Cracked Rabbit Gaming » Reviews

Kodu Game Lab is out! Remember Kodu? Anyone?

Tommy Gun — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:34:54 +0000

Kodu, you may remember, is the game programming tool shown at CES by "actual 12-year-old girl," Sparrow. It was cartoony and cute and bright, and many people wrote it off instantly: "LBP rip-off!", "Stupid rock-carrying game?!", and so on. I really wanted to try it out, and now, apparently, it's out. I say apparently because it's gotten almost no press, and the only way I found out was by randomly browsing the Community Games channel and seeing it there. (Okay, Joystiq and other sites did post about it, but I had relatives over for the past two weeks so maybe I just missed it.) Still, after the CES demo I thought its release would be a much bigger event, and it would show up somewhere on the Xbox dashboard (Spotlight). It's too bad it wasn't released on XBLA rather than the CG channel, the place where no one dares tread.

Anyway, I've been playing around with it for the past few days, and it's great! You really can create all sorts of games, from FPSs, to side-scrollers, to racing games. The interface is very well designed, for the most part, using nested pie menus for all of the actions/objects. There are lots of different lighting options and ground materials to help change the look of your games, so don't think everything created has to be blue-skies-and-rainbows. The programming is easy, but surprisingly deep if you learn how everything works. Because it was initially designed for kids, it's also very fast. You can go from editing your level to playing it in under a second.

I was programming a dual-stick shooter for a video I hope to put up, and my roommate started watching. "What happens when you run into the UFOs?" he asked.
"They blow up and damage your ship."
"Is that what always happens?"
"Well no, that's what I made them do. I can program it to do whatever. I can make them…turn into apples, if I wanted to."
"Do it!" Literally twenty seconds later I had it working that way, just for fun. The Kode (yes, I just called it that):
WHEN bump puck DO vanish me
WHEN bump puck DO create apple
Crazy how simple it can be, isn't it?

There are definitely limitations though. One of my biggest complaints is that not every object has every option available to it — you can create a tree that shoots missiles, but a soccer ball can't follow a path the way lights and bots can. I was hoping each object would simply look different, and have sliders set differently (bounciness, speed, etc.), but could be programmed however you want. If you like how one vehicle controls, but wished you could use a different 3D model, you're out of luck. But this is where extreme creativity shines. With these limitations, how far can you take it? Some game types seem impossible, but someone will figure out how to make it work. Kodu comes with a bunch of samples and prebuilt games, so you can learn how the more advanced games are programmed (they're all editable). Be sure to check out "gawlf" to see how they brilliantly used the health bar to act as your swing power meter.

Did I mention it's only five dollars, which is a steal? I easily would have paid $20, and with a more robust system it could have been a retail game. I should mention that Kodu does a pretty poor job at introducing you to the game. They desperately need a "play tutorials" button on the main menu, with a list of tutorials that get checked off as you go along, each one with a hint system (where's Clippy when you need him?*). There are just three tutorials that come with Kodu, mixed in with the other games, and they don't actually explain anything. I guess they thought it was so well designed it didn't need any explanation. So I recommend watching some video tutorials (online — none are included) first to get an idea of it before you jump in (I hope to have some tutorials up in the near future).

You won't be able to make the next Gears of War, and you won't even be able to make exactly the arcade game you had in mind, but new ideas will appear, and you'll have fun doing it. If you have kids, buy Kodu. Even if they can't use it on their own, you can create things with them. If you've ever had a game idea of your own, buy Kodu. It's designed to get you thinking like a programmer, and it succeeds.

Other Notes:
Right now game sharing sucks — you have to be friends with the person, and both be running Kodu at the same time. They are working on a patch though, which will add three dedicated servers! There's also a bug where levels seem to get deleted — if it happens, restart Kodu and it might fix it (more info here). The patch will also fix this and other issues.
The patch is out! Delete Kodu and re-download if you don't have it (there's no "update" function).

Links:
Kodu fan forum
Audio interview with Matt MacLaurin — back when it was called Boku.
The Kodu Blog

* Please don't include Clippy. In anything. Ever.

