Reviews

Review by h all reviews by h

Mars Fight by Elias is set on the planet Mars in the year 3002. Your mission is to use your Jellybot to defeat the armies of the evil Dr. Jelly in order to
capture his Crystal of Power. Your bot is armed with an Oxygenator, a gun firing oxygen molecules (very powerful oxygen molecules apparently, because one of
them is enough to completely destroy one of Dr. Jelly's fighters). On your way to the Crystal of Power, you encounter wave after wave of evil Jellybots of
increasing difficulty. These, too, fire different kinds of molecules: sodium, sulfur, magnesium etc. As you walk your bot towards the goal, you may pick up large
blobs of jelly to gain health. The game is seen in top-down view, and just as in Hellcarrier by Free Lunch Design, the world rotates around the player in a
very nice way.

First of all, I must say that I'm impressed by the way the author implemented the "no rectangular grid" rule. He has actually turned this rule to his favour by making
a hexagonal tilemap instead of a square one. This hexagonal map makes the ground look really great, better than with most rectangular maps I've seen. The way
the world rotates around you also contributes to the nice feel about the world.

Unfortunately the bot sprites don't fit too well with the the terrain sprites, I think. It's not that they're ugly, they're just not made in quite the same style as the rest
of the sprites. Apart from this, though, the game looks very good for being made in just a single weekend. I also must give the author credits for having time to
write some AI. Not that the enemies are particularly smart, but at least they do something.

As with many games in short competitions like this one though, <i>Mars Fight</i> suffers from poor gameplay. I found especially the first level extremely tedious.
It was time consuming, without providing any real challenge. After the first level, it got better. The enemies were harder and it actually got a little exciting at
times. But the game never really took hold of me, and it lacked those addictive elements that separate good games from great ones.

Now over to the technical and artistic requirements. They are all there, just as they should be. The planet Mars theme was obvious. The game is set on Mars, and
it's even got Mars in the title. Nothing to complain about there. I have already mentioned that the rectangular grid rule was done by constructing a hexagonal grid.
The GUI is there too, in the shape of a main menu with buttons. It has a transparency effect which is nice, but other than that it doensn't look very exciting. I
found no chemical <i>formulas</i> in the game, but those molecules that the bots are firing have to count as an implementation of that rule, so I can't really
complain about it. And the jelly is present too, as mentioned.

Overall, this game, like many games in Speedhack and similar competitions, is very good from a technical aspect (credits for stability too), but a bit weaker when it comes to actual gameplay and "fun factor". With some work, it could be a really fun game to play.

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