Recent reviews by phoenix_advance
phoenix_advance's most helpful reviews
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3.7 hrs on record
I bought this game for two simple reasons. I felt like brutally bashing up thugs whilst hearing the cigar-like-cancerous tone of voice that Rorschach has. I got more than I bargained for.I bought this game as a bundle for $4.74 USD (about $5.41 AUD after conversion). I was a little hesitant because a lot of reviewers have stated that this game is a very repetitive brawler. But to be fair I would say this game is no more repetitive than the brawling action in the critically acclaimed Batman Arkham City.I don't know why but I really like the atmosphere and main characters in Watchmen. It's like their strength isn't what defines them like Batman or Superman. It's more like they have strong political views on life that makes their characters seem interesting. I wish there were more games based on these types of superheros. Heck, there should be a game based on the Kick-??? movies! That would be awesome! To play as Kick-??? teaming up with Hit-Girl, or even better Jim Carey’s character … I'd buy that over a 4th Batman Arkham game any day!The Kapow game engine used to power Watchmen is quite robust in my opinion. It’s the type of engine where if it was given time to evolve like the Chrome engine, it could potentially turn out to be the next RenderWare engine in terms of popularity/revolutionary. That is to say it’s pretty obvious the engine is quite newly born and I totally commend the developers for that. Because unlike some, for me personally a game engine almost defines all characteristics of a game. There are some funny things that happen like AI characters pushing each other during cinematic sequences, but there are no bugs that will make your gameplay unfair! Hence why I would say robust. I don’t want to pick on Arkham City … but as an example, I remember going into detective mode following footprints that was supposed to lead me to someone … but that someone wasn’t there until I rebooted the game! And I didn’t know I had to reboot the game … because I thought I was stuck on a puzzle I had to figure out!Some of the things I noticed with the Kapow engine was the brick textures on the walls having something like parallax mapping (which sort of made up for the plain levels). I also noticed that as you walk on different surfaces on the ground it will play the appropriate sound effects, for example walking on a tilled floor vs wood floor then walking on a small area that has glass smashed or walking on a carpet rug. Whilst these technologies aren’t new, they were “noticeable” compared to AAA games.I want to make some clarifications on the repetitiveness of the game. I agree there is no way I cannot debate against the fact that Watchmen is repetitive. However what I can argue is that from the start till about 60% through the game it’s somewhat a learning experience. You don’t have all moves unlocked. This is done by finding tokens scattered throughout the linear type of maps. But from 60% on till the end I must say I was quite enjoying the game. Something kept me awake and made me want to play. But here’s the funny thing, I started replaying the game with Nite Owl (just to see if I was missing anything) … and I played through the first 2 chapters not even noticing anything repetitive (and only stopped because I had to go out). So I’ve come to the conclusion that there are games like Watchmen that make things obviously repetitive but at least whatever you’re repeating you’re aware and it feels good to do (subjective). And there are some games, like Arkham City where the repetition is subliminal … but whatever you’re repeating is just extremely annoying (also subjective). For me in Arkham City it was completing Riddler’s puzzles scattered all over the map which accounted for 70% of the overall gameplay in my eyes. For anyone to say that wasn’t repetitive … I dunno … you’ve got to check yourself before you wreck yourself!There are some reviewers that have also said Watchmen has no story. They must be blind (oh noes here comes the many thumbs down lol), because at the start of each chapter there are wonderful cinematic animation. Sometimes even unique. For instance you get a 1st person view from Nite Owl head butting some dude and the animation zooms in and out with a blurry effect and then you see the dude’s nose bleed. That was pretty cool. Some reviewers claim it as stop-motion animation.Throughout the game you also hear some lines spoken by Rorschach and Nite Owl. Altogether whilst the story isn’t deeply looked into as opposed to the movie Watchmen, it’s certainly not nothing.The fighting mechanics of the game is quite well done. I feel to an extent that it’s geared to the casual gamer. But if you take the time to learn all the moves and time blocks properly, you can end up doing some pretty cool variations. There are a few melee weapons. The most noticeable ones are