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 Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions

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Tyro
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Tyro


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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeWed Nov 23, 2011 4:39 pm

There, now that the ranting is over, let's have a review. A proper review.


Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Screenshot05

Amnesia: The Dark Decent

There are two things Tyro likes: A Good Story and things being cheep. Amnesia was both.

Steam is a wonderland for a cheep-skate like me that wants all the super, wizzy games with more polygons than a bag of dodecahedra, but tends to be happiest when shelling out less than £5 for a game that cost at least six-times more when it was new. Thanks to the recent Halloween Sale, I picked this up for about £3.50. Or, in American: roughly $5.52. Chuffed to bits after hearing so much good about it, I popped it on. About, what? 10 minutes in, I was beginning to regret turning the game on, then thinking about purging my hard drive in holy water of the evil I had endured...

Don't imagine that I didn't like it though.

Amnesia is essentially a 19th century Horror novel you can walk through. How do I know? Let's examine the facts I can talk about without ruining everything:

1. Everyone uses 'that sort of language'. Everything is in an elevated form of English so all dialogue sound like Jane Austin wrote them. Everyone has that slightly poetic way of speaking reservedly called "Ye Olde Speech".

2. Your in a massive, largely abandoned castle in Poland somewhere. If you look up Horror Tropes, you tend to find that everything is usually set miles away from all and any possible places where help might be found. Anything genuinely useful happens to be either miles away or in a dark room full of crazed maniacs that wish nothing but to be picking bits of your out of their teeth for weeks to come...

3. Everything is explained in either flashbacks, letters, diary extracts or notes. Another Horror thing. If you want to sound clever to your friends, remember that when the plot is explained in this manner, it's called an 'Epistolary'. Their used usually for that...er...I'll say "Authenticity" feel. The other reason is usually so that the story can be staggered in just the right way to build tension and drama as you uncover the mysteries of the game. That's why all the best letters tend to be right at the end.

The plot is, at the beginning, odd. I can't go into too much detail of course but I can say that you play as a guy called Daniel. He knows as much as you know about what the hell is going on and why that thing with no face seems to crave your flesh so much. The idea is simple: You have monsters in this game, somewhere, but you have no way of fighting them off. You must run or hide, otherwise you never get to see the fulfilment of the one, and only, objective you seem to have left yourself somehow: kill Alexander. Again, no idea who he is, but he must die. Well, why would I argue with myself? First sign of madness after all...

On that note, I should move towards the gameplay. Amnesia does have a Sanity Mechanic. The only other time I can remember seeing this sort of thing was in a game called Eternal Darkness. That was an unnecessarily nasty game. If your sanity level dropped too low, it would play tricks on you, such as freezing your controller or pretending to wipe your memory card. But these Sanity Meters tend to seem like secondary health bars that you have to keep topped up to make it through the game. Amnesia's sanity seems more like a timer. You slowly grow more insane the longer you spend in darkness with no light or looking at something horrifying. Both make perfect sense. Monsters impact the mind pretty hard while being left in the darkness for too long confuses our sight, arguably our primary sense, rendering us vulnerable. We know this and so every noise or thing coming towards us is a possible monster. If your starting to feel a little cuckoo, Amnesia will start messing with your head in a more subtle way than pretending to erase hours of 'me-time'. Amnesia is above dangling your Memory Cards over an open fire waiting for the right moment to shout "psych!". No, it'll leave a corpse around for you to find. Then make it vanish when you come back to look at it again. Yes, Amnesia is a crueller game like that.

Gameplay-wise, Amnesia is essentially a 3D Point and Click Adventure. Don't scoff, that style really works here. Amnesia asks you to, generally, go find stuff in areas patrolled by Mr No-Face so that you can progress with the task you set yourself. To get the item that will let you continue through the game, there is often a kind of puzzle involved. In fact, a large amount of what you'll be doing is looking for stuff that will allow you to get closer to Alexander or solving a puzzle that will let you proceed onwards. I found most puzzles to be challenging but not impossible. The most difficult and weird puzzle was one that related to shapes and a clue embedded in their name. I can imagine people sitting around for a good hour trying every combination of rod to hole. Unintended puns aside, the quality of logic here is much better here than in other point and click adventures I've tried. The tool your using on thingamajig A does make sense 90%, rather than about 70% where your logic and the level designers logic have gone in different directions. The other 10% of the time is down to tiny, science bits where it's not a hundred percent obvious. And one bit in the water. Amnesia is not a particularly harsh game as it will give plenty of clues.

