps a little difficult, which inevitably leads to copious bailing from your unfortunate skater.

Trying to do anything other than a kickflip becomes a real chore. If you're not in the right place at the start of a rail you won't be able to skate on it, nor can you just jump onto it as you skate past (you know, like you could in real life.) You're supposed to jump onto steps and walls in order to gain enough height to pull off the really impressive aerial tricks, but that's no easier.

Bail five times and an ambulance will come to finally put you out of your misery. Somehow I doubt my score of -490 is going to be good enough for the high score table.

I decided to try again, this time with Scott, the most cheerful punk in the world. I was starting to get the hang of it at this point and finally managed to land a few grinds. Every time you load a level in Street Skater the obstacles are randomly generated, so you never get the same level twice. This certainly increases replay value, but it also means players can't learn from their mistakes. Instead of knowing where a rail or hole is and being able to prepare for it, you're always going into a level blind. It's like a brain surgeon trying to do a double bypass - you might have a good idea how to do it, but you can't be totally sure. Unless you're a brain surgeon who also performs heart operations, in which case you're probably too busy to play this game anyway.

What was I writing about?

Right, Street Skater. Personally, I doubt even skaters would get much enjoyment out of this game, especially as there are far superior titles on the Web such as Street Sesh, as well as the aforementioned Tony Hawk series. Unless you have the patience to get to grips with this game, I'd suggest looking elsewhere. Hell, maybe you could even try going outside, grabbing a skateboard... then falling on your ass and coming back inside, because really, you should know better.

HardCourt

2009-05-22T00:16:00.003+01:00

All right, yes, I know - twenty-four hours late. I'd like to report that this week's game was worth the wait, but let's be honest with ourselves here.

You know, it can't be easy to make a good sports game. After all, most hardcore gamers shy away from any and all physical activity whenever possible. Before the Wii came along and ruined everything, people were content to live vicariously through their favourite athletes by simply mashing buttons. But for such a game to be successful, it had to have that special something, that secret formula that would entice gamers to pull it off the shelf with their chubby little fingers and waddle off home for several hours of strenuous hand exercises.

So, does HardCourt have that je ne sais quoi that entertains and excites?

What are you, dense? Are you retarded, or something? This is Big Mean Flash Gamer.

So anyway, HardCourt features a series of one-on-one basketball contests, with the winner being whoever scores the most points within a certain time period. The player is given quite an impressive level of customisation, choosing the hair style and uniform of your character.

What makes HardCourt different from other basketball games on the Net is the ability to punch your opponent and leave him stunned while you throw high balls from the three point line. What this really means is that your character will be left doing his best Rodney King impression for much of the game, while Dennis Rodman here skips around the court and dunks baskets to his heart's content.

Even when you do get a chance to shoot for the hoop, it's hard to tell whether or not you actually scored. The angle from which we watch the action, and the poor movement of the characters, makes it very awkward to tell what's going on half the time. I didn't even realise I was in the lead for half the game until I caught a glimpse of the scoreboard. There is a "swoosh" sound effect that indicates a basket, but are you really going to be focusing on the sound when your opponent is shunting you to the floor?

The most annoying thing about HardCourt is the ridiculous Stamina bar. As your character runs around, he inevitably gets tired. That's OK, but this guy seems to have less athletic ability than a World of Warcraft addict. The stamina bar runs down after only a few seconds, giving your opponent ample opportunity to score points, or just to whack you to the floor before ambling up and putting the ball away.

Looser? Looser what? This typo is just the cherry on a crap cake, served steaming to the gaming masses. Basketball seems to be the toughest sport to turn into a game, but that's no excuse for this piss poor attempt. HardCourt is the Minnesota Timberwolves of online basketball - largely irrelevant.

Flash Manhunt

2009-05-13T22:00:00.003+01:00

Oh man. I came across a few games this week that, for whatever reason, left me feeling pretty pissed off. But every time I come across a poor Flash version of a well-known title I have a certain amount of bile reserved just for it.

I mean, is it really that hard to produce a decent cut down version of these games? Why is it that out of all the Flash versions I've ever played, only Portal and Mirror's Edge have come out looking good? I suppose it goes without saying that I wasn't impressed with this really bad stick man version of Manhunt.

The whole thing is laughable from the very beginning. It starts off with our hero screeching to a halt and jumping out of his car before declaring that he's planning on killing his boss, and will we help him? It even gives you the option to say "No" and takes you back to the main menu. Who the hell is going to say "No"?

"No thanks, I just loaded the game for shits and giggles. I'm gonna go do something else now." It just seems so pointless!

Before can kill your boss, you need to get past the guards. The easiest way to do this seems to be by shanking them in the back. If you run around they'll hear you, so you need to move slowly by pressing the Shift key. You'll pick up several weapons over the course of the game, but from a distance they all look like a big stick.

All the guards have this mask on them, cribbed from the original game to add an air of authenticity, or something. I'm not sure whether it looks cool or silly, which most likely means it's the latter.

It's all insultingly easy in the early goings before hitting a certain amount of difficulty. Sometimes guards will be in a position where you can't get around them or easily attack them, so you need to make them move by catching their attention. The method of doing this can most politely be described as retarded; you basically run up to the guard, then run away before they can catch you. You really don't want them to catch you - they'll deplete your life points so quickly that you won't even realise you're in trouble until you see the "Game Over" screen.

