Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP

I just finished Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP. What started out as a breezy adventure game quickly turned into a commentary on death, inevitability, and how much control a video game player actually has. I'm getting ahead of myself. If you don't know, EP is a game by Superbrothers and Capybara games. I wanted to find out a little about the Superbrothers but they/he/she don't seem to know that some of us don't use Twitter or have an iPhone or want to sign up for an email list. Anyway, Capybara games is a prolific iOS developer, putting out such classics as “Monkey on Your Back!” and “Manic Medic AKA Take Yer Meds!”. They also made Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes. You know that game, right? Anyway, they seem pretty proficient in iOS development so it makes sense that they would make a bad iOS to PC port right?

Okay, it's not bad, but it's not great either. Still, the differences between an iPad and my laptop are pretty big. I can't shake my laptop and expect a response, I can't have multiple points of contact on the screen with only one mouse, and onscreen buttons have no place when a keyboard is present. I played the entire game without using the keyboard, but that's because I had forgotten that you could use it. None of these problems break the game, but it does make it an unpleasant experience some of the time.

The power of my laptop, on the other hand, is a very positive difference between PC and iPad. It means that more lush graphics can be pushed onto my displ-they're using pixel art!?!?! I thought we had moved past pretentious pixel art? Oh wait, it's got an interesting color palette and doesn't bring to mind any specific visual style, game, or platform? Huh, that's a bit different. The music is also a bit different. Composed by Jim Guthrie, a jam man/band artist, the soundtrack runs the gamut from synthesized chiptunes and triumphant rock themes. I especially liked the tones given off by the sprites that tickled my pleasure centers like no other video game noise has in a long time. It's unfortunate that the Humble Indie Bundle V is no longer being sold, because the really great soundtrack comes with that one.

What I really wanted to write about was the ending, but since I don't want to spoil it:

Anyway, I liked the game, but I thought that there was a lot in the way of my enjoyment. The moon stuff was clever for about the first five minutes of thinking about it, and then it just became tedious and boring even with the ability to change it whenever you want. The social media nonsense is also layered pretty thick in a way that makes it look super gross. The pattern based memorization in the boss fights reminded me of Punch-Out!!!, but in a bad way somehow. Ultimately, though you'll have to get past the touch-based nature of the game on a device that doesn't let you use that input method. Also, the game didn't credit me for some achievements that I know I achieved. Sucks.

Anomaly: Warzone Earth

You know what else sucks? Tower-defense games. I mean, tower-defense games with checkpointing in them. In my opinion, if your tower-defense mission is long enough to need checkpointing, then your level is too long to be in a tower-defense game. I say this in reference to Anomaly, but it's not a fair comparison. Anomaly is not a tower-defense game, you see, it's an “anomaly” (c wut I did thar?) of a tower-defense game. You play as a convoy of various vehicles trying to make it's way through a series of defense towers much the same way enemies do in a traditional tower-defense game. This has led some to call it a tower-defense game in reverse, but I beg to differ. The core mechanics of a tower-defense game are there, but on different sides of the same coin. Instead of blocking the enemies path, the enemies block you, instead of you surrounding your enemies they surround you, but at least the story is par for the course in a tower-defense game.

You play as nameless(although not numberless, everyone calls you 14) soldier/field commander man commanding said convoy attacking said defense-towers. Said defense-towers are protecting the titular anomaly, a force-field surrounding a crashed alien spaceship. Two of these anomalies have appeared very close to one another in time, but not in space. Your journey takes you inexplicably to Baghdad, Tokyo and back with many racial stereotypes helping you along the way. Racial stereotyping isn't the only kind of stereotyping your gonna get, however, not only is there a bad Jason Statham impersonator but there's also a damsel in distress character (that turns out to be an alien?) that grants you shielding/healing powers! How many video games can claim to have that!?!? Wait, Princess Peach does that....in a lot of different Super Mario games...well at least it looks better than those games, right?

That's a little unremarkable, Mr. video game, your paused game overhead map has a better sense of style then your real-time graphics do. Your music also doesn't inspire deeds of glorious tower-offense, I even turned it down to listen to a podcast. Anomaly, you should be ashamed of yourself for making such a game as this. A game that is competently made and designed, but does very little to differentiate (hehe, c wut I did thar?) itself from other games in the very crowded tower-defense genre. It's so unremarkable that this last paragraph won't be about Anomaly: Warzone Earth. Instead, I'm going to talk about my disdain for tower-defense games.

I want to like Tower-defense games, I really do. It has lots of things that I like. It's got units that are well defined in their roles, units that are upgradeable and super-powerful as a result of said upgrade, and there is a delicate unit balance that is not usually found outside of a MOBA like League of Legends or DOTA. Tower-defense also has that amazing feeling that an RTS gives you when you crush your enemy (lamentations of their women, &ct, &ct), but without that overwhelmed feeling I get when I play an actual RTS. So why is it that I can't enjoy this genre? I don't know exactly, but I have a few ideas as to why and all of them have to do with my impatience with death in video games. The first idea I have is that experimentation is an essential element of a good tower-defense game. Trial-and-error has never really been a thing that I enjoyed. So, naturally, I try to avoid trial-and-error whenever I'm at my leisure. But when a game that I want to play and enjoy demands that I use trial-and-error to pass a challenge I simply throw up my hands and say “no, Monsieur Developer, I will not do that because you are supposed to have come up with a better solution.” Yet so many games don't even try to eliminate the frustration inherent in trial-and-error. I've thought about solutions and come up with (what I think is) a decent solution. When I start to lose in a racing game, I usually restart and try again (to the detriment of my enjoyment of racing games). I do the same in most RTS games, but I never really want to do so. Because why can't I rewind to the moment that it all went horribly, horribly wrong? Why do I have to go back to the beginning to get to that moment? Why can't I move backwards from where I'm at currently? I know you don't want to break immersion in several cases, but is that worth frustrating the player and potentially souring him/her on the game? You're going to offer me the power to fast-forward, but not rewind? That's kind of dumb, what if you accidentally miss the part where you wanted/needed to interact with something? Am I the only one that thinks this?

Anyway, that's another edition of Now Playing over and done with. Stay tuned next time for something, I guess.