Reviews

Review by Hard Rock all reviews by Hard Rock

This is one of the better looking games of TINS and has very stable implementation and was written in python! Unfortunately while the game has a lot of potential, its just not very fun. The garbage cans take for ever to destroy and since you can never really lose, you just get warped back it becomes extremely repetitive trying to navigate through the same (albeit good looking) environment and killing the same nearly indestructible enemies.

A good attempt but could use a great deal of tweaking and balancing.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 4 Technical 3 Genre 4

Review by Hard Rock all reviews by Hard Rock

This was an interesting game to play. It has a rather unique concept (you put together newspaper headlines from falling words to match current new headlines retrieved from a variety of news websites).

This puts this game by far as the best artistic implementation as it is essential to the game. Also the game is very cleanly structured, performed without a hitch and the presentation is excellent.

However with that said, I couldn\'t bring myself to like this game. It needs some for of added excitement or a twist to make the game unique, no time limit makes the game an exercise of patience rather then enjoyment for example.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 5 Technical 4 Genre 2

Review by Hard Rock all reviews by Hard Rock

The game starts off with a latter unappealing intro of scrolling text and a flying airplane. While text intros are generally okay, and don\'t really bother me, this one scrolled way too slowly. So the first impressions so far are lacking.

After that there is the option of playing the game, so selected that option my impression changed. The fire in the game firstly, is extremely well done, and looks highly impressive. Also the aiming is extremely proportional to the character, and except for the fact that he can walk on air the character himself is well animated.

With this reaction I proceeded to play the game, which basically allows you to move left and right through the same arena back and forth for every level and always fighting the same enemy, who does the same move, and doesn’t animate at all, unlike your character.

Now repetitive characters and hordes of enemies are by no means always a bad thing just look at Serious Sam, but here I had some issues, firstly with the aiming system, I would have much preferred an abuse style aiming system (Shoot anywhere and bullet fallows vector path) rather then having to try to click on tiny enemies on the screen.

The game is pretty neat for the first bit, but soon gets extremely repetitive (you can\'t lose, the level screen glitches, and all that ever seems to happen is the number of enemies increase).

Artistically the game doesn’t really use any news, rather it would seem the author found news to match his game and not the other way round. Technically as mentioned before the fire and the characters are great but the environment and enemies lacking and in relation to the genre, well aside from the brief intro it’s very lacking in this category.

Certainly it has a lot of potential, and it has some really cool and neat features (the arm aiming fits right in, and the fire is really well done) but as it stands DOGI is not that entertaining on its own. Still a rather cool concept and decent work for the time period allotted. Hopefully the author will continue to work on it.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 2 Technical 3 Genre 1

Review by Hard Rock all reviews by Hard Rock

This is an okay looking game and being a programmer and not an artist I can understand the developer’s heavy overuse of the gradient tool, as that’s something I like to do myself to shade things.

Now as for the actual game, it’s really slow placed. The reason for this is probably because it’s a lot easier to develop a game and perfect timing for a variety of a maps running at a slower speed then it does at a faster one.

The game basically plays as a “collect and return all the items” type game, and to add variety you have to dodge different weather all elements who besides their appearance all do the exact same thing. A simple concept and one that gets boring really quickly, but this is a rather decent entry and overall it is not too bad.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 3 Technical 2 Genre 3

Review by Hard Rock all reviews by Hard Rock

This was a pretty interesting game. The graphics are nicely animated, the smoke is smooth and the concept is really cool. It\'s sort of like Pacman except with a twist, that the monkeys can only follow you on paths you have moved on, which is a really neat idea.

In theory this would be cool, if it worked for the fact that the game has some serious flaws. First the monkeys for the most part only go up and down and never really try to chase you. Secondly, you can drive off the screen and hide if they ever do. And thirdly the game plays the same on every level each time. There doesn’t seem to be much of a point to continuing to play except for small variations in the between each level.

However on the positive side, with a bit of work this game could really work, the concept is novel and with some work it could be something special.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 3 Technical 3 Genre 5

Review by Hard Rock all reviews by Hard Rock

A simple game where you walk right across some dynamic terrain (this part of the game is pretty neat, also you characters walks up and down as he moves on it, a nice touch), trying to jump over barrels and shooting. When you shoot you get points. When you jump over barrels you get points. You can’t actually hit anything by shooting and once you hit a barrel the game is over, it makes you wonder why you actually carry a gun?

A okay game, but it probably won’t entertain for very long at all.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 2 Technical 3 Genre 3

Review by Hard Rock all reviews by Hard Rock

By far the best game of Tins, it has excellent quality, and production. Ballz is a unique plat former, very entertaining and defiantly cool. The ball you control rolls and you simply react by either jumping or activating power ups which can be unlocked to try to collect all the items in the level. Before some levels you’ll get briefed on your mission and your purpose which is nice.

Since I\'ve been giving negative feedback for each game this one isn\'t without it faults. This is a game which the rules were worked or hacked in, rather then a game built around the rules. Not a bad thing, but it is against the spirit of a compo in some ways.

Rather then going on much more on the game for this review, I\'ll just say that this is the must play game for TINS.

Scores: Overall 5 Artistical 4 Technical 4 Genre 3

Review by Hard Rock all reviews by Hard Rock

Normally I like adventure games. Really, I\'m a huge fan and I even try to support the genre by buying its latest games such as the new Broken Sword.

But this has some horrendous art (draw in paint for sure) I guess with the intent of trying to add humour to supplement for the clear lack of talent in the artistic drawings (now I can\'t draw any better.... but this is not pleasant on the eyes one bit).

The story is fairly weak (the most important part of an adventure game), what’s interesting is the supposedly powerful scripting engine going on underneath, and hopefully the team will spend some time on trying to get something solid out of it, as the current graphical showcase is definitely lacking.

Scores: Overall 1 Artistical 1 Technical 3 Genre 1

Review by Hard Rock all reviews by Hard Rock

A rather simple game, this one consists of you running and collecting garbage bags and putting them on a truck. Now to be honest if I was this guy I\'d quit my job since the people of this city seem to have no respect whatsoever for the poor garbage collector.

So basically you hop, dodge and collect garbage to put on your truck and save the world from global warming. An okay concept but the game is rather simple, and the concept seems to get really boring fast (especially since you truck always likes to stay a good 30 feet behind you (What a nice guy, he likes to make you walk 20 seconds per garbage bag). This provides little incentive to pass through all 26 (wow that’s a lot) levels.

On okay game that could do with some variety and enhancement. A solid attempt for the time period.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 2 Technical 2 Genre 4

Review by Hard Rock all reviews by Hard Rock

In this game you pilot a plane and try to dodge space aliens, showering garbage and some strange golden arches which I can\'t explain. The premise is okay and the game plays fine. I would have liked the plane to be able to move a bit faster, but the controls are responsive.

A neat touch is the included collision; space junk can collide, change direction or explode which adds a nice touch to the game. The environments are also well coloured and attractive looking.

Where the game lacks like many games, is on following the rules. There isn’t any real dynamic fire (its part of a few sprites) and the news is strange to say the least and can\'t figure out where the aliens fit in, but other then that there’s not much to complain about.

Overall a good entry.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 3 Technical 2 Genre 4