There are trash cans all over every level, but these don't seem to do anything. The noise they make when you knock one over doesn't attract the guards - indeed, the health plan for hired goons these days isn't what it used to be, as these guys seem both short-sighted and hard of hearing. Unfortunately their knees are still perfectly fine.

These middle levels are a real pain in the ass, because if you die you have to start from the beginning each time, and you really don't want to spend that much time on a game this bad. Then, for no discernible reason, things get piss easy again. The guards are sitting ducks, for the most part, so you can take out whoever you want, whenever you want.

You also get to see the worst rendering of a chainsaw in gaming since the glory days of the Odyssey. Anyway, after about a dozen mercifully short levels, you finally reach the boss himself.

Oh, well... I guess that's that, then. Yeah, our hero pretty much abandons all thoughts of stealth and goes right in for a bloody kill. But if you had a gun all this time, what was up with sneaking around, garrotting hoodlums with copper wire?

The one thing you can say for Flash Manhunt is that it's in no way as graphic as the original. It's also in no way as good. Truth be told, I found the original Manhunt to be a pain the ass, as the focus seemed to be on graphic kills and not on excellent gameplay. This doesn't even have enough to please gorehounds, and there's nothing to appeal to the casual gamer.

Celebrity Pedigree

2009-05-06T22:22:00.003+01:00

This is something of a departure for me. Christmas aside, I spend just about every week tearing into a game I think sucks, and I've never seen much reason to change that. This week, however, I will not be focusing on a crappy game. Having extensively played Celebrity Pedigree I am happy to report that it isn't bad at all. No, this game is simply terrifying.

Just when I think I've seen it all, the Internet spits something new in my face. Celebrity Pedigree might just be the most twisted thing I've yet to come across, and when you've seen some of the other titles it's been my misfortune to play, that's really saying something.

All right, I'll try to explain. You have some kennels, and these kennel contains some dogs. But these aren't just any old dogs; these dogs all have the faces of celebrities. Each of these celebrity dogs has their own strengths and weaknesses, and by carefully breeding different types you can theoretically make more advanced celebrity dogs.

...Jesus.

OK, so let's give this a try. I decided to breed Paris Hilton dog (who looks way more attractive than her human counterpart - oh my God...) with Jeremy Clarkson dog. I figured if she was willing to screw that plain-looking semi-retarded guy in that sex tape, she'd be willing to screw a Top Gear presenter.

The result is... well, as you would expect. Part of the fun in playing Celebrity Pedigree is seeing what traits the new puppies' faces will take. This puppy just looks homely. Others can leave scars on your mind that will never truly heal.

You can keep up to ten dogs in your kennels, but be warned - each new pooch adds to your running costs. You have to make sure you have a good selection of breeds while keeping your costs under budget.

Naturally, breeding the same dogs with each other again and again will dilute the pedigree, and you'll end up with runts like Chris Moyles dog here. I think that's a little unfair to Moyles; I always found his radio show entertaining (when I was fourteen.)

By selling some of your dogs, you can raise the funds to buy new breeds. Here in the marketplace you'll find every B- and C-List celebrity that you could imagine. Everyone from Peaches Geldof to Russell Brand are included. Even Barack Obama has been turned into a dog - though not, if I remember correctly, a Portuguese water dog, which i thought would have been obvious.

I was eventually able to work my way up to the heights of rock 'n' roll royalty by buying Bono dog. While talented, this particular breed has a habit of considering itself the overbearing leader of the pack and has a nasty tendency to yap incessantly out of its arse. I tried putting Bono dog with one of my cross breeds, and the results were far from pretty.

GET THAT FUCKING THING AWAY FROM ME.

Celebrity Pedigree is like some terrible combination of erotic fan fiction and animal husbandry. If you've ever asked yourself, "I wonder what it would look like if Snoop Dogg and Lily Allen had a baby, and they were both dogs?" here's your chance to finally find out. The only thing scarier than that mental image is the knowledge that Nigella Lawson still looks hot even when her head is grafted onto the body of a dalmatian.

I need help.

Warriors

2009-04-30T00:12:00.003+01:00

I was originally going to review a game that puts you in the cockpit of a Russian bomber and then asks you to apply the same skill required to fly the actual thing in order to play for more than ten seconds. But I've forgotten the name of it (if you know what it is, please do tell) so I've had to resort to plan B. Warriors is one of those games that straddles the middle ground of my own personal tastes - it's not awful, it's not great, it's a little weird and is overall largely irrelevant.

By the way, I know what you're thinking. This is either a Flash version of the Warriors video game, which itself was inspired by the Seventies cult classic movie, or - if the fantasy-style lettering of the title is anything to go by - some kind of medieval hack 'n' slash epic. But I'm afraid unless your answer was "A game about cats," you are greatly mistaken.

Yeah, that's right, cats. Why? God knows - I certainly didn't. But here's what I did learn from the instructions: each cat belongs to a different clan. Your goal is to go through each clan's territory and catch a certain amount of prey there before the timer runs out. Pressing down on the right arrow key will make you run faster, while pressing the up arrow key will naturally make you jump. While in the air, press the Space bar to attack and hopefully catch a tasty treat.

