Oh boy. This is going to be a short blog. I mean, I finished this thing in a day. How much can I say about it after having spent that small amount of time with it? Especially when there's not a lot to say about it in the first place. Before this spirals out of control into some utterly pessimistic mess, I'll warn you that I actually like the game. I just don't like the fact that I'm gonna write about it, and hopefully, you don't find out why. (You will.)
Wait a minute. Why am I so tense about this game? This game's so relaxing that I jammed a plastic tube down my windpipe so I wouldn't choke to death. Or, to put it in simpler terms, Nimbus is as relaxing as that statement is terrifying. A significant portion of the game almost entirely forgoes music, instead just giving you the naturalistic sounds of a rocket trying to save his rocket girlfriend from an evil eyeball. (There is music in the game, and it's OK, but my point is that a lot of this game doesn't have music.) Add in the fact that most of the levels take place in empty fields (excluding the bouncy platforms and keys, of course), like they're forcing nothing on you. This may all contribute to the game's utter lack of an impact, but for now, I'm willing to deal with it.
I probably shouldn't be, because that's a thread that runs throughout the entire game. For example, the actual game: it involves you steering a plane against gravity. At first, it's a bit odd that you don't really have a ton of control over the plane, but give it some time. Three seconds, actually, since that's the average length of a level. Where was I going with this? Oh, right: the physics. That's the point of the game: fucking around with the physics to progress through the levels. It can be really fun to swoop around and build up momentum, bouncing around a level all Pulseman-style. (Rocket Knight Adventure-style for American readers. Something else for other readers.) It doesn't hurt that the game throws a ton of bells and whistles on top of this to make it easier to bounce around levels. I'd say it's AaaAAaAaaAaAAaAaaaaaaA-like, but this game's about going up, too. It's got it all.
I'd say my only major gripe with the game would be the level design. It's not bad, per se; it's perfectly challenging and enjoyable, but it definitely could be better. This is a puzzle game, right? I can't imagine it being anything else, so it's odd that the puzzles themselves don't get harder. Yea, the levels get harder, but the puzzles don't. I could usually figure them out easily enough, and actually doing them isn't horrible. It's just that as the game goes on, instead of basing its levels on progressively more difficult puzzles, it just layers tons of intricate puzzles on you at any given time. Yes, it makes the levels harder, but they're no more engaging for it. I want to be mentally stimulated, although that just brings up the question of why I'm playing games where you steer a rocket into bouncy blocks.
Review Synopsis
- Man, this game sure is....relaxing....
- and the....the levels....they'r....
- [I am asleep in this bullet.]
You know what I'd love to see? @mento animate these with his stick figures. And now you want it, too.
Warning: the following blog may offend New Zoolander readers. (I couldn't figure out how to say "people from New Zealand" in a more succinct manner, and the other thing feels right, anyway.) You have been warned and will be warned: this game sucks ass. The only part of it I remotely liked was the end-level jingle ripped angled from TinyToon Adventures, and there's no way I can give New Zealand Story any credit for that, so I'll reiterate: this game sucks ass. It also sucks dick. I guess my point is that if it's around your hip area, this game's gonna suck it and so much more.
Although I guess the odd thing is that the game looks like the very thing it's sucking, since there are only three colors in the game and five of them are brown. It also sounds like ass, too, not that you'd be able to tell anymore, what with the gouging out of the ears at the word "Tiny". So what we're left with is a game that doesn't know what it needs to be. Allow me to explain: the objective of each level is to get to the end. That's it. Now how would you make that challenging? Well, whatever you said, it's not what New Zealand Story did. First off, the levels are just a series of contorted mazes throwing you all about the screen. Of course, these mazes are also linear as fuck, so it's less challenging and more a waste of time. Where's the challenge in all of this? Where's the fun? No, those vehicle whatevers don't count. There's certainly an element of strategy to them, given that they each handle a bit differently, but moving through levels at varying speeds isn't terribly fun, at least not like this. So again: where's the fun?
What's that? In shooting enemies? Yea, here's the thing: the enemies are a waste of time. The designers decided to stuff the levels with a ton of them, so they are quite literally a waste of your time. They might have been fun if I was given different weapons to beat them with, or if there were any meaningful enemy variety, but both counts fail. You only get two weapons in the entire game (three if we count the bomb that only ever shows up once), and they both behave exactly the same, so you feel less engaged and more like you're simply swatting flies. As for the enemies, they're....to be fair, there's some variety there. I seem to remember one guy who threw boomerangs at me and a ton who didn't, so there are multiple enemies to handle. Just wish I could say that about the boss. Oh, there are multiple boss fights in New Zealand Story, but only one boss with one easily discernible pattern: move up and down, shoot a large projectile, sometimes. Repeat that four times and then punch the nearest physicist in sight, demanding that he give you your time back. Trust me: he'll understand.
Review Synopsis
- This game is the reason that Helen Keller was blind and deaf.
- How do you make difficult levels? Curves, of course!
- And tons of enemies you can shoot down in less than a second!
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