One-(or two-)Paragraph Game Reviews

[Rare White Ape]

Sometimes games aren't worth a whole thread, so I've come up with the idea to start one superthread where people can plonk in their own review of a game that doesn't quite require a whole chunk of the spotlight. It might be a fun read to catch other people's takes on stuff we play when we're not hitting the latest CGToADFBGS III3 blockbuster title.

And the title of the thread... It isn't gospel. You don't have to write one (or two) paragraphs. Be entertaining or be short. And give your game a score out-of-something.

Have at it!

[Rare White Ape]

I'll start with this:

Want a good example of some pure classic Japanese fuck-uped-ness? Go no further than Lovely Planet. It's a bent cross between an FPS and a 3D platformer complete with cutesy graphics, annoying music and annoying-er twitch-shooting jumping puzzles. Half of the text you see on-screen appears to be in Japanese and the other half English. Each level is no longer than a minute, so at least when you die missing that platform for the five-hundredth time you don't have to travel too far to get back to where you were.

It can be found for less than $5 on Steam. Definitely worth it. 3/5

[Random]

If I could make a suggestion: bold the title of he game you are reviewing.

[Rare White Ape]

Worthwhile idea. But I can't do bold on a mobile, sorry!

Another one:

I bought The Long Dark on Steam Early Access. It's a survival simulation, but without the zombies. After playing it for an hour, I felt lost. Plus I was extremely thirsty, so I switched the game off and drank about a liter of water. Has potential; 7/10

[Rare White Ape]

The once-great SimCity series has hit an impossibly new low on iOS and Android (and possibly more, knowing EA) with SimCity: Buildit. No longer do you manage the greater operations of an urban metropolis; now your task is to micro-manage the timed release of fucking nails and wooden planks so that you can construct dwellings for your simoleons. Accelerating this access costs real money.

EA: for the love of God, stahp

0/10

[Kchrpm]

You can do bold on mobile, just have to write the tags in yourself. Use [] around b to start and /b to end.

[Rare White Ape]

Ahh true. Thanks Keef.

[George]

Can I review two at once?

Cube 2: Sauerbraten, running on the Ubuntu operating system, version 14.04

and...

Open Arena, on both Ubuntu and Windows 8 point something

These are free first-person shooters. Both have single player and online multiplayer modes. Both have good graphics and run very well on my ancient Dell laptop with a large external monitor. Both bring teh rawk with heavy metal soundtracks. These would have been expensive and well-known games back when video games were bought in stores and came in boxes with manuals and so forth...I'm thinking of games like Duke Nukem, Marathon, Starseige: Tribes, etc. These two games are of that quality. And they're free! Amazing.

Both are similar in online servers, where all the players are better than me. Both have exploding bodies and gushing/splattering blood all over the walls and floors. I've even seen disembodied, still-beating hearts pumping blood on the ground in Open Arena. There are plenty of CTF and DM public servers (and whatever else) in both games.

Both are fun but Cube 2: Sauerbraten gets my vote as the better one because it has a more complex single-player game. Open Arena has many single-player maps to play, and you unlock more as you go, but they're all single-player deathmatch games in closed arenas. You can choose your level of difficulty (number and frequency of enemies, and their level of motivation for confrontation), but the gameplay is the same in all of them: running around and killing everything that moves.

Cube 2: Sauerbraten has a couple different single-player "campaigns" to choose from. The one I played this weekend has more of a classic first person shooter "plot", where you flip switches to open doors or activate elevators and other things, and you find new areas filled with new monsters, rather than simply killing the same ones who keep re-spawning, as in Open Arena. Yeah, okay, I can hear you saying "what's the difference", but, to me, I'd rather explore and keep moving into new areas, even if I know there will be monsters behind that door, than just run around in circles. In C2:S, you also discover and activate new spawn points as you explore and open up new areas, so when you die you don't have to start from too far back.

Both are fun and free.

And give your game a score out-of-something.

Oops, I forgot this part.

Open Arena gets four out of five bleeding leg stumps left over after hitting an enemy with a rocket launcher.

Cube 2: Sauerbraten gets four-and-a-half out of five exploding gasoline barrels

P.S. C2:S has a chainsaw, too.

[George]

Latest first-person shooter to grab my interest that isn't worthy of its own thread but is worth trying IMO: Contract Wars.

Here's one link. There are other places to play, so you may want to Google and see if a site where you already have an account has Contract Wars available.

http://www.miniclip.com/games/contract-wars/en/

Pros:

Runs in a browser. There's nothing to download, except Unity Player, which seems to be a brower plug-in. I'm using Mozilla Firefox and Windows 10 and it works just fine. I haven't seen any spam in my email or anything else unusual.

It's free, unless you choose to spend real money to advance faster than if you simply put in your time to earn the same things you can buy instantly with real money. I'm not aware of anything that you can get in the game that's only available with real money.

It's fast-paced, really loud if you want it to be, seems to have realistic stereo (shots heard in the left speaker = shooter to your left, etc.), and has excellent graphics (IMO - I don't necessarily know the latest and greatest).

There are small maps with nearly constant shooting and huge maps where you can camp under tree branches in the shade, be nearly invisible, and use long-range sniper rifles. While camping in the shade and waiting to snipe, you'll notice neat things like leaves blowing in the breeze and crickets chirping. At least one of these maps ("Construction") is so large, you need the patience of a real-life hunter to score a kill, unless you want to wander around in the open and be a target yourself. We're not talking Grand Theft Auto large, but still, this one map and a couple others are pretty darn impressive, especially for a free game. The small maps ("Bay 5", for example) are fast-paced and fun and remind me of games like Open Arena where it can be constant mayhem.

Cons:

Limited number of maps may equal boredom later on. I've only been playing it a few days but can imagine growing weary of the same maps over and over.

Virtually no plot or goals other than kill or be killed, respawn and repeat. This could also be a Pro.

I don't think this is necessarily a Con, but I'll list it here anyway: there are no health packs lying around and you can't pick up ammo from dead bodies. What you spawn with is what you have until you die. But that's okay, for the most part, since you will die often.

Summary/Rating: if Jack Reacher played video games, he would enjoy Contract Wars. I'll give it nine out of ten Rage Kills.

I mentioned Reacher because I'm not a gun guy in real life, but I recognized the names of several weapons in this game from Reacher novels.

Also, I've seen a player a few times now the screen name Godson. Could it be the same Godson that hangs out here? I figure it would be the wildest coincidence if so, given the dozens or even hundreds of people on the internet these days, but as I don't think I've seen that name anywhere but here, I figured it was worth a mention.

[dodint]

NHL17: Sucks.

Rocket League: Still amazing. hmu, dodint on PSN.