Kodu Game Lab: Full Game Video Tutorial with Narration! – Generic Wars You can download this tutorial as a single divx file...
Kodu Game Lab video tutorials: 3 Keys, Popcorn Popper You can download both of these videos from the Downloads...

Totally addicted to Ninjatown (DS)

Tommy Gun — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:22:49 +0000

Ninjatown is a tower defense game for the Nintendo DS, starring a whole bunch of Shawnimals characters. The whole game is absolutely adorable, with great animations, and lots of strategy. I was expecting to be able to play this while listening to music or podcasts, but it's surprisingly involved. If even one enemy gets through, you won't get an A. In stages where you're protecting an object, just one strike from an enemy will take you down to a B rank. The enemies are fast, so you need to constantly be scrolling around the map watching for anyone who breaks through your defense, and be ready with your special powers (you can use wind to blow enemies back, or fry them, etc.). Here's a quick summary of the game by the developer:

You step into the shoes of Ol’ Master Ninja, tasked with defending Ninjatown from waves of enemies trying to make their way through the town. To stop them, you construct Ninja Huts along their path, from which Ninjas will emerge to engage the enemy. Building each hut costs you Ninja Star Cookies, the currency of Ninjatown, and as you defeat enemies, you earn more cookies. You then re-invest these cookies into building and upgrading huts to deal with the ever increasing waves of enemies. You can also build something we call Modifier Buildings, that will endow any adjacent huts with a special ability. These include buildings like the Training Dojo, which can increase your attack power, or the Tea Shop, which makes your units move faster.

That’s only the basics though, among the new gameplay elements we introduce are Ol’ Master Ninja (OMN) Powers, which are unlocked throughout the game and help to supplement your defensive abilities. These give you powers like Get Off My Lawn, where the player blows into the microphone to push enemies around on the map, or Magnifryer, which lets you direct a beam of scorching hot light on your enemies.

The ninja huts you build are what you'd expect — slow powerful ninjas, fast weak ones, snipers, ice/fire ninjas, and so on. There are also building modifiers, which raise the attack power of the surrounding ninjas, increase their range, or get you more cookies (money). You can upgrade the huts, but that takes time, so you need to do it between waves, or hope you have enough ninjas out there while upgrading.

I just beat the game, getting A ranks on every stage (with the help of strategies on a couple stages). It's an incredibly fun game, and its biggest fault is its length! It's not that it's so short, but it's so much fun it leaves you wanting more, and there were so many obvious, easy ways to extend it!
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Review: Guitar Hero World Tour

Tommy Gun — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:16:48 +0000

Why has it taken me this long to post a review for GHWT? Is it because:

I didn't buy it until just now, because I've been broke
the blistering speed of the new songs melded my hands to the guitar, leaving me unable to use a computer keyboard
I've been so addicted to GHtunes that I've spent every moment creating and playing new songs
although we bought it on day one, it's not very good so we haven't beaten it yet, and instead simply unlocked all the songs with a cheatcode and played the ones we liked in quickplay, then went back to RB2

Yes, it's the last one (though I've played it more than that). How can a game that seems almost identical to RB be so much worse? It's the little things…
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Quick "Rock Band 2" Review

Tommy Gun — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:54:47 +0000

Yesterday, I got up and played Rock Band 2 from around 8am until 10pm, with a few breaks to eat. I still have a lot to unlock. My roommates were gone, so I played the whole thing Solo — which is a great new feature. World Tour can be played alone, and since I'm pretty good, I was able to amass stars and fans very quickly, which meant new venues kept unlocking and I didn't have to replay many songs.

There are a lot of features I have yet to try, but let me run down some of the biggest improvements (and worst removals) Harmonix has made, and suggest some more changes. I haven't played online at all, so I can't comment on that, nor do I have any of the new instruments. I'm calling this a "quick" review only because I'm focusing on specific things that matter to us RB-obsessed players, not reviewing every part of the game.
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Dark Sector, and Poor Game Design

Tommy Gun — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:30:10 +0000

My roommate just signed up for GameFly, and got Dark Sector. I was never really all that interested in the game, but I figured I might as well play it since he's only renting it. I'm not going to write a full review since I haven't finished it (and probably never will), but I want to talk about a few things. For the record, I got to chapter 7 (out of 10) before I stopped playing.

