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Video_Game_King

So is my status going to update soon, or will it pretend that my Twitter account hasn't existed for about a month?

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And Yet it Blogs.

By Video_Game_King 9 Comments


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And Yet It Moves

( Wait, I'm doing Humble Indie Bundle #3 games?) I'm not even finished with the first Humble Indie Bundle. Or maybe it's the second. (Revenge of the Titans kinda kicked my ass, and I haven't gone back in a while.) Not that it matters or anything; I'm here to talk about And Yet It Moves, not some game dealies. So what's And Yet It Moves? It's pretty much Super Monkey Ball, except without monkeys or balls. So just the Super, then. Awesome.
 
 This bottle of pills was full twenty seconds ago. Does anybody know what happened?
 This bottle of pills was full twenty seconds ago. Does anybody know what happened?
What the hell do I mean by that? The game's awesome, obviously. It's not hard to figure out. Oh, you mean the Monkey Ball thing? I don't think that's hard to interpret, either. But this blog has to continue, so let's just assume that you're a dumbass, for some reason. Here's how it works: it's a platformer, but one where you can rotate the world around you. It takes a while to get used to this weird system (especially when a simple 90 degree rotation can send you flying in unintended directions), and for the game to become as awesome as it does, but holy hell, does it get a lot of mileage out of this simple concept. It gets especially crazy near the end, when it decides that Earthbound should have been a physics-based platformer. Of course, that leads to some of the obvious problems of physics games, like physics getting in the way of things. What? You thought that you could just rotate the world all you want? That shit will get you killed. Literally; you'll die from it. Turns out that terminal velocity is still a thing. I'm guessing Donkey Kong invented it, because fall from too high (or spin around too much (I guess gravity is easily confused)) will kill you. Of course, it's not always clear what "too high" is, and the game's kinda strict about what surfaces you can land on, so the physics are pretty trial and death penalty.
 
Ah, but it's not all about physics. OK, it is, but what I'm driving at is that there are puzzles. Really fucking weird puzzles. Like what? Like herding bats toward an iguana to make it move. I told you they were weird. Then again, I never said that they were particularly good. Ignoring the insane logic behind some of these puzzles, quite a few feel like artificial barriers. For example, why does one level require me to feed a banana to a monkey? (Hey, I said monkeys. There's only the one.) And why can't I just pick up the damn thing and hand it to him? Is there some sort of interspecies racism going on? Why can't you guys realize that you're all monkeys? Fortunately, most of the puzzles aren't at all like that. They're actually...good. I'd say why, but I already did: cool use of the rotating mechanic. It gets especially weird with the random shadow puzzles, which turn out to be a lot more difficult than "just walk to the goal". I'd say that they're enough reason to get the game, but that would be stupid. Instead, I'll just urge you to invent a time machine so you can get this game cheap through the third Humble Indie Bundle. Or just ask Ratliff; whichever works, I guess.
 

Review Synopsis

  • I only need one bullet: it's like somebody made a 2D version of Portal. Wait...
 
 
 
 
I think this is why And Yet It Moves is so short: look what would have happened if they let it continue any further:
  
  

Adventure Island IV

( Well, this is certainly a surprise.) Wait, it isn't a surprise, at all. I planned all of this out, because...wait, why did I plan this out, again? So the games would be similar? That's a dumb thing to base an entire blog on. Think about it: I'm probably gonna say the exact same shit I said before, like "this game is creative" or "this game is pretty weird" or "seriously, why haven't you guys played it, yet?". Oh, I forgot: it's Adventure Island IV. Those things actually make sense, in this context. Nevermind. Move along.
 
 I can't tell if that's a stutter, a typo, or a bad writing decision.
 I can't tell if that's a stutter, a typo, or a bad writing decision.
But not before reading all this. Yet before I delve into the game itself, let me clarify: Adventure Island IV is not the fourth game in the series. That belongs to Super Adventure Island, the Super SNES game that did a super job of removing several cool features from the series (the dinosaurs, mainly) without adding anything to compensate. So you'd think that Hudson would immediately add them back into this game to apologize for the crap that was the Super, right? Hell no! The game begins with a Ghosts 'n Goblins rip-off stealing away your precious dinosaurs (even though your girlfriend is standing next to you (do the math)), and although you rescue them over the course of the game, never once do you get to use them. However, this is the part where Hudson remembered why I didn't like Super Adventure Island (you can remember future things, right?) and decided to fix that with a weapon arsenal that would outclass about half the world's armies. Some of the weapons are pretty old, like bones and axes and other caveman implements, while others are new and not weapons, like the parasol or the water gun. That should be a clear indication of just how much mileage they got out of the weapons. Need more? Well, they also give you a skateboard and snowboard to kill things, because if you're not totally radical when you're murdering something, you may as well have not killed them at all, you totally lame pussy. (I can't bring myself to use the tubular equivalent of "pussy", mainly because I'm not sure what the hell that would even be.)
 
That leads me into my next point: the level structure. Now what the hell is there to say about this? It's gotta be exactly like the others, right? Not really. It's actually a lot closer to Metroid than other platformers. You explore around, find something blocking your path, and then wait until the game decides that it shouldn't block your path anymore. Sometimes, you have to struggle a bit, figuring out what exactly is considered a barrier, or what the game expects you to do at this random barrier, but for the most part, the game pulls it off rather well. You get enough direction to know where to go (especially since it hasn't strayed too far from being a platformer), and there are enough (easily broken) mini-games and secrets and other stuff to make the world interesting. Now if you want a more substantial flaw, then look no further than the difficulty. Or, to be more precise, the utter lack of one. Absolutely nothing stands a chance against your mighty bones, and that includes the bosses. Their attacks are pretty easy to dodge, most of the time, so the challenge mostly comes from remembering to hold down the turbo button. Granted, you only get two hits for a large portion of the game, but what the hell are the chances that anything will get two hits against you? And you only get more hits from there...by collecting hearts across the Adventure Island....I think I suddenly remember why I like this game.
 

Review Synopsis

  • It's like Samus got it up with Arthur...and then gave birth to this. Ew.
  • Again, there are all types of awesome weapons...
  • ...that are very efficient at killing just about everything in sight.
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