September 2008 Archives

Dogfight 2 is the newest entry into Rock Solid Arcade's quality series of arcade-style airplane fliers, which includes the first Dogfight and the previously-reviewed Stunt Pilot. Once again, they have based some nail-bitingly tough levels around the tricky but satisfying flight controls from classic DOS game Sopwith. The [right] arrow key always rotates you clockwise, and the [left] arrow key always counter-clockwise, no matter which direction your little biplane is facing. That—plus your plane's momentum—will keep you busy just trying to avoid the cold hard embrace of the ground, never mind that you're being shot at by giant dirigibles. Fire back with your machine gun by holding the [space] bar, and drop bombs with [ctrl]. Amusingly, you can bomb the other planes (and in fact must do so on a couple of levels), but your bombs are limited, depending on the specific mission. Don't waste them on planes if you still need to take out a hangar or two.

Rock Solid Arcade still has some of the highest production values of anyone working in Flash. I feel like Dogfight 2 could use a dramatic story line to accompany its gorgeous settings, but there's already plenty of drama in the details. Bullet holes appear in blimps as you pepper them, smoke trails follow wounded planes, enemy Ace Pilots tilt their wings believably as they kill you over and over and over again.

Oh by the way, this is a difficult game; partly because it will take a while to really get the controls into your fingers (unless you were some kind of Sopwith Ninja), partly because the opposing firepower is usually overwhelming, and partly because the only advantage you get is so odd. On every level, you get to use four Ace Tactics, which are like game show Lifelines for fighter pilots. Do an uninterrupted loop, for example, and you activate the Evasive Loop Tactic; little question marks appear over the enemy planes as they stumble around randomly, cowed into confusion by your sheer daredevilry. The respite won't last long, however, so you'll have to pull off some other maneuver, such as flying behind a cloud, if you want to prolong the chaos.

Rock Solid Arcade can't seem to quite hit the difficulty sweet spot. Their otherwise amazing Robokill had almost no penalty for dying, but here we're well into frustrating territory. You have a limited number of lives, and continue points are set every five levels. Since some missions require near-perfection, and you may have no idea what strategy you'll need until you're already hip-deep in enemy bombers, you'll almost certainly get bumped back a few times. I managed to persevere, on the strength of the solid controls and a nice variety of missions, but I can't blame you if you give up after the first couple of set-backs. It's straight arcade-style gaming in a venue with no quarters—it doesn't make a lot of sense, really, but it does give you a meaty challenge, if meat is your cup of tea.

The way Dogfight 2 is balanced, you can't really force your way through, no matter your skill. You have to employ the Ace Tactics. Your success will often hinge on your ability to chain your Tactics together without wasting them or inadvertently misjudging them and smacking into the dirt. Most of my deaths, in fact, resulted from an ill-timed Ground Dive, which may mean that the game isn't so hard after all, and I just shouldn't pursue a career as an aviator.

If you do have the piloting chops, there's a broad selection of high-scoring possibilities. The most important strategy is simply not dying, but everything from bombing optional targets to shooting down enemy pilots as they parachute to safety (which seems incredibly unsportsmanlike) has a score attached. You can even maximize your points for individual kills by machine-gunning the dickens out of a plane as it goes down. While screaming "Take that, Red Baron!" of course.

Play Dogfight 2: The Great War

Matt Sandorf: Journey to Endless Entertainment is not just an artistic point-and-click game. It is a *sniff* advergame — a promotion for the Sony empire from music to gadgets to games. It was created by Rabbit Tell (Rodrigo Roesler and Bruno Maestrini), creators of the very popular Trapped series of games, and this one follows similar construction.

Now, advergames aren't automatically evil — remember Honda's gorgeous little Grrr game a few years back? — and Journey to Endless Entertainment is particularly well-executed, with surprising breaks through the fourth wall that I've never seen in a game before. The artwork varies between cute Lego scenery for the gameplay and charcoal drawings for the cutscenes.

I have to confess, though — it's difficult. I wasn't able to get through it without some help. Thankfully, you can save your game and reload if things just aren't making sense. It is definitely possible for you to paint yourself into a corner, so do save your game often!

What compelled me to keep playing was the jokes — if you liked Ben There, Dan That! but thought that some of the humor was just unnecessary, MS: JTEE offers a more G-rated experience but with somewhat less logical puzzles. You'll keep playing just to work out what you're supposed to do with a naked hamster.

