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The Humble Reviews: 15/09/11

Good morning or evening to who-so-ever manages to take a glance of my good old blog here. Updates are sporadic here so if another post is to come, chances are it’ll come in months time when I suddenly remember the ‘wondrous’ world of WordPress! Anywho, I write this post not to rattle on about how terrible WordPress is, today, I am here to discuss other things. Well, not discuss; review. I am here to review some games. Inside of me, the 15 year old is crying tears of joy.

As said above, today I will be doing a review of the avant-garde selection of games provided within the Humble Bundles, which is ‘a series of game bundling experiments that allow users to purchase collections of multi-platform DRM-free independently developed video games online in a “pay-what-you-want” manner, with proceeds bypassing middlemen and going directly to the indie developers and charities’ (as defined by Wikipedia) and in layman’s terms, essentially a bundle of games from independent developers provided to the gaming community at a low price. Considering the amount of games that are within the Humble Bundles, I will be reviewing only four of the games provided, versus the full collection with a summary of all four reviews to follow. The games that are reviewed are: Machinarium, developed by Amanita Design; VVVVVV, developed by Terry Cavanagh; Cortex Command, developed by Data Realms; and Cogs, developed by Lazy 8 Studios.

Machinarium, a puzzle point-and-click adventure game developed by Amanita Design, is a personal favourite, and the first of the four games I will be reviewing. Set in a world where robots are the dominant race, the protagonist character (named Josef by notes and developers, after the inventor of the word ‘robot’: Josef Capek) is flung into a garbage heap outside a monolithic city after of series of unfortunate events preceding the game. With the assistance of the player solving puzzles and moving the stalwart Josef in the right direction, while picking up stuff along the way, he discovers the plot of the antagonists (named the Black Cap Brotherhood by notes and developers) to blow up the city’s tower and sets out to stop it, saving one of his friends and his girlfriend along the way.

The one thing that the gamers will notice when they start playing is there is no textual dialogue throughout the game at all – every bit of dialogue or hint is shown through the use of images, be it around Josef, our protagonist, or in speech bubbles of the characters, which tell of something that happened in the past or a hint towards an objective the player is aiming for. Another thing players will notice is that like most point-and-click adventure games, the puzzles have a unique taste, fitting into the games’ style, rather than being a generic puzzle inserted throughout the game. For example, there is a minigame in the later half of the game where the player has to defeat little viruses in a maze with a gun, relevant to an event in the story (which I won’t spoil for your sake) and another scene earlier in the game where the player is in an arcade, playing games that may generate a sensation of nostalgia in some of the older gamers.

Built in a 2-D environment, Amanita set out in this point-and-click to make it have a 3-D feel, by making the player able to move Josef up and down on the obviously-2-D environ, while still giving off the feel that you’re walking through an actual world, not past some backdrop drawn cheaply. This environment also helps the game run on computers that would otherwise not be able to run a game that was actually build on a 3-D environment, which would eat up the processing power.

My personal thoughts of Machinarium is that it is a unique take on the point-and-click style of games, incorporating the game’s unique setting with the style of how gameplay is incorporated, such as the way that speech is carried across (via speech bubbles depicting images) and a walkthrough system that requires the player to engage in a minigame which involves a key-shaped spaceship flying through a pixelated world to unlock the walkthrough for that certain area.

The next game to follow in reviews is none other than VVVVVV, which is a 2-D puzzle platformer developed by Terry Cavanagh, and another personal favourite of mine. Controlling a blue pixelated character named Captain Viridian who, due to a dimensional interference, is left alone on her ship and must find the missing crew members aboard and at the same time, discover the cause of the dimensional interference. Through the use of controlling her (Viridian’s) gravity, she flips between floors and ceilings, avoiding contact with any hazards that may otherwise get in the way of saving her crewmates and discovering the cause of the interference.

The gameplay is unique as it uses a technique mentioned above that is one of the most innovative things I’ve ever witnessed in a game (and I’ve played Half-Life 2, and the Gravity Gun was quite innovative to me!) – the fact that Viridian cannot jump. However, where she cannot jump, she can reverse the direction of gravity when standing on a surface, causing her to either fall upwards, or downwards, depending on where she is stand. Utilizing this unique mechanic, one can traverse the dangerous environment to move from place to place, either avoiding danger at breakneck speed or timing your gravity switching right as to avoid a potential moving hazard.

Another game built in a 2-D environment, VVVVVV runs amazingly well on the older computers (but not on some levels, where there is a lot of background ‘noise’ or too much in the game’s area of play, such as multiple enemies, et cetera. The graphical style is also influenced by the Commodore 64, an early type of computer, with the game’s music being entirely chiptune, also of the Commodore 64 age, giving the game a vintage feel.

My personal thoughts of VVVVVV are that it is a very innovative game. (And yes, I am fully aware I used ‘innovative’ to describe Machinarium too but, can’t you admit that it too, is unique for its genre of game?) I say ‘innovative’ as it incorporates a unique element to its gameplay: the lead character’s ability to reverse her direction of gravity on whatever surface she happens to land upon. I also find the style and design of the game to be unique, considering the inspiration of the game’s design and composition of music inspired by the computer of times ago, none other than the Commodore 64. The game’s plot is incorporated well into VVVVVV, mentioned through inquiries from the lead character herself, fellow crewmembers or even randomly placed monitors which the player can access at any time upon encountering them.

