#platfromer

[dimalink]

Funny Bobot – go round of planet

Pixel art for today based on videogame Miracle Ropits Adventure in 2100 for game console NES. It is 8 bit little game about jumping and crows. And even more - with a robot as a main character. It looks cute. And I am sure, that it is interesting to play! Such a light sky. And crows are flying. So, I am interesting to play this game for myself.

And this is my drawing based on. Bobot funny is going for a walks. At his planet there are lots of interesting. He is walking by platforms. And at his planet, with him, there are living lots of crows. They are all the time are doing their things. They are fly to somewhere, and doing somewhere. They are croaking all the time. But Bobot do not understand them a lot. Also, at this planet there are lots of stones. And plants, that are growing high. He is walking by platforms. It is very comfortable way of walking. He needs to check that at his little planet – it is everything ok. Go round the planet. And check everything. And to check 8 remote controllers. And they are setup by the planets edges. All controllers are controlled by 8 bit computers. And it is possible to speak with them. Anyway, not to speak with crows, anyway. But they are speaking a lot. But Bobot understand them a little. He is usually speaking with 8 bit computers. But crows can fly to it too. And computers speaks, that he can to understand them.

And it can be a situation soon, that for crows this planet it will be not enough. And it needs to move in space. To move a planet. And create a cube of bloom. And out of it, it will be growing a new planet. And connect them with self growing platforms. For this purpose, it is good to set all 8 computers in a special mode. And to find in a cave below. This cube. Bobot rare was in a below level, at the planet surface. He was all the time at the level of platforms. And in a cave to activate a 9th computer, that is secret. He is controlling everything. And then cube of bloom will receive a program from a control computer. It will be a movement of all the planet for a new orbit. And cube of bloom will start to grow a new planet at the near place. So, crows are here not for nothing. They are useful. And then Bobot will have a two planets. At first planet, it will be Bobot and crows. And at second it will be lots of place for crows. They will have more place to fly.

So, in this go round of planet, Bobot has lots of things to do!

Dima Link is making retro videogames, apps, a little of music, write stories, and some retro more.

WEBSITE: http://www.dimalink.tv-games.ru/home_eng.html ITCHIO: https://dimalink.itch.io/ GAMEJOLT: https://gamejolt.com/@DimaLink/games

BLOGGER: https://dimalinkeng.blogspot.com/

[redblackspade]

Omg... First day is a murder. I didn't sleep, I didn't eat, I look like sh... But I made it! First day patch arrived! Check out the changes: https://steamcommunity.com/games/620220/announcements/detail/1656641930060577417

[warpdoor]

Castle of Viana - Capiroto's Revenge (MontyOnTheRun)

[dimalink]

Plumber Vasyliy – search for wrench and water tube - with first of may!

Pixel for today based on videogame Heist for system Coleco Vision. It should be arcade and run game.

And this is my drawing about the same theme. Plumber Vasyliy came to fix the faucet in the house. There are many floors in the house. House – it is complicated labyrinth. There are lots of items inside. You need to find keys from doors, and use wrench for tubes, which are broken. There are some moving robots in the house. You need to avoid them.

Plumber is walking here and there and repairing everything. True worker. So here he can repair a faucet. Even in virtual house. Call a plumber Vasyliy when it is required! He repairs everything. So, picture - it is a such an art gallery picture. House is big. There are lots of brokens tubes. Labyrinth. Puzzle. Mystery from tubes and corridors.

Search a place with raining water and repair with wrench. Plumber Vasyliy is congratulating you with first of may! Workers and any workers too!

[todpolle]

LEGO Marvel Superheroes 2

Story:

Kang, an interdimensional warlord has set his sights on Manhattan and has trapped a section of it in his little pocket dimension. However, while investigating a way to save their home, the avengers accidentally destroyed the one thing that was holding Kang’s ambitions back and all his pocket dimensions become one big world called Chronopolis. While Kang waits for a worthy opponent, the avengers along with the Guardians of the Galaxy must come up with a plan to reach and defeat the tyrant.

