Robot Wants Kitty

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.

Robot Unicorn Attack

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...

Platform Robot 2

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.

Transformers: Megatron Face-Off

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.