absent's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Escape from Camp Hostility]

Amazing Graphics - Much too hard

The title of this review basically sums up my main points. The graphics were well drawn and very polished, and many scenes were most likely touched up in Photoshop to give a more realistic feel. The Nene preloader was also a nice touch.

My only complaints about the graphics would be that going from movie to interactive was a pretty big jump because of the decrease in detail. It just looked odd to have these big detailed scenes and characters suddenly shrink down to small running sprites.

My other nitpick at the animation would be that when the bear is eating Pico's guts, it seems a bit off and fake. The bear is drawn in Flash and looks like a smooth vector graphic, while the image of Pico is clearly more detailed, and makes the bear look like he's not actually interacting with Pico when eating his guts.

The music in the Flash is top-notch. It's clear, high quality, and definitely gets your heart racing while playing through the two mini-games.

Moving on to the actual mini-games, the parts of the submission which really drag it down. Both are extremely difficult and frustrating, and playing through each a good fifty or more times to finally beat it isn't exactly fun.

The bear chase was significantly easier than the second one, but is still much too hard nonetheless. The fact that the rocks come at you so quickly AND the bear is approaching makes it all the more annoying. I ended up beating it by clicking a whole lot of times and was able to keep myself afloat to avoid the rocks. Ugh.

The bird mini-game really takes the cake in terms of the most aggravating "avoid-the-obstacles" game I've ever played. The rocks and walls take up a good portion of the screen most of the time, and the speed in which they come at your character pretty much makes it impossible for ANY error whatsoever.

After finally beating it (took a good 20 minutes, and I ended up winning by luck), the death at the end was more of a let down than anything else, as I had just spent so much time attempting to live. Not funny guys, not at all.

Some suggestions for the mini-games:

* Add a "Skip" option. Either at the start of the submission or after dying a certain amount of times (10 maybe? 20?)
* Add a health bar (especially to the bird one) so that you don't have to be completely perfect while playing through
* Decrease the speed or size of the rocks/walls in the bird mini-game.

My main problem lies with the mini-game section. I think that more mini-games of lesser difficulty would have suited the submission better than two extremely hard ones. The ending was more of a let down than funny as well. In any case, interesting combination of movie and game, looks amazing, but falls short in terms of playability.

Luis responds:

sweet review thanks for the time. Yeah I guess we played it so much that it was easy for us and we thought we wouldnt make it such a piss take.. tweaked a pinch and it should be a little bit easier.. anywho, the death is a letdown i suppose but atleast nene is happy in the end and she does end up escaping the camp.

The minigame within a movie is an akward combination of things and i wasnt even sure wether to submit as a game or movie .. i still dont and definately brings up a host of issues which you bring up such as how to weave it seamlessly.. i think as time goes on and i continue to try this merger it'll get better. definately appreciate your feedback on problem areas. :)

[Jive Machine]

God yes.

God fucking yes. That was the greatest thing ever. The graphics and dance choreography were masterfully done. The song selection was perfect (love all of the songs) and overall this flash is the most ground breaking submission I've ever seen.

The graphics are awesome, as you can quickly tell through the awesome preloader and menu screens. The backgrounds used in the flash also have a great well drawn, cartoony style to them. The fact that there were backgrounds for each song was also a nice touch ;)

The one thing I would say is that some of the backgrounds are a bit distracting to the main attraction of the flash (the amazing dancing). It probably was distracting because the window for the dancing wasn't centered on the screen, so your eyes are likely to look up a bit. Also the low quality movie can sometimes stick out against the very clean backgrounds. I suppose you can't do too much about that though :/

Otherwise it's very well done, and I liked some of the subliminal messages on the newgrounds backgrounds. So when should I give you that oral sex sir?

The style of the flash and dancing is of course the best thing I've ever watched. The only way to describe it is that it brought an orgasm to my eyes and erection to my pants :o The dance moves were over the top and easily recognizable, which made it really fun to play around with. It's tough getting the moves to match with the songs exactly, but most of the time it strangely works out.

With some of the dance moves the camera moves a little, either up or down, which can make moving from one move to another a bit choppy. I'm not sure if this was done on purpose to fit the dancing or not, but it's not much of a huge deal. When you press "Q" the door opens a little :p

This flash is awesome, but really it mostly comes down to mashing buttons and giggling at dave as he prances around in the room. It would be really cool if you could expand this little game, and possibly have him dance to a set beat, DDR style. For now though, this is still fun in it's own sexy and silly way.

