Seawana's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Gekisen card game]

A potentially great game, but it's fatally flawed.

I really want to love this game. Unfortunately, I can't bring myself to do so because it is too frustrating to play. Why? Because the game is not balanced at all (and, honestly, it seems like the computer cheats).

The problem, as I see it, is the cards appear to be randomly doled out. There really is no "deck" that gets used up and reshuffled when playing a duel. This means that you (or, in my experience, more likely your enemy) can get lots of the same really high power cards, all possibly within a short span of time. Where is the fun when the enemy throws "Nasty Cut", "Regeneration", or "Dismemberment" multiple turns in a duel, or worse, in a row? That is seriously wrong. Those cards are incredibly powerful and should be limited to one per deck/duel.

My random-card-drawing-luck must be really bad because I get my butt handed to me almost every other duel and thus I can't seem to make it past the fricken' orange belt. It's really frustrating. Don't even get me started on the tournaments. My best so far is winning two of the six consecutive duels neeeded to succeed in a tournament. If the game were balanced maybe I'd have a chance in hell. As it stands, no way.

Also, the sheer number of cards makes many of them useless for most situations. There have been many times I have had the enemy on the ropes and I don't get any actual attack cards when (surprise surprise) he throws lots of heal or regeneration cards. Um ... is this a duel or are we just messing with our hazumi, offense and defense scores? I spend more time waiting for a useful card (or maybe even trying NOT to play one that will hurt me) than actually dueling. A discard option might be a good addition to help solve this problem. And no, waiting for a discard card is not a good solution.

Finally, I would like to point out there are still some bugs that ought to be fixed. For instance, when the enemy throws "discard 1 card", I don't get my used card replaced before my turn. When I drop the enemy defence to 0 for 1 turn, it does back to it's normal amount before I can attack, so that card is basically useless. Also, I think I have seen instances when swapping offense or defense scores didn't work right. I'm sure there are some other "math" bugs, but it's hard to keep track of all the attack/bleeding damage/regeneration going on so quickly.

All in all, this could be a really great game. I think it needs more play testing to even things out.

Oh, and if you plan to reply that you like and purposefully built the game this way, that's fine. I'll just stop trying and go play Maganic Wars instead. It's nicely balanced, IMHO.

[ArmorPicross]

Fun but hard on the eyes.

Ah. I love this game. I've been playing other versions of it for a long time and this is a great remake.

Overall, this is very well put together. All the artwork is nicely done, the colors are soothing, gameplay is axactly what I would expect, and the sound is not too jarring.

My only complaint is the small size of the playing area. The tiny text is hard to read. A little more contrast between the text and background (or a larger font) would be a welcome change.

Also, I'd prefer the pointer was outlined in black instead of white. Several times I have clicked the wrong box because the tip of the pointer is very hard to see against the yellow background.

Those minor gripes aside, this is very well done and I am really enjoying it. The expert levels are great!

[Bush League]

Okay, but not great.

The art is pretty good. I can't draw, so anyone who can gets some points right off the bat. The animation is also fairly well done and makes good use of the cartoony squash and stretch techniques thta well match the charicature style artwork used.

The game itself is basically whack-a-mole, so that in itself is pretty lacking. It really doesn't have any replay value after you have waded through the unfunny cutscenes just to play a few short rounds of "click the moving object"

What I really don't get is the combination of Bush bashing and selling software. Seems pretty childish to me and certainly doesn't make me want to buy the product. Just the opposite in fact. If your software needs knee-jerk I-hate-Bush reactionary people to buy it, I sure as hell don't want it.

Overall this is a fairly good piece of flash work. It just seems very misguided.

[Spuzz.Maze.v2 (ACP)]

Meh. It's okay.

The game is okay, but not all that great. These types of games have been done to death and this one is nothing new.

Also, I don't know what the anti-cheat thing is supposed to be. I was able to cheat no problem after about 10 levels when I decided they were getting boring and I just wanted to see the end already.

This is not bad, but not great. Overall score: Meh.

[Shit or miss]

Not too shitty.

Well, I got a 2. I find it interesting that I only got Moose and Human right. I don't know if I should be happy or upset that I did so poorly.

...

I think I'll take it as a compliment.

[Submachine 01: the Basement]

Superb.

Wow! This is a very cool escape game.

I don't usually love these kinds of games because I have more of an "action game" mentality. Even still, this one was so clean and stylish I had to play.

I love the way you move between rooms. It's so simple and quick it makes navigation a snap. Very nice.

