Xopods's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Console Wars!!!]

High production values, but some gameplay flaws

I don't like RTS, so I'm upping the score a point to compensate for my bias.

I agree with the previous review that you should be able to build more energy harvesters. Maybe you can later, I don't know... I only played 4 levels.

There needs to be a mini-map! How are you supposed to keep track of all your units without that?

The units' form should follow function, even for the retro pieces. Why is the energy harvester a tetris piece? Why are the smiley's your grunts? Why does the frog repair stuff? Surely you can find classic gaming references that actually relate to the units' in game functions...

The music is kind of annoying, and I hate being harassed to sign up for the contest after every single level... but as a game dev, I understand the latter. Gotta make money somehow, since no one wants to pay directly for a Flash game, no matter how much development time went into it.

[Jelly Towers]

More inertia, better sound needed

I like physics games, but I find the gameplay in this one frustrating because there's too little inertia. E.g. you try to lift something into the sacred fog by balancing it on another block, but as soon as you lift it, it tips and everything goes flying all over the screen. If it takes a newbie more than a couple of tries to beat a tutorial level, there's something wrong... I think giving everything a little more mass would help.

I don't mind the graphics or the theme, but the sound is lame.

[Om Nom Nom]

Original idea, but a bit unfair

I love the concept... it's really cute, especially with all the different things you get to eat. It's quite hard, but that's okay. However, it also feels unfair sometimes, which is different. Some suggestions:

1) Lower the requirement to pass the first level. It takes people a couple of seconds to figure out what's going on, even with the explanation, and it's a little frustrating to lose the very first level.

2) It's kind of annoying that the early bites are slow, when it doesn't matter that much where you put them, and then the later bites are fast, when you wish you had a moment. If you made it faster at beginning, but not speed up quite as much, it would be more strategic.

3) It's not always obvious what is edible. E.g. in the second level, I thought the other fruit in the lower right would be edible too. In the third, I wasn't sure until I took my first bite whether the whole bush was edible, or just the fruit, and so on. Maybe show just a silhouette at the beginning of the level to indicate what you're going to be eating?

4) The contrast between the edible object and the background it conceals must be high at all times. The guy you're supposed to eat in level 4 or 5 is frustrating, because his bones and the background are too similar in color to him, so you can't tell where the uneaten parts are. Of course, you see it if you mouse over, but it goes too fast at the end for you to react in time.

I think if you take those suggestions into consideration, you'll be able to make the game more fun and less frustrating, while still keeping the difficulty high.

[Super Stacker]

I love these physics games

Another great addition to the likes of Totem Destroyer, Splitter, etc. Things I'd like to see:

More variety in shapes. More levels - it's quite short. Better difficulty curve - level 8 is quite hard, but 9-12 are easy. 12 is mostly luck, since the basic concept is obvious. Maybe pieces with different properties, e.g. different amounts of friction and bounciness, or ones that you're allowed to rotate.

[Click Fest 4]

Meh

Don't respond to the abusive reviews, it's what they want. Just flag them and move on.

That said, I do understand where the hostility is coming from, with a game this basic making the daily Top 5. I also understand why it did... there's something addictive about just clicking things as fast as you can. I actually played it three times before quitting. Sometimes I find myself humming a Britney Spears tune against my will, too... but I wouldn't rate her albums highly.

[Frantic]

Great potential, needs tuning

There are a lot of great things about this game. Lots of enemies lots of bullets... choosing what power-ups to buy between levels is great. Even some nice little touches, the boss's bullets turning into cash when he dies, like a little mini-bonus level.

The weird thing is that it's too easy, which is surprising given the number of bullets the bosses spam all over the screen... but they move too slowly, and I made it through five stages almost without getting hit... never more than once in a level, so my shields were barely scratched. Maybe if getting hit just killed you outright, but that would invalidate a lot of the power-ups.

One thing that jumped out at me graphically is that the explosions don't fit the graphical style of the rest of the game at all... also, I think that they (and/or the shaky screen, which I do like) are responsible for a lot of the slowdown, since the game seems to handle a lot of stuff on screen at once with little slowdown, but when I start KILLING a lot of stuff at once, then it starts getting slow and choppy.

Anyway, good work... just some fine-tuning and it'll be great.

[3000 AD]

Not that mech-ish

Decent quality for a flash game, but not enough fun to keep me playing more than a few minutes. Some criticism:

Aside from the overheating thing, I didn't find this game felt that much like Battletech/Mechwarrior/etc... seemed like just another top-down shooter.

The graphics are lousy... I know it's retro, but you can have retro graphics that aren't ugly. Too much texture in the background, not enough detail in the sprites.

The sound cut out after the first level.

I bought a light cannon because the hint said it would be good against infantry, but it seemed to suck worse than the laser I started with. I'm not even sure it was shooting.

[The Timewaster Ultra]

Interesting concept

It's not a genre I've seen before... pretty original. Some of the puzzles are more clever than others. I couldn't get past 2-7 though, and lost interest after a dozen attempts. I know you can knock on the door, but can't figure out how that helps you. Even if I get him to stick his head out the window just as the white buttons falls past, it doesn't do anything.

RatherRandomReality responds:

Literary think outside the box (the box being the level area)

[Dandy.]

Lots of style, little substance

I like the theme, and the graphical style is very cool, however the game itself is kind of repetitive and unoriginal. Variety is so key for a sh'mup, but the baddies in this game all seemed essentially the same except for their graphics. The frame rate was also very low.