I actually like this plot. Sure it’s simple and there’s some obvious advertising of Marvel stuff at the time like Thor: Ragonork being the obvious example(Not complaining since LEGO Island 2 did that years ago with Adventuers and Knights Kingdom sets), but the setting allows interesting and fun situations like the guardians getting involved with a cowboy bar fight or sneaking onto a nazi zeppelin which ends with a dogfight with Zemo. And sure it has an obvious reveal at the end but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t satisfying.

But why do I like this one the best? Well being better than Avengers is easy since it’s an unfunny recap of the two movies and the only levels I liked were the abridged retellings of Ironman 3 Thor 2 and Captain America 2. And compared to Marvel 1, while the big monster in the end was built up,  the game doesn’t really emphasise that threat til the end and makes it feel like the game is dragging its heels. Here, we got a goal which serves as a framing device and we got a core group of characters we follow and any new ones feel like a guest star.

And I know the Xmen and Fantastic Four were cut for legal and marketing reasons and that could be a reason why some people don’t like this one. But honestly I’m glad they were removed since they don’t bloat the main cast, especially the X-men. Sure the Inhumans get shoved as the leads for two levels but they don’t feel as intrusive since they make sure which of the Inhuman’s is our lead and aren’t really main characters.

Gameplay:

Basic gameplay is the same as other LEGO games: Solve platformer puzzles. Beat up goons. Collect studs and minikits. And explore the hub world. So let's start with the level design and combat.

At first, it’s your standard Lego levels with a sizable length with a boss at the end. But during level 3 or 4 you might notice the length of levels aren’t too long. Like maybe one or two sections with the second usually being a boss fight. And I actually like this. With the increased emphasis on the hub world and with 20 main levels plus 10 bonus levels(not including DLC level),  The short length makes it feel like the devs respect my time. Sure longer levels were okay in the order games when the hub was just a diner, but these days they are massive worlds just itching to explore and you’ll want to do that with no limits as soon as possible. Plus the levels usually have something interesting going like trying to get the end of a train without the ability to fly or explore Dr.Strange’s house for 5 sigils

As for the combat, it honestly should be weaker since the team attacks aren’t as easy to pull off and it’s nowhere near as good as Ninjago, so why do I like it more? Two things: Enemy variety and beat-em up style bosses. Sure, Ninjago had some variety with heavies or gunners, but Marvel 2 has got lots of different types besides gunners and punchers like dudes with shields, electric shields, flamethrowers, spears, different armour types and ninja’s. And for the bosses, they ditched the 3 or so hearts to just a health bar and after getting used to it, I actually prefer it for these Superhero styled LEGO games as it lets the bosses be more involved with the punching instead of standing around till you break something. That still happens but it feels like a natural break from between phases than the gimmick of the fight. I think the only boss I completely chessed was Carmen but that could be due to a mishap with his AI in his second phase.

As for the open world. It’s really good. It’s a big circle divided into different sections like a snowy New York or ancient Egypt so it’s simple to navigate. None of the races ever annoyed me. The Stan Lee’s spawned together instead of one at a time which annoyed me previously. And while unlocking Gwenpool levels requires you to do sidequests, it’s not awful. It just made me look up a guide to see which missions I should be looking for. There’s even a boss fight for when you complete everything in most of the sections which I think puts a nice bow on things.  There are also challenges like finding all the map points or saving all the shield agents under rubble which reward you with vehicles and these aren’t too bad since they require you to explore and listen to your surroundings. The only two I needed a guide for were the treasure hunt and the rap battles since I didn’t know where to start.

Presentation:

Not much to say here. Looks and sounds as good as any other LEGO game. I do Chronoplolis is a wonderful looking hub world through with section having its own feel with Noir being the obvious example with it’s black and white tininted filter but other sections aren’t too bad like the jungles of Wakanda, the dark skies of Medieval England, or how Xander looks like a small alien beach town. It’s probably up there with my favourite hub worlds along with LEGO City and Middle-Earth.

Verdict:

While all the Marvel games are better than the DC line-up, This is my favorite of the three.

9/10

[todpolle]

Sonic X Shadow Generations Review

Sonic Generations has gotten a remaster and to sweeten the deal, they add a new expansion starring Shadow and what he was up to. Seeing as the base game is roughly the same with the addition of 3 missing Chao in every level, this would be a review of the Shadow campaign.

