24/06/2007 - Bits 'n' Bobs

Bernie's latest game, Shooting Star has had a change of tack. It was going to be an exploratory platformer (yay!) but he's now decide that instead it's going to be a lot more like Darkside Adventures and A Game With A Kitty (boo!). I was really quite looking forward to seeing something from Bernie which strayed outside his comfort zone but now I'm forced to cross this off of my "looking forward to list".

And then I'll tear that bit of paper out from the rest of the list.

And then burn it.

And then write it on there again because of course I'll download it. I have no spine.

If I were to wish on a shooting star it would be for a nice explorey game... *sob*

There's a new demo of Cortex Command out which has changed many elements of the engine, most importantly stopping the concrete bunkers feeling like they're made of biscuits, crumbling under even the lightest of footfalls. It's also stopped the enemy AI from unfairly dropping in right on top of your base, which was always a bit of a gripe and means that even though this is a demo you can get a better idea of how to play and what strategies will work in the real game, without having to resort to crashing a load of delivery ships into your own bunker as a very expensive form of stone-cladding.

The most important addition to the game, though, is that the gibbing of the characters is even more bloody now, and there's a lovely animated GIF on their website to show this off.

Normally there would be loads of shit kicking off in a Cortex Command screenshot, but I was in a hurry and so very lazily took this snap as soon as the game started.

Because it's just a demo I'm going to lump Streambolt Desero in here with the news, even though in my opinion it beats Gunstar Heroes at its own game. Streambolt Desero is a platform shoot 'em up and was one of the entrants in the recent Swedish Game Awards, picking up the One-Man Game Factory award for its author Gustav Kilman, who not only programmed it but also drew its excellent pixel art with his accursedly talented fingers. Unsurprisingly it's an update of his previous game Streambolt, but it thoroughly kicks that game in the balls in almost all areas.

The one area where it doesn't kick it in the balls is in size, because apparently this demo is all you're gonna' see of Streambolt Desero. And that's a real pity because what's there is simply great, with the main enemy types having real character to them, although Gustav can thank the sample he pinched from Gussan and Oyoyo for some of that.

Other than it being sad that we won't be seeing any more from this game the only complaint I can level at it is that it tries to do too much with the controls. There's a huge array of moves you can pull off using the two control buttons, but to the game's credit it doesn't force you to do so, and you can play it as a straight run 'n' gun game if you want to avoid the melee combat.

This screenshot is far more exciting, but again I was lazy and simply stole it from a webpage. Shameful.

Pixeljam, makers of the excellent Gamma Bros have released Ratmaze 2, and although it's a simple maze navigation game, it's actually a lot of fun.

That's mostly thanks to the game playing fast enough that you don't get bored with the simple business of getting from A to B, but it's also down to the maze containing a few simple puzzle elements which really make a pleasant change. It doesn't hurt that the control is vastly improved over the original - and fairly poor - Ratmaze 1.

It's not a game which is going to distract you for days at a time, but it's well worth seeing through to the end and seeing if you can get all the bonus letters in addition to the 72 lumps of cheese.

Brown - the colour of excitement!

And finally Rinkuhero from the TIGsource forums amongst other locations has released his own spin on the Tower Defense genre called Immortal Defense. I'm not going to review it simply because I really don't get on with the Tower Defense genre at all, and find it to be inherently lacking in strategy.

But you can't deny that Rinkuhero has really stamped his own identity on this game as it looks like very little else out there, features a perfectly readable plot which skitters near the boundaries of pretensiousness and is easy to control. And even if it fails as a game, I'm sure it'll find use in the medical community as an absolutely infallible test for photosensitive epilepsy.

Immortal Defense is available to buy from the Studio Eres website or you can try out the absurdly generous demo first.

Ow! My eyes! MY BLEEDING EYES!

Graham - 25/07/2007

PS. If you're wondering where the audio is, look at the post below.