Quick Thoughts

Dark Sector isn't a terrible game if you're a fan of the genre, but there are a lot of weaknesses. Enemies respawn far too often, which amounts to you ducking behind a wall for ten minutes shooting the same enemies. It copies Gears of War too much, including things that don't make sense: as GiantBomb pointed out, your running and sprinting speed is the same as GoW — which makes no sense here as Hayden (your character) is a skinny guy, not a giant man in armor.

The "glaive" is great, and is one of the only things that sets this game apart. It's a blade that acts as a boomerang; throw it to slice enemies in half, and it'll come back to you. You'll gain an "aftertouch" ability which lets you slow down time and actually direct the glaive mid-flight, which is what I spent most of the game doing.

Aside from that it's a pretty standard shooter.

Poor Game Design

Countless times throughout the game I found myself wandering around wondering what I was supposed to do next to proceed. The game is terrible about giving you any sort of direction, and assumes you know what to do or where to go despite never "teaching" you anything.

Example 1: You come to an area where there's a door on the other side of a locked fence. You need to throw your glaive over the fence, then use aftertouch to steer the glaive down and hit a button to open the gate. Sounds fine, but there are a few problems when actually playing the game for the first time.

You have no idea you're supposed to go through that door in the first place.
The game has never taught you that you can hit a button with your glaive (and at this point in the game I don't think you've ever even seen those buttons before).
The button isn't very obvious.

I figured that part out fairly quickly, but I play a lot of games so I know the drill. Valve has a three step approach they use in games like Half-Life. First they teach you the basic mechanic (button opens door), then they give you an easy puzzle using the same mechanic to make sure you know it, and then they give you a tough puzzle with it. Dark Sector really needs something like that.

As for #1, that's a big problem with Dark Sector. In other games you'll have radar, text telling you what to do, or some guy on the radio giving you instructions like, "find a way into the compound!" This game has none of those, so you're left to search a bunch of boring rooms to find where to go.

Example 2: At the start of a checkpoint, you find yourself in a room with a turret that shoots rockets. You gain a new ability: a temporary bubble shield around you. The game tells you that it can reflect rockets to wherever you're aiming. Okay, I try aiming at the turret to blow it up. Doesn't work. I try aiming at various walls or doors to find a way out. Doesn't work. The game keeps telling me I can reflect rockets with my shield. I'm trying!

There is another room you can go into, but it has some ammo and that's about it. Oh — and it also has a door you simply have to walk through to load the next section. Wait, what about that turret? Apparently (after just now reading an FAQ), there was in fact a door I needed to blow up to get out of that first room — I guess when I tried to blow up the turret it also hit the door. The problem was that I had no idea I blew up a door, and the "tutorial text" still kept popping up telling me to use my shield. It was completely misleading and made me think I still needed to do something with it. As for the other room, well there are a lot of those in the game; side rooms that contain ammo and nothing else, so I didn't think that was the way out.

Again, a small radar would have been perfect here. Not a map, just a little blip telling me the direction I was supposed to go in. It would have led me to the other room with the door out. It's not that I spent an hour reflecting rockets or anything, I found the other door after a couple minutes; it's just bad design.

Example 3 (minor spoilers): The first real boss you run into climbs up the walls and throws rocks at you. I figured out the first part quickly: throw your glaive into the fire, then hit the boss with it to make him drop down. Now he's on the ground for a few seconds where you can…shoot him? Glaive him? I tried both those things for a while, but the boss doesn't have a health bar, and there's no indication that shooting him isn't working! A simple "bullets bouncing off" sound effect would have been sufficient to let me know I was taking the wrong approach.

Eventually I figured out that you're supposed to run up to him when he's on the ground, and initiate a Quick Time Event (series of button presses, a la God of War). In retrospect I realize he was flashing red when on the ground, which, if you've performed a "finisher" on a normal enemy, you would know means you can hit a button. But the game never taught you that, and I didn't know that at the time. I only know that now after playing the game for a while and figuring it out. Perhaps the manual mentions it, but I don't have it (GameFly remember), and games should not require manuals. Also, what if you're playing this game as a shooter? Then you never would have gotten close enough to perform a finisher.