But it is scary. Everything that chases you is far faster than you. Even worse, your unsettlingly told that there is no way of attacking anything by the Developers right at the beginning of the game. You can't be Leon with a shotgun and a tub of hair-gel, mowing down Spanish peasants. You are a weak, helpless, clueless, lost little man with no weapon at all. You have a Lantern and squishy parts that don't have much use on the floor. All you can do is hide or run. And you can't always run.

The game is grotesque too. For Horror, that's good. Your game shouldn't be pretty when your trying to scare people. Your monsters should move and look like something Nature would cough up by mistake. The environments have to be sparse areas of dilapidation. You have to be in a place you would never wish to step into. Amnesia delivers that constantly. You never really ascend to anywhere that has light. Everywhere is a dark, cold cellar or another hallway of rooms full of junk that could have been just thrown in. Dust is heavy, lights have huge gaps in-between each on and the game has a perverse joy in toying with you till it thinks your ready for the next appearance of Mr Hacky-Slashy. The game is perfectly timed to make sure your heart is racing in all the right parts.

And while your not tripping over your own feet, we've good a mystery too. I never once read through one of the letters and notes the game expects you've read to understand what's happening, and wished they'd stop doing that. The fact that I wanted to know what happened here is a testament to the game's narrative. Characters mentioned are interesting but aren't kept for longer than necessary. Sweet! All I can ask for.

Amnesia: Dark Decent is good. There. The bottom line. It's good; go find a decent copy of it. If I talk any more, I might blab something important about it. Go! Go!
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeWed Nov 23, 2011 4:48 pm

O.O
After playing Assassins Creed for the last... While..
Well this just sounds soo... Templar O.o

It is so bullshit, surely we will at least have fun stopping it from happening. :/
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeWed Nov 23, 2011 5:12 pm

Yeah. Or, if it's ever managed to be actually enforced, it'll be fun to undermine aaaaalll that by just going "Sod this! We're going to make our own Internet and your not invited!"
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeWed Nov 23, 2011 7:37 pm

Hell I know a lot of hackers will be having fun messing around with everything.
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeThu Nov 24, 2011 2:24 am

They'll have something worth doing for once.
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeTue Dec 13, 2011 10:51 am

Ah...today I bring a cautionary tale of why it pays to proof-read...

Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Psycos12

Thepsycoman and His Adventures into his Brain-Generated Imaginings that Manifest as Prose

OK. Right....here we go.

Thepsy is the site's owner, for those that haven't read the bar at the side of the forums. That means that he probably has more buttons at his disposal to kick me out of my cushy little spot than anyone else. But I consider RPing with him loads of fun, even having him smash through each and every bad guy I've created over the last few years...

But when he's asked to write things on his own...well...It's a mess. A mess that feels like it was made in like an hour quickly. I feel like I'm the same in my urge to get what I'm writing done so I can go play Minecraft V.1 some more but this has suffered greatly from this.

I hate having to whine so I'll sum everything up now before I go further: write a second draft of these. Seriously, these need a good going over. Their execution is their problem, not the idea. The idea is lovely and I totally want to borrow this idea for myself at some point. I like the ideas you have chosen to write about very much. It's the unfinished nature of what I've looked at that I don't like.

A War Made Easy

All right. The premise is kinda cool: What if fictional characters could be summoned to solve a problem? Like magicking up Tom Sawyer to help you con someone out of something or conjuring The Doctor to help with your history homework. It a fun idea and Thepsy decides to try it with Alan and Bella

Now, while I do feel like there's large problems with these two characters, the problems I noticed aren't present here so I'll wait till the next thing to look at them. Instead, let's get to the actual story as a whole and...it's the internal logic of it that's the biggest issue. The first part that you wrote makes more sense than the second but there's still huge bits missing to make it all fit better. Let me show you some of the bigger questions the story makes me ask just out of confusion and pickiness (their in chronological order as I read along):

What do you have against foxes? Kidding...

What do you mean by festivities? Fictional Thepsy (F.Thepsy) appears to be being sarcastic, suggesting it's something less jovial than a street-party but never gives any idea what it actually is. Add a little bit of relevant but distant noise, maybe? Just as a clue?

What exactly did F.Thepsy do to warrant being stopped in the first place?

How is being partly Italian a reason for having a knife on you? Is it a gift from a family member or a keepsake from when F.Thepsy visited relatives there?

How did F.Thepsy manage to throw that knife that accurately? Was he channelling some Alan-esque energy or just pot-luck?