bat-like objects to which you can swing at your opponent and knock them down (feels good). And then there is the knife which eerily makes your character do moves that are … for lack of a better word hack’n’slash compared to other melee weapons and even the base fighting mechanics.I think a lot of people are going to call me crazy, but I enjoyed this game much more than Arkham City. I reckon Part 2 should have been DLC and included in the first game. Each game is roughly 3 hours in length. So for 6 hours, there’s no mistake for the price I paid for it. If I had any suggestions for improvement, perhaps make better level designs … they were too basic and not messy enough. But that’s fine, because graphics is not really what makes a good game. Maybe even some props like crates to throw at enemies. I would also suggest for each chapter, add a new variation to common special attacks. The funny thing is this is what was done in the last chapter of Part 2 when beating up the dominatrixes and gimps. The added moves just made me lol … I mean Rorschach punching a woman like a boxing bag … just LOL. I guess he just don’t like them hoes :P But I have this feeling this was probably a deadline and budget problem imposed by Warner Bros. Rating this game against my database is very difficult, it would fall somewhere between 69 and 72 out of 100 … al la … in the vicinity of WrestleMania X8 for Gamecube (which I also quite enjoyed).
Note: You’ll have to forgive me, if things read awkward. I actually began writing this review late November 2013. So it may seem convoluted and incomplete. It’s also a 2 in one review as I don’t consider Watchmen: The End Is Neigh - Part 2 a separate game even though physically it is.
Posted: 12 March.
Last edited: 12 March.
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6.7 hrs on record
MDK is a must own! MUST OOOOWWWNNN !!! The first time I saw this game was on a PC in a Tandy Electronics store in early 1997. lol, boy I tell you, I played it as much as I could. Which was only 15 mins. But when I had to leave, I knew I had to get away from games like Doom, Quake, Heretic, Descent, Blakestone 3D, Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem 3D ... etc. These 3D platform shooters were the next big thing!The graphics amazed me back then. Now that I play it, I gotta admit it isn't as great as I had remembered, but the gameplay is incredibly fun that you'll pay no attention to the graphics. There’s this really cool slanting to the camera angle when you run left or right. I also find the parachute mechanism as integral and addictive to the gameplay as bullet time is in the Max Payne series.MDK is about 6 hours long. For the amount of content to make things interestingly non-repetitive, I'd say this was well laid out by the developers. Some people might think the game is short. And maybe it is by today's standards. But if I remember back to those days as a kid, if a game was fun, you'd replay it again. It was that simple. And I would gladly load MDK up every now and then just to blast around and have fun today. That's the way it should be!I can't even understand some of the pure genius of ideas in this game. Like I remember shooting this alien or whatever in the head and his eye popped! I shoot him in the nose and that got mashed. I mean like I shoot Ellis or Coach in the eyes in L4D2 and they don't pop ... you know what I mean? lol. Incredible detail and very imaginative game. Too much to explain. You have to play it to see it.The control scheme is a bit wonky. You have to remember this was at a time where using the mouse to look around on PC wasn't that common. But I personally don't find it a bother. There are some people that have created modern mouse configurations for this game. But I recommend to use the keyboard old-school with the mouse only for sniping. Having said that, this game would be very user-friendly with a controller.The music is pure awesomeness! It gives such great atmosphere. The sound effects like the gun shooting doesn’t get tiring.What I don't understand is why the Steam version of this game lacks the ending escape sequence movie clip followed by this French music video. You'll need to obtain MDKEND.FLC and MDKBZK.MVE and place them in the MDK/MISC/FLIC directory to view the ending like normal. Thank god for the Internet and Google search, this problem is easily remedied.The Steam overlay also doesn't work. So you'll need a program like Zeckensack's Glide Wrapper or nGlide. Apparently these programs also fixes wrongly displayed textures and &windowboxing& which the game defaults to.Overall despite nearing 2 decades old, MDK makes it into my top favourite games of all time. It is so refreshing that it makes me wonder why a lot of triple A titles of today that use laser technology to scan actors into the computer as 3D models, combined with motion capture, life like level designs and Hollywood-like plots fail to draw me in! I would give MDK a personal score of 93/100.