Awesome job guys!

BlueHippo responds:

Thanks for the awesome review and ideas.

-dave

[the classroom 3]

Huzzah!

Awesome man, these games get better each time, even if the formula is somewhat hard to improve on because of the simple nature.

The graphics are slightly improved, with shading and nicer looking drawings, although the students and teachers are still round circles that float around, so it's not necessarily the greatest graphical achievement, but that doesn't mean it detracts from the overall gameplay. Although they aren't amazing drawings, it's still cleaned up nicely and everything is pretty tight.

I love your style, seriously. The little touches you add and sound effects blend really well with the rest of the game, and overall it's a great finish. Some things I can think of could be the way the act # bounces around, or just the way you time some of the sound with the events taking place.

Speaking of sound, the music in the certain situations works great, like when you're boycootting (boycoot?) the test and the other person walks in the room. Or the silly little sound effects from the teachers and students when they attempt to communicate.

The gameplay is unchanged from the last games. You walk over to the nerds test while the visually impaired teacher attempts to look at you. However the levels when you're not in the classroom were a great way to mix things up. Sneaking past security guards is always fun. It's the classroom meet metal gear. Woot.

I would have hoped there would have been more times you mixed it up, because no matter how many times I love copying off the yellow cirlce's paper in the same classroom each time, it starts to get somewhat repetitive. That's why I like you kept this game short but sweet.

You could have had your character copy off of people in other places than the classroom, or maybe changed the classroom your character took the test in, adding little twists for each different area, such as two teachers (student teacher perhaps?) or whatever.

If you could have made the plot a little more involved it could have been nice too. You could seperate gaps between levels with bits of dialouge, rather than jumping to the next level most of the time.

Overall, pretty much what I expected in terms of gameplay, but still really fun to play either way. I managed to kill a good amount of time on this. The "get help" feature is pretty cool too, so people don't have to go around begging for hints, although I feel that instead of doing the level for the player, just give a few tips rather than show the whole level.

Oh yeah, and for anyone who needs them, level codes.

Act 2: geekfoundation
Act 3: donalex
Act 4: windowchecker
Act 5: classroomrunner
Act 6: psychedman
Act 7: fisherlike
Act 8: boycoot
Act 9: cellularman
Act 10: theexcuse
Act 11: crash

[Pico's School remake]

Good Graphics - Slow Gameplay

As many people have already pointed out, the movement of pico and the rest of the characters was quite slow. That's probably your biggest flaw, as that really caused the game to be much less fun than it could have been.

The graphics were nice though, and when I played for the first time, I did say to myself "wow" when moving around. The camera view makes the game more interesting and trippy, and isn't a bad thing in my opinion. Obviously there's the issue with pico walking right through objects on the screen, but I suppose that's done so it's easier to navigate the rooms, and not run into annoying barricades.

I must comment on the ninja fight graphics though. I thought the sparks from the gun fire to light the room really looked awesome. That has to be the best part you remade, and it made the fight enjoyable just to behold, although much easier to win.

The alucard battle could have been a lot better though. Because of the slow movements of characters in general, it's extremely easy to dodge the flying kids thrown at you, with a simple tap of a button. Maybe alucard could toss more than one kid at you at time, like in the original game.

This is a very true remake of the original, as you copied the exact sound effects and dialouge, but, unlike the original, you left out some things that gave the original that extra touch. Some of which include the guy in the bathroom, or that you can shoot alucard after he defends himeself with the chairs.

If you're not doing everything exactly like the original, I would hope that maybe you could enhance other aspects of the game, such as changing the sound effects. Doing so could make the game more of your style, rather than copy exactly how it was from the original. The more you can make the game your own without losing the touch of the original is all the better. I understand why you choose to stick with the original sound bytes, but I suppose that it comes down to a matter of personal preference.

The final battle I couldn't play because of having a mac computer. I'm not sure what you did, but if you just stuck with the "a" key to advance the scenes like you did with every other part, you wouldn't have run into this problem. Although from the looks of the scene, it probably plays out pretty well.

Overall it's a very good remake of the original, although the very slow movement made the battles a lot easier than they could have been, and traveling through the school very tedious, especially if you don't know where you're going. Some of the nice touches of the original were missing, but instead of adding them, you could try adding your own. The graphics were awesome though, and it's a shame I wasn't able to fight the final boss. Good work.