Where on earth did F.Thepsy get the ability to summon Alan? Or anything at all for that matter?

Bella has a rune?

What about Bella makes her that frightening to behold?

They're large holes in the internal logic of this piece that leads me to two conclusions: 1) You didn't spend a whole lot of time on this, probably not out of choice and 2) It probably shouldn't have started here. While 1) is regrettable and easily fixable, 2) would fix plenty of flaws. If you went back in the story and explained where F.Thepsy got the summoning spell or witnessed the first of this militia marching though the streets and setting up their dominance across the town this is set, we would have had a greater understanding of what's going on. Or at least, you could have had that part in media res. Start us off at some excitement before dragging us back to where it all started now that we're hooked to explain how it all happened, savvy?

Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 2-4

Ooo...that was silly of me. No, sorry, not you. More the pirate slang. How about you sit around before I get round to your stuff.

Then there's the second part of all this which is...bizarre as the logic of the piece waves a while flag. It's all to do with F.Thepsy's parents. Everything else makes some sort of sense. There would be more than one guard that could hear the action and arrive. And Alan and Bella, because their unstoppable super-people, can easy stop bullets.

But how did F.Thepsy's mother get there? Or his Dad? What use do they have to the scene? Why are they there? It's jarring for the Mother to just pop up and bawl her eyes out suddenly that I can't help but be drawn to how out of place it is.

And now F.Thepsy has moments of extreme hand-eye co-ordination? Is that how he threw the knife earlier? Why has this just come to him?

Why would Alan throw a dagger at F.Thepsy after attempting to save him? If he wanted to chuck over a weapon, why not throw it just before F.Thepsy's feet?

Can you see why this makes a jarringly little amount of sense to me? I agree that they get pettier towards the end. The thing is, what I want you to do is try this sort of thing again, taking onboard the things I've said because the idea here has potential. You could really big up the idea of Bella and Alan being these two powerful beings that fight for balance in the world and will side with the weaker forces to help bring closure to conflict. Make them legends with their own range of stories. Take the time to go through what you've written. It's fine, I guess, if this was never intended to be good but it seems like a waste.

Not that you probably expected anyone to go comb this story over at any point when you wrote it, eh?

The Bleach Thing

So now that that's out of the way, we can look at this.

This makes far more sense and is better written but still has flaws that are also present in 'A War Made Easy'.

The basic idea is very simple: What if Alan fought Jin Kariya from Bleach? OK. Sounds interesting but I'll need to explain a couple of things first...

Jin Kariya is the leader of a group called The Bound or Bounto as I know them. The Japanese language doesn't allow for the word 'Bound' as there is no letter for the "duh" sound at the end of the word like there is in English. Yes, while I watch Subs, Thepsy seems to watch Dubs. Still the same Anime. The Bound are basically the Bleach version of Vampires. They are people that found out that they do not age. They are immortals that feed on spiritual energy from living sources. They fight with weird creatures known as Dolls and are considered to be very dangerous. Jin is the most powerful out of all The Bound. They invade the 'good guy's' world called Soul Society, which is basically an afterlife and cause plenty of trouble as they are about to break the world down into energy and use that to heal any injuries they sustain. This makes them very hard to fight.

Alan is basically a walking Deus Ex Machinima.

Alan is invincible, a super-genius and able to pull resources out of anywhere. That's the kind of character I get from both Alan and Bella in the two RP's me and the twins have taken part in. There has been no explanation for any of this offered apart from maybe "Their the Devil's kids". Both appear to be Supermen that happen to not have a crippling weakness. Kyptonite is the only thing making Superman in anyway relatable.

My problem right of the bat is that there are no stakes involved in the fight here. Alan is passing through, Jin is just rampaging and they meet. They see each other and deem each other as threats. Fine, off we go. It's a dust-up of epic proportions. It's that Jin's first move has no effect what-so-ever on Alan. Not even threw him about or made him flinch.

There is now no tension within the scene. The excitement of what could have been one powerful man going up against another one has now utterly vanished. Why? Well lets look at Bleach itself for a sec.

Ichigo Kurosaki is a stupidly powerful Shinigami. He's able to defeat almost anything and has spent a great deal of time learning how to pull yet more magic powers out of his arse in order to fight the next big bad. While Ichigo is established as an unusually powerful guy, he's always defeated in his first encounter with the next enemy. This means the big overall bad guy for that arc is actually a credible threat. This also makes Ichigo fallible. He is not a God, he's a Shinigami.

That made more sense in my head...

