Score: 9

"Fantastic!"

submission: Compulse

date: July 14, 2009

This was fun to play, held my attention, and gave me increasingly difficult challenges. After completing all of the levels, I went back to pro clear them and still found myself enjoying it, even in spite of the countless failures :P

Finally got that last level cleared after about 200-something attempts.

The only reason this gets a 9 rather than a 10 is the difficulty I had with some of the one-way walls. Some of them seemed to pull the ball through when in reality (according to the trace line, at least) the ball went through a different wall. It made some of the levels rather irritating, but still not impossible.

All in all, a great game. Loved it and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a challenge.

Score: 6

"It has some problems"

submission: Heavy Weapons

date: June 9, 2009

I just want to say that this is one of the more intense shooters I've played on Newgrounds, but it has some flaws that could stand to be worked out.

[1] For starters, a lot of the levels from about 25 on are nothing more than dodging hundreds of attacks as fast as possible while maintaining some damage output. I find it very difficult to see that as fun, especially since it takes nearly all one's concentration just to manage that when you're boxed in by dozens of shots and there are dozens more on their way. This is more of a game of moving than it is of shooting.

[2] The Mothercube boss could stand a bit of reworking. The first phase has several points at which a person can sit and shoot mindlessly. This is a stark contrast to the phase where it's spinning around you rapidly and firing off extremely damaging attacks (which are virtually impossible to dodge, as the human eye simply can't keep up). The boss goes from stupid easy to just plain stupid. Again, not very fun.

-There is a simple solution to the above two problems. If incoming ballistic attacks could be either destroyed by your weaponry or you could purchase a shield, permanent or temporary, these things would no longer be an issue-

[3] The right combination of weapons almost guarantees you invulnerability in most swarm-type levels, and these can be purchased very early. The homing missiles, the laser homing missiles, and the spiral weapon together can create a deadzone around your ship. The closer they get to you, the lower their life expectancy.

[4] The inability to retrieve the crystal currency at range is disappointing. I can't tell you how many times I've been forced to watch hundreds of points of weapon-buying goodness disappear (which shouldn't happen to begin with) because I was stuck on the other side of a wall of enemies or enemy fire (again, we revisit the "no way to counter incoming enemy shots" issue). It would be much nicer if -

A) Crystals didn't disappear
B) Players received at least SOME credit for any crystals that they simply couldn't reach before they disappeared
C) Crystals could be retrieved at range
D) Currency was automatically awarded for enemies killed, thus eliminating the need for all these crystals (currency awarded for each ship killed could be slightly reduced to compensate for the loss of the crystal mechanic)

I only managed to get up to about level 40 before I had gotten absolutely sick of the above issues, but from what I understand, it only gets worse. People seem to be hitting a roadblock with levels 57 and 58.

Finally, the "swap weapons" functions are terrible. The mouse wheel would have been fine if it didn't scroll the entire page. The Q and E keys are even worse, as you have to forfeit some amount of mobility to swap weaponry. Normally, a fraction of a second wouldn't be such a big deal, but scroll back up and read #1, you'll see why it is.

This could be fantastic if it was a solid shooter rather than a frenetic dodging game. The wide variety of weapons and enemies is certainly a good selling point, but with almost no story and the above issues, I can't give this as good a rating as I'd like. The potential is there, and I'd like to see it become better, but for now, it's only a 6.

Score: 7

"Trippy"

submission: Color Commander

date: March 9, 2009

The plain graphics on their own and the music on its own are kind of bland, but together they really give this game an oddly relaxing appeal.

I wasn't a fan of the controls, but that's minor.

Not bad. Could be better.

Score: 7

"It's okay"

submission: Bunker

date: March 9, 2009

Not the best defense game I've ever played, but still pretty fun.

The shotgun is pretty weak compared to the other guns. Swapping it with the machine gun would put it more in-line with the increasing firepower of each gun.

The music's not bad. Maybe in a sequel (this title is deserving of one) you could add multiple tracks. To add extra playability, they could be unlockable maybe?

Overall, well done. Work on the extras a bit and you'll have a great game.

Score: 1

"Bad"

submission: Bridge Guardian Game

date: March 9, 2009

1 star for effort.

The movement is slow (if you miss one of the enemy balloons, you have virtually zero chance to try hitting it again). The reload time on arrows is ridiculous. The trajectory of shots is awful. The animation is.... well almost nonexistant. There's no way to upgrade anything.

All in all, it holds your attention for about 30 seconds, then it's old news.

Sorry, this is just bad.

Score: 9

"Amazing!"

submission: Canyon Defense

date: March 9, 2009

One of the best defense games I've ever played. The gameplay is great, the animation and graphics are very well done, and the concept of building so many of a certain type of unit or having a set amount of money at once to unlock new buildings and guns makes it very fun and gives the game an enjoyable strategic angle.

The only things it's missing are a survival mode and more maps.

All in all, wonderfully done. I look forward to a sequel!

Score: 2

"Needs a LOT of work..."

submission: Battlefield

date: March 9, 2009

Not the worst thing I've ever played, but close.

For starters, I'd like to see a way to disable the archers in the castle. They easily kill off any of your ranged attackers (wizards, catapults, archers, even the dragons have serious problems)

Also, fix the "hit" area around arrows. Trolls, being as tall as they are, are still being killed off by arrows even though they appear to be going right over the trolls' heads while they're hitting the castle. And yes, I checked to make sure it was the arrows, not the cauldron.

As others have said, the first rounds are horrible. Mass produce infantry, expect to lose a lot of them to arrows (since there's absolutely no way to defend against them AT ALL) and watch them chip away at the wall. Rinse and repeat, upgrade swords as necessary.

Ranged attackers need to be placed in such a way as to avoid arrows but still be killable by some means, or put them in range of arrows and give them a way to defend against thim. Wizards were literally a waste of money, as they wouldn't even get a single attack in most of the time before being completely wiped out by the archers in the castle. For 1000 gold, you may as well send in 10 infantry. Same price and they soak up a lot more arrows.

The sound effects also need to be either changed or given a mute button. Imagine 100 infantry all swinging their swords at a different time. I actually had to mute my headset just to play this game after round 3.

Last but certainly not least, either change the weather effects to be less irritating, or completely remove them. All they do is slow the game down and look awful.