There's a difference between hand-holding and teaching you how to play a game. The former is annoying, the latter is a necessity. Dark Sector could learn a thing or two from Valve.

Improvements

For me, the glaive was the only thing that kept me playing as long as I did. As it stands, the game is pretty forgettable, but there are some things that could have made it much more interesting and fun.

Increase the speed: Hayden is a small guy, let him run quickly around the levels slicing enemies up.
Add more hand-to-hand combat: Give Hayden more up-close glaive moves, and focus less on the boring shooting.
More glaive puzzles: There are some interesting puzzles in the game, but not enough. If they teach you how to use the glaive in strange ways, then they can throw some complicated puzzles at you.

To be honest, if they removed the guns completely (and adjusted the levels to make up for it), I would have enjoyed it much more.

Kodu Game Lab: Full Game Video Tutorial with Narration! – Generic Wars You can download this tutorial as a single divx file...
Kodu Game Lab video tutorials: 3 Keys, Popcorn Popper You can download both of these videos from the Downloads...

Podcast #1 – Space Invaders Extreme, Nanostray 2

Tommy Gun — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:50:09 +0000

We finally got on the bandwagon! I've been really busy lately, so I haven't had time to make videos or write reviews, but I really wanted to talk about these two DS games. I got my friend Neofletcher to do a podcast with me, since he's also obsessed with the DS.

Both of these podcasts are very in-depth (i.e., LONG), and we really just did them for fun. We'll try to make future podcasts shorter. Originally it was going to be a single podcast, but I decided to split it in two because of the length.

See videos for both games at the bottom of this post.

Part 1: Space Invaders Extreme (Tommy Gun + Neofletcher)

This is an update to Space Invaders, similar to what they did with Pac-Man CE on Live Arcade. New enemies, new weapons, and best of all, the whole game thumps to the music (think Rez, Lumines)! As of this recording it's an import, but it's coming to the US on June 17th.

20 minutes, 8MB:

Corrections and Additional Info:
It's called "Fever Time" not "Frenzy."

I found out that the bosses in the PSP version are not shrunk down, it actually is a differently shaped field than on the DS, although they remove the borders on the PSP to give it slightly more height than the main PSP levels.

Part 2: Nanostray 2 (Tommy Gun + Neofletcher)

A sequel, this is a very traditional shmup (more so than Nanostray 1). Has D-pad control or touch-screen control.

43 minutes, 17MB:

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Review: "Project: Snowblind" (Xbox, PS2, PC)

Tommy Gun — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 07:17:37 +0000

Quick Summary:
Project: Snowblind is an FPS that's essentially Deus Ex 3, but they changed the name and focused more on standard FPS action. It's a mostly linear game with lots of weapons, and a few "powers" you can use.

I loved Deus Ex, but halfway through my save file got corrupted, and I couldn't finish it. I really love cyberpunk, so this game really interested me. After I beat it, I made some videos of it, and decided I might as well review it while I was at it. This was about a year ago, and all this content has been sitting on my hard drive since then. So, while this review was mostly done, keep in mind that I may have left some things out. Links to both videos are in the review below.

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Review: "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time"

Tommy Gun — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 18:02:27 +0000

With the writer's strike still on, I've had more time to play games, and I just beat this game a few minutes ago. It got such great reviews that I've wanted to play it for a while. After finishing it, do I now wish I had a magic dagger that would let me rewind time to avoid ever playing it?

"Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" is the first of the Sands trilogy. You play as the Prince, with the ability to rewind time. It contains 3rd person platforming and puzzle solving, as well as sword-based combat.

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Review: "Rock Band" Part 2: Bullet points!

Tommy Gun — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:34:28 +0000

This is part 2 of my review, also see part 1.

Quick Summary: Rock Band is Guitar Hero/Drum Hero/Karaoke Revolution combined. Made by Harmonix, the creators of Guitar Hero, it's the ultimate party music game.

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Review: "Rock Band" Part 1: hardware, difficulty, modes

Tommy Gun — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:28:10 +0000

Note: we have it for the Xbox 360. Each person needs to be signed into an Xbox profile (it can be the same one). Some things may be a bit different on PS3.

