Appetite4's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Stealing the Diamond]

Dragon's Lair, anyone?

To be honest, I've had a lukewarm opinion of games that have 10,000 possible deaths for every one happy outcome. But if the humor is okay, and there is not an unreasonable amount of backtracking necessary, it's often entertaining just to find out every possible way the game lets you creatively kill yourself.

The game brings to mind Dragon's Lair and similar "decision" based games. It also reminds me of many of Sierra Online's earlier titles; those had a lot of deaths too. But much as those games pissed me off, this one didn't seem to have that effect.

Fire up your sardonic sense of humor and start stealing!

PuffballsUnited responds:

I've actually never played Dragon's Lair, but I can imagine what it's like. I'm glad this passed your judgement!

[Laser Stryker]

Beamrider brought to the modern age!

I remember Beamrider. It was one of my Colecovision favorites. It was damn hard, too: no lasso upgrades, only 3 torpedoes. And all the high-level enemies were as frustrating, if not more so, than the ones here.

Laser Stryker is surprisingly faithful to the original Beamrider, even down to fine enemy ship movement patterns and similar sound effects.

My only criticism is that for a game like this, having explosions with a lot of particles makes it hard to see the dangers around the explosion's periphery. Not a huge complaint, since most spaceship shooters seem to have that problem. But you get only 5 lanes to maneuver in a game like this, so anything that clouds your judgment can have deadly consequences.

It's a piece of work. Keep 'em coming.

Zir0 responds:

Hey.

Thanks for the review, man.

I also had the Colecovision port of Beamrider. It was the only one that introduced the two new enemies (I-Tinker and Magnetic Mine). And you're right, it was harder: no upgrades or shields, and only three torpedoes. Another thing I added was that when you die, your next ships starts right in-game, instead of having to restart from the launch screen. Plus, I toned it down a bit: your upgraded weapon can kill most enemies that could previously only be destroyed by torpedoes (and you get points for it - which you didn't get points for destroying them in the original).

Yeah, I tried to keep a lot of original detail. The AI of all the enemies was pretty easy to emulate, except for the regular ships. I had to improvise there, but they all follow various preset patterns. I love those Chirper sounds. (:

Regarding your concern: thanks for mentioning that, however, I'd say that many shooters suffer from not having enough eye candy. Perhaps if I ever worked in this again, I could add an option to turn those off, although that takes away some of the selling points of the game.

Thanks again for your review, soldier. Most appreciated.

* salutes *

________________________
- Ziro out.