Reviews

Review by Raabinator all reviews by Raabinator

\'Garbage\' is a kind of Jump And Run game. You play a character named Bob that has to fight his way through a junk yard. An ufo crashed into this junk yard and the junk got alive. Now the junk, in form of trashcans with eyes is attacking you. They thow some brown things into your direction. Later, flying dogs attack you too.
The small story is told to you by displaying news messages in the upper left. So the news in the game are imaginary and don\'t really fit the rule of current news events, unless I missed some news of landed ufos or a burning junk yard. Maybe you can take the space junk that missed a plane for an ufo.
The game plays in a junk yard and trash cans are attacking you with trash. So I think the garbage theme is fulfilled.
In advance of the level the yard burns and produces smoke that looks more like fog. So fire and smoke are fulfilled. I think the fire is made of gradual shaded triangles, that is easy with OpenGL, but looks good too. But sometimes flames are flying up into the sky and there is such dense smoke that you can\'t see a thing so you have to wait.
Bob can\'t really die. If his health is exhausted you enter the level some percents back again. The fire doesn\'t hurt Bob, so it\'s only function is to look good and give a reason for the smoke.
The game has nice paralax scrolling with foreground and background and is held in comic style. The music is ear candy and fits into the mysterious story.
Unfortunately I can\'t get further than 64.6% of the level, so I can\'t tell what happens next.
I enjoyed playing this game but it lacks of some animation of the enemies and variations of the attacks.
I\'m looking forward to play a extended, bugfixed version...

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 3 Technical 2 Genre 4

Review by Raabinator all reviews by Raabinator

Pytotrash is a networked multiplayer game for up to four players.
The game takes place in a coal mine. At the start of a match each player chooses one out of four possible \'creatures\' as his character. Those \'creatures\' have different skills. They differ in moving speed, attack style, caused damage and fire sensibility. The \'creatures\' are not good balanced, so if you choose the right one, you are the winner. Additionally the mine is populated by some miners who run around very confused but don\'t harm the players.
Aim of the game is so be the last one alive. Players can be harmed by attacks of other players or fire. Players can also harm the miners. When a miner dies, fire is spread from its position and crawls along coal floors, walls and ceilings until it reaches an earth tile. If a player or miner runs into the fire, or the floor above one, he rapidly dies. So if fire is spread, the game is quickly over. Bad is that you can\'t shoot over the position of dead opponents or miners.
This game is made according to a news report where some miners died in a fire in a coal mine. The instructions say that the game shows you what really happened. So I think the rule of actual news event(s) is somehow fulfilled.
There is fire fx and smoke, which is part of the fire, in the game. The fx is adapted from someone others code as stated in the readme. This was not forbidden by the rules and the author had to change a lot to fit into his requirements, as stated in the readme. The cawling fire looks very nice, but it makes the game hard because you can be trapped into a corner. If you try to run over the fire (even in the floor above one on the ceiling) you die a quick death.
Also stated in the readme, a lot of code, including network stuff, was reused from his previous Speedhack 2006 entry (Bananza). The gfx seems to be self made. There is no music or sound in this game.
The garbage theme is not really hit, I think. Except for the creatures, a crisp packet, a milk bottle that fires sour milk, a energy drink, and a burnt chicken, which you can all judge for trash, if exhausted ones.
The network performance is not the best. I estimated a lag of about 300ms between a key press on one computer and the reaction on the other (in a LAN). If you fire an attack it is paused on the sending computer and started synchronously on every connected computer from the server. But you can\'t escape a projectile because of the lag. If one is hit on the firing computer the projectile follows the other player on his computer, which sometimes looks curious. Another issue is when someone leaves the game the others are not informed. His character stays at the last position.
A good point is the included chat function, you can send messages to all other players. The game can be played over the internet, if you find opponents.
Overal, it looks good for a 72 hour job, in spite of the reused code.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 2 Technical 3 Genre 1

Review by Raabinator all reviews by Raabinator

You control Brintney. She has to collect tabloids and bring them into a special place where they are burned. On the top of the screen there are some values of popularity, health and fun.
These values decrease during the game. You can raise the fun value when you enter the house in the upper right (party?). You can raise your health when you enter the third house in the lower row (anti-party?). Your popularity decreases when the other person appears and catches a tabloid itself.
The tabloids appear in such a mass that you can\'t destroy all.
Nothing happens when your popularity or health reaches 0%. Maybe the game is not finished, but a simple \'game over\' could give the whole thing a (little) sense.
There is a poor fire fx in this game. It is only a static image overlayed to a tabloid.
I saw no smoke fx, no music and no sound too.
Garbage theme? Not really.
News events? OK, The baldy Britney was in the news! But she has hair in the game...

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 1 Technical 1 Genre 1

Review by Raabinator all reviews by Raabinator

In this game you control a flame thrower with which you have to burn Newspapers flying out of a factory. That\'s all. You don\'t get points for burnig newspapers nor is there any time or missed newspapers limit. The game goes on and on until you are bored and press the ESC. Maybe I was bored too fast to see something more happen...
Smoke and fire are pre-rendered gfx and not dynamically created.
No sound and no music in this one.
I don\'t know how it fits into current news events. Was there any news about too much newspapers?
Also the garbage theme is not really hit, except of the thrown away newspapers.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 2 Technical 1 Genre 1

Review by Raabinator all reviews by Raabinator

You are a ninja that has to rescue british soldiers captured by irans. Therefore you have to run through the iran sewers.
There are no opponents, so it\'s only run from one point to another.
Gfx is poor. You can\'t identify a ninja or a soldier if it wasn\'t stated in the readme. There is also no animation of the main character. Background of the sewers and the ladders don\'t fit into the game. It looks like the player is flying.
I don\'t see any fire or smoke fx, no points for that.
Captured british soldiers were on the news, so news requirement is fulfilled.
Garbage theme? It plays in the sewers and there is a trash container in the upper left.
There is music but no other sound.

Scores: Overall 2 Artistical 2 Technical 1 Genre 3