It's all very simple and it doesn't take a cat lover to get the hang of it. You get to decide what clan you want to join, though I doubt it really makes much of a difference. I went with the River Clan, because once you go black you never go back.

So here we are, running across the level, chasing down rabbits. It all looks pretty nice, though the animation is either clunky or non-existent. You have to hop over dogs who are out to maul your ass while also trying to grab rabbits from the air. This isn't very hard - as long as the prey is in your general area, you can catch it. What annoys me is how often these animals will wait until you're right on top of them before they make a move. Because they're so close, you can't react fast enough to catch them before they're gone, which can start to grate after the fifth or sixth time in a row.

Anyway, from there we move on to the next level, where you have to catch... frogs while avoiding... badgers.

What?

Why is the cat trying to catch frogs? Cats wouldn't want to eat frogs! And what did they do to piss off the badgers? Regardless, stay out of their way, because those little buggers are tough!

OK, fish. Yeah, I can understand fish. And trying to avoid rivers, since cats hate water. Sorry, I'm still trying to get my head around frogs and badgers. Those two things just don't go together!

The final level is the territory of the Thunder Clan, which reminded me of Thundercats. Man, I loved that show. I even had a Lion-O action figure with swiping action. That thing was badass! Pretty much the opposite of this game!

But at least I'm hunting birds, which means jumping is a necessity. The main enemies here are foxes, which I admit are probably the meanest of the bunch. But to be quite honest, no hazard is any more dangerous than the others. You have a five lives in every level and infinite continues, which is pretty nice of the developers. I think if you didn't have the option of continuing from your last level I'd hate this game a whole lot more.

As it stands, the game is somewhat boring, but with only four levels to play it doesn't outstay its welcome. There's no real reason to play Warriors, unless you really love cats or you really have to know what the point of a game like this is.

And, crazy as it may be to believe, there is a point. Warriors is an "advergame" (a new word I discovered today) designed to promote a series of books about several clans of wild cats and the numerous goings-on within their intricately-structured society. There are eighteen books, six Mangas, one "Deluxe Edition" and two guides.

As former pro wrestler Ron Simmons would say, "Damn!"

Civony

2009-04-23T22:29:00.003+01:00

Though this week's game falls out of my usual fare, it would be wrong of me to focus solely on simple Flash and Shockwave software. There is an ever growing number of more complicated, expansive titles, bringing together networks of gamers from all over the world. Personal favourites such as Kingdom of Loathing and Forumwarz have in the past eaten up far more of my time than I'd ever like to admit. The game I'm reviewing this week, Civony, has done much the same thing, but in a totally different way.

I'd seen ads for Civony on practically every website I've logged onto in the last two weeks. Whatever company owns this game has their advertising down to a fine skill. The first thing you see is some cute chick in medieval dress telling you to come to the website and referring to you as "my lord." And then when you go to the Civony website you're met by a knight in kickass armour, swinging a broadsword through the air. Immediately appealing to the two biggest fantasies in any hardcore D&D player's life, it's no surprise people are filling up the servers.

But first, one question: what is "Civony"? I looked it up but there wasn't any such word in the dictionary. The nearest I could find was "ciphony," which is "the process of encrypting telecommunication signals, as to prevent information from being intercepted by an enemy or competitor." And I suppose that could be what they meant, except very little (in fact, to my knowledge, none) of the game involves encrypting telecommunication signals. I can only assume that the "Civ" part of the title is a reference to "civilisation," which is what you're supposed to build as you play. But "ony"? I have no idea. Maybe they meant it as a tribute to Oni, the third-person action game developed by Bungie.

Whatever, let's play. The first thing you need to do, of course, is register. Registration is quick and easy, requiring only an e-mail address. You can play as either a lord or a lady, and I of course chose the former because I'm all man. Or something.

Hold up - that guy's no bad ass medieval warrior! There's no way in hell I'm letting that avatar represent me among the online nation building community. Fortunately you can scroll through a fairly decent number of images until you find one you like.

Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about! And when you have a helmet with big ass horns sticking out of it, you can call yourself pretty much whatever the hell you want.

You also have the option of deciding where you'd like to base your city. I decided to go with Bohemia, largely out of my fondness for Queen.

This is what greets you when you begin: a largely empty town and a suggestion that you play the Routine Quest. As far as names for quests go, "Routine" doesn't exactly get my blood pumping, but I might as well get on with it since I'm not given much of a choice. The Routine Quest is designed to get players used to the game interface and also supply them with a decent chunk of resources, so folks can build up a nice little city before raising an army, marching on their neighbours, stealing their food and women, and basically getting their warlord on.

You'll get to do all of those things - eventually. But first, there's a lot of building to do. And then, once you've built everything, you have to upgrade your buildings. Oh, and this will take some time.

Cottages take about a minute to build. Ditto for the farms, sawmills, rock quarries and ironworks. That's not the problem; I can occupy myself for a minute. But then you try to upgrade your buildings and... well...

Thirty minutes to upgrade the town hall!? Why? Seriously, why? Does it take thirty minutes for the information to go to the server? I could upload four high quality Youtube videos in the time it takes for this one sprite to appear on my screen.

OK, so it takes a while for stuff to get done. That's all right, I'll just carry on and get a few more things built while I wait.

