Young Dragon

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.

Stone Age Conqueror

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!

Hey Wizard

You always know that a game is perfect for review if, when it comes time to get the screenshots, I really, really don't want to play it again. I don't mind going through some of these games a couple of times if it means getting the screenshots I need for my review, but sometimes you just feel so much derision that the thought of getting bogged down in that quagmire of bullshit one more time just fills you with dread. Such is the case with Hey Wizard, which is a shame, because on any other day I might not have had a problem with it.



The game sees you play a wizard who has inadvertently opened the Megagate, unleashing a bunch of nasty creatures who have stolen all your magic mojo. So, armed with only three spells, you venture forth to destroy the gates and find all of your magic books. I should note, right off the bat, that I think the game looks great. the simple colour scheme and economical animation results in a simple, attractive layout. Unfortunately, navigating this pretty picture is where we hit a snag.

You can move the wizard left and right using the A and D keys, but there is no jump button. Instead, you select the lightning spell, aim at the ground with the mouse, hold down the left mouse button to charge the spell, and release the button to fly up into the air. If that sounds complicated, that's because it is. I know the character is an old wizard, but surely he could have magicked himself some young legs, or even some spring-loaded boots? It just seems to me like there are better ways of reaching higher platforms than firing an explosive into the ground and riding on the shock wave. On top of this, because you are indeed being shot forward by an explosion, you have no control over where you'll land, as the control keys are rendered useless while you're in the air.



You can reach even higher places with the use of the fire spell, using the flames to propel yourself into the air. Again, the control keys are of no use while airborne, but you can move the mouse around to provide yourself with some semblance of control. However, each spell has a limited amount of energy, so you can only use this most unsafe of travel options for five seconds or so, before it needs to recharge.



The third spell at your disposal is the necro hand, which sounds a hell of a lot cooler than it actually is. I'm not sure what its purpose is, other than to act as a kind of temporary barrier between you and the enemies you face. You can imbue it with the power of the other spells, but I never got a chance to see what effect doing that has. Plus, by the time you've shot the necro hand enough times for it to light up in flames or pulse with electricity, it's ready to disappear.



So I'm in the tutorial, learning about all this stuff, when this monster comes out of nowhere and starts firing balls of light at me. Hey, how about you warn me next time an ogre is charging at me with a friggin' energy blast!?

It was with great speed that I learned the best defence was to run like hell, firing lighting bolts behind me as I went. The other spells proved pretty much useless in this and many other fights. The fire, though effective, has a short range, and the necro hands don't do a damn thing.



Once you've completed a level, you can access your skills page. This is where you can use some of the upgrade points you collect during the game to improve your stats. Upgrade points are amassed by killing enemies and collecting the goblets that are floating around everywhere. Unfortunately you can't access the skills page during a level, so if you're running low on health and need to boost your hitpoints, tough. Some would call that a challenge. I call it a pain in the ass.



We haven't even gotten to the first level yet, but believe me, it gets no better. The first thing I noticed was that in order to survive I had to run away constantly. the barrage of enemies is non-stop, and when you can't jump, that's a problem.



Scratch that - it's a BIG problem. You might think this is nitpicking, but having to blow myself off the ground if I want to get onto platforms or avoid enemy fire is ridiculous. When I'm surrounded by goblins, all firing at me, I can't just stand around and wait for the lightning spell to charge. Hell, I need that lightning spell to kill these bastards!



The gate I need to destroy is somewhere to the left, but all I can do is shoot off screen and hope I hit it. I can't get any closer because there are a dozen monsters waiting for me, and because the terrain is so uneven I can't just run away. I tried flying over the gate and destroying it with my fire spell, but the thrust of the fire just pushes you away from the target every time you click the mouse button. So I'm stuck here, firing lighting blots, unsure if I'm hitting anything.

Are we having fun yet?



What could have been a fun game is almost totally ruined by poor controls. Never was an "up" button so desired. But because you can't jump (which I always thought was a prerequisite in a platform game) everything else becomes ten times more complicated. The question is: if you could jump, would I be reviewing Hey Wizard for this blog? The answer is no, I wouldn't. But you can't, so this beautiful, frustrating game sadly gets a big thumbs down.