[Skears DX]

Amazing challenge

Just to let you know, I really love this game, in case you can't tell from the score ;) Your touches of originality when creating levels knows no bounds, and even with a very limited amount of parts to the game, you very still able to create a very enjoyable if not a bit frusturating game.

The game graphics are not anything special looking by all means, but they get the job done. The way you arrange the skears is pretty cool for most of the levels, especially level 7, which was the most interesting level for me to play, because of the way the level plays out. You also change the colors of the skears sometimes, which was a nice touch.

Some things to think about would be how to add to this game without getting repetitive. You have ten levels so far, all of them diffilcult for the most part. Try changing up the background more. Maybe make it animated or simply just different, so the player can really see that he or she has moved on past the previous levels. A good way to do this could be to make the background darker as the player moves on, or something of that nature. You also only have two types of skears, and you use them creatively to create fun levels, but there is only so much you can do. There could be skears that change color, skears that disseaper and reappear, etc. Even slight changes to the types skears could open up a large variety of new challenges that you could base levels off.

Your somewhat humorus commentary that comes up every time you die was fun to read, especially while on my quest to become a skears master, which I have not yet become after losing spirit when making my first mistake on the last level. Oh well, I'll come back to this game later. What I would suggest, and this is something I think would be very important, would be that if you're going for the no mistake ending, that after dying at a level, there could be the addition of a "restart" button, so I could try again from the beginning, rather than try the same level over to beat the game, which I have already done. The ending to the game was cool though. I like the "THE END" screen where I had to destroy the skears to continue to the next screen, neat.

This is really a great game to play, and because of it's diffilculty, it shouldn't be considered a little mini game that you can shrug off in five minutes.

AcidDimensions responds:

Awesome review.

Your opening paragraph is gushing with praise and contains some nice usage of the English language.

You mention your few caveats and do go on to give suggestions, which is brilliant.

The one part of your review I couldn't follow is at the bottom of paragraph 2, where you write, "You also change the colors of the skears sometimes, which was a nice touch."

The Skears remain the same colours throughout. Or maybe you're talking about the way they're semi-transparent? I shall assume you were.

You give excellent suggestions, and expand upon them which is nice.

Even though I'd thought of them before (it has been years, after all), it's useful to know what you'd most appreciate seeing.

Incidentally, the abandoned version of Skears 2 does have 'warping skears'. Skears DX is the best imo though.

The point about the restart button, though, I had not thought of and it's a very good point.

It's nice how you get specific with your praise, like pointing out the commentary etc. Hearing about your experience (your horribly timed mistake) is always interesting.

Praise and criticism/suggestions both abound and are clearly put forward. Personal experience is touched upon and the last paragraph is a great summary.

Your usage of the language is commendable and there is no waffle.

My only complaint is that one sentence I mentioned earlier, which is a little unclear.

Also, in the last paragraph, you should have written, "because of its diffilculty" (no apostrophe). Only write "it's" when you mean to say, "it is".

9/10

Thanks for another great review.

Might I humbly request you write your opinions on my "'Asteroids' music video"?

Either way, thanks and stay funky.

- Bez

[letters (demo)]

Good game, but lacking.

This is a nice game that you have created, simple at best but it still delivers some good difficulty. Especially to me, the "not so good" typist.

The graphics are simple, but effective, considering a game of this nature isn't really something that would need amazing graphics at all. The purple color sceme is nice, but I really felt that there was something lacking. The letters are hand drawn, which is nice, but I did find that your letter "s" was tricky to recognize at first glance. Some suggestions could be to change the color sceme through the levels. This meaning you could make a green themed level, or a red one, to give the game more variety. A background other than a solid color would be nice but not necessary in this case, and maybe some kind of animation for the letters whenever they are destroyed, such as a small animeted explosion, rather than the letter simply disappearing when pressed.

Sound would be a great addition to this game. Some background music and sound effects when a letter is pressed would really make the game more interesting to play. Sound effects are some of the main things that really get me into a game, and keep it from becoming boring as easily.

The game itself is good, and has potential to only become better. I like how you give the levels a new twist each time rather than simply adding more letters and increasing the fall speed of them. The ending was something of a turnoff to me by saying you beat this "stupid little game" because it doesn't seem satisfying to play a game when the author just thinks it's stupid. At the end, you can only go back and replay level 4, but it would be nice to be able and go back and play the first levels as well, without having to have to close the flash and reload.

