SergeantLuke's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Minute Hardcore]

Short on originality, long on fun

There are virtually no new ideas present in "Minute Hardcore"- nearly every feature used in it has been previously used in older bullet hell games.

However, originality is insignificant next to fun, and "Minute Hardcore" is immensely fun. The game is crazy hard, extremely fast-paced, and requires lightning-quick reflexes, just like every great shoot-em-up. A great game.

[my first game platbot]

Great for a first game!

I'm impressed with the somewhat advanced physics techniques you used, considering this is your first game. There's not really much to the game, it's incredibly easy, and I still can't quite figure out HOW I beat the boss, but overall this is a pretty solid first project.

kyle789XBL responds:

thanks! Im going make a few more levles and fix sound bugs and btw i made sure you can beat boss :)
thanks for the review!!

[You Only Live Once]

Very impressive

I played this game more than a year ago, but sure enough, the character is still dead in-game. Be extremely careful when you play this- as it's said, you only live once!

[Goime 500]

A quirky, addictive adventure game

Obviously, "Goime 500" was inspired by the "Achievement Unlocked" series. This game, however, is not only very different from that series, but also far superior. Rather than locking players in a small room, they are given an entire small world to explore, and rather than giving simple objects to interact with, with the main difficulty being figuring out what to do with them, "Goime 500" gives genuine puzzles to solve.

The strange, surreal otherworldliness to the game is part of its charm. The beautiful, atmospheric music sets a great mood, and it fits the simple geometric shapes and bright colors surprisingly well. The graphics are nothing special, but then again, if they were, the game wouldn't be as great.

The subtle sense of humor really got to me as well. Nothing in here is laugh-out-loud funny, but everything is just silly enough to keep you interested. I especially liked the Pink Zone and eGuy's needing to recharge every two dialogue trees.

I didn't expect to play this game very long, but I ended up playing for a full half an hour. It didn't feel right to leave the world you've created unexplored. For a flash game, it feels very large, and every square section of the game is unique and intriguing.

I don't give out perfect 10 scores lightly. But my friend, you've earned it.

[LL: Treasure Hunt]

Eh...

I can't really say this game is fun. It seems to mostly rely on clicking about randomly in the hope of finding the treasure. You aren't given enough locks, and there's no point in playing again once you succeed- if, of course, you realize that you succeed, since there's no sound indication whatsoever if you win.

I do like the music, though.

Rn86 responds:

there is a tactic
maybe you will find this article useful

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangul ation

[Pokemon Tower Defense]

Mediocre

Now, the concept of using Pokemon in a tower defense game is very cool, and a great idea. However, the game itself leaves much to be desired.

The graphics are very bland, consisting only of A) ripped sprites from FireRed/LeafGreen and B) Times New Roman text and ugly-looking boxes with nothing but primary-colored gradients to give them any sort of color.

The music is also ripped straight from the original Pokemon Red/Blue. It's good music and fits the action well, but the high-pitched chiptunes get really annoying after a while.

The story scenes are poorly-written and, in my opinion, uninteresting. You can skip them, of course, but it'd be better if I didn't WANT to skip them.

The game gets too hard way too fast. The first few levels are a cakewalk, and after that, there's only a very short period of minor challenge before it becomes extremely difficult.

It's quite impressive that you managed to include all 151 original Pokemon, but I don't really think that they were all necessary. Many of them have identical attacks from others, just with different names.

It's not all bad, though. I like that you can only use a total of six individual "towers" at a time, and that the design forces you to constantly move them around the arena. Considering how many tower defense games there are out there, I don't really know if that's an original idea, but I've certainly never seen it before. And though, as I said, it's a little too hard, I'm sure one who plays a lot of tower defense games will love the breakneck pace of the action.

And, of course, you are still in the Alpha stages. So I hope that in the future, you can improve this game tremendously! It's got great potential!

[Super Mario Castle]

Fun, but very repetitive

This game is pretty fun to play for a few minutes, but even the (apparent) randomness of the level design is not enough to make me want to keep playing. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot to the game, with only a few enemy types. Also, the enemies' collision detection is a little spotty- nothing that disrupts gameplay or anything, but their hitboxes seem to be larger than the enemies themselves- you can die if you get within about 2 feet (in-game) of them, rather than by touching them.

[Pancake Catch]

Okay

This game is admittedly very simple, and it plays very similarly to a lot of other games that I've played. It's still rather fun, even if it's unoriginal. I really like the music.

However, I do have to say: the guy moves too slowly. It's very hard to catch certain objects if they're too far away from you. Might want to fix that.

Baramyew responds:

Cheers, I know there are some problems with the movements and the timing, the objects spawn randomly, and I know that the hitbox is off with the bowl. Like I said this is my first real game made for college (if you're American and don't know, it's ages 16 - 18 in the UK).

So, thanks again for the score and the review! If I have time I'll revise it.

[PSN Protector]

Funny concept, surprisingly fun gameplay!

Regardless of the actual content, the PSN hack is an amusing concept for a satirical game. Thankfully, you went the extra mile and actually made this entertaining! "PSN Protector" gets very fast and hectic very quickly, leaving me constantly on edge and nervous. The music is very catchy and exciting, too.

However, the fun doesn't really last long; it gets boring rather quickly. Also, it'd be nice if there was more depth to the game - like multiple types of fences, different levels, environmental hazards, and maybe nicer-looking graphics. Of course, implementing such features would take time and make the game less current when it was done.

Kenney responds:

Thanks :) This game was actually meant to be developed in 1 day but I kept adding features which made in into this semi-minigame. I do agree on you that the game is still shallow but that's what it was meant to be. Thanks for your review!

[Rebecca Whack: Friday]

I just wasted so much time on this it's not funny

It's rather unsettling that a game based around beating a 13-year-old girl to a pulp is so entertaining, but it is. The physics in this game are well-programmed and I simply can't resist playing over and over in order to further increase my score. The use of "views" instead of normal currency is very clever. However, the music is REALLY bland- even worse than RB herself.