Haunted House Escape

Yes, I know, I didn't write a review last week, and no, I don't have an excuse. At the end of the day, I was tired and it was late.

Guess I do have an excuse. Anyway, I have returned with a point and click adventure that involves lots of random clicking but very little point, Haunted House Escape. Now, I tend to avoid these "escape" games because they rarely interest me, but for some reason Haunted House Escape caught my eye, and I figured I would give it a shot. How could I have foreseen the soul-sucking experience that was to befall me for almost twenty agonising minutes?



So we begin our adventure outside the haunted house. Oh, OK, I guess the game is over then, because as the title clearly states, the object is to escape the haunted house. It's kind of hard to escape something you're not even in. But this is explained by telling us that the front gate is locked, and the only way to escape is to go through the house.

Let's consider the logic of going into a building in order to get out of a building. And while we're at it, let's prove the existence of dark matter with a rubber band a toothpick. And why exactly was climbing over the wall not an option? There are giant trees right there; surely you could climb up one of those, shimmy along a branch and make your way down the other side with the minimum of fuss, right? But then, it's exactly that kind of thought process that means I review crappy games, not make them.



The first order of business is to find a brick in the wall that will move aside to reveal a knife and a mirror, which must be tilted in such a way as to catch the moonlight and beam it towards another mirror. Of course, finding the brick is the hard part, since it could be any one of the large grey slabs of granite that make up the front of the house. There are no clues as to which brick is the one you're looking for, and the cursor does not change when you hover over a hotspot, so that's no use either. The only option, therefore, is to click every brick until you reach the right one, a time-consuming and frankly boring endeavour.



The reason behind all this mirror moving and brick clicking is to beam the moonlight onto a cellar door, which you then cut open with the knife in order to get inside the house. You might ask why one should even bother, especially when you can cut the ropes holding the cellar door closed at any time. But the light plays an important part in the next puzzle, so the tedious work must be done.



Just so we're clear, I didn't get through this game because I'm a brilliant puzzle solver or because I always consider the possibility of hidden mirrors in brick walls. No, I won thanks to this walkthrough, provided by the developers on their website. A Flash game really shouldn't need a walkthrough. Hints and tips are always good, but a full explanation on how to beat every puzzle in the game shouldn't be necessary. These are games you play during your coffee break - they're not supposed to be fucking Myst!



So we get into the house, and the first stop is the kitchen. Somewhere in here is a shard of a mirror, hidden behind a China plate. Of course, it's behind that lone plate on the right, because you're too busy looking through all the crap in the middle, where you'd expect that sort of thing to be. Again, it's a case of clicking everywhere until the answer suddenly appears right in front of you and you feel like an idiot for having missed it for so long.



The reason you're going to all this trouble is to find four keys that will unlock a secret passageway out of the house. I should probably note at this point that at no time in my search for these keys did I come across a ghost, a monster, a poltergeist or any spiritual being of any kind. For a haunted house, this place is awfully lacking in scariness.

Anyway, you put the keys into this contraption and click each one a certain number of times, which will unlock another door. There are numbers scattered around the house to tell you how many clicks each key requires, but if you don't remember or don't know where to find these numbers you're in trouble. And what happens if you click too many times? I never found out, thanks to the walkthrough, but since the keys don't seem removable I'd hope you get a second chance.



The keys open this lever in the cellar, which in turn opens a door upstairs that leads to a secret escape tunnel. I'm not sure how an upstairs door leads to a tunnel - it may be a vortex, which would at least help the house live up to its "haunted" billing.

Once again, I've put too much thought into this. If you're looking for an infuriating, time-consuming, evil bastard of a game, play Haunted House Escape. If you're looking for something fun, then keep looking.

Sleepless Knight

I remember quite enjoying Sleepless Knight the first time I played it. Oh yes, I do like more than four games on the internet, and Sleepless Knight (or more accurately, Sleepless Knight Part 1 - a sequel has been released that's actually a big improvement) was one of them. Sure, it was challenging and at times frustrating, but that was OK, because it just made me more determined to complete the game.



You play Knight Lucy, the GI Jane of Medieval England except with less coarse language and more acting talent. It's February 14th and you have received a Valentine's Day card!