In the meantime, I've given the genius everything except the immortal frog. Won't you help a poor JIG reviewer out?

Play Matt Sandorf: Journey to Endless Entertainment

You can't see it, but I'm holding a jar of jelly beans. When someone is sitting next to a jar of jelly beans with some slips of paper, you know what your task is... You want to get a running start and swipe the jar of jelly beans as fast as you can and hope you can get away with it. Because let's face it, actually guessing the number of jelly beans is pretty much impossible, unless you have the ability to freeze time and count the jelly beans one by one and then get them back in the jar before everything returns to normal speed.

For some, estimation of obscure objects is a pain. Nekogames, on the other hand, has come up with a little estimation game that brims with excitement. Due to my lack of ability to read Japanese, we'll call it the Japanese Map Game. (If anyone can offer a translation of the title, we'd be glad to hear it.)

You are presented with a pixel-art map of Japan on the left. Mousing over the map highlights the regions of Japan (with a cheery pronounciation of each). On the right is a grid of boxes, with some highlighted in blue. The object of each round is to pick a region on the map (or combination of regions) and try to fill in the blue boxes so that you land within the rainbow-bordered boxes. The size of the region that you select will determine how many boxes get filled. If your total lands in the green boxes, you move on to the next level, but landing in the yellow, orange, and red boxes also gets you some bonus points.

My strongest word of caution for this game: It is highly unlikely that you will win a round on your first attempt. Part of this game is experimenting with the sizes of the regions and how many boxes they fill in. Within your first few tries, you'll have a good idea what regions to pick to fill in the grid. Just remember, the regions you use become unavailable for the rest of the game.

Analysis: For such a simple concept, you'd be surprised how quickly you may be drawn into the game's happy and exciting atmosphere. As you mouse over the territories, you have all the time in the world to make your selection, but you still get a rush of nervous excitement when the blue blocks are filling up, not looking like they'll ever stop. Nekogames has taken such a simple concept as "come as close as you can without going over" and made a quirky little game out of it, and you might even learn something about Japan's geography from it too!

So if you're ready for a bit of jelly bean culture shock, hajime!

Play Japanese Map Game

More games to make you scratch your head, this bonus edition of Weekend Download features a few titles that caught my eye in one way or another. I especially enjoyed G2: Geeks Unleashed, not only for its corny references (every one of which I understood!), but for its unique strategy/puzzle gameplay.

G2: Geeks Unleashed (Windows, 15MB, demo) - Ready for a cheesy puzzle game laden with sci-fi and geek pop culture references? Sure you are! Battle geeky opponents in a puzzle-based collection game where you try and grab item tiles to complete sets and win the match. The catch is that each player takes turns picking items, so depending on where you took your last tile, your opponent may get a better or worse hand. Do you play for your own inventory or set out to deny your opponent his loot? Sometimes the dialogue is a bit over the top and stereotypical, but the gameplay is unique and filled with subtle strategy you learn as you progress. Several gameplay modes add plenty of variety.

Scrapbook Paige (Windows, 105MB, demo) - A hidden object game that doesn't try to justify the fact that it's a hidden object game! Paige runs a scrapbook store and needs your help finding lists of items amongst the shelves and drawers. Grab a magnifying glass and take a look at countless sets of stickers, buttons, and more craft objects than you thought could be packed into a single screen. It's something a little different for hidden object fans, and scrapbook enthusiasts will appreciate the chance to do their craft even while on the computer.

The Hidden Object Show: Season 2 (Mac/Windows, 93MB, demo) - Set in a carnival, this game doesn't try and mask its genre and drops you in the contestant's chair where you compete in various hidden object challenges. Set in a carnival, finding items earns you tickets that can be redeemed for prizes (gigantic stuffed animal, anyone?). The dozen or so minigames are unique and terribly fun, worth the price of admission alone. The biggest draw to this game is its massive length, over 300 rounds in all, three times as many as the original game. That's a lot of pixel scrutinizing.

Two really fascinating blasts from (or to) the past this week: The Lost Snowmen, which spiritually resurrects one of my favorite games from the 90s, The Lost Vikings (link leads to a severely downscaled online demo), and Cavern of Doom, which takes pixelated graphics to an almost painful extreme.