By making Alan impervious to Jin's attack, we instantly know who is likely to win. Alan is expected to, and does, clean up Jin with ease. That's not interesting or exciting. There wasn't anything for the reader to sit up and pay attention to because the scene ended there. There is no fight.

The other thing is, and this is in the other story two, that there's no description of the location or characters. Giving us a backdrop to what's going on and what these characters look like gives us details we wouldn't otherwise get in an instant. We can guess what each character is like from where they are and what they wear or how they stand. It's an important part of story telling that shouldn't get ignored.

I would look over his script but it's not actually written by him...technically...It's an adaptation. The only thing I'll say is that it's hard to read when everything has been centred.
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeFri Dec 16, 2011 3:46 am

Christmas Movies


Here's a brief guide to Christmas Films to help avoid turkey's and find little gifts in this time of perennial favourites. And crap they shove out for more money...

Micky's Twice Apon a Christmas - AVOID

It's not as good as it could have been as it bludgeons kids over the head with some message about not being a git. It tries to be about unity and stuff like that, trying to be mushy lovely stuff but fails to realise that where here to see the entirety of the universe torture Donald into a murderous rage. Or see Goofy fail epicly to perform a few simple tasks in a bizarrely inventive ways or Micky to do...something...It fails to realise that it would be better being entertaining rather than entertaining while peddling a message we're already bombarded with everywhere else. Just show us some funny cartoons!

That was longer than I thought...

It's a Wonderful Life

You will be out of the loop on so many references and jokes surrounding this classic. It's entertaining if you can sit through a back and white film. You see the slow piling up of Georges problems getting in the way of his dreams and what he plans to do about it. It good. Go see.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

The film is really weird in the sense that it's arguably a film for both Christmas and Halloween. It's a strange, inventive and pretty musical that has some catchy, memorable songs. Go see.

A Christmas Carol

Now, there are plenty of versions of this. Possibly too many. So, here the one I've seen:

Patrick Stuart as Scrooge

It's arguably the closest to the original story your ever going to get so is basically awesome if your happy with Dickensian English and frightening old men into philanthropy. Go see this one.

Jim Carry as Scrooge - AVOID

It keeps large amounts of the original text and conversations but then tries to make it into a family adventure film. It's rather stupid because of this. One minute we're talking about workers having Sundays off, the next we're running from death. It's nonsensical.

Micheal Cain as Scrooge

This is, of course, the Muppets version. It's a pantomime of great lines, funny characters and a very good performance from Cain as Scrooge I think. It's musical, silly and close enough to the story to work well. One thing: it you get the DVD version, then an important and pivotal song has been removed. I think it was removed because it was believed that it was boring kids but it then removes a huge amount of characterisation and emotion from the whole thing...Idiots...

The Snowman and Father Christmas

Charming and endlessly entertaining. If you have not watched these, do so or forever have people sing that song at you with your ignorence hanging around your neck.

Elf

Meh. It's kinda funny and rather stupid. You could do worse.

Hope this helps. Merry Christmas everybody!
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeSat Dec 17, 2011 7:29 am

Right...Two down, plenty more to go...I'm still wondering if anyone wants to look over my stuff and do a review treatment back at me. Come on! The floor is always open.

Anyhoo...Let's look at another game.

Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Notchy

Meet your new Lord and Master

Minecraft Version 1 has been released

This is not particularly recent news at the time of writing but it is important news from the view point of a critic. From here on out, Minecraft is officially a game. Notice that there is no-longer the word 'beta' hanging around it's neck like an L-plate made of stone. No! I has graduated, morphing before our eyes as the strange powerhouse of a game that has swallowed imaginations whole, letting us rush around a new, dazzlingly vast world. What makes it even sweeter is that Notch does not say merely "Here's a world, maybe a little story. Go have fun."

Nay! He tells you that this world is yours. You are it's archetect, it's master. You may sculpt, plunder and build this world anew and in almost anyway you choose. All it asks of you is your time. It has taken so much already to create such wonders of a world ever-creaping towards your idea of perfection...Your imagination is now your fronteer.


Cor blimey! I seemed to have unleashed my inner Tycho. Sorry about that, I must have gotten carried away there. *Ahem*, yes. Review, yes...

Surface it to say, I like Minecraft. It's a digital version of when I played with Lego many, many moons ago, you might say. Except, I now live in the box of bricks rather than a god-like builder that reaches in and has a good rummage for the right bit. Instead, I must dig down to find it. Now that it's out of Beta, this means that there probably won't be much else to say on the Vanilla version of the game (and by that I mean an un-modified version of the game) for a long old while. That means that this is ther version of Minecraft Notch wants to be reviewed. All righty, matey!