Story:

I wasn’t planning on talking about this since I thought this wasn’t going to be an issue, but why on Earth was the base game rewritten? I admit the plot was just an excuse to go through old levels, so why bother when A: you give up halfway through and waste your time. And B: the most you do is piss off the Amy fans. Like me. I’m aware Ian Flynn was writing this and with this simple decision, he’s lost my trust with remasters. If he decides to rewrite a nothing plot like Generations and fill it with even more nothing, imagine what he’ll do if gets his hands on a plot that’s good like Unleashed, or Secret Rings or Black Knight. Cause lets be honest, changing a few lines doesn't fix anything.

As for the Shadow story, while on a mission for GUN for reason’s that’ll never make sense to me, Shadow encounters his evil father Black Doom and they both end up in the white space. Black Doom is up to something with some kind of evil moon thing and offer’s Shadow gifts to tempt him to the dark side. But Shadow must soldier on and stop Doom from taking advantage of the Time Eater’s mischief.

I haven’t watched the Shadow animated shorts or read Gerald’s journal yet so I’m judging this plot on its own merits and on its own, it’s good...but could’ve been great. Shadow was okay and Black Doom has shown he can work in a good story, and Maria for what little screen-time she gets has three of the best moments in the plot. And she’s my biggest issue with this story, she feels so underused.

Shadow and Maria are suppose to have this deep friendship to the point you could call them siblings. Imagine if she was the first person Shadow encountered in White Space and this was a journey they had together. Maybe some tension and drama with Shadow knowing her fate. Plus she can be a great shoulder Angel against Black Doom’s Shoulder devil routine.

And beside’s Gerald who provides some exposition and Orbot and Cubot with their sidequest, the other characters Shadow meets don’t do anything. In the base game, at least that was a rescue mission and each friend gave hints and tips about each level and had two challenges each. Here, there just cameos that could’ve been cut.

Gameplay:

Okay. We’re jumping straight into Shadow. He has Sonic’s main moves like the boost and homing attack, but he also has that chaos control power to slow down time and a range attack to stun enemies. And over the course of the game Black Doom has left behind an upgrade spear attack that hits up to five targets, a surfboard power to traverse water, a blob form which I’ll talk about later and the advertise Doom Wings which I was disappointed early on since you get a taste of them in the second level and their like an aerial boost, but you only unlock it for real at the final level and it turns out to be the games super form.

These skills are not only integrated into the levels and bosses, but help you navigate the hub world which is filled with goodies and challenges that require this new moves to find. However, if I may start my criticism, I hate the Doom Morph. The charge attack barely works and I hate the swinging which doesn’t help if that’s the two main things it does. The only time I enjoyed it was during the Mephiles boss fight.

You know, this expansion is oddly padded. I mean, six zones and four bosses is a healthy number for a sonic game(even if Chaos Island and Metal Overload make no sense to me when Asteroid Coaster and villains like Infinite and the GUN Commander were right there.) but as you get the boss keys, you notice that you have to do ALL the challenges to reach the end. In the base game, you just need to beat every main level and boss and complete ONE challenge from each zone to beat the game. No such freedom here. You have to do all of them or the game would feel too short. And let's not forget you have to reach each Boss gate twice. Once to unlock the challenges, the second to fight the boss.

And there’s friend challenges to make use of the tag-alongs that appear like there’s no challenge where Omega fires you out of a cannon, or where you challenge Big to catch the most fish or a level where you throw Maria at Black Arms and kill them with her love and kindness. And no Doppelganger races where you reach the end before a ghost version of you wins. Then again, Black Doom would have ruined three of those races when he takes you to Radical Highway and ruins the flow and pacing of the level. The first time he does it is fine cause it introduces the main villain, the second and third time were just bad and the second time made me realise I’ll need to do that level again to pick up something for the final boss.

Honestly, even with the great hub world and the final boss which is Top 5 for a 3D Sonic game, I still find Sonic Generations to be the better experience. Mainly for the freedom of choice and variety of challenges, unlockable upgrades you can receive and knowing Shadow won’t have these new moves again.

Presentation:

Okay. Either Amy needs a new voice actress or needs better direction cause where’s the energy she usually has.

