moistzombie's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Mars Commando]

Fun little 8 bit romp. Difficulty sadly, is probably just a little too high. If you were aiming for hardcore gamers, fine - but right now I couldn't bring myself to try and go past Stage 2.

I had three of those red explosive monsters come up to my barricades in a line, and BAM - four soldiers down and all barricades blown to pieces. I truly felt like there was NOTHING I could have done, or feel inclined to do, to attempt another set of waves just to get nuked.

If I could retry a wave instead starting from the beginning all over, I could possibly try to best a wave again, but right now, I feel the game is unbalanced.

The droid is a nice idea to have some first hand control inside a defence style game, but the offensive capabilities, even when set to the offensive droid setting felt weak and unhelpful.

Everything else is great! Love the soundtrack, animations are simple but do what's needed for this style of game. Tweak the difficulty or offer more upgrades to balance the game-play and it's a winner. Right now, I won't be coming back to play again, but only because of the game play balance.

[Necrorun]

Nice little game. Loved the sprite work, really took me back to my Megadrive days. Controls do the trick, though personally I would have liked to aim with the mouse, and hit with it as well, and possibly just have space at the jump button.

I would have played further into the game, but randomly I would go to jump a ravine and Death would just stop mid air and plunge to his death. It was happening truly randomly, never the same gaps I was trying to jump across. Flash player and Chrome, completely up to date.

If it's a bug I hope you find it.

Nice work.

[Pirate's Time 2]

Nice artwork and quality soundtrack, even if it is the same throughout the levels I played. I found the level design a little uninspired and basically simple and easy to get by each level.

These style of games are a dime a dozen and I can only offer that you need to do something unique to bring attention to a title that only does the basics of what has been rehashed so many times in recent years.

Good luck on your future projects.

[Abducted (Platformer)]

Fun little casual pixel romp. It is what it is but something a wee bit longer would have been nice. Music got on my nerves a little bit, but I guess that's personal preference. Looking forward to some more of your work. Good luck!

[Hot Tub Heist]

Yee-hah! What a FUN game. Twitch gaming at it's best.

It's the first time in a while that I've spent 30+minutes playing a game on Newgrounds. The concept is just great. I've played plenty of "escape" style of games, but usually it's the other way around - escaping upwards. I'm so happy I persevered with several levels. It IS a difficult game but not frustrating or impossible - as I said "twitch" gaming at it's best.

The character is hilarious love it - didn't realise about his little phone calls in the jacuzzi until I started typing up this review. Classic!

The artwork is top notch, looks like pro work and really stands out amongst the crowd. The animations whilst basic totally do the trick! Maybe I didn't play far enough in, but some variety in civilians would have been nice, plus maybe some kind of power-up to pick up along the way to fight back at the ship? Ya know when the times get tough - probably not necessary just a suggestion.

To the sound, great quality. Voice acting talent is spot on. The soundtrack is good, but there some variety would be nice - don't know how many levels there are in total, but I think a different track where level would be nice, but not essential since this is basically a casual browser game. Also with the music to add to the intensity and the twitch style of the game, when nearing the end of the stage, maybe about 10-15 floors from the subway it picks up pace just to really amp up the feeling off being close to death but close to the end!

Awesome work, going to see if I can find any more games by you right now!

"... where there's so many bubbles, nobody's the wiser..."

[Tensu second part]

Animations was Ok, character design hard to interpret because's so tiny on screen. Sound effects for the enemies taking damage seemed a bit loud, especially for a beat-em up style platformer. Soundtrack was nice, went well with the pace of the game. Ultimately once I got past the first boss I wasn't interested in continuing to play. You definitely need to refine the game- play. I "dropped" to a new area of the level and instead of being a transition it just popped onto screen, I got confused when it first happened. Also the boss fight - when the head comes down the wall, the only time you can hit him, his energy blast is completely unavoidable. Even if you jump, you are going to hit the energy blast anyway. You may have designed it that way but I don't think it's a great move.

Good luck on your future projects, or if you decide to revise this one!

[Ultra Racing Diesel]

1 star for effort and artwork. Really a car with a failed brake could be a the premise for a really fun skills based game! But, the reality is driving around in a circle is straight up boring. This might be a OK for say a 5 year old, please take offence but really I don't think you are gong to captivate too many users with such a simple game.