Posted: 12 December, 2013.
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41.0 hrs on record
INDIE GAME OF THE DECADE!!! OMG, how did this gem slip by under the radar? I can’t even believe this game was developed on the id Tech 4 (Doom 3) game engine. Oh how I envy the developers so much. This is one of those moments where I’d say, “I wish I made a game like this!”They did something incredible with the music in this game. I’ve always been seeking one where the music is completely dynamic based on the actions you take or do. By dynamic I mean you have a base rhythm but can add instruments at any interval and make it sound just like one musical masterpiece. And this game achieves this!I swear sometimes, I feel like I’m even making my own music when playing this game. And it’s the only game I know where if you crash into an enemy and slow down or whatever … it just sounds and looks so cool! Tell me how many games out there make you want to do mistakes like taking damage? LOL … none right? Wrong! Dyad …Quite a chill and psychedelic trance type of music in this game. So for those that don’t like that genre I can see that may be something like half the greatness gone. But lucky for me I love this type of genre of music.I find the gameplay progressive. I’m not comparing, but if we take a look at other indie games like, Beat Hazard or Audio Surf, the gameplay and rules just doesn’t change at all. In Dyad, it’s progressive. New enemies, objects and variations to how you move are introduced throughout what I would call the campaigns. And it's not annoying, it's very fun!I rate this game 12/10. I wish I was sitting on a couch playing this game next to sauce and just speaking my mind just like in the trailer. It’s bloody hilarious! Watch it! But seriously I can see how this game can make one do something like that.EDIT: Changed my mind about not liking the chargers after playing Just Take a Pinch level. They're awesome in combination with invincibility shields. Also corrected that the dudes in the trailer aren't the Dev's, but they're funny as heck!I would also like to elaborate on my second paragraph. This game is the inverse to games like Beat Hazard, Audio Surf, Symphony ... etc. The thing about those games is you see visuals customized or laid out to variations in your music. With Dyad, the music is has been customised to the way you play. So everytime you hook an enemy, graze, lance, pick up an invincibility shield, ride a zipline ... it activates a sound effect that seemlessly blends in with the background music. Don't get me wrong, the visuals are definately a big part of the game and is in dynamic sync with the music, but I was kind of dissapointed with The Cynical Brit's video on Dyad where he basically commentated about everything except the sound. You really have to have an ear for Dyad ... kinda like Osu! ... it's not just about visually interacting, you need to hear the rhythm. imho.Also the infinite level is genius. I was avoiding it for a bit because I thought it really was infinite. But one day I wanted to chill and just started played it expecting no ending. But surprise! It's like the equivalent to having a story-like conclusion to a game without a story ... lol.
Posted: 29 June.
Last edited: 13 July.