Mystery Chronicles - Murder Among Friends (Mac/Windows, 50MB, demo) - Hidden object games are everywhere these days, and it seems like every developer is trying to out do the next by spicing up its item finding with one strange gimmick or another. Mystery Chronicles sticks to its guns and goes the old-fashioned route with a remarkably rich atmosphere and classic murder mystery storyline. Item hunting is fairly straightforward, the minigames aren't overdone, and the developer spent a lot of time making sure everything made sense in context of the whole experience. What it lacks in originality and gameplay variety it makes up in setting and story.

The Lost Snowmen (Windows, 25MB, free) - Remember The Lost Vikings? If not, you missed out on one of the best 2D puzzle platform games of the last 3,000 years. Seriously! The Lost Snowmen looks to continue the genre and puts you in control of three snowmen, each with unique abilities. Work together to solve puzzles and traverse the snowy landscape.

Cavern of Doom (Windows, 2.3MB, free) - Thou art Mo the Great! Hero of many a heroic deed, slayer of many a not so heroic thing! Cavern of Doom drops you in the most retro of retro settings and sets you to the task of delving deep below the dungeons of thy town in search of loot. And if you sit really far away from your computer, the images almost look good!

Goban (Mac, 10MB, free) - An elegant and simple implementation of Go for Mac users. Play against the computer for a single player challenge, or hop on the internet to challenge people from around the world. You can even observe pro (and amateur) games on the Internet Go Server.

Jump Jump Jelly Reactor is a matching puzzle game that isn't afraid to try out new ideas. Instead of flat and boring blocks, tiles or even gems, this game fills your screen with lively jellies that can be combined to form larger characters with brand new properties. Gameplay is a unique combination of strategy and puzzle matching that extends a good variety of tasks your way. It's rare that a matching game really catches my eye, but Jump Jump Jelly Reactor provides such a full experience, it's hard to pass up.

The same basic mechanics prevail in Jump Jump Jelly Reactor's multiple gameplay modes. The screen is filled with jellies of many colors, all sitting peacefully above tubes that lead to the reactor on either side of the grid. Using the mouse, drag like-colored jellies to combine them and form bigger jellies. Get more than three together and the jelly drops, splattering every blob beneath it and netting you a handful of points. You can strategically place larger jellies beneath falling jellies to create splash damage that will splatter and pop jellies in neighboring columns. That simple mechanic creates a whole world of gameplay strategy you'll quickly learn to master.

Jump Jump Jelly Reactor takes this fun base mechanic and goes crazy with it. Four modes of play are available, all unlockable using coins you win by completing levels from the Jellytown map screen. You start off with Arcade mode, your basic game type where you'll probably spend most of your time. Here you must protect the jelly reactor from the grumpy Rockons, sturdy little characters who, upon reaching the tubes at the bottom of the screen, will stack up and eventually end your game by breaking the reactor. Dealing with these guys (who change in later levels and force you to deal with them in different ways) becomes a game of strategy, as you must try and keep them away from the bottom of the screen while making matches elsewhere to form a big jelly above them and smash them into pieces. You really have to use your head sometimes.

The other three modes, Karma, Factory, and Puzzle, offer interesting challenges when dealing with pesky Rockons becomes to much of a hassle. In Factory mode you must first restore power to the building by completing half a dozen tasks. These range from building giant jellies to dropping jellies down specific columns at the right time. After the factory is operational you repeat the process for each of the jelly colors. Karma mode goes on forever and saves your progress as you advance in levels, while Puzzle mode sends a number of jelly-based riddles to your screen.

Analysis: Jump Jump Jelly Reactor isn't your standard casual gaming experience, as it tries a lot of new things and gets them right every time. The game has an arcade feel to it (you know, the big machines that used to live in buildings called Arcades) with bouncey visuals and a soundtrack to match. Every ounce of its presentation is enjoyable, and I love the "filling" sound effect when you drop jellies down the tubes!

In Arcade mode the action gets a little tense in later levels when you're dealing with a handful of Rockons, some of which actually devour jellies beneath them, forcing you to act very quickly to send them packing. That was a little much for me and felt out of place in the game's otherwise smooth and relaxed page. Fortunately there's plenty of options in terms of gameplay modes to balance that out.

There really is a lot to Jump Jump Jelly Reactor, but its cute exterior combined with boxing it into the matching puzzle genre prevents most people from finding that out. Give it a play, however, and you'll discover loads of unlockables, simple but fun gameplay, and a surprisingly deep strategy that unfolds as you gain mastery over the jellies. I spent two hours playing the game the first time I got my hands on it, which is a rare thing indeed!

Windows:
Download the demo Get the full version

Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.