Or maybe I won't. So, if you want to upgrade a building or, God forbid, construct some walls, you better have a lot of time to spare. I ended up going to another website and playing some games while I waited. That's right - I played other games to keep myself entertained while playing Civony, which defeats the entire purpose of playing Civony in the first place!

I got all of this stuff as reward for achieving certain tasks, but most of it isn't even all that useful until you've got a good-sized town. I was quickly losing patience with the game and wasn't all that interested in any of the items, though there was at least an item that could cut down the amount of time I spent pissing around waiting for something to happen.

This area gives you all the information you need to know about your community, such as the population, your resources, and the size of the workforce. As you can see, my town is composed mainly of bums.

Civony is a lot like Sim City for the Middle Ages. And like Sim City, I'm sure it gets really interesting once your town starts to grow and expand. But you see, I never had the attention span to wait that long when I played Sim City, and I clearly still don't. The least Civony could do is let us release a monster or a natural disaster to make things fun.

The Great Raccoon Escape

2009-04-16T15:02:00.003+01:00

First off, apologies for the late review. But hopefully what I have to offer you will make up for it - The Great Raccoon Escape.

This is a game that sadly crossed my paths many moons ago, but which I forgot about until quite recently. It pretty much meets the requirement of any game I review - the concept is so out there it's passing Pluto and it plays like the developer hates games.

First the story, explained pretty well by the following two pictures:

You got that? Raccoons are able to do more than rummage through your rubbish. Yes, they're able to morph into a variety of shapes, from a leaf to a beautiful woman. This particular raccoon's nine wives were kidnapped by hunters, so you've got to track them down and release them from their cages.

Just to repeat - a bigamist raccoon with the ability to change into the form of a human being must rescue his nine wives from hunters wielding sub-machineguns. Let's play!

I will say this much - the graphics are very pleasant. But that raccoon has better posture than most people. Anyway, The Great Raccoon Escape is part platformer, part puzzle game. You climb up and down ladders on your way through the levels but you lack the ability to jump, and if the hunters spot you they'll lock you up as well.

The key to success is to disguise yourself so that you pass unnoticed by the hunters. Different puzzles require different disguises, though usually turning into a leaf and waiting for the bad guy to walk past you is the simplest option. The controls can feel a little sluggish though, so you have to make sure you've morphed well before there's any chance of being caught. Naturally, you can only hold your new form for a limited period of time, so good reactions are key.

After locating a key you can release one of your wives from their prison. God, look how bored these raccoons are. You'd think this sort of thing happens to them all the time. "Wives kidnapped by hunters? Must be Tuesday."

Of course, it doesn't stop them from showing off these self-righteous shit eating grins, like they're saying to themselves, "Yeah, we're awesome." Yeah, well, pride goes before the fall, ya furry little bastard.

I've got to imagine that if a real raccoon had to get over a punji pit and his options were "Morph into a football and hope that someone kicks you" or "Jump", he'd go with the latter. But what do I know about raccoons?

There also seem to be quite a lot of hunters gunning for this guy and his wives. What the hell did this raccoon do to piss off so many gun nuts? Fortunately it's usually easy enough to get by them, but there occasions where you're just not given a chance.

This hunter saw maybe the raccoon's foot coming down this ladder and that was it. He's not even looking up anymore! Again, it all comes down to timing, and again it's a pain in the ass - you have to move fast enough to evade one hunter while not bumping into the next.

Sometimes if you're not in the exact perfect spot, you'll be completely ignored. This hunter can totally see the ball, but he can't be bothered walking a few more feet to kick it. So naturally I moved even closer, morphed back into a ball, and the hunter finally kicked me.

Straight into a pit. Thanks.

I suppose a better option would have been to turn into my femme fatale pose and convinced some lust-filled mountain man to come running after me. Unlike raccoons, hunters possess the arm length necessary to avoid spiky death.

All the same, it's fair to assume we're not dealing with a Rhodes scholar here.

I suppose The Great Raccoon Escape isn't awful, but it's nowhere near as good as it could be. If you've always wanted to play Mormon wildlife, then here's your chance, but there are plenty of other platform/puzzle games out there that'll keep you entertained for far longer.

Young Dragon

2009-04-08T17:14:00.005+01:00

Kung Fu is right up there with zombie flicks, boobs and war as things that kick ass (OK, maybe war doesn't kick that much ass.) Someone over at Addicting Games certainly thinks so, which is probably why we've now got the chance to play Young Dragon, a title which even has you taking on the role of a yellow jumpsuit wearing Bruce Lee ripoff. Sweet!

Yeah, it's all real sweet until you discover the controls are based entirely around the mouse. Now, this works just fine if you're playing a top-down shoot-'em-up or similar game, but not so much when trying to play a side scrolling beat-'em-up like Young Dragon. At least it's simple - Roy (for that is our hero's name) follows your dragon shaped cursor and attacks with a click of the mouse button. He'll also jump or crouch, depending on the position of the cursor. This setup does limit his movements however - take, for instance, Roy's inability to turn around or go left.

Anyway, the story begins when some crazy looking extra from a Mad Max movie invades your dojo and kills your Master.

Damn, that's a Mortal Kombat moment if ever I saw one! The road warrior steals your Master's essence, or something, which makes him almost invincible. You set off to exact your revenge - which may or may not be a wise move, since he's an all-powerful warlord with an army of ninjas at his disposal and you're still technically a trainee.