Overall, it's a nice little game, and although it's only a demo, it really seems like something that could become better and better.

AcidDimensions responds:

Great review.

You start off with some general positive comments. You go from extolling the small virtues of the graphics to pointing out the typographical problems. Suggestions are given, rounding off the first 'real' paragraph.

This paragraph alone would be a good review.

You then go on to suggest some sound, elaborating and going into specifics without ever repeating yourself.

You then praise the fact I "give the levels a new twist each time rather than simply adding more letters and increasing the fall speed of them." That's the kind of specific positive comment that I really love - it not only shows you genuinely liked that aspect, but it also give me an idea of what strengths I can concentrate on and ensure I don't remove in any later iteration.

Your statement that "the ending was something of a turnoff to [you]" maybe deserves a new paragraph. Nit picking aside, you raise an interesting point I hadn't considered before. You show me a new point of view.

The following comment is also well made and nicely elaborated upon.

The closing comments serve as a brilliant summary of your thoughts and ensure I realise your general opinion.

Overall, it's a brilliant review, with a good amount of praise, criticism/suggestions and a good summary.

You get down to specifics and elaborate when needed.

8/10

You may enjoy some of my other stuff. Maybe Skears DX. Maybe Asteroids. In any case, I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of my other submissions you care to spend your time over.

Stay funky.
- Bez

[lunch_Box]

Not bad as a simple minigame

This was pretty fun to play, and it was quite a unique idea that you used.

The graphics weren't the greatest, but they still looked ok in the game. The background is static and never changes, and it's only a simple brick wall. The paddle looked pretty good with the lighting on it, and the buttons also were done well. One problem I had with the graphics was the fact that the food plus the basket all look like they were cut out from somewhere, rather than blending in with the game. This made the graphics look a bit corney, And I'd like it if you could make some of the food items look a bit better. If you were to add something it could be the addition of different backgrounds, so it doesn't get boring looking at a brick wall all the time. Animated backgrounds could also be an interesting edge to this game. The way you made the game was fun, and the sound effects give the game a very lighthearted feeling overall.

The sounds were pretty funny actually. From the bouce sound to the roll over button sound, it all was nice. Maybe the addition of background music could be cool, but with the option to turn it off in case it gets annoying.

The game itself is short, but pretty fun still. The way you can use timer clocks is good, and it adds an element of luck in the game so you can get higher scores. I also think that it's cool that you can bouce the fruit off the wall to get it in the basket. Some good additions to add to the game if you plan on expanding it, would be multiple levels, and more to collect than just food. What also could be good would be a stats count at the end of the game, showing how much of each item you've collected, and how many objects you missed. These things could be used to change the highscore, and make the scoring system more complex.

Overall, it's a nice, quick, short game, that has a nice happy feel to it. You don't get the most playtime or satisfaction, but the game is still well made.

[Turbo Spirit XT]

Holy shit :o

That was amazing. From the second I started playing the game, I knew this was serious quality, and when I stared the race, things just got better.

From a graphical stand point, the graphics rock. It's always hard to make the background look detailed or very good when dealing with 3D effects, but it was pulled off quite well. I'm really amazed at how smooth everything when as well. There was little slowdown, despite the amount of things going on, on the screen. Since I have not played the full version of the game, and have only access to the first three maps, I can only comment about them. If you were to do anything to the graphics, it would be to change things up a bit more. I'm all for awesome racing games, but the way to really keep the intrest of people, is to keep throwing new challenges at them. Some things to think about would be the addition of rain, slippery roads, and other objects of that nature. I'm not saying that the graphics need any of these things, but they would be nice to give each track something special other than just a few changes of background graphics, and wider turns.

The style of this game is something to behold. Whether or not you like racing games, seeing how the game plays out is something to see in itself. I cannot concieve how hard it must be to make something like a game of this nature. The way you constantly have to adjust to turns the way the background flies by is excellent. I have nothing to complain about the style in which this game is made, considering I've always been a big fan of "pole position" type racing games.

The sound is nice as well. You have music for the races and the menus, and the sound effects for the motorcycles was also very good. It's nothing amazing for me really, but the part of the sounds that did stand out was the announcers voice of the 5,4,3,2,1 count and the ready set go part. One small problem is that sometimes after the race, you can still hear the loud roar of the motorcycles, and the only way to stop the sound is to start a new race.