Let's start off with the potential idea that someone hasn't heard (stupidly unlikely) of Minecraft or someone has not played Minecraft. These heathens exist apparently...somewhere. Poor souls...their Worlds cluttered with polygons of which they do not understand. Such woe and...yes...I'll try to restrain myself...

Minecraft is set in a world that is made up of thousands of destructible blocks that you can collect and then place again wherever you like, more or less. You are a random dude with a strange face and a blue T-shirt. This is your character but you are allowed to change what he or she looks like. It's a pain as you have to use other tools but it is possible. Now, this world is also in habited by other creatures that are usually referred to as 'Mobs'. They range from your basic animals such as pigs, cows, chickens and squid. You also have potentially helpful Mobs such as wolves.

You also have the hostile mobs that will try to kill you. Zombies, spiders and Skeletons will try their hardest to rip you to shreds. The most feared is the Creeper: a creature that is able to explode. They can destroy what you create as you go about your building business. These guys will only spawn in darkness so only roam the world at night or in caves. Everything else appears in the daytime.

You have a food bar and a need for shelter to hide you and any valuable materials from hostile Mobs. The Food Bar will slowly heal you when full enough but otherwise adds to the whole 'survival' thing. Everything else is health, armour and EXP. I'll talk about that last one in a bit. You can build new tools or items by combining materials but not all materials are just handed to you unless your in creative mode. Everything has to be found, mined and then taken back to the work space relevant to your goals. You must do this to make your shelter and tools better and better to resist attack from monsters better and better. Or whatever you like really...

All right, that's the basics. How about we look at what Notch has added since the last time I looked at this thing, shall we? When was that? Beta Version 1.8, eh? Oh...I didn't finish the two parter I had planned...ah....Ah well...

Ender Stuff and The End

The Endermen were left out of the last review so lets pick up where I left off.

The Endermen are meant to be a more majestic and powerful new Mob added a while back. They're tall, black men with huge limbs that have the ability to move blocks. They're a problem to you, potentially for three reasons:

1) They can move blocks. This means that they can create holes in your defences if your not careful even though their ability to pick stuff up has been diminished.

2) They are the only mob capable of teleporting. I had one teleport inside my base once. Not cool man. Not cool...

3) They are actually quite powerful attackers providing they can lay a hand on you.

Baring that in mind, the Endermen aren't that scary or dangerous. Firstly, they're docile unless you look at one in the eye or attack one. Even then, the one's I fought just teleport away. Secondly, they have more weaknesses than a chip sandwich. They can be hurt by water, sun-light and lava. They have no immunities so they're basically teleporting kleptomaniac zombies. Just have a bucket of water handy and they'll be easy.

The Enderpearl now has a use. It's a teleporter. You through the pearl and you appear where it lands with a slight amount of damage as the price for such tom-foolery. It's not a cheep or effective form of travel but it's still cool to have. Apparently, you combine it with something else to make an Eye of Ender. This can lead you to a stronghold or open up a gateway to the final part of the game.

The End is just something to work towards. It's a weird, lurid place filled with Endermen. It's made of a white rock and Obsidian. Here, there is the Enderdragon. This beast is protected by Elder Crystals and it's up to you to defeat it. You destroy the crystals making the dragon invincible before going for the only boss in Minecraft. He's stupidly hard and only, really, for completionists or people that want to be working towards something in Minecraft but can't think of anything else. I like this but I haven't gotten anywhere near finding the damn place. Yay! There's a vague point to Minecraft now. But I'm not sure whether we needed it...Minecraft was a game where you made your own fun after all. But! As I've played, it has kept me interested as I try and drag myself closer to The End one block at a time.

Magical Stuff and Potions

You remember that green EXP bar that was given to us in 1.8? Were you annoyed that it did absolutely nothing then go and download that RPG mod? Well, Notch has finally wired it up to something: the Enchantment Table.

Arguably one of the most expensive items you can craft, the Enchantment Table requires a book, two diamonds and four lumps of obsidian. What it does is lay magical upgrades upon certain tools and armour at the expense of one full bar of EXP. So yes; there is now more of a reason to go out and kill things. To make your enchantments more powerful you have to surround the table with bookshelves. Yes, that is correct; there is now a use for bookshelves. The potency of your enchantments increases with the number of bookshelves feeding...words, I think into them like this:

Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Enchantment_Table_animated_experience

Cool, huh? The thing is that I've found growing sugar cane stupidly slow. This makes getting a small room of bookshelves very difficult. However, if memory serves, strongholds have entire rooms of bookshelves making them even more vital to find.

