I feel like playing some some XBOX360 for a change, so it's time for another slightly new format! XBOX Live Demos (Full Game/Arcade/Indie) will receive a rating based more specifically on whether it's worth paying to continue Hitting it or it needs to be kicked to the curb without even a tip.
In most cases, I can't watch demo/intro screens to get a feel for the game. All I get is a text description and some screen shots, like I'm ordering a Russian Bride. Also, for Indie games particularly, I'm limited to only 7 minutes before I need to decide whether it's worth paying for. (If only that's how real call-girls worked, amirite???) In Arcade/Full Demos, I can only play so much before the Demo runs out. The price is higher, but the quality may be better, so that value will affect my decision.
This week, I will be playing Indie Game demos I already had downloaded on my system before I even started this blog, so they already have a leg up in that they seemed interesting enough to Demo. In the future, I will just start downloading whatever I find so it will be more of a surprise whether I like it or not. Lets get to it. This may also mark the start of following some sort of Theme for the week, so I have an excuse to finally mix up the variety instead of just going alphabetically through the Super NES games.
Hit it or Quit it?
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| Year: 2012 -- Developer: Halcyon Software -- Publisher: XBLIG |
The XBOX doesn't have any description for this game. I don't know if it's a hiccup or it just doesn't. All I can see are some screenshots. The color scheme looks like it's being played on an old school Gameboy. It's pretty much green-scale (versus grayscale). It looks like one of the Mario Land games, just a standard platformer, jumping around, perhaps collecting coins. I'm a little uncomfortable at the fact that it shows level 2-17. 17 levels in one world seems a little excessive. Let's see what this is all about.
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Fooled around for: 7 minutes (Indie Game Demo Limit)
It was about what was expected, except sadly just a bit worse. There aren't coins. It turns out it's really just a platformer, or what I might call a Death Platformer or Respawner or something. It's like Super Meat Boy where the level is only so big, you just need to get from Point A to Point B. The catch is that the obstacles between those points get ridiculous. If you die, there's no penalty, you just restart the level from the beginning, so they don't care if they get insanely hard, they just expect you to fight your way through it.
For what it is, it's okay, the problem is that it really does feel like a Gameboy game, sucky controls and all. The hit boxes are too loose, so many times I died when I really should have been able to avoid the enemy in time. The jump button repeatedly jumps when held, so a few times on short jumps, it caused me to jump again though I didn't want to. If it's this old-school "hard just because" feeling they were going for, great. The music is 8-bit and old-school. The enemies are pretty old-school looking. If not, it just feels like it's their first game and the physics need just a little more polish.
As noted, there are definitely a lot of levels, which is good, since they run pretty short. If they were longer, you'd be that much more angry when you died right at the end of it. I bet it gets to that point though.
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Hit it or Quit it? (80 MSP)
For a buck, I would possibly hit it again. I would at least think about it. But I would probably first go try some other demos for games like this that I could buy for a buck in case I found something better first. If I'm going to plan to spend time really getting into a game like this that gets so hard it takes practice, I want to make sure I'm totally into it. I'm not sure that's this game. It definitely wouldn't be if it cost any more than 80 MSP.
So.. Hit it, maybe, after another trip around the bar.
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