Score: 6

"One of the better throwing games"

submission: Throw Me

date: September 22, 2007

It's not a genre I enjoy much, and while Throw Me doesn't do much to push it forward, it seems to do enough to make it interesting. Stamina introduces skill, where you can move yourself toward a crane to keep going.

I searched through 43 pages of reviews and didn't see anyone mention that the blur isn't done properly. It's reversed. You're blurring the object, but the object isn't the one that's moving fast relative to the camera; the background is. I realize that maybe Flash can't handle it, but still, if you're going to blur something, it should be what's moving fast, relative to your eyes (the camera). If someone is skeptical, think of car chases in movies, where the camera is looking at a car from the side, and following it as it zips through traffic. The car isn't blurred. It's everything else.

From a gameplay standpoint, it might not be beneficial to blur the background, so in that case, nothing should be blurred, or only the background should be blurred at high speeds. Okay, enough about blur.

There are nice effects and presentation. It's a game anyone can get into, but it could improve upon this genre more by giving the player a bit more control, and a bit more to look at as they fly through the sky for 30 seconds at a time without anything else to do.

Score: 8

"A queer parody for those who understand it"

submission: Queers of War

date: January 15, 2007

First off, I love the Excitebike music. It was a tad loud compared to movies, but it doesn't really matter. It set the mood very well.

Everyone did a fine job with theirs. :P My favorites were Tom's torque bow, and Dan's nice parody of what goes on during a Gears match. If you've played Gears, or most other team games, you'd be familiar with the humping that goes on when a player is AFK. Girdlock isn't my favorite map but it's a nice little recreation of it. Utah's Tankmen-esque short also stood out.

Not the best animation, but parodies don't need that. The drawings were fitting, some quite detailed, and the jokes were well done!

Score: 6

"Great artwork, good concept, bad execution"

submission: Cereus Peashy

date: January 10, 2007

Good
~~~~~
- Good, simple controls (mostly)
- Using the enter key to pause.
- Some nice game play innovation with the spikes as platforms.
- Awesome artwork, and satisfying head stomping.
- Nice camera work. Smooth, you can see in front of you, and parallax.
- The two challenges are neat, but not really much more than what they are at face value.

Bad
~~~~~
- Major lag, even after saving the SWF and playing it in the Flash 9 projector on a powerful computer, on LOW. Required shrinking the window. If you think using a lot of blur and trail fx makes the game look better, consider how the game looks when it's set to low and the frame rate is still chugging.
- The game is slow and inconsistent in speed. I don't mean lag. When shrunken to a tiny window, the game seems lag-free, but the game's movement is still slow. Jumping while dashing makes you slow back down to walking speed. Killing your momentum like this kills the fun too.
- bug: I pressed enter twice when selecting Level 3 and after it loaded the level, I couldn't move or do anything, as if the game was paused. Pausing and unpausing didn't help.
- Wall jumping is needlessly complicated. Having to press toward the wall, up, AND jump? Seriously? I'm a fan of wall jumping but it's just done so poorly. Play some games with wall jumping and notice how they accomplish this without requiring quick directional presses. Don't forget Flash games are played on a keyboard (although I played Peashy with an Xbox 360 gamepad). Also, wall jumping needs to be mentioned early on, like level 2. People who got stuck while in Bloodlust mode could have used this information. I made it up that skinny wall area to get a 1up (when you first learn about wall jumping), but let me tell you I hated it. Don't challenge people with frustrating controls.
- Blind jumps are extremely annoying and just bad level design. Sometimes the ground is there, sometimes it isn't. Even if you added in the option of looking down before you jump, it would not be good enough. Blind jumping is bad, period.
- Others have mentioned the levels are too long. I think they are a good length (otherwise people would complain they are too short). The problem is that there's no checkpoint. While some might argue that checkpoints take the challenge out of games, replaying a level is much much worse. Besides, it's more fun when the challenge is in the gameplay/combat, not in having to play perfectly less you start over.
- Inconsistent level collisions. e.g. Chapter 1-4, sometimes you put a platform on a spine bone, sometimes you don't. This lead to more than a couple deaths. Save for secret hidden walls, collisions should be as you expect, not whatever the level designer felt like giving collision to.
- Platforms that look like regular platforms but are actually ones that crumble within half a second of landing on them. No game does this. Well, no good game does this. Yes, I'm pissed I have one life left on Chapter 1-6 and died because of an unwritten rule that breakaway platforms need to be solid for over one second.

Quick rundown of individual scores:
Graphics: The animation is awesome, but the lag really affects the gameplay and feel of the game.
Style: Awesome, as always, Edmund. It's hurt a little though, by the odd usage of beveling and over usage of Flash filters. The menus don't match the artwork.
Sound: Nice moody music and wet death sounds. Sounds good to me.
Violence: This rating is unnecessary, so 10.
Interactivity: The simple controls make the game easy to pick up. The wall jumping makes me want to break my controller. Overall it's good but the few areas it has problems are pretty major.
Humor: Not really funny, but amusing in general.

I tried to give the game a fair shake by replaying it a few times. After dying on Chapter 1-6, I'm done. Maybe I'll return one day to see the twisted boss Edmund came up with. Good job releasing a game after starting it so long ago. It's just plagued with so many little things that it's 3 steps shy of greatness.

Score: 10

"Original and not cliche"

submission: KGB Loop

date: June 5, 2004

This reminded me of Final Fantasy.

Actually, when I think of KGB, I certainly don't imagine this music, but you've made it work. It's a great loop too, and although it seems slow paced, I think blowing up some KGB sprites in the game will feel just right with this music!

I can't stop listening to this loop!

Score: 9

"Whitehousey"

submission: White House

date: June 5, 2004

This tune sounded presidential! As game music, it works well and I can't wait to start blasting away the government as an alien in the Alien Hominid Tribute game!