Bezman's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Moglin Punter]

seemed much of a muchness

Hrm. Odd that the links to 'battleon' don't work...

Anyways, the theme of the game was mildly amusing, but the mechanics seemed overly repetitive.

Since cookie-getting isn't scored, there's little incentive to go with that route. A few levels were interesting - mainly when we had to double back, or at the end when we had to time the punt over the puncher, but for the most part it just seemed much of a muchness. I'd have rather seen 20 or even 10 well designed levels than this.

The art was superb though and I liked the goblins, contraptions, pigs and alligator. Background art was similarly dreamy.

However, after having played through it, I feel like I just wasted y time. I kept on hoping it'd improve...

[Narco-Trafficker]

But ultimately, it wasn't any fun.

When playing this, it felt like I was wrestling with the controls more than the enemies. I have no clue as to what inspired the 6-way motion coupled with the '8' to fire, but it really was a terrible idea.

Games have evolved to have standards - WASD or arrows to move, along with clicking to fire would have performed better.

Whether we get enough ammo to fell our enemies or not seems to be a matter of luck.

I liked the graphics and the theme was funny. I wanted to like this.

But ultimately, it wasn't any fun.

[Abusive Review Guide 2]

the main 'meat' is solid

I'm still dubious about your claim that 'negative whistle points are worth more than positive ones'. Where did you get this info?

Other than that, this was generally a great tutorial - logically presented info and I liked the way you closed with a quiz. And the post-question parts of the quiz made sure the answer was understood - good stuff!

After muting the music, I couldn't seem to turn it on again though.

Also, the typography/visual design is pretty boring and not really in the theme of NG. Lose the Times New Roman, put in something like 'Hit the Road' and 'Featured Item'. Make the bg closer to the NG colours, then lighten it up. Don't use blue or red text - just black.

Those are my niggles, but the main 'meat' is solid.\

I love the fact that you linked to the google page - that's something I might not have found out otherwise.

RohantheBarbarian responds:

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. You lose more points from a cleared flag than you gain from a deleted one.

The music has a 3-4 second delay before it starts, are you sure it wouldn't restart?

I will improve the visuals in the future.

Thanks for a great review!

[Apg2]

feels half-broken

The dialogue between our character and the brown dude is kinda funny.

The game just seems really messy and broken though.

I'm skeptical that there's a way to get past the 'ambush' bit - I tried a 2nd time, went in with 4 lives and still died before I had a chance to react.

The lives meter seemed to work fairly well until then, but maybe turn crosshairs red - like Virtua Cop - or use some other signal to show what's about to shoot us.

Needs more time spent on it - feels half-broken.

[NG Dress Up #2]

somewhat fun

As far as dress-ups go, this wasn't bad.

The items were fairly imaginative and it was kinda fun seeing these characters warped.

I'd have liked to see the items 'snap' into place. Also, the drawings could have been tighter - the lines were kinda messy and could have been refined a bit.

remains somewhat fun.

[Abusive Review Guide]

Brilliant tutorial

I kinda remember someone of authority saying that one correct flagging more than outweighs one incorrect flagging. Where did you hear the opposite?

The rest of the info seems spot-on though.

The solid advice benefited from the examples.

Music was swinging and graphics functional.

Good links too!

The only complaints I could make are a few graphical nit-picks. Like personally, I find sans-serif more readable on a screen. Maybe actually showing the ASCII finger would've been cool. And you could've maybe had some more decorative buttons or bg.

Not that that stuff matters too much - as a tutorial for newbies, this still rocks.

Looked at objectively, this probably deserves 7/10 at least. But I don't rate things based on how good they are - rather, how much pleasure I derived (or think I'll derive) from them.

RohantheBarbarian responds:

Glad that you found it helpful. I know it sucks graphically, but as you said the info was the main focus.

[BirdBallz]

Mechanics could be tweaked.

I found the concept kinda amusing in itself. The game's mechanics could have been better honed, but it was fun for a minute.

Firstly, the worst news - there's some bugs. On my 3rd game, when I crashed into the sea, the game just kept going instead of taking me to the score submission screen.

I reopened the game and on my 2nd game, the bird suddenly disappeared after around 30k points. The screen's still open and it's gone up to 200k with no sign of abating. No clue what caused that.

Anyways, the graphics are cool. Love the rectangles in the bg and the way the sky becomes darker with stars at the top.

Gameplay seemed weak - I felt like currently it's almost a roullette as to how well you do. If you'd maybe slowed down the items and widened the screen, we'd be able to see what's coming up and actually put a little bit of skill into play in navigating around to catch all the seeds and pills...

For me, that makes the difference between a game I'd return to and one I wouldn't.

Also, sometimes the lower part of my body would cross a seed and I wouldn't eat it. Felt marginally unfair.

The audio choice was great and the voice at the start funny.

It has a fun vibe to everything - just seemed to me that there was little way to improve and that irritated me.

[Kill The Cake]

Kinda fun while it lasts.

A simple ultra-short game. Kinda reminds me of 'you need to burn the rope'. Although this game allows for the possibility of failure.

The instructions aren't as well presented - here, reading them will cost you a few lives. Some introductory screen with instructions before it automatically starts would make it seem more fair.

The actual game mechanics all work well and kinda behave as you'd expect them to. Also, they feel vaguely unique amongst flash games and the whole thing stops before it gets dull. This isn't earth-shattering, but it's fun for the few minutes it lasts.

Took me 13 tries.

[Paccoland]

Why finite lives?

I got to Paranoia before I lost my final life. I lost a couple there, a shitload on the level that introduced conveyor belts and one on 'push it'.

The introduction to conveyor belts felt unfair and though I got past paranoia on my 2nd attempt, it was only because of the non-existent path-finding - I managed to get the ghost trapped on the left.

'careful' was a fun level though - an change of pace and ingenious use of the elements.

Ultimately though, I felt like restarting the game was a real grind - replaying earlier levels was never a fun component of games for any but the most agonistic of players and it should be left in the last century.

Given the slightly random feel of some elements - such as the mentioned introduction to conveyors and the

Give us infinite lives (with a detriment to our score) and we'd be able to see all your levels and have more fun doing it.
I played it a 3rd time and got to 'contortionist', but for me the joy of overcoming each level was enough - having finit lives seemed like an irrelevant hindrance.

[--Mouse Maze--]

Boring. No final level.

There are still bugs - namely the overlapping music if you get caught cheating and the fact that there's nothing in the final level - just a dot on the right that didn't do anything when I went over it.

More pertinently, this isn't fun for me.

Given the number of mouse mazes already around, if/when you make another, move past static mazes. Think of all the fun things you could do with moving elements!

Rotating, moving, scaling... use your imagination and try to surprise us!

I did like your text before each level and the music was well chosen though.