I started writing this review right after getting the game, two months ago, and have since added to it. There is so much more to say about the game, though, that I have left some things out to talk about later. I have broken it into two parts, and apologize for the unorganized format. It's not so much a review as it is a discussion.

Quick Summary: Rock Band is Guitar Hero/Drum Hero/Karaoke Revolution combined. Made by Harmonix, the creators of Guitar Hero, it's the ultimate party music game.

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Guest Review: Guitar Hero III

Tommy Gun — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 09:16:47 +0000

My own quick thoughts on GH3: It's a solid game. It's fun, with great songs, but a lot of it is hard for the sake of being hard. The timing window is much bigger, which makes for sloppy playing. You can pretty much just mash the buttons during the solos.

Speaking of mashing, that's basically what you have to do during "Raining Blood" Expert ("Mosh 1" section). After trying it around ten times, I got sick of it and quit, even though it was the only song I had left to beat on Expert, not counting the end boss. Then I got Rock Band. I have not played GH3 since. The Guitar Hero series will always have a place, especially playing solo; but without Harmonix, it's missing something — and I don't mean drums and a mic.

I read the following review of Guitar Hero 3 on a forum, and loved it. It really sums up a lot of people's feelings about GH3, even if they couldn't verbalize them. I asked the writer's permission to repost it here, and he agreed. So here is the full review, by ThunderPeel2001:
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Some Thoughts on TimeShift

Tommy Gun — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 06:10:51 +0000

I had been looking forward to TimeShift for a while, but getting closer to release my excitement had been waning a bit. People sounded a bit unimpressed, the time powers weren't really as interesting as they first seemed, and the delays meant it was no longer as groundbreaking as it may have been. I was able to borrow the Xbox 360 version from a friend, so I quickly played through it (I think it only took around 10 hours to beat). Overall, it was a fun, solid game. But, I feel like there were many things they missed out on.

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Quick Review: "The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay" (Xbox)

Tommy Gun — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 16:53:51 +0000

I've had this game sitting on my shelf for over a year. With the remake coming out, I figured I'd at least throw it in and play for a little bit, and then wait for the remake to actually finish the game. Well, guess what? I got hooked on it. Finally I checked online to see about how far I was, and I was halfway through, so I decided to just finish it (total of four sittings). I don't think I even need to say that I absolutely loved it.

The good thing is that the game saves all the checkpoints, so you can replay any part you want — so as long as the same is true about the remake, I won't have to play through the entire game again (not that that would be a bad thing). I'm hoping one of my roommates will get it and beat it, so I can just go back and play my favorite parts, and the new content.

So what's so great about this game? Well…
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Hardware Review: Thylus (DS thumb stylus)

Tommy Gun — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:24:18 +0000

Update: Since posting this review, I created a promo video for Thylus.
——

The Thylus is a thumb stylus designed for PDAs, Nintendo DSs, and other touch screen devices. The makers were nice enough to send us a few to test out. We tested them on a DS, DS Lite, and many different games.
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Review: Oddworld Stranger's Wrath (Xbox) — More than an FPS?

Tommy Gun — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 03:54:34 +0000

One of the comments made about Oddworld Stranger's Wrath was that it's basically just an FPS, despite its attempts not to be. There are some drastic differences between this and most FPS games, at least on the surface, but what does it amount to in the end?

Quick Summary:
You play as the Stranger. Use live (as in "alive") ammo in your double-barreled crossbow to take down enemies. Collect bounties, dead or alive, it's up to you.

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bit Generations quick reviews, and "Orbital" FAQ is up!

Tommy Gun — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 23:30:49 +0000

I recently got a chance to play all of the bit Generations games (GBA imports). Some of them are not so great (Boundish, single player anyway, kinda boring Pong), while others rock (Dotstream). I had already seen footage of Dotstream, so I knew I'd like it. Basically a racing game but with some interesting twists, and tons of style, like all of the games.
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Review: Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure (Xbox, PS2, PC)

Tommy Gun — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 20:59:57 +0000

Like most of my reviews, I'm not going to explain the whole game, I assume you already know basically what this game is about. Click on any screenshot to see the full-size version.

