Oh boy.
Oh boy oh boy oh boy.
Have I got a treat for you, faceless yet beloved reader. It's Robot Unicorn Attack from Adult Swim, the game where you race a magical robotic unicorn across a purple landscape and smash stars before they can smash you.
The game does all the running for you. All your hooves have to do is tap [Z] to jump, tap it again to double-jump, and tap [X] to perform a dash attack that will break through stars. While in mid-air, you can actually hold [Z] after you've jumped to glide majestically for a bit. Avoid running into obstacles, and falling into the fathomless pit that is the magical robot unicorn realm, and collect floating... fairy... things for points. You've got three lives, or "wishes" in this case, and at the end your score is tallied up. You can then use said score to brag to all your friends about how good you are at racing pretty unicorns while remaining blissfully ignorant of their glazed expressions. That's... pretty much it. There's no real pay-off for your glorious stampede other than increasingly bigger numbers and the knowledge that you've just spent minutes you'll never get back listening to Erasure. Ridiculous? Absolutely. But since when did you need to take yourself seriously to have fun?
Alright, so it's essentially Canabalt with a robot unicorn, and sometimes a robot dolphin. But while it's just as addictive as Canabalt, it's not quite as polished. There are far too many leaps of faith the further you get into the game, and it's also desperately in need of some variation in the scenery department. I don't know about you, but I've always envisioned the realm of the robot unicorns to look a bit more magical than that. Or at least not quite so empty and boring.
It's a bright, colourful, cotton-candy puff of a game, and while it's hardly the most substantial offering out there, it's easily one of the most unique. Forget that it's a game so frilly and sparkly even a six-year-old girl might raise an eyebrow at it. Forget that I'm going to be making fun of you for singing along. Instead, just let go, feel the wind in your glorious mane... and believe.
Yet another fun game report by Dora :)
Keep up the good work, I like reading your stuff!
OMG - a dolphin!
no, really!
I think this review failed to adequately take into account the force of my fantasies. This game is exactly what I hope for most when I close my eyes and allow myself to dream without reserve... rainbows and all.
Oh my god. I can't decide if I love or hate that music. It is definitely stuck in my head now.
Not sure why, but my Z key does not seem to work during the game play. I can press Z to get through the menu items, but in the game I plummet into the first big chasm over and over again, no key on my keyboard seems able to make the unicorn jump :(
The music is the perfection that vaults this game from "amusing diversion" to "totally awesome 80's fantasy adventure."
Now if I could only figure out what movie soundtrack it's from.
This game is incredibly fantastic. The music, the graphics, and the pace of the gameplay are all perfect.
In the interest of constructive criticism, I do have a few complaints, though.
The fairies are worth so little that there's no point in chaining them. By contrast, the stars start to accumulate points very quickly, especially if you chain them without missing a single one. Unfortunately, there are a few parts where the star could be high or low, and it's basically a matter of luck whether you hit it and get the multiplier up, or miss it and lose out on a pile of points.
Otherwise, this is a fantastic game game in both concept and execution, and a rarity.
For those who wonder, the song in the game is "Always" by the band "Erasure".
-SirNiko
"Have I got a treat for you, faceless yet beloved reader."
I am so glad that you can get past my horrible and debilitating condition which leaves me with no face. Other people laugh and point and say things like "Where's your face?" and "That guy does not have a face." but not you, Dora. Not you.
I can't stop playing. If I stop playing the music will stop. DON'T STOP THE MUSIC!
this shouldnt be rated g its on the adult swim website, there is bad stuff on that site
I have to call foul on this game.
This game embodies the very worst of shameless, mindless, talentless cloning:
Canabalt has brilliantly simple one-button gameplay; the boiled down, perfected essence of a platformer. Robot Unicorn Attack has pointless complications: Two! Buttons! Double Jump! I've missed the point!
Canabalt appears simple but under the hood there is hidden strategy. RUA appears more complicated, but the gameplay is as shallow as a 14-yr-old Valley girl.
Canabalt's graphics look low-tech but it rewards repeat plays with tons of interesting touches. You've pretty much seen all of RUA once you've looked at the screenshot posted above.