Now, going back to the idea of the car with failed brakes - wicked idea! It just needs to be in a better setting, like going down hill! If you are going around a in circle, logically the speed isn't going to increase. A down hill element would work better, then you could really have fun with distance, avoiding objects seeing the maximum speed you can get to. Have a goal in mind, make the end of the track the ocean, or sand or something that's going to "slow down" the vehicle and have an ending. Could open up so many opportunities for bonuses and highscore systems. You could really add to it with some little animated scenes at the beginning and end of each level with each character, a soccer Mum, Granny, Blind Dude, Ex Cop, the list could go on.

Flesh it out, make it more than driving in circles - it could really go somewhere.

[Ace Pilot]

Fun story and great production values are let down by an unsatisfying game experience. Ace the character while fairly clichéd in his style and humour works well, but unfortunately a lot of the jokes are basic and have all been done some way before in the past. It's hard to be original in our days but it just felt like rehashed jokes from very a many teen movies and spoofs.

The animation is top notch and the only real reason I stayed on to complete the game. The voice acting is top notch, and wow what a soundtrack! The score is fantastic and right up there in terms of professionalism and quality of sound.

Unfortunately the game itself loses me entirely. The controls is where it hurts the most for me. I think for a multi directional shooter there need to be some elements added and refined. For a game where the enemy is basically tracking me constantly and shooting directly at me (sure I know we'd hope they do that!) I felt like I had to two options in playing this game 1) speed off, return and go head on, like a suicidal dogfight, or 2) dodge left or right in a continuing arc circling the enemy. I just found the whole process of taking the enemy boring with this control scheme and found no satisfaction in taking down enemy ships, small or large. I think a control scheme where the keyboard controls more of the ships flight and the mouse targeting not dictating the ships movement would go a long way to improve the controls and gaming experience overall.

Plus, for an interstellar battle ship, I think some more weapons would spice things up a bit and make the taking down of large ships not such a monotonous and tedious task. Some rechargeable missiles and lasers for some extra power or something along those lines.

Ace Pilot while mildly entertaining for me in it's humour and story could do with some wittier writing, even though I understand it is essentially "teen guffaw" type stuff. The game experience needs a serious revamp, as at this stage I couldn't see myself coming back for a replay.

It's a shame the actual game let's down the experience, because the project is ambitious in scope and really hit the nail in regards to the production quality - the rest of the experience needs to catch up though.

Look forward to the improvements you choose to implement - I hope the actual game get's a lot of work.

EldritchAbomination responds:

"Some rechargeable missiles and lasers for some extra power or something along those lines."
You know you do have missiles, right? -- press space-- I know it's not everything you asked for, but you at least have that one already

[F4RY: Reason to live]

Half a star for trying. You really need to work on your level design. When it's difficult to jump past some obstacles in the first few seconds, and I've died half a dozen times, you've lost me straight away. Not sure what's going on with the view with the limited box, but it just doesn't work.

One more thing, if you can't animate or draw - hookup with someone who can. I can't stand playing games with re-used sprites from games from the past. Duke Nukem whilst very cool should be given more respect :-D

So if you want to make games, I'd so go play some more. If you haven't played many platformers, go check out the classics. Alex the Kidd, Mickey Mouse games, Decapattack, Wonderboy etc. Definitely think about collaborating if you can't or don't wish to learn to animate or draw.

Good luck with your game dev future!

Virtuask responds:

Hey man,
thanks for the tips!
The Game rocks! We have improved a lot!!!

[Heavy Pawnage]

Nice game. Sound FX and music were good quality, helped a lot with immersion, gives it that pro touch as well. I like the "collect money/gold/credits" and upgrade type games, but their all very similar other than the graphics that's laid over the top.

I think the game keep could benefit from some kind of combo system, to make it more interesting and add some kind of bonus system to earn gold faster, basically so you can be rewarded for skill. The intensity picked up pretty fast after the first level which was fine, but got swamped a few times and it was frustrating to not be able to move because I had an enemy bot standing over me, literally couldn't shoot or melee a couple of times in this situation.

The BGs and characters are nice, but I think at least with the BGs they are a bit sparse and could do with some more assets. Also maybe some distant BG images, like valleys, or destroyed cities, or the ocean. Plenty of options on your little island setting.

Really nice work, keep it up! I'd like to see one of these "earn and upgrade" taken to the next level - even if they are casual browser games.