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5.2 hrs on record
Receiver is one heck of a free game (was a giveaway). You are placed into a randomly generated texture-less world. Your objective is to collect tapes. You need to shoot or avoid sentry guns (there is only ground and air). It is a one hit kill’s type of FPS game, so it can be challenging.The title of the game is somewhat of a pun and has no relation to weapon mechanics. As you collect tapes you hear a recording of a guy’s voice (sounds like Lone Wolf). He tells you the situation of what is going on. The story is freakish in the way that it gives meaning to the texture-less level with basic 3D models that you are strolling through. Each time you die and have to start again, the recordings are played in random order, which means eventually you may have a great understanding of the story even though you have not even made it halfway through the game.I’ll also quickly mention that the soundtrack also is very fitting and gives an atmosphere to the levels. It reminds me of Islamic prayer type of music sounds like in the film Black Hawk Down.The most interesting part of the game is undoubtedly the weapon reload mechanics. The learning curve is not too steep in my opinion. It will help to just crouch down somewhere upon first play and fiddle with the buttons on your keyboard to understand how to reload your gun. There are two different reload mechanics to learn … the semi-automatic pistol (Glock and 1911 if I remember correctly) and the dirty harry revolver.It is just cool. I find myself pulling back on the slide to eject the bullets which all go onto the ground. You pick up all the bullets which goes into a reserve (like your pocket). Then you need to put the bullets back into the magazine one by one, but you cannot do that before holstering your weapon (because you need two hands to fill a magazine). Then you need to draw and put the magazine back into the weapon. The first time you pull on the trigger, it may not shoot anything because you need to pull back on the slide again to load a bullet into the chamber. All this is an OCD persons dream come true.The magnum revolver is a little simpler. Although you start to notice a difference when running low on bullets, you need to make sure you spin the cylinder to align the bullet filled chambers with the barrel. And because there is less bullets you are always having to pull on the ejector rod.With all weapons you have a safety switch which is useless and you can pull back on the hammer for extra readiness. You can also turn on smart tooltips which highlight what you can and cannot do with button presses.I find the randomly generated levels made more sense compared to say Hellgate: London which did not make sense to me and felt more like a selling point gimmick. There are sections that you will familiarize yourself with. So even if the level is randomly generated, you know what to expect in each section anyways. So that is definitely a positive for a game that could have just been based on a single static level design.One thing that I find stupid (and I am not 100% sure about this) is there may be a random luck factor when disabling sentries. It is actually the one thing that has really put me off the game. All sentries supposedly have these weak points. But if you shoot a sentry exactly at a weak point that disables it in one round and then try it again in another round, it will not work. And you can tell because when you get close to the sentry you can see where your bullets have hit exactly. Sometimes you can disable a sentry from a distance that looks like a pea on your screen with one bullet … sometimes you have to fire three shots at a sentry that fills up a quarter of your screen just to disable it. It makes no sense to me. I really hate luck factors in games.The last thing I would like to mention is this game could have been great. I mean really big. But it is clearly unfinished and from what I heard was part of a competition in designing a game within a week. The thing this game lacks is arms, hands and textures applied to everything including the weapons. But seriously this game could have been amazing! I can actually visualise many FPS games that could utilize this mechanic. Tom Clancy type of games in particular, but even the Battlefield series. The reason why I mention this is because it is one of those revolutionary ideas that gets put out too quickly and is drowned by games with too common typical boring one button reload mechanics and nothing new (albeit finished). I really do hope to see something better made in the future with this idea … not everyone in the world just wants to gun down stuff on the screen senselessly. This is a needed option!
Posted: 24 October.
Last edited: 24 October.
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7.7 hrs on record