Third to review is that of Cortex Command, a side-scrolling action game, which was developed by Data Realms and it is a game that doesn’t exactly tickle my fancy, but seemed to tickle the fancy of a lot of my colleagues who seemed to enjoy the game a lot more than I did. Due to an innovative mastering of cybernetics, humans have created robotic bodies for their brains allowing for a longer life span and for deep space travel, which would take hundreds of years normally but with being detached from an aging body would feel shorter. In the game, one controls a brain which is used to control various clones and robots to achieve the aim of the brain’s desire. The main goals are to mine gold to purchase weaponry and clones and to eliminate the competitors, whom use brains as well to control clones that are aligned to their brain.

The gameplay of Cortex Command is difficult to explain and define. It is entirely keyboard-oriented (unless you’re the third and fourth player, in which a controller is needed to play) and being in beta stage it is still difficult to control characters, with other players and reviewers commenting that the control was too fidgety for some and confusing for others. However, the physics and gravity of the game is well-balanced and realistic, despite the game’s own circumstances (I mean, brains, really?) and unrealistic, alternate reality setting. (I say this jokingly, I don’t mind it!) Cortex Command also has a good AI system in check, allowing for a player to set clones or robots to mine for gold, patrol a certain area or guard, while you may be looking elsewhere for trouble or defeat your nemeses across and through mounds and pounds of dirt.

Cortex Command’s graphics format is amazing and dynamic pixelated performance which carries off the Earth-like worlds in which you play in quite well, helping to immerse a player into its lush and unique world.

My honest opinion of Cortex Command? I honestly don’t enjoy the game. The controls are too fidgety and the developers have even admitted that the game is still in development, whereas other games on the Humble Indie Bundle are more-or-less finished and are high in quality. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Cortex Command is a high-quality game, but it is incomplete and should have at least been in a state of playability before being distributed for millions to play.

The final game I will be reviewing is a game called Cogs, developed by Lazy 8 Studios. There isn’t much of a plot to this game as far as I know, but the objective is to connect cogs and steam pipes to attain an objective, be it open a box, ring a bell or hell, launch a rocket!

The gameplay of Cogs is built on a number of puzzles that mimic sliding block puzzles. Each level, representing some three-dimensional object, has various objectives, but generally involve moving tiles to connect sets of gears and piping, among other things to make that object behave in a specific manner, such as providing gear power to turn wheels or as mentioned and pictured above, to launch a rocket.

The graphics of Cogs are 3-D, which, out of the four games reviewed here, is the only 3-D game out of the lot. However, the game has little differences between levels, having few changes in design or colour, maintaining that sterile brown and gold colour throughout levels, with the only differences of design being the contraption in which the player has to power up or activate. Cogs also requires the most processing power out of the four.

My opinion of Cogs is a bitter and negative one. The design of the game does not vary outside of the individual levels and the contraptions contained within, the colour scheme remains the same throughout the entire game, making it boring to constantly look at as you maneouvered through the various stages.

Overall, each game has its own unique style of gameplay; Machinarium with its unique presentation of the point-and-click adventure game, VVVVVV with its ability to bend and reverse gravity, Cortex Command with its unique take on micromanaging and Cogs with its new millenium take on sliding block puzzles and its own faults; Machinarium with its obscure hint system, VVVVVV with its extremely high difficulty curve, Cortex Command with its fidgety control system and Cogs with its bland and tasteless design. However, at the end of the day, each game has its worth and each game deserves someone’s time of day. Machinarium is a kid’s type of point-and-click, VVVVVV is for an intense gamer who doesn’t mind dying a couple hundred times, Cortex Command is for a casual teenage gamer who simply wants to see a lot of carnage and Cogs is for those who are interested in sliding some blocks for hours. At the end of the day, only one game out of these four is a game that I would constantly go back to. Not just for its gameplay, not just for the replayability factor, but for the fact that one can customize it day in and day out to create a new and unique experience.

The winner, of course, is none other than- well, why tell you, when I can show you a scary picture drawn by a nice fan of the game?

For those of you who would rather a rating system, to be short and sweet, here are all four games reviewed on gameplay, design, plot, replayability and a review of the game in its entirety:

Machinarium:
Gameplay: 9/10
Plot: 10/10
Design: 9/10
Replayability: 4/10
Total: 32/40

VVVVVV:
Gameplay: 10/10
Plot: 8/10
Design: 10/10
Replayability: 10/10
Total: 38/40

Cortex Command:
Gameplay: 7/10
Plot: 2/10
Design: 8/10
Replayability: 9/10
Total: 26/40

Cogs:
Gameplay: 7/10
Plot: 0/10
Design: 4/10
Replayability: 5/10
Total: 16/40

Ergo, the winner of reviews is again, scary pixelated beast holding oddly-glowing trinket aka VVVVVV. If you need an image to support my love of VVVVVV, see the image of Viridian holding the shiny trinket and picture my face on Viridian’s face, and a copy of VVVVVV where the shiny trinket is.

(Images used in the reviews above are not my own unless stated – and it is not stated, ergo, none of the pictures used are of my own taking, and each image is free-to-use.)

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