Portal: The Flash Version Review
January 13, 2008
Portal: The Flash Version is a puzzle game based on the recent video game “Portal”. The game features you as a man with a portal gun, that can shoot a virtual “tunnel” between two walls, making it so you can instantly fly from one side of the game to another. The game has many puzzles for you to solve, and the controls are pretty good, although it sometimes get hard to aim. The game starts out easy, with no obstacles other than large walls, and then becomes increasingly difficult, with boxes, switches, turrets, spikes, electricity, and red laser beams that kill you. You jump from portal to portal, and you have to try using various techniques, such as putting a portal on the ceiling and floor in order to generate speed, and then shooting a new portal onto a wall in mid-air to fling yourself across the map. The levels range from easy to challenging, and most puzzles have a moment where you feel proud of yourself for figuring it out. Portal: The Flash Version is an excellent puzzle game, and a good way to lose 2 hours in the afternoon.
Portal: The Flash Version gets an A+
Vector TD Review
January 13, 2008
Vector TD is another tower defense game, and just like the other ten thousand defense games on the Internet, Vector TD is addictive. The game play is just like every other one, with you having to place defensive towers on a path in order to prevent enemies from sneaking past. What makes Vector TD so different is that there are four different colors of tower, and four different colors of enemies, with each tower being super-effective against enemies of the same color, and being ineffective at shooting a different color enemy. There are also some gray and yellow enemies who receive no bonus damage. After setting up your defenses, you have to defeat wave after wave of enemies, and purchase stronger towers. You also get bonus points that you can use to buy towers that increase range and damage. The game is challenging, but it only takes four minutes to work out a good strategy. Vector TD is a good game, but the new game play changes are so minor, that it’s exactly like any other turret defense game out there.
Vector TD gets a B
Feudalism Review
January 13, 2008
Feudalism is another online RPG, but with more focus on team building and strategy, and less focus on number crunching. You start out with yourself and a team of other fighters in a town that you own. You have to complete quests in order to earn money, such as delivering packages, and fighting bandits. Along the way, there are random encounters with bandits who attack you, and you can sell the weapons you pick up after winning for a lot of money. After you make enough money, you recruit more fighters, and start to have bigger battles. Then, you can invade a small, neighboring village. New villages allow you to recruit better fighters, and the process repeats itself over again. The combat is simple, since your allies all attack on their own, and the only thing you actually have to do is press the space bar and arrow keys in order to make your character attack. The concept of the game is great, but the presentation is flawed. It was unbelievably difficult to actually attack, since the other characters on your team get in the way, so I eventually just hid in a corner and waited for my army to finish fighting. Eventually, I got so much gold, that I was able to buy a few dozen fighters, and just brute force my way through the rest of the game. It really just turned into a tedious task of clicking fight, and then spending two minutes waiting for the fight to finish. Feudalism is definitely one game to stay away from.
Feudalism gets a D
Launchball Review
January 13, 2008
Launchball is a new flash game that’s presented by the Science Museum in London. The game plays like a version of the old DOS game “The Incredible Machine”. The goal is to get a ball from one part of the screen to the exit at another part. It features a dozen or so of different “blocks”, which each having different properties, such as conducting electricity and heat, or being able to bounce the ball. You have to combine the blocks in certain ways, such as using a magnet to propel the ball onto a piece of rubber, in order to move it in front of a fan that shoots it to the exit. You have to think though, because you can also use a complex block as something to bounce off of, making the game sometimes challenging. The game also states an entertaining science factoid every time you beat a level, making it so that you can grasp the concepts behind the game. There is also a level creation feature, which makes it so you can expand the fun past the games 30 levels. It’s not often that games use physics, and even less often that they use it right, which is what makes Launchball an fun puzzle game.
Launchball gets an A
Momentum Missile Mayhem 2 Review
January 13, 2008
Momentum Missile Mayhem: Ultimate Edition (also called MMM2) is a game tweak to the original MMM, with many new abilities and game modes. The idea is simple: Hold back invading waves of tanks. Your main weapon is a device that launches energy balls, which react with the tanks and walls. The tanks come from the left or right, and you have a rock wall on the top and bottom of the screen that you can bounce energy balls off of to hit tanks. The tanks receive damage from hitting the projectiles, hitting other tanks, hitting the walls, and from your other weapons. You receive experience points for defeating tanks, and you gain spendable points when you level up. You can buy new types of energy balls, upgrade your launcher, or buy new special weapons. The weapons include a device that lets your throw enemy tanks against each other without an energy ball, and weapon that makes all nearby enemies fly away from you. The game has a unique physics engine that makes tanks and energy balls collide in accurate ways. MMM2 is a game that should not be missed.
Momentum Missile Mayhem: Ultimate Edition gets an A
Monsters’ Den Review
January 13, 2008
Monsters’ Den is the newest dungeon crawling RPG on the Internet, and it is also one of the best. It can absorb you for hours at a time. If you prefer action games though, it can be rather tedious. The game contains a fair amount of calculating statistics, and using strategies. It starts out by asking you to create a party of four adventurers using the standard RPG class system. You can choose from Warriors, Clerics, Mages, Rangers, and Rouges. After picking a group, you choose a difficulty, and are thrown into a dungeon. You have to navigate through the dungeon, with various paths being available. You can either head straight towards the dungeons “Boss”, or you can try to fight through every other creature and find vast amounts of items, in order to make your characters stronger. Every time you beat a dungeon, your characters level up, and gain new skills and become stronger. When you encounter enemies, you enter into a combat mode, and use your skills and weapons to take down enemies. Combat consists of each character being assigned a turn in the attack order, with fastest characters attacking first. Each class offers different play styles, with clerics healing teammates, mages casting powerful and deadly spells, and warriors causing devastating amounts of damage. The game has a large amount of polish thrown into it, and it shows, with everything from the maps, to the combat, to the inventory management being incredibly easy to learn and use. It can easily entertain you for hours on end. This is the flash RPG that has yet to be beaten.
Monster’s Den gets an A+