The other Magical thing to turn up are the Potions. Effectively, its another list of recipes to remember. Hurrah!

Like with crafting, brewing recipes are on the wiki and explains exactly how everything works as well as what makes what. Firstly, you'll need plenty of glass for bottles. Then you'll need to pop into the new Nether...which I'll chat about in a sec. From there you'll need a blaze rod to make a brewing stand. Then, you add your bottles (up to three) that you've filled with water and start adding ingredients one by one till you have the potion you want. You can brew Positive effect potions that increase your health or attack power or even make you impervious to fire and you can brew negative ones that'll make you weaker, poison you or slow you down. Lastly is what type of potion you can get. You can add redstone dust to increase the length of the potions effect but at the price of potency and glowstone to do the opposite. Gunpowder will turn the potion into a Splash potion. Effectively a grenade.

It's an interesting and potentially useful feature that doesn't feel too over powered. I admit that I have not played around with all the potions but growing and maintaining ingredients for these potions is an interesting way of playing. You could figure out special gardens for them all.

The Nether

The Nether has always been a place I've gone to, grabbed a couple of bits then dashed back to the relative safety of the normal world. Usually some Netherrack and some Glowstone. Then, just left it.

I can definitely say that the updates have improved the Nether as I've been back again and again to plunder the new Nether Brick structures, randomly generated in this world.

Nether Brick is tougher than Netherrack. It can be crafted into stairs and fences. It has a resistance to Ghast attack but not Creeper attack, meaning that it's not a cheep alternative to Obsidian in that respect. However, it's still a handy building material due to the large amounts on offer. They form massive and expansive ruins that snake through the Nether. It doesn't take long to find them.

And now the Nether is more dangerous too, potentially. Two new monsters were added. The Magma Cubes are just fiery slimes really. Blobs that bounce after you and split into smaller enemies when killed. It's the Blaze that is the real interest here. The Blaze is a flying weirdo that shoots fire at you. Why should you not run the other way? They give you the blaze rod, necessary for brewing upon death. Arguably, you'll only ever need one but they are nasty if your not careful. Small tip: rush at them when they stop spouting fire.

I like these additions too. The ruins do the same thing as the underground mines. They suggest a larger story of previous settlers here that the game has yet to share with you. It gives this horrid place a sense of character. It also means that the Nether is more appetising. You have more of a reason to pop in. Not only for nether brick and blaze rods but for nether wart too for your potions.

The Mushroom Biome and the weirdest animal you will ever see.

This is where your most likely to find giant mushrooms natually occuring. It's largely gray soil and utterly bizarre. Not only the 'so this is what it's like to be a smurf' aspect but also the Mooshrooms. They're cows that have become part Mushroom. Their rather alien in many ways. They don't make milk, they make Mushroom Stew. You can even shear them for mushrooms. They creep me out a little with those big beady eyes...

And while we're talking about animals.

Sex

Breeding has now been added to Minecraft. It's very simple. You get two of the same animal and give them wheat to put them in luuuurve mode. The powerful aphrodisiac that is somehow lost whenever you make bread from the stuff, acts upon the two animals and a tiny, baby animal is born. I've seen people dye their sheep then breed them to get a mixture of the two colours so the uses are more than just getting more food stuffs. Neat!

Strongholds

Meat the nastier bigger brother to the Abandoned Mines.

These are long empty underground dungeons full of monsters and goodies. They have libraries vital for your Enchantment Table as well as boxes of stuff too. This seems to be the only place to see the Silverfish too. Their nasty little things that hide as fake stone blocks. The Stronghold is also made of some new material called Stonebrick. It's strong against most Creaper attacks so might be worth picking up a couple of 64's of it.

Not only are the goodies here pretty good (Compasses, Diamonds, Ender Pearls), you also have the Ender Portal here too. This is your only way to The End. To activate it, you need to gather lots of Eye of the Enders to put in the blocks surrounding it. Which is no mean feat, I can tell you. The problem is finding them. Well, what you can do is get an Eye of the Ender to tell you. Throw it on the ground and it'll point the way but it might break while doing so.

So that's more or less it. Minecraft is out and none of the things added subtract any fun from what your doing as far as I can see. It's still the strangely entertaining little playing we've grown to love just that now it's got a few more goals. There's still things missing such as an in-game tutorial (achievements don't count) and maybe a mod that could actually cause a larger amount of damage to my establishment. The worst they've done is smash up my stairs. But Minecraft is still entertaining and fun. Even better, the modders have a more stable base to work from now. No more having to modify everything to make sure their up to date.