(Don't worry, there's violence soon.)



Turns out it's not a Valentine's card after all, but a request for help from the kidnapped princess. Talk about getting a girl's hopes up. Still, that is really nice scented pink notepaper.



Lucy decides to go and do what all knights in platform games do - go off alone to fight a horde of evil monsters.

So, lesbian knight goes off to save distressed but flirtatious princess - got that? Good. Unfortunately I don't know where the "sleepless" part comes in. Sure, it was a nice play on words, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the context of the game.



What follows is your standard platform adventure game, as you guide Lucy through tunnels and caverns in search of the princess. Along the way you battle such fierce creatures as rats, bats and... that's it. The question of why I wasn't fighting kidnappers gets answered in the final cutscene and in the sequel, but at the time I was feeling a little confused.



The controls are as simple as Ted Nugent's politics (man, there's an obscure reference.) Cursor keys to move left and right, A button to jump and S button to attack. Keep tapping S for combos, culminating in this cool Final Fantasy-style energy blast.



The Space button pauses the game and brings up the shop menu, from which you can make purchases using the gold coins you collect through the game. Aside from the armour, which increases your health, these upgrades don't seem to do much, other than look cool. But hey, at least you look really cool.



Gotta say, Lucy - I love the Xena get-up. But this screenshot provides a good example of a major flaw in Sleepless Knight; there are times when you need to drop down to a lower level, but it's impossible to see where you're going until it's too late. Lucy may have sartorial style, but apparently they don't teach you how to look down at Knight School.



The game has its fair share of puzzles, usually just locating buttons to unlock doors. The two are usually some distance from each other, so you then need to high tail it back to the door before the lock resets and you have go through the process all over again. Suffice to say, this is not one of Sleepless Knight's better qualities.



The bats pissed me off to no end. At least the rats were manageable; these flying fuckers swooped in, took away some of my health, and swooped back out again before I had a chance to do anything. The bats also have an annoying tendency to knock you off ledges if you're close to the edge of one, which sucks in the situation above since that's a moving ledge and there are spikes underneath it. The best strategy I found was to jump up and down and time it so I could stab at the bats until they died. And surely bats can't take as many hits as these sons of bitches did?



At times I felt like the developer was just being spiteful, like here, when you have to jump from one spring to the next to complete the level. Underneath you are spikes, covered only by conveyor belts that will send you flying off as soon as you land on them. It's designed with the sole intention of robbing you of half your health - there is no other explanation.



Chapter 2, The Secret Cave, doesn't seek to make things any easier. Here we are again at another blind jump. Now, of course, the idea is to follow the coins down so you land in the correct spot. But what if you don't follow them down? What if you time the jump wrong?



But at least you only have a rat to deal with in the first pit. Right after it, there's a pit of spikes. That's right - you have to make a blind jump into a pit of spikes and land directly on this spring. It's the sort of ridiculous challenge that only hardcore gamers and vindictive software developers enjoy.

You better make sure you land exactly on the spring, too. I lost count of the number of times I fell through a spring, all because I didn't hit the absolute middle.

The entire Cave section is a hotbed of frustrating puzzles, hidden enemies and death after death after death. The only reason I even made it to the third chapter, The Foothills, was because of some glitch in the game that sent me there after going through an incongruous door in the Secret Cave (and if the cave is so secret, why are there doors? Why are there doors in a cave in the first place?



Single block platforms. I've already given my opinion of single block platforms in a previous review, so I won't waste time explaining my utter contempt for them. But what annoys me more are single block platforms that disappear when you walk on them.

I mean... God damn it, cut me some slack here!

The ultimate kick in the balls is when you die, or worse, get caught in some glitch and have to restart the level.



All the upgrades you worked so hard to obtain are gone. All of them. There's nothing left. Even the number of beasts you've killed goes back down to zero. So having hacked and slashed and energy blasted your way this far, you now have to go all the way back to a wooden sword and shield. Now, that, my friends, is what we call "bullshit."

The good news is, Sleepless Knight 2 rectifies most, though not all, of these problems. At the very least, it doesn't take all of your upgrades when you die. May advice, if you must play one of these games, is to go with the sequel. You won't really be missing much if you bypass Sleepless Knight Part 1.