Bezman's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Chocobo Pong]

Functional...

The music's good, but the game itself is nothing more than functional.

If the music wasn't here, it'd be blammed for sure.

No ending? No difficulty options?

It works and you put a modicum of effort into the graphics and that, but it's really not a finished game I think. Seen it too many times before, needs something new.

Or at least better presentation, interactivity-wise.

ThePurityClock responds:

ok...

[FlashTrek: Assault]

Great work, but gets pointless at the 'end'.

BUGS
--------------------------

- When my heavy shipyard was destroyed, the game seemed to mess up. I was in hard mode, and the options screen started flashing up, making the game unplayable. Started again and it happened again.

- It's sometimes possible to buy something even if you don't have enough resources. A negative number is then shown. I've yet to work out when exactly this happens though...

- I've never been able to buy the 'torpedo turrets' despite having enough money.

- My lance seems to have 4 shots, not 3.

- on the in-between-level screen, it's not big enough to cope with 2 digits.

NITPICKS
--------------------------

- When you are building something, if the level ends, you lose all the progress (and funds) that went into it. Seems a bit unfair to me...

- When you deploy a ship, it's sometimes a bit hard to see where it went. A big circle that shrinks into it and fades away would be nice as a quick indication of where it is for improved user-friendliness.

- As the things are deployed in a random position (at least vertically), luck can play too big a part on hard, where everything matters. It would be really nice if the ship appeared where it was constructed and we could drag it within a certain region.

- Hard and easy are too different... maybe a 'medium' setting, with the ore refinery already in place would be good? To me, hard seemed near-impossible (specially with the bug regarding the destroyed heavy shipyard). Easy seemed /really/ easy, even the first time I tried it (after first trying hard and quickly dying).

- When you start, it's interesting having to decide what to construct to assist you, but then comes the later part of the game (around L5 on easy) when you can just sit back and let your troops do the work, just buying the most expensive things every so often while you leave the window to run. Hardly a good 'game'... To solve this, I suggest you give all the friendly troops 'health bars'. Enemies would attack your troops less than your base. Or do something else to ensure you can't just relax, minimise the window and wait for the level to end.

- tiny niggle - I don't feel there are enough in-game messages. Just, yknow, to help folk understand it. Or maybe there could be a short 4-level tutorial or something? I worked it out myself, but it may be nice, specially if you make a sequel even more complex.

I do think though that you should be able to access the screen you see at the start mid-game.

- Sound gets annoying after a while. A mute button would be nice so we can listen to tunes from our PCs if we want.

HOWEVER
-----------------------------------

It's a great game and I'd say I had fun playing it, specially to begin with. I really like your graphics and the design of some of the later enemies is wonderful.

It's a nice simplified resources game and whilst it doesn't have the funky stickman-throwing of DYC, it has it's own funkiness.

But if you made a sequel incorporating the things I suggested, I feel it could skyrocket in terms of quality.

I know it's a lot of processing for those HPs, but there'd be less ships anyway as the weaker ones would be destroyed and probably not replaced.

How about it? Please?

You could even go further yet and have a research facility, which you'd pump resources into to research new stuff. But that's maybe asking too much of you...

I'm about to close the window now at level fifty-something. Over 3.6 million resources. Not seen anything new in around 20 levels and the game's starting to stutter a bit...

I eagerly await an update with some sort of system for ensuring it never becomes so easy it can basically play itself.

[Pimp My Warthog 3]

too limited and not enough to do

It's sometimes fun at least flicking through the different things to check it out, but they're all too reserved - even with everything I could put on it, it still doesn't look all /that/ pimped up.

Maybe if it was a bit crazier, with more stuff to put on a warthog, turning it into something almost completely different, it'd be funky.

As it is, it's all too predictable. Maybe go completely overboard with wheel sizes, bumpers, raising the body... more designs to put on would be nice too.

But still, these things do never excite me /that/ much...

[Extreme Farm Sim]

Enjoyable for a while, but flawed.

The theme is nice, the bg wonderful, with a sorta digital watercolour feel to it, the style of the main elements nicely simplified, the basic game good.

However, the movement seemed buggy, not always working. When there were a lot of ships, it became nearly impossible (if not impossible) to hit some.

It needed to keep a record of your high score.

It was funky and enjoyable for a while, but needs more work.

[Great Teacher Onizuka SE]

A giggle at first.

It's a top game - different from all those boring dating sims - actually a bit of humour.

There weren't enough 'encounters' with the class members etc. for my liking though. Ideally, I'd have one encounter every day or other day. Also, I'd like to not have to go out to the store and all the other areas to find them...

Lastly, only when reading the reviews did I realise that I was meant to keep motivation high for the ending.

overall - top game. Just more encounters, little games etc. would have been nice for some more crazy variety.

I actually laughed when I told that boy to 'be a man' and when I had my first hallway battle...

The main tune did get a bit irritating though. It may be long but we only hear the start of it over and over. Kinda like th DKC (Snes) tune when you fly via Funky...

DAIRYDOG responds:

Thanks for the fine review. Very dashing.

[Sub 2 [game]]

24600

Levels 7-9 (I think) were my favourites, with the almost neon outlines.

It was a fun game, but the 1-hit and you die system didn't really suit the sedate pace.

Also, it'd be good if a bit more stuff was introduced, maybe making it faster or something as time went on.

The main problem as I saw it though was that it seemed to be more a battle with the control system than with the player's reactions and thought. If up and down controlled the ship, that'd be excellent.

Still, funky stuff.

You really are an awesome programmer.

[Space Shift----align]

Nicely done

Well, the aim isn't that unique (get a complete row of something - been seen in Yoshi's Cookie for example) but the workings of the game are fairly nice, with the aliens making it interesting.

I'd like to be able to blast aliens as someone else suggested, perhaps with another coming along after so long.

The game's all about quickly seeing what can be made into a column and doing it before it gets blasted. But it does lack a bit of strategy.

One thing I'd really like to see (and consider almost mandatory) is a counter of how many more you need to blast. This would make it a lot more user-friendly.

a counter of how many more resets are available would also be good.

It is possible though to find it nearly impossible to complete a level, simply because of luck. Maybe if the aliens had a more recognisable pattern and you could actually use some strategy against them it'd be more interesting.

Still, funky stuff.

[fat bee honey bust![game]]

original twist? I don't see how...

You mean because it's hexagons?

I don't really like this particular puzzle anyway and changing the shape of the tiles hasn't changed my opinion.

Nice presentation.

Although your buttons are terrible. Include proper rectangular hit boxes in future.

[Bomb Disposal Hippos]

Blue hippo has an advantage

For many tries I was coming 2nd, but after realising the advantage the blue hippo seemed to have, I tried playing as that. I wasn't wrong - it was very easy to win multiple times in this position.

The game itself is fun for a few minutes, but the controls lack the tactile element necessary to make it rock.

blobbostuff responds:

the blue only has an advantage when the pink player misses

[Whack Your Boss]

a bit boring

Well, the animation was good - nice fbf work - and the music and sound effects were nice.

I had fun listening to the boss drone on about how the 'quotas' were derived, but that really was the best bit. The beatings were just too predictable and mundane. Something a bit more unseen or a bit more variety would have worked wonders I feel.

Nice presentation though.