Canabalt has fine-tuned, well-balanced gameplay that is hard as nuts but always fair. RUA requires blind jumps.
Canabalt has style to burn and hints of a deeper, larger narrative behind it all. RUA has rainbows.
Canabalt rewards repeated plays. RUA punishes repeated plays with its monotony and shallowness.
So, basically, you have Canabalt, a game that clearly had a lot of thought, skill, and playtesting put into it.
And then you have Robot Unicorn Attack.
Like Canabalt.
Except in every possible way it's so much worse.
Boo on JIG for featuring this shameless waste of space.
Oh god this is addictive.
Sorry you didn't find anything to enjoy about it, Bob, but you know what they say about pleasing all of the people all of the time.
I love Canabalt. Gets a lot of play on my iPhone. And I agree that RUA isn't as successful in its execution. But I don't think it's the dredge you seem to, and I enjoyed it. Canabalt has a very serious vibe. This has a free-wheeling ridiculousness about it that instantly endeared it to me.
Hopefully you find something else on the site that YOU enjoy. :)
Not to start a thing here, but I completely disagree with Bob Montgomery above.
I'm glad that JIG featured this variation on the Canabalt theme.
I love Canabalt, but the problem with it is that it is too one-dimensional. After I play through a few times, I get tired of the fact that there is so little to the game. I always come back and play some more, but after being unable to jump through glass below the building I'm on 10 times in a row, I start to realize how simplistic it is.
The added element of being able to double-jump can make RUA more fun in a casual sense. There's a bit of a safety net when you mis-jump.
Both games have their place, and both can be enjoyed for different reasons.
Of course, if you hate Unicorns, or are afraid of the color pink or rainbows, then RUA might not be for you.
I apparently never got to know Canabalt deeply enough, because it certainly felt like I was jumping blind a lot.
In RUA, on the other hand, the combination of double-jump and dash makes it possible to recover from wrong guesses almost all of the time. My scores shot up once I stopped using double-jump by default; most of the leaps can be made with one nice long jump, and if you save your second one, you can save yourself from landing on a star by dashing in midair above the star and using your second jump to clear the gap after the star.
If you see what I mean.
@ Grasa Total: You also get another jump after you dash, allowing you to stay in the air for VERY long periods of time (just watch out for ceilings!)
I really hate being told to wait while my game is loading (and hey, look, there's an ad) only to be taken to a loading screen once the ad's over. Making people sit through an ad is perfectly fine; lying to them about what's going on is unacceptable.
You know, it's kinda funny...people are actually looking for the full song "Always" on YouTube because of this game. Half the newest comments on the YouTube sites with this song are about RUA.
I love that the motivational lines you get before each game seem to vary from 'chase the rainbow' to 'you will die a fiery death'. :)
It's pretty easy once you realize you can stay off the ground all the time by alternating Z and X (jump and dash)... lovely game, still.
Darn it, Will; you ruined all my fun. Once you find a cheat, you can't stay away from it.
This game combines everything I never realized I wanted in a game. Especially Erasure?!
I think I played this game too many times. Last night I had a dream where I was playing an advanced version of this game. Only...it was in full 3D so I also had to navigate tight turns and gaps, and instead of stars I was blasting through various types of enemies, sometimes even multiple enemies at once!
Actually:
it looks like if you get lucky, you can get onto the ceiling. Jump up high by linking dashes and jumps. When you see the ceiling, you may be able to see a part that looks very much like the part you are running on. I actually had a opportunity to get up there, but epic failed it
I just bought an Erasure song thanks to this game. Also, I'll wear pantyhose and suspenders to class tomorrow. But that's my personal choice.
god i love the game. and i could listen to that song forever xD i want the game for my phone.
If you guys think you're taking "leaps of faith" in this game too often, you fail to realize the point of the fairy things.
Something to ponder there.
One of the purposes of the fairies is to guide you. You don't make blind leaps if there aren't fairies.
I'm utterly in love with this game. The whimsical style and music are wonderful, and the game is simply fun. I tried Canabalt and didn't like it nearly as much as RUA.
Infinite dash-jumping has been fixed. Perfectly fixed, I might add, because it doesn't prevent you from using dash-jumps in a legitimate way.
Update