Condemned: Criminal Origins is a very nice surprise for the discounted price of 3 buck something. Yeah I’m dat cheap. But I hadn’t even heard about the game until this Steam daily deal popped up. I had this vision for the original F.E.A.R. when the game came out, it was the wrong vision. I pictured a game sort of like Half-Life 2 where you walk through a creepy environment without hair raising moments and minimalistic shooting with a focus on a horror story telling.Turns out Condemned: Criminal Origins was the original F.E.A.R. I was looking for. It was practically released at the same time as well, circa 2006. I’m guessing development was somewhat parallel.It uses the Lithtech Jupiter EX game engine that I completely endorse … aside from the stutter-like frame rate, given the fact I didn’t feel this present in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin (which I highly enjoyed) it must have been some bug inherent to the engine’s flagship release batch. There are 4 different types of saves which are very handy, but the Auto-Save will usually suffice on normal difficulty.As with F.E.A.R. 2, I must say that I have been quite impressed at the amount of content that is presented level design-wise. Whenever you progress through the game, they (Monolith?) always manage to change the scenery completely and smoothly. One moment you might be outside in some playground, the next you find yourself in some school’s locker hallway, then the next you find yourself in some bloody basement. All in one map with different 3D models and textures. That’s something you don’t find often in a lot of games which choose to repeat the scenery until the next level loads.I really don’t want to ruin this game for anyone, but Condemned: Criminal Origins had probably one of the most original boss fights I had seen in a long time. It looked heavily inspired by what I would call Sinawali (a Filipino martial arts involving sticks/batons). Most of the game combat-wise is based on melee strikes and blocking. Sometimes you will find some guns with a few shots, to which you are able to use its stock as melee on enemies that aren’t wielding a gun themselves. You also carry a Taser which is very handy for stunning your enemies for a few seconds (or frying bladder weak enemies). Although a bit of an eye-candy, there are also four optional finishing moves. The key word being optional … which some games don’t give. Add some sidekicks into the mixture and what you have is a fairly interesting combat system.Enemy AI is impressive, they fight each other if one accidently gets hit by another. They also somehow crawl through the bottom of bookshelves and attack by popping out half way. Some even disguise themselves in a creepy abandoned store by standing still amongst mannequins. Crazy huh?I’d say the story was mildly entertaining. It perhaps was a little slow to start off with in the beginning, but it just keeps getting better and better, including what was written during level loading screens. There are some basic investigations done like clue finding on certain visual cues. I’d give bonus points for this to the developers as to be totally honest I’m sick and tired of games infested with Full Motion Videos. Maybe that was okay back during the PlayStation days when it was difficult to include videos in games on other gaming platforms … but these days I’d prefer more interaction to my story. And this game hits the spot with that. It wasn’t hair raising or shocking … it was just good old fashion creepiness to build endless suspense. Of course there were some cut scenes, but the game wasn’t entirely saturated with them. The cut scenes happened at the appropriate times in my opinion.Excellent job done in the sound department. They are definitely responsible for the creepy atmosphere to the game without creating edge of your seat moments.I think my only quarrel with the game was perhaps the weapon, hand, phone and character 3D models. LOL, I’m not sure what the artists were thinking, they kind of just looked like 3D box modeling monstrosities with baked textures applied to them. At times I couldn’t even tell if I was holding a crowbar or a snake with a head defect. But it hardly takes away from the atmosphere.Overall a very relaxing 7 hour experience. If you haven’t played this game before and enjoy being in a horror-like crime environment that won’t make you jump out of your chair with the sight of things like Alma Wade … then this is a must have.
Posted: 4 June.
Last edited: 4 June.
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11.0 hrs on record
Tagline: So he huffed, and he puffed, and he puffed, and he huffed...Great game. Warrants a second playthrough. Game engine is exactly like The Walking Dead game, difference is the choices were a lot more technical compared to emotional.Although there are no wrong decisions made as the story is customised to the way you play, the penalty is missing out on important plot detail. Simmilar to say reading a book and you decide to skip paragraphs. But that's where a second playthrough will help fill in the gaps.Selling point for this game is seeing popular fairy tale characters in a gritty poverty stricken environment. Fairy tales like Snow White, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow , The Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Rumpelstiltskin, A Christmas Carol, The Wind in the Willows, Bloody Mary, Through the Looking-Glass, Three Little Pigs, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Donkeyskin... etc.This game ain't for kids...
Posted: 9 July.
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2.1 hrs on record
Marvelous, I don't even know where to begin. This game was so awesome, it grabs me by the crotch and shakes me around until I am not sure if I am a man or a woman. Then I remember I am phoenix_advance, Mister phoenix_advance ... and this is Mr. Mister with Broken Wings:
Posted: 19 September, 2011.
Last edited: 19 January.