Besides the remastered music and graphics for each level which keeps the upbeat energy, the hub world looks amazing and addresses the bleak blandness of Frontiers levels, with its whites and golds and castle-like design for the hub. Plus completing each level adds a little bit more colour to the area.

But one level isn’t a 1 to 1 in theme and that’s Radical Highway since it’s not just a highway any more, but a distortion version of it, chopped up, gave purple highlights and turned into the hardest collection of platform challenges in the game.

Verdict:

You know what’s missing. Shadow needs to shoot guns on the surfboard.

8/10

[todpolle]

LEGO Star Wars Chewbacca Saga  Review

I was never the biggest fan of Star Wars. Sure I watched and enjoyed the main movies, even the ones people think are crap but I never watched Clone Wars, Mandalorian or any other show from the series(though I do have a Baby Yoda doll) and Rouge One was the only spin-off movie I saw. But then I saw Rise Of Skywalker and any goodwill I had towards this series evaporated, only salvaged by that LEGO Christmas Special. I wasn’t actually thinking of buying till I checked to see if they changed a very infamous moment near the end where Rey and the Nazi kiss....

They do not kiss in the Skywalker Saga....But Rise of Skywalker still has problems and we’ll get to them during the review. But what about the rest of it?

Story:

Like in the original LEGO Star Wars, this is an abridged retelling of the previous 6 episodes along with the new Sequel Trilogy, with some gags and in-jokes and memes thrown in. Unlike the original 2 games and their complete edition, the entire movie is redone even if each episode only has 5 levels, every important plot point is in the game including Anakin killing the Tusken Raiders or Yoda vs Palpatine to name some examples. Though they did cut main villain Tarkin from “A New Hope” but kept the old First Order guy from “RoS”

All the characters are talking now which I don’t mind though I think some of the jokes are a bit too fast pace like the death Qui-Gon Jin which I get the joke but went by so quickly. Of course there are just as many jokes that are really good like the reveal that Padme is the queen and there is a follow up to it at least twice.

But the big question is “How does the sequel Trilogy hold up in LEGO?”  Pretty good for the most part. Due to the abridged, most of the fluff got cut or shortened but still keeps the main plot of those films and reminded me why I enjoyed them...Except for Rise of Skywalker. RoS is such a bad story in its core that not even having the LEGO treatment can salvage it. It’s obvious the root of the problem is that Palpatine shows up to take the role of Big Bad from Kylo so he can have an undeserved redemption arc and the story has to rush and bend to make the story about stopping Palpatine and forcing a connection between him and Rey when her just being some kid who was abandoned by her parents was perfect.  And everyone agrees that he ruins the previous movies just by existing.

Also Rey should’ve had a dual blade lightsaber since it fits her fighting style, starts dating BB-8 and she should have been adopted by Chewbacca.

Gameplay:

The most latest LEGO game I played before this was DC Supervillains and while the basics are the same, game feel is almost completely different. The tagging system has improved since that last game with moving the button to the L button and having a quick select to pick a small team of characters you like in Free Play, the camera is no longer fixed and the combat, while button mashy, is the most fun combat has been in a LEGO game.

Lets start with the basic gameplay. There are 7 main classes(okay, there’s actually 9 but the Light and Dark side are the same while Extra is just full of, well, extras) with some skills that overlap like heroes, astromechs and hunters can use grapple hooks and you use these skills to get through the levels and look for bricks, money and other collectibles. But that’s normal for LEGO games so lets talk about the combat.

Lightsaber is mostly button mashing with the occasional dodge roll and force push to stop a block. And as basic as it is, it’s really fun. It’s fun picking up objects and foes and hurling them at enemies, it’s fun controlling an enemy and blasting their friends. And while most of the bosses are fought the same way, the fights are really good and actually feel like sword fights with the dodging and waiting for openings to strike.

And then there’s the gun combat which is really good, even when you have a simple blaster, is good  to use and the enemies use and build cover and have a variety of different weapons like mini-guns or rockets. Though if you want the full arsenal, you’ll have to be a villain or wear a disguise to use grenades and to open boxes with the other guns like a machine gun or a flamethrower. And then there’s using your ship to fly around in space and it’s pretty good. Simple to use and the challenges aren’t too hard. Though I did find trying to talk to other ships to be annoying since they kept pushing me away when I got too close and some ships are just no suited or able to do ship combat at all.