At least, until Minecraft V.2...
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeSat Dec 17, 2011 3:17 pm

Ahh, Minecraft breeding . . . Easy in theory, but getting a couple of animals to follow you and then managing to box them into an enclosed space so you can keep an eye on them and their to-be babies is a bigger pain than one might think.

I need to get to explorin' Minecraft more, but I don't really want to start a new world to look for strongholds and crap. Too much effort to build back up again . . .
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeSat Dec 17, 2011 3:26 pm

Agreed. Trying to find Stronghold is like looking for Needles in Hay-stacks.
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PostSubject: BIT.TRIP Runner   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeThu Dec 22, 2011 7:14 pm

Ah...I do like Charity. Especially when they're giving away a load of games for any amount you like. Thank you Humble Bundle. Even though I'm still broke at this point so I improvised on the payment. I hope they find a use for the nice picture I drew them...Charities like stickmen with massive swords right?


The Indie Saga

Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 NqnIeTUcDEu8dNnn3y1NK0vcioXF3k10

BIT.TRIP Runner

Let's just clarify a few things here:

This new line of articles I'm calling 'The Indie Saga' is as a result of the unusual influx of games I've acquired and am now able to get down to and play. Two have been presents from friends and the rest have been gained thanks to The Humble Bundle. Basically, they gather up a small collection of Indie Games and ask you to choose what you pay for the lot. Pay higher than the average and you'll get a few more bits and pieces thrown in too. So, yes: a possible £50 worth a games for about £5. Woop! That's were the game for today's topic comes from.

Also, it's for the PC version of BIT.TRIP Runner, not the WiiWare. Although, the Wii has become little more than a plaything since I hacked it so WiiWare is a pointless and expensive way of getting entertainment out a box I would get out of it for free with homebrew.

So, now that that's out the way, on to the review.

I hate BIT.TRIP Runner.

Seriously, I have never played a game I have hated more than this game. I've seen games I've been more offended by just by their existence (the Little Britten game (anyone outside of the UK can count their blessing to have never heard of it)) or had such stupid, soul-crushing elements that it makes the game irritating (Resident Evil: Outbreak and it's ability to kill you by viral infection) but I have never had a game slowly bully me as I play.

But it's good in many ways. Let me explain...

B.T Runner is a platformer in the same way that Guitar Hero is a musical instrument. In both, your just careering forwards endlessly towards your finish line, you just have to deal with every obstacle in your way. In Guitar Hero, it's the notes of the song but B.T Runner actually is a linear obstacle course. You don't directly control a little man dressed in black...I think it's a ninja. The ninja will run constantly forwards at a regular pace. Your part in all this is to telegraph to your ninja one of about 5 different actions to get him to avoid the obstacles coming towards him. The only actions you can signpost are for him to jump over stuff, flying kick spinning crystals, slide on the floor to travel under low hanging things without lessening your speed for some reason and leaping from special spring-loaded pink pads for a massive jump upwards. Fail to avoid an obstacle and you have to start the level again.

Controls are pleasingly simple. You start off with nothing more than "Press Space Bar to Jump". Lovely and easy to understand. Goood. Oh, and look at that, the world is a crazy space place with loads of stuff happening. And your actions seem to be adding notes to this catchy electro music in the background. Sweet. They then add other buttons and actions later as you go through the game. The challenge mounts up and the premise is pleasing and eye-catching. The gameplay is simplistic and perfectly enjoyable as you work to avoid obstacles and get the runner to the end.

Now, some of the more observant may have noticed a missing fifth thing the runner can do to avoid smacking into stuff. It's missing because I have no idea what it could be. I haven't gotten that far into the game to even know if there is one because the game, while simplistic and charming, is also very cruel. It's al to do with it's difficulty curve.

Remember Guitar Hero and how it expected you to be able to play enough of a song to get by and pass. Passed badly but you still entertained the virtual 'crowd' enough to get by. You appeased the weird dial at the side of the screen just enough to be let through to the next song. The point is that even though you had one shot or you'd have to start again, you had some wiggle room for mistakes. B.T Runner does away with the one thing that stopped Guitar Hero from becoming infuriating within a few attempts at a difficult point immediately instead of after a few hours at least on Guitar Hero: the room to make mistakes. You have to complete entire levels, start to finish, in one take. You can try it as many times as you like but you must start from the beginning every time you manage to smack straight into something. And as levels get harder and longer, that can start to grind a man's soul into the ground with a stiletto heel. Gratifyingly, it takes seconds to zip right back to the start but your likely to be seeing that little animation quite a bit. Then you realise that you have to make all that progress and perform all those acts of skilled reflexes all over again. That feeling multiplies as you get pinged back for hitting that crystal you can't quite manage to kick again.