As for the race, it was a very entertaining experience. The way the horizon tilts whenever you make a turn was a nice touch, and the little newpaper that appears when you win or lose was pretty cool. The game focuses mainly on doing turns, and how well you can pull them off. This makes a big focus of the game of turning rather than dodging cars, jumping off ramps, or any other special racing effects that you see in professional games. I like the way the games uses you ability to make turns, because it shows that you can still make a hard game with the basics of racing alone. Although it does get a bit annoying to turn at every second, and slow down your motorcycle, it doesn't make the game that worse, because there are a million other redeeming qualities. I wish there was a highscore board just for the interent version players, only because I could see where I stand amoung the other players without having to pay money for the game.

Overall, it's a great game, that is a bit short because of the trial part, but still provides some high action fun with it's three tracks available. The game could be considered easy to beat, because you only get to play easy tracks, but I believe that this trial provides a good deal playtime nonetheless. A great little timewaster, but with all the awesome graphics.

[Commando Arena Remix]

It's a good game, but very frusturating

This game could have been really good, but you ruin it with the control sceme.

The graphics in the game are sweet. They look amazing and the explosions that look like they were taken from real ones also look cool. The game area is a bit small and cramped, but maybe that's what you were going for with the "arena" type of game in mind. The ending scene with the explosion and the calculation of score was slow though. I wish that if you died there was some way to get back in the action quickly, because if any one is going to attempt to beat it, they need to focus a lot, and waiting through a fairly long death scene gets annoying.

The style of the game is pretty cool actually. You combine things that look life like (like the explosions or the ground) with things that look more drawn (like your ship) to create a nice style for the game. The sound effects were good, you had your drums and lively music in the background a long with all the needed sounds for lazer gun fire, taking damage, etc. All the sounds were in place and done well here. The music wasn't anything special, and somewhat forgettable, but it fills the silence gaps.

The gameplay ruins this game however. It's really a shame though, because this is a well made game. The mouse just doesn't cut it for controlling a ship in a game like this. After much effort and anger, I did manage to be able to use the controls well enough to win, but with just one diffilculty level, a player who's trying to get into the game will most likely be turned off by the extremely diffilcult control sceme. I think that using the usuall wasd movement should be good enough to turn this game into something much more playable. I also noticed that the smaller enemies seemed to die without me having to shoot them most of the time, and they really had no effect on the game whatsoever. I would like it that if you decide to change the controls, that adding more levels and diffilculty levels would do the game some good.

Overall, the experience of the game is let down by the nasty controls, but the graphics and mostly all the other aspects that you are looking for are here. If you think you're able to get the hang of the controls, then this game should still provide some good fun.

[Captain Panda 1 v.2]

Really nice work!

Ha! I love tunnel type games, and this one sure didn't let me down!.

The graphics of the game should I say were just plain sweet. The plane graphic was very good, and I like how you can see it change position when it moves up or down. The graphics for the tunnel were also good, because instead of simply a big black tunnel that you travel through, there was actually some variety to the tunnels, and you could make ice tunnels, earth tunnels, ect. The only thing that I could possibly complain about would be the lack of background. I know that f you added a background it might start to disorientate the player, who's trying to concentrate. However, I think that very simple background (such as a space background of some sort) would do good for the game. Using backgrounds, you could aslo add more diffilculty to the game, such as a level with rain, making it harder to see. Just throwing some wild suggestions out there ok? ;)

The music was nice. I like how it changed from stage to stage, so it doesn't get boring after a while. The sound effect for the explosion was also a good addition. No complaints here from me. Looks like you got off easy here ;)

As for the actual gameplay, it's just like one of those tunnel games with a few new features like hp, levels and better graphics. Not the most exciting thing in the world, but the addictive gameplay keeps you coming back for more. I like the continue option, no wait, I LOVE the continue option, it saved me some frustration throughout the game. In the fourth level, you start the game above the tunnel though, and even though you may do this for diffilculty, I still don't think that it's very fair because the first time you enter the level, it catches you off guard. I never made it to the bonus level thus far, so I don't know what I'm missing as far as that goes. Some additions you might want to consider would be diffilculty modes such as faster tunnel, or more levels, like maybe a city level?, that would be cool to see.

Overall, great game, lots of fun. It's simplistic and addictive, and you'll find yourself playing it for quite a while.

Oddy responds:

Dude! That's quality reviewing right there :)
Thank you :)