The game itself doesn't look bad. I mean, I've seen far better graphics in my time, but it's not terrible to look at. If you got drunk and woke up the next day with Young Dragon sleeping next to you, you wouldn't feel awful about it. Until, of course, the emptiness of your shallow existence struck you and you're left alone to wallow in a pit of doubt and self-disgust...

I'm sorry, went off track there. Back to the game!

A parade of ninjas attack you for several minutes (each one politely waiting in the wings until you've killed the previous guy, much like in a real kung fu movie) until you reach this column with a dragon's head on it. Gee, I wonder what to do? If only there was some clue as to how I could get past this obstacle...

All right, so you jump up and kick the dragon's head off, and it releases some kind of red orb that infuses you with a new skill - the Ground Dragon Kick!

So yeah, a jumping kick. Thanks. The move itself can be performed by pressing the S key, but it takes so long that you're better off just forgetting about it.

Hold on a second. Let me get this straight - there are keyboard controls as well as the mouse? If that's the case, why am I using the mouse to move around and fight? What's so bad about maybe using the arrow keys to move, so I could perhaps have a little more control over where I'm going and maybe avoid a few more of the fucking ninja stars that every enemy enthusiastically throws at me from off screen?

I suppose our hero isn't left totally helpless, since power ups will occasionally drop down from the sky. Great - except since you spend most of your time over on the right side of the screen, where the bad guys are, most of these power ups land behind you, and Roy's backwards hop is stupidly slow. But they're usually worth it - weapons like the nunchuks can do serious damage, while a vial of dragon's blood will turn you into a psychotic white haired Dragonball Z cosplayer, able to kick a man's stomach out through his spine!

Seriously fun power ups, and you'll be glad for them. With only one life, you need as much help as you can get, especially since if you die you have to start whatever chapter you're on from the very beginning again. The lack of a save feature also sticks in my craw, but then this isn't a game I'm going to be going back to again and again.

The only other thing of note is the Ninja Death Theater, which allows you to watch numerous Asian men meet a violent demise. Sure, it does nothing for relations with our friends in the Far East, but it is a lot of fun.

Fun, however, is not something you'll find a lot of in Young Dragon. Sure, it's amusing for a while, but the controls soon grate and the repetitive levels quickly become boring. There are a few good Kung Fu games available online, but this sure isn't one of them.

Dust and Sun

2009-04-01T14:51:00.003+01:00

This is an example of false advertising if ever I saw one. I went into Dust and Sun expecting a series of Wild West quickdraw contests testing my reflexes to the limit and causing irreparable damage to my index finger. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that this was precisely what I didn't get.

Oh, it's set in the Wild West, but this is the Wild West of an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie circa 1985 - everyone you see from your first-person perspective is there to die and subtlety is for gays.

There are four missions, each one requiring only that you survive for a certain period of time while simultaneously killing as many people as possible. This is simple enough, but in practice I found this to be harder than expected, because the bad guys all seem to be mutants with the ability to get shot in the head and yet keep firing. There's also no way to hide from the hail of enemy bullets that constantly rain down on you (your character can get hit even when he ducks behind a rock to reload.) It's simple and straightforward, but there's no skill involved here - it's just a constant procession of evildoers that stand around shooting at you and waiting to get their heads (eventually) blown off.

Indeed, even with overwhelming numbers against me, what do I have to worry about? I've got an automatic assault rifle and unlimited ammo - I think I'm gonna be OK.

Indeed, it's only when the gangs reach double figures onscreen that they pose much of a threat, and on the early levels even that's not a big deal. After all, you've only got to survive a couple of minutes at most.

And as if the machine gun wasn't enough, I've got DYNAMITE! Whole waves of enemies are destroyed by the underwhelming flames of my TNT. With this much weaponry, I didn't have much trouble taking on cowboys, bandits... Rastafarians... and pirates?

OK, what's going on here? It's like every meme on the Internet ganged up to kill me. Is the final boss a bucket-wielding walrus?

Actually, in the final level you take on Native Americans (gee, that's broad-minded.) It's a tribe of Injuns with arrows and rifles against me, my bombs and my brand new shotgun. Am I worried?

Not really.

I guess, if you're looking for something to kill some time and maybe get out a little frustration, there are worse ways to do it than blowing up hordes of rampant pirates. But for all the fast-paced shoot-'em-up action that the game purports to deliver, Dust and Sun is very boring. Each level is exactly like the last, just with more enemies and a different background. There isn't much of a challenge, and if you die, you'll be given cheats to help you beat the game anyway. If you do feel the need to blow people away for no discernible reason, try something like Co-op 2112. You can even play that one with a friend! Who said video games were unsocial?

Drag Race Demon 2

2009-03-25T18:01:00.005Z

In many ways, drag racing is the best form of motor sports. not for these guys the endless hours of circuits that Nascar and Formula 1 consider entertainment. Nope, here it's just two guys, head to head for about a quarter of a mile, the entire thing over in less than twenty seconds. That economical use of time and energy is something I can support. However, I'm starting to get tired of the few online games that try to replicate the fast-paced thrills of drag racing, of which Drag Race Demon 2 is the latest.