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36.5 hrs on record
This game is a very worthy addition to the Hitman series. I have to admit, I wasn’t particularly a Hitman fan. Blame my best friend. One day he lent me Codename 47, Silent Assassin and Contracts all in order to play in retail boxes. Back then I was merciless to any frustration and played every single game on the hardest difficulty. These days I play games on Normal. And this is one of those games where I’d recommend playing it on Normal for the first time.Hitman is all about achieving “Linear Gameplay Perfection”. And that’s a lot harder than you may think. You have to know your environment. You need to know the timing of the characters paths. You need to know the various ways you can eliminate a single target discreetly.This brings me to say what you can do, but don’t want to do. You can go on a massacre run. I tried this out in a courtroom map for the fun of it. But eerily it was horrifyingly realistic. You can hear people begging for their lives and stuff. And all I could think about was, “My gawd, this is like some American high school shootout simulator.” Unlike the previous Hitman games where it felt like you were a badass against bad guys and nobody could mess with you. Hitman: Absolution penalizes you with a scoring system. In effect this game literally forces you to play the right way unlike its predecessors.Ignoring the challenges, there is an XP system in place that unlocks skills as you progress. None of the older Hitman games did this. In fact I’m starting to feel like a lot of today’s game development companies are just chucking similar systems in for the heck of getting a player to play the game more. I’m not against this idea (because it hasn’t bothered me yet). But I also don’t endorse this idea. I’d rather have game developers focus on the real reasons why people return back to playing a game. Things like fun factor … etc. Not some progress bar that tells you how much you’ve done.Hitman: Absolution is powered by the Glacier 2 game engine. This is a game engine that I would commend. It seems very sophisticated. A lot of the mechanics from the older Hitman games have been enhanced. Everything seems more precise and graphically illustrated, as opposed to just having a hunch.Hitman games have a certain aesthetic that evokes a particular mood that is truly unique. Whilst Hitman: Contracts has my favorite introduction movie, Hitman: Absolution has by far one of the most classy, simplistic and quick switching main menu interfaces you will ever witness.I want to talk about the crowd which literally looks like hundreds of people on a single map. When I first spotted this in “Hitman: Blood Money” back in 2007, I was like, “This is just ??????ic. How the ???? did they do this?” Forward to 2013, the technology is still unbelievable. You can still bump into each individual or kill them one by one if that is your thing. Whilst this was the same for “Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days”, they made an improvement for Hitman: Absolution. Now you can hide in the crowd, with certain parts of the crowd being “thicker” to conceal your location. In other words all those people aren’t just a visual aesthetic anymore.I still like “Hitman: Blood Money” the best, but Hitman: Absolution is a definite for any fans or someone who hasn’t played any and is looking to get started. It takes about 20 hours to complete it properly on Normal and by that I mean always aiming to be a Silent Assassin. I think the game is an 11GB download but takes up 24GB of Hard Drive space. I’ll definitely be playing this again but on the hardest difficulty now that I know what the maps are like.
Posted: 8 March, 2013.
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40.4 hrs on record
This game is an exact cross between Far Cry and Far Cry 2. For those that don’t remember, Far Cry was the first game (afaik) which allowed players to hide in shrubs on a massive tropical island with luscious green foliage. It used the first Crytek game engine. In Far Cry 2, you couldn’t really hide in shrubs, instead you were placed on a barren African landscape wearing a straw hat and on safari. This time the Dunia game engine was used which I’d personally say is more than just a heavily modified version of the CryEngine.Far Cry 3 uses the Dunia Engine 2. What this means is, the gameplay mechanics and overall feel of the game will be more like Far Cry 2. This is particularly noticeable with the shooting mechanics, the openness of the landscapes with trails/tracks/villages/compounds and even the driving of boats and vehicles will feel pretty much the same. Except the only difference is you’re on a luscious island where you have plenty of shrubs to hide in (or burn lol).What’s different? We get a pretty full on cinematic experience. It almost felt personal with the characters being so close and their faces taking up the entire screen. I thought they all wanted to kiss me. Aside from that, I thought all characters were standup comedians. Vaas in particular, but Buck as well. They have