I have one MAJOR gripe. You have assured I will play this at least one more time because I had just found the third puzzle piece and I clicked on the "R". Gah! What just happened? That resets the game without any warning?! Not good, man. Not good. Some kind of warning would be a very good idea for a button like that. :-/

Anyhow, Keep up the good work. I hope I can solve this game the next time around without closing the browser or doing anything else that resets it.

Mateusz-Skutnik responds:

ok, tomorrow I'll change it. But wait, how can I change it if I stole this game? :D
no, wait, I didn't steal this game, I CAN change that especially on your request. ;)
cehck tomorrow for yourself.
ms

[.:WindowsNG:.]

A well done Windows parody.

This is a nicely made Windows parody. There is actually a simple windowing system built into it that I enjoyed (compared to other Windows parodies that just pop up faux "windows").

There are a lot of things to try and look at, which makes it pretty fun to mess around with this for a while. I still don't know the secret MSN Messenger password. That's going to drive me crazy.

The graphics are well done. I loved the different desktop backgrounds. I wish the "ultimate movie" was better in order to live up to it's namesake (unless you were being sarcastic). I did find it amusing that it's being viewed in Flash player 10.

Overall, this is a good flash. Because it is a Windows parody, there is always room for improvement, but that's cool. I must point out one minor pet peeve. Work on YOUR grammer if YOU'RE going to update the game. ;-)

Keep up the good work.

Depredation responds:

Thanks for the review, always a help. Sorry about the spelling, i noticed it just after i uploaded it. the ultimate movie was sarcastic, lol, and the password for NSN is 10 letters long and has to have a capital letter to start with. Thanks.

[Katamari Flash]

Not worth it's front page slot.

I have never seen nor heard of "Katamari Damacy", so this game makes very little sense to me. Furthermore, it is not very polished or fun, so I have no idea why it currently has a score over 3.5. If name recognition does that for a submission, I'll call my next submission "HALO 2" no mater what it actually is.

I can make an educated guess as to why this game has made it to the front page. Politics. Specifically the politics of page hits. If there are a lot of people who enjoy "Katamari Damacy", then this game will gain page hits for Newgrounds. Outside of that, I see very little of redeeming value in this submission.

Honestly, I played this game the other day when it first hit the portal and I figured it would get blammed. Then when I saw it on the front page I thought it must have be re-submitted with some major enhancements. Alas, it's the same exact boring game.

Now, don't get me wrong, this has potential, but it is NOT front page material yet, IMHO.

Foreverkul responds:

I figured it would get blammed
It had and even HIGHER score before the front page, I found this comment to be quite entertaining :)
You really need to look up Katamari Damacy too. Plus I dont decide if my stuff recieves front page.

[Nut Drop]

Nothing too exciting.

First off, I have to say the title, "Nut Drop" is both perfectly descriptive and yet strangely ambiguous. It made me think this was going to be some kind of "help a squirrel enter puberty" game. Thank God I was wrong.

Anyhow, I know this game is very simple and doesn't really need anything else, but I was left wanting more. It might be just me. It was fun, and the variey of different "power ups" was good. It's fun for a short while, but I'm not likely to play again.

[Hoppity Hop 5 : College]

Simple and fun, but not very.

I must admit that I was initially hesitant about even playing this game. Why? Because in the author's notes read, "We're very proud of our work !" Anyone who says that has probably either made a real piece of crap and doesn't know it or has a huge ego or both. People who are really proud of their work and do good work do not need to say how proud they are of it. It shows in the final product.

Anyhow, that pet peeve aside, the game itself is nothing new.

It's a slight variation of the age old platform game example that gets pulled off of Flashkit or somewhere. The graphics have been changed, there are a few minor changes to the movement, a simple "enemy", some background music, and a title screen. That's pretty much it.

Now don't get me wrong. This is not terrible work or anything. I was just hoping for something much better. The addition of the fake and invisible walls was a good idea. The "Jump" areas were also a nice addition. It's just that the whole piece needs a lot more polish.

The background music will be really annoying to anyone who doesn't like that song. And it didn't really fit well with the game, IMHO. Some other sound effects would have been a good addition too.

The level maps were not very inspired. They use typical bland layouts and do not offer much variety. It was also very annoying to have the "Previous level" thing, not to mention that you can't pick up on the level where you die. You have to start at the beginning of some seemingly random "grouping" of levels. Why? I have no idea. An explanation of this and some kind of acknowledgement when you pass a "save point" would be nice.

Overall, this is a good start for a game. You've taken the basic example and expanded on it in some interesting ways, but it needs a lot more. Make some more drastic changes to the base example that everyone uses or you'll never get a rating in the 4.0+ range ... not from me anyhow.