Mousebreaker Games can usually be relied on to produce entertaining games, but even the best of us slip up from time to time. However, since this is a sequel, one would have thought any mistakes they'd previously made would have been rectified. Sadly, Mousebreaker seem to repeat history far more often than they learn from it.

The controls are... weird. That's the best way I can describe them - they're awkward and I'm left wondering why the game was designed this way. Clearly someone took the "Drag" in the title a little too literally, as the player accelerates by dragging an arrow left and right. Gears are changed by pressing the up and down arrow keys.

Mousebreaker seem to have a hard on for these controls and I don't understand why. If I'm already using the arrow keys to change gears, why can't I also use them to accelerate? The current set-up might be fine for some, but I'm trying to play on a laptop, the result being I have to cross my arms to play. I'm already suffering the early effects of carpal tunnel syndrome; I don't need this game exacerbating the problem.

You start off with a little cash to invest in your dragster, plus you can also customise the paint job. I went with all black because I'm dark and brooding, like a character in a Stephenie Meyer book. Now, I'm not the biggest drag racing fan, but even I know that it's not good for a car to rear back like that whenever you step on the gas. I guess if I practised more I could stop that from happening, but it would probably also help if the controls weren't retarded.

OK, I've seen plenty of mismatches in my time, but God damn! I'm sure that's a very nice car my opponent has, but this is like a Porsche 911 facing off against a Big Wheel. Surprisingly, this isn't the cake walk I imagined it would be, as it takes forever for the dragster to pick up any kind of speed. Eventually it does and I take home the prize money (£300 - that'll get me, what, a tyre?) I only win by a nose, however.

With my hard earned winnings I can buy more upgrades and tweak my dragster to my heart's content. Eventually. It'll take some time, and a lot more races, to earn the cash needed to make a world-class racer.

Time to go back to the track!

What in the hell!? Look at the size of that guy's wheels! How much acceleration can you get out of those? All I need to know is that it's more than mine will ever produce, and I'm left eating dust on more than one occasion.

Drag Race Demon 2 isn't a bad game... actually, yes, it is. Flat, unimaginative graphics; pointlessly overcomplicated controls; and a learning curve as steep as K2. It's certainly a drag to play!

Get it?

Sorry.

Big Joes Homerun Challenge

2009-03-18T18:00:00.003Z

That's not a typo in the title - there is no apostrophe in Big Joes Homerun Challenge. Big Joe, who hates grammar with the intensity of a thousand suns, has more important things on his mind, like hitting home runs! And while it's safe to assume the "challenge" in the game's title relates to scoring these home runs, one could argue a bigger challenge lies in actually enjoying yourself.

There are no instructions whatsoever in the game, but I'll gladly fill you in. You control Big Joe with the mouse and are able to move him around the home plate, swinging with a click of the left mouse button. Simple really, but in that case why is it so damn hard to hit the ball? Unless you have the reactions of a race car driver, you'll spend the early part of the game swinging wildly at air. It doesn't help that there's no way to gauge the distance of the ball, so you can never tell if you'll swing too early or too late.

Even if you do get a few hits, chances are you'll just score a few foul balls. If you actually manage to keep it within bounds, you'll be lucky to hit it past second base. It's all about timing, of course, but no matter how often I nailed that ball I just couldn't score a home run.

Big Joe is clearly displeased. You'd think with arms his size it wouldn't be so God damn hard to hit a few home runs! I've seen kids score more impressive hits! It's kind of pathetic, Joe.

So I played again a few times, primarily to get screen shots for this review, when suddenly it happened - I got good.

Every ball I hit sailed out of the park. I was scoring home runs like it was no big deal. I have no idea how or why, but for a few short minutes I was the Home Run King!

OK, more like Home Run Duke. But hell, that's five more homers than I thought I'd hit. One good game does not change my opinion of Big Joes Homerun Challenge, however. The characters are flat, even for 2D, and the animation is far too jerky. Compare this to State of Play's baseball game and - well, there is no comparison. As an online example of America's national pastime, Big Joes Homerun Challenge makes a poor impression.

StickBrix

2009-03-04T18:57:00.003Z

It was hard at first for me to figure out what it is about StickBrix that makes it bad enough for Big Mean Flash Gamer. I mean, the concept isn't that difficult to follow - it's like Breakout but with more acts of violence as you try to either whack unsuspecting stickmen with your bouncy ball or remove the ground beneath them so they can fall to their doom. That all sounds like fun to me, since I'm a big fan of both Breakout and hurting people, but my suspicions were raised almost immediately by this warning at the start of the game:

Here's an inalienable truth - any game that warns epileptics not to play just in case it kills them is going to have far too much going on for anybody to process.

Of course, it starts off with a ton of promise. You have plenty of lives (and you'll need every one.) Things are kept simple enough, in one sense at least: there are only two power ups, and one of them just makes your ball bounce faster, which is pretty useless when the entire screen is flashing red and blue in your face while the same techno tune that Mo Fun Zone uses in almost all of its games plays ad nauseam in the background.

It's hard to keep track on everything when you have so much crap flying at you at all times. There are occasions when the ball is barely visible, and it's moving at such a pace that you don't realise it's about to go until it's too late to do anything about it.

On top of that are the annoying little pricks with the baseball bats who can deflect your ball. This means you have only two choices - hit them so fast that they don't see it coming or take out the platforms beneath them.