hilariously crazily loveably outrageous personalities.There is also an XP skill system in place. It didn’t bother me (see my Hitman: Absolution review) but after a year I’m now growing to hate seeing this in games. Not only is it a lame way to track progress, I reckon it damages the RPG genre. But like I said, it wasn’t much of a bother in this game.Overall Far Cry 3 in my opinion is for those that seek a very slow-paced game where you complete menial tasks on the island, but with the goal of exploration. Having said that, the island is a work of art, very detailed at every place. Not just a piece of terrain where they plopped buildings and 3D models on randomly.It’s interesting seeing how the land mixes in with the river banks, tree roots, erosion and sediments. Like you’ll see some tin shack on some beach in the middle of nowhere with intricately placed shore rocks, or you may walk through a plain field of grass with some oak-like trees during the night, or a lake in the middle of nowhere, it’s an experience to remember.I can almost certainly guarantee you that you won’t traverse the same spots on the island more than twice. This can be proven by purchasing maps to display the locations of all the loot chests. There’s a crap load of them! And for about 30 hours I was really nitpicky in the beginning opening those chests.The game was a bit buggy for me from time to time, but I always seemed to pull out of it without losing too much progress. Like sometimes you can bypass waypoints with ease which will break the mission. I also didn’t like long unnecessary animations like patting corpses for loot. Sometimes the game would just crash when I sell a lot of loot items in the store. I run an AMD 5000+ overclocked to 3GHz and HD6870. This is a pretty old gaming rig and I was able to play on high settings comfortably enough (felt like 25-30 fps when running).I prefer Far Cry 2, but Far Cry 3 is a very sophisticated game technology-wise. Definitely a step forward that newcomers can jump into without needing to play the predecessors since the stories and characters are all different.*note this review was cut down from 9000+ words.
Posted: 28 January.
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2.9 hrs on record
I have a bit of mixed feelings for Divekick. It's exactly what I predicted it would feel like gameplay-wise. Originally I bought this as a gift for a friend on the day it came out. I think the price was overkill. But it really depends on some factors:- You like parodies made on Mortal Kombat.- You're looking for comedy based on ethnocentrism or prejudice.- You're not looking for cool combos. Just K.O's.Overall I personally don't think the game is bad. Worth the daily deal of $2.50? Maybe. Depends on the factors I mentioned above. Otherwise you could do away without it.In just under 1 hr you'll mostly see everything there is to know about this game. And from there on you can either keep playing it, or never play it again.One thing I sometimes like to note about games is the credits. I counted about 50+ people that designed this game. This is too much for an Indie company imho. After all, the more complex Doom 3 was made by roughly the same amount of people before 2005. Divekick is the type of game that strikes me as a 5 man job. I'm fairly certain I've seen just as interesting web-based flash plugin fighter games.The mechanics is sort of interesting. Each character seems to differ only by speed or boost to the dive (forwards/backwards) and the kick. I also feel that there is some weird collision system happening based on the dimensions of the characters. But overall it seems like you tend to get the most success of a K.O by allowing the enemy to attack first. There are special moves, however I ultimately still believe the many variations are caused by a change in speed.For example, if you have a character that kicks at medium speed, you might notice that a character that drifts slowly may be more deadly as they tend to perform more of a flying kick rather than a divekick. But if you have a character that divekicks too fast, you may easily K.O someone that seems to be doing a slow-mo flying kick.Although the music is sort of transparent to me. It's reminiscent to I guess classic games like Double Dragon and Streets of Rage.As a tiny quarrel: Initially I thought the main menu wasn't very intuitive. After a minute I get it. But it still feels bad navigating thereafter. I quote from Albert Einstein, &Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.& That certainly applies to the main menu in terms of user-friendliness.It seems to be that a large portion of this game has a lot to do with online multiplayer. So I can't really say I'm getting the full potential out of this game. I wouldn't mind giving the ranked matches a shot. But so far on my Steam friends list, only sauce seems to own this game. So I guess I'm just going to have to divekick his butt one day from the other side of the world despite any lag :P
Posted: 27 November, 2013.
Last edited: 27 November, 2013.
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