Before I move on, I should mention the accessibility options for a bit. Just some basic things like Subtitles, screen effects, mission markers, losing money for fall damage, or health recovers on it’s own. Just stuff to make the game easier but have the option to turn off. And theirs aim assist which makes it was easier to shoot at things with lock on features and homing shots. I had half of these setting off since I’m an adult who’s played a good many shooters and aside from that one level where you have a car chase with the assassin which was annoying cause she’s small target and the car’s bullets are weak. But on the other hand, having them off made the dogfight with Jango Fett one of the best boss fights and mad me wish there bosses in space that weren’t battle ships.

But then we get to Endor The Line, which was fine at first but after a while, the road disappears, you fall of the edge of the map and have to restart. Hate to say to say it but this game is really glitchy and crashes a lot. I lost count on how many crashes I had during my play-though and I was worried I wasn’t able to 100% it. I also heard of other game-breaking like one reviewer said he couldn’t finish Episode 3 due to a bug in the final boss and couldn’t do the level again, or one you most likely heard about Maz’s castle which thankfully didn’t happen to me. This game needs a patch to fix these issue because you bound to run into bad one.

Now I don’t want to end this section on a negative note so lets talk about the levels. There are two types of levels in this game: Story levels which mainly where you have set pieces and bosses fights like the pod race or a stealth level which ends with a fight with a rancor. I was actually surprised on how short these levels are and I don’t mind this. Stops the levels from dragging. Plus most levels (septically in FreePlay mode) have multiple paths you can take like you could ake one route that lets you drive a vehicle or you could take another which focus more on shooting. And some are very open like the Hoth level where you can do the level in any order as long as all three sections are done.

And then there are the free-roam levels which reminded me of levels from Super Mario Oddessy. Aside from connecting the story with fetch quests, escort missions and mini bosses, you can find Kyber Bricks and Ships in nooks, cranny's, boxes and puzzles, as well as side missions for new characters like Gonk Droid and evil Gonk Droid. I like these a lot since it though I did find it annoying how you have to go to other planets to do some missions or finish ones on other planets to unlock others I also felt the Scoundrel class got shafted in these free roaming levels as their main gimmick besides having a charge shot is to shot purple object to start chain reactions, and there isn’t anything like that in Free-Roam so Scoundrels are almost redundant in your party.

But what do the Kyber Bricks do in this Collectathon. Collectibles are meant to get players to do challenges and be rewarded with progression but the levels are unlocked as you play the story naturally so what do the Bricks do? Upgrades. At anytime you can buy an upgrade for your class or just in general like making people afraid of the Sith, money rewards for hacking as well as a skip button, basic attack and health upgrades or even C3-PO being able to make a shock wave when he splits in have. One thing I find very considerate is the option to turn off these upgrades if you find the game too easy or find the perk frustrating like the Scoundrels charge shot which I turned off cause I prefer my blaster going pew-pew.

Presentation:

The LEGO models have come a long way since the first games release. Hair is more accurate, outfits are more detailed and you can play as a naked C3-PO now(or is he skin less).

Environments are good too. They managed to make each location look different even if they have similar themes, like how you can explore two cities on Tatooine with are different with one being filled with narrow streets and the other has more wide open areas. Got some good map design in general like the casino planet has you going uphill till you reach the casino or Threed has a north and south section divided by a river. Though I would say Endor was annoying to navigate since it’s very vertical

Though If I must complain, I must question why there are no brightness settings of any kind. There a few spots where it’s really dark like Exegol or Utapau and you can barely see where I am.

Verdict

This may be one of the best LEGO Games ever but it needs to iron out it’s glitches and crashes first cause it will impact player enjoyment.

7/10. 9/10 for when they fix the glitches.

[ketoprakdl]

Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two (USA) Wii WBFS

Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two (USA) Wii WBFS

KetoprakDL – Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Twois a platform video game published by Disney Interactive Studios, and is the sequel to Epic Mickey. The game was first released on the PlayStation 3, Wii, Wii U, and Xbox 360 in November 2012, and would make further releases on the PlayStation Vita, and Microsoft Windows over the next two years. The game features an optional co-op mode where a second…

View On WordPress