And that's great until you get into a situation like the one above. For whatever reason these blocks can't be destroyed, so you have no choice but to keep bouncing your ball up and down and hoping for the best. This process can take many long, agonising minutes. I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun to me.

This Dragonball Z reject is some kind of boss, I suppose, dropping fireballs to kill you. He needn't bother - with all the stuff happening on screen, I lost all my lives pretty quickly. But it's cool - StickBrix has an autosave feature allowing you to start from the last level you reached.

Hold up - what is this shit? This isn't the last level I reached - this is the first level again! Except this time I have fewer lives! So they included an autosave feature that saves everything but the levels you've completed! How is that helpful?

Even if you don't have epilepsy StickBrix is certain to give you a headache. It gets an A for effort but an F- for the end result. It seems this was a Breakout clone too far.

Stone Age Conqueror

2009-02-25T20:55:00.003Z

Because zombies and stickmen sniper simulators were already a dime a dozen, somebody had to come along with a different angle on our favourite Flash titles and it seems Stone Age Games are the first ones to take a crack at it. It's a shame, then, that their games so far have largely sucked giant pulsating donkey balls, Stone Age Conqueror being no different.

You take on the role of a Stone Age general who, at the beginning of the game, finds himself behind enemy lines and far from his army. So it's up to you to kill anyone who gets in your way and make it back to your soldiers so you can mount your own attack. First of all, it looks great, with simple stylised animation - there's no jerky or clunky animation, and the game even begins with a really nice animated intro. But as far as gameplay is concerned, I have my issues. The first one being:

OK, so why is the attack key the left mouse button? At first I thought it must be because you have to line your weapon up to each target, but that isn't the case. For one thing, your weapon is a big bone club - hardly the sort of thing you need to worry about aiming. Then, of course, there's the fact that you can't aim - you just swing right in front of you. So could someone at Stone Age Games please explain to me what's up?

You have two separate buttons to pause and unpause the game, yet you can't programme, say, the Space key to swing the weapon? Someone at Stone Age Games has stocks in wrist guards and wants to make sure we all buy one before we get carpal tunnel syndrome from playing their stupid game.

Anyway, you run back and forth across an enclosed area, whacking giant troll-like cave men with your bone (stop sniggering.) There are literally dozens of these bastards, and naturally their weapons have a much longer range than yours. Add to that the small problem of your character pausing between strikes and you're pretty much asking to get killed. Fortunately, regular jumping and running should keep you alive long enough to finish the level.

Then, in level 2, we hit a little snag. Actually, it's a really big friggin' snag that will kill you in thirty seconds if you don't run very far away. This monster is completely invincible, and as well as him you have thirty-five of the regular enemies to defeat.

I mean, come on! He's got a range of about twenty feet! I kept running up to this guy, swinging and doing no damage, taking a pounding, and eventually died an agonising death. I had no idea how to beat him, so I had to check out some hints and walkthroughs to figure out what the hell I should do.

And then I found the answer - nothing. I'm not supposed to attack him in any way, shape or form. I'm supposed to let him pound away on the ground while I kill the other warriors. Once I've done that, he'll die.

WHY WOULD YOU MAKE A BOSS THAT YOU CAN'T JUST KILL!?!?!?!?!?

Anyway, in the third level you've made it back to your soldiers, and this is where a formerly difficult game becomes piss easy. Once you've built up a few experience points, you can call on up to ten soldiers to help you defeat your enemies, meaning you can hang back, occasionally whack a bad guy, and let your army do all the work. This comes in handy when you come across 300 exhausted, unarmed enemy warriors and slaughter them mercilessly.

Lest we forget, this is our hero.

Anyway, as the army moves on towards the enemy encampment, Stone Age Games strike a blow for creationists everywhere when they announce that the guardian of the settlement is a dinosaur!

Look at that thing - it looks like Godzilla's retarded brother Frank Zilla. The only way to defeat it is to keep throwing soldiers at it until they kill it. Considering how many soldiers that takes, it's pretty obvious that your character commands a lot of loyalty.

Then again, they did just watch him butcher three hundred people.

And then we enter something called Nightmare Mode, where all the enemies are those big monsters (not invincible now, it seems) and your soldiers are now coloured red and only interested in fighting the last guardian. I don't have any pictures of this guardian because my army killed him off screen.

That did not stop me from taking all the credit.

Stone Age Conqueror is that rare game - one that manages to be impossibly difficult and ridiculously easy at the same time. Once you know how to kill the second level boss victory is a simple matter of calling on as many soldiers as possible to help you win. And I'm still at a total loss as to why I have to use the left mouse button to attack. Surely tapping it five hundred times in quick succession can't be doing it any good!

I Made This

2009-02-18T22:08:00.004Z

It took me a couple of hours to finally decide on what game I should review this week. There were certainly a few potential candidates, but the problem was that I'd already reviewed games that were quite similar in the last month. I wanted something different, and in the end found a game more different than anything I could have imagined: I Made This, or to use its full title, I Made This. You Play This. We Are Enemies.