Quick Summary:
You play as Trane, a graffiti artist in New Radius, a fictional city. You climb around tagging stuff and beating up cops (known as CCK) and rival crews.

Ever since I heard about this game, I was interested in it. Something about it really grabbed my attention. It sounded like a semi-realistic experience unlike any other. There are obvious comparisons to Jet Grind Radio that can be made, but it was because of the ways it wasn't like JGR that drew me to it. I beat JGR on Dreamcast and really liked it, but I wanted something more realistic. Something that really made you feel like you were in a real city doing real things, but things you'd never do, or couldn't do, in real life. I wanted to climb up buildings and along subway cars.
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Review: Alice in Wonderland (Game Boy Color)

Tommy Gun — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 21:47:58 +0000

Note: Please see this post to know why I wrote this.

I've had the game for a couple days and I already beat it, it's really short. Still, it's actually quite good! It's mostly a platformer, but there are some other things thrown in. For instance, when you fall down the rabbit hole, you have to float back and forth collecting stars and avoiding obstacles. Then later (when you're huge and cry, then shrink and fall into the bottle), you have to float down the river and move back and forth avoiding things. That brings up a good point — it actually follows the story! There are also some cutscenes between levels, either animated or still frames with text.

The graphics are nice for a GBC game, particularly the animations. Alice walks and runs very smoothly, and the whole game has a nice cartoon look to it. You basically run around collecting stars, jumping on enemies, and collecting keys to open the doors. If you find a mushroom (there are many), you can shrink or grow (toggles between the two), similar to Zelda: The Minish Cap. This adds some puzzle elements, because you have to stay big and take out the enemies, then run back to the mushroom and shrink, etc.

Once in Wonderland you have a 3/4 view world map. You go around talking to characters, and they each need something (a cane, handkerchief, etc.). It's basically an item trading sequence, but it gives Alice motivation to go into each level and find new characters and items. It's hardly a kids' game, either, some of the sections are pretty tough. One mistake and you have to start the level over again, in some cases.

I was happy to see that Bill is in the game! He's the lizard who comes in when Alice grows and gets stuck in the house. You actually play as him for one level. It's interesting, you carry around your ladder and must reach the top of the level. To do this you set down your ladder, climb up it, pull it up, and repeat. There are birds flying back and forth, so if you mess up or forget to duck they'll knock your ladder off the edge and you'll have to fall down and start all over again.

After you collect enough stuff from the main world, you visit the Queen of Hearts. There's the paint-the-roses-red part, and eventually you play croquet against her, which is basically a timing game. All in all really not a bad game, I had fun with it, even though it's short.

So there you go Mr. GCE. You couldn't believe you were typing the name in, well I just wrote a review of it!

Kodu Game Lab: Full Game Video Tutorial with Narration! – Generic Wars You can download this tutorial as a single divx file...
Kodu Game Lab video tutorials: 3 Keys, Popcorn Popper You can download both of these videos from the Downloads...

Fable: The Lost Chapters — The choice is yours…sort of.

Tommy Gun — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 15:43:55 +0000

I beat the game last week. The original content took me just under ten hours, and the whole game took about 13 hours, which is really short for an RPG, and even short for a regular game. I did avoid a lot of the side-quests (didn't really interest me, although I did get married twice, and totally scored like four times!), and there were plenty of other things to do — find all the silver keys, open all the demon doors, etc. Then obviously you can play through multiple times and try to be 100% evil, 100% good, a pure mage, a pure archer, etc.
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Far Cry Instincts is way too easy

Tommy Gun — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 11:09:59 +0000

Note: This refers to the original Xbox version.

First off, let me say that I love this game and had a fun time playing it. The first day I played it was for eight hours straight, so I must have liked it. However, there are no difficulty levels, and the game is way too easy! You can literally run through most of the game if you really want to, especially after you have feral speed. Even the final boss isn't very hard. He's certainly more challenging, but it still only took me three or four tries, and that was simply figuring out what was going on (apparently there's a huge glitch on the final boss, but I guess I avoided that). The rest of the game is a cakewalk, and here's why:
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