Consider the possibilities of a game with a title like that. Consider the artwork, both crude and wonderful at the same time, a mix up of sketches, collage and digital drawings. I Made This is an art game with a big capital (pretentious f)ART. The developer is either an idiot savant or a stone cold artistic genius, capable of making a game both utterly frustrating and totally alluring at the same time. Boil it down to basics and it's a platform game, but it's unlike any platform game you've ever played. Your character is some kind of wheel or ball or messed up eye - it's hard to tell because it blends so easily into the background. You roll around, jumping on platforms and collecting... things. Lots of things, off all shapes and sizes. And every time you do so, the screen goes BATSHIT INSANE!!!

Stuff just piles up on top of stuff, scouring demented images into your memory forever. And there are ten levels of this (or eleven; even the game itself isn't sure.)

Occasionally you get the opportunity to watch videos spread across the game - you know, just in case you were still able to deal with this bad acid trip in Flash form. I'm sure there's something being said here, but I'm not culturally tuned in to whatever that is. All I know is, the more I played the more I felt this would be the kind of thing Dick Cheney would like, because it causes pain and suffering to his fellow man.

Things just get more bizarre and more bizarre, though if the point of this game is to leave me asking profound philosophical questions it worked to a certain degree. The phrase "Why do I do this to myself?" crossed my mind more than once.

We're not even half way through when the tigers show up. We still have to pass through the level that promises "Death by Dalmatian!" - then delivers. And I haven't even mentioned the mid-game intermission, where the developer talks about his powerful ice cubes from Australia and adds credence to the "idiot savant" theory.

The second half actually plays a little more like a proper game and not just an excuse to prod your frontal lobe with a metaphorical ice pick. It's still crazy, of course, but at least the platform elements get to come out, for a few levels anyway.

The truth is, you'll probably have gotten used to the random imagery and ridiculous sound effects by this point, and if you can block them out and focus on the gameplay, you might actually enjoy yourself. Of course, you might also be in the middle of a total brain shutdown, but either way you won't care anymore.

I Made This has received a lot of bad feedback by the majority of online gamers. And while I know the point of this blog is to rant about terrible games... I just can't hate this. Part of me wants to hate it, but another part of me can't help but applaud anyone with the balls to make something this completely mental, then stand back and watch the sparks fly. And if nothing else, you can at least concede that it's different.

So, I Made This - strange. Scary. Weirdly compelling.

Buggy Run 2

2009-02-11T21:34:00.003Z

As I've written before, I'm a big fan of "tilty" games - 2D titles that have you drive a vehicle across a bumpy terrain as quickly as possible, doing your best to keep your balance throughout. It's a simple concept, and maybe that's why I enjoy them so much; in order to screw up a tilty game, you need to be really dense.

Enter Buggy Run 2: Operation Blizzard. This is an "exclusive" to Flash247.com, and it's not hard to see why. God knows I'd be embarrassed to put this on my site (unless, of course, it was only to say how crap it was, which I am, so that's all right.)

Apparently the creator of Buggy Run 2 thought the game needed more of a plot than "Drive over there" so we're granted a story of espionage, intrigue and dropping small thermonuclear devices out of your car before driving away very quickly. All right, so it's not Final Fantasy, but then what is? And besides, isn't a story sort of superfluous to a game like this? People don't play tilty games for the exciting cut scenes; they play them because they're cheap and cheerful time wasters.

But then, Buggy Run 2 might be compensating for something, as it's neither cheap nor cheerful, and while most games of this type allow you to drive, this one feels you'd have a lot more fun if your vehicle spent most of its time lying on its roof with its wheels spinning in the air like some metal tortoise. I can't tell if the controls are too sensitive or not enough, as I never really got a chance to check, usually flipping head over arse if I bumped into anything more than three inches high. Of course, you have the ability to jump and right yourself, which comes in handy, but not if you use it at the wrong place or at the wrong time. I actually managed to flip 360 degrees three times in a row before my buggy finally exploded.

To help you get through the levels there are power-ups scattered throughout. These floating wrenches will replenish some of your health. And that's certainly a good thing, because they're usually preceded by a big red mine that you can't avoid, no matter what you do. Oh, and the mines are pretty much everywhere.

When you're not trying to avoid running over mines, you're trying to avoid getting blown up by Apache helicopters dropping bombs. As is often the case, they'll show up just as you're stuck between two tanks and can't escape.

Why the hell am I driving over tanks, anyway? How can my buggy charge over nuclear warheads (curiously half buried in the snow, as if people had forgotten they were there)? Wouldn't it make more sense to drive around these things?

That's one of the elements of tilty games that I've never been able to figure out - why throw other vehicles in the way when bridges, holes and bumps in the road do just fine? Unless I'm driving a monster truck, how much sense do these obstacles make?

Anyway, back from that aside and into Buggy Run 2, which clearly doesn't like me, as the developer saw fit to place a bloody mine at the very start of level four. So I've been playing for precisely two seconds when I lose a third of my health - gee, thanks.

To get through these levels requires reflexes far surpassing that of the average human being. Or you can go slowly over the terrain, which kind of defeats the purpose. So, because I'm a stubborn son of a bitch I endeavoured to do my very best and get through the game as quickly as possible.

And the results, as you can see, speak for themselves. If you play Buggy Run 2, expect to blow up. A lot. You have infinite lives, so you get to endure the frustration of crashing on the same spot again and again and again without the benefit of a Quit button. Yes, there's a "Stop" button, but that just pauses the game. Fool - you can't stop Buggy Run 2 from ruining your coffee break!