The game has been made frustrating by giving almost no ability to make a mistake or two in the game. We're fallible beings, we'll make slip-ups. Especially if you suck at Guitar Hero as much as myself but if you don't add in hit points, how about Checkpoints for the sequel, if there is one planned? Checkpoints in the game would allow players to feel like some progress has been made but still taking a punishment. It's harsh to erase the entirety of the player's progress, frustrating, even. Games similar to this like Sonic and the Secret Rings or Guitar Hero or even racing games, vaguely, don't ask the player to begin the whole level again. Instead, they'll likely allow for a certain number of mistakes before shelling out an appropriate failure condition for losing. Either 'Game Over' or 'You lost the something something'. But even that is not as harsh as B.T Runner and it's demand that you play perfectly or you don't get to succeed.

Even worse, I'm still only on the first set of levels. There's about four more sets of this. Great! Pleanty to do but it's going to get to the point where I may defenestrate my laptop. And anything/anyone that happens to be around me.

So that's why I hate the game: it expects too much of me and so infuriates me when it dumps be back at the start as if to say "No, no ,no! Do it properly!". Why am I still playing it? Well partly because it's still a well-made, fun little thing to play with compelling "one-more-go" gameplay but mostly because the damn thing will not beat me....
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeThu Dec 29, 2011 5:56 pm

OK! We can clear Christmas away now. Hello? Any mods reading? Come on! It's nearly New Years! We'll have bad luck all year long!

The Indie Saga

Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 104543-limbo-review-part-1-2

Limbo


Ah! Yes, carrying on with my Indie theme, we go into the one of the best looking and most miserable piles of code I have ever had to run for my life through.

Damn fine game though!

Now, let me quantify all this by starting off with the artwork. It's rather striking and they stick to it through out. All of it is monochrome, lending this surreal feel to everything and setting a nice even tone for a world that would appear to be set in a Goth's imagination. Yes, everyone put their melancholic hats on because this is a sombre game of grey-scale people biting the dust in quite graphic and detailed ways. Despite having only three colours, Limbo easily makes up for this in it's detailing. Grass sways, trees shake and resemble claws as they pass over head and the monsters and traps are interesting to look at while they chop you into cubes.

Gameplay is an interesting mix of side-scrolling platformer and puzzle game with stretches of atmospheric walking from A to B. A typical level will start out with you walking from one place to another, running along on the detailed silhouettes till you come to some to a point where you cannot go any further. Either it's a chasm or a ledge you can't jump or an electric rail but you are made to stop then ask what you can use to cross. Generally, puzzles will be a case of 'get the box to the ledge so you can climb up'. This routine will get longer and more complex as the game progresses.

However, there are great deals of variety on offer. Some puzzles will plant a small worm in your head and, on top of a free lobotomy, turn the small boy you control into a self-destructive zombie that must move in only one direction. This adds quite a bit of tension in the action of the game as it asks you to tackle entire sections of the level without stopping or turning back. You either rush through it correctly or get mashed into giblets. The only way to change direction is to walk into a strong light source. The only way to remove the worm is to have it get eaten by bird-type things on the ceiling. I've had to jump over a saw blade I had no choice but to run at.

That all sounds rather difficult but difficulty is not much of an issue for Limbo. The game seems geared almost perfectly to give just the right amount of curve to the game. Only all the really nasty stuff is all the way at the end. The last few puzzles that involved changing the direction of gravity, seemed to be just out of reach for me to grasp immediately while I had managed to figure things out within about five minutes of messing about. It cannot be helped if the developer had one idea about the design and I had another. Thankfully, Limbo has no life system or whatever and usually will allow you to start again after death where you last started from in an instant. Checkpoints are frequent and in logical places. When you might be making mistakes all over the place in an effort to figure things out, it's good not to penalise players for experimentation.

There was something about the controls that made things very difficult though. Limbo goes for a reasonably realistic physics set for the short boy in black, so jumps are kind of crap, running isn't hugely special but it does the job and getting the little guy to climb onto something takes a second longer than I would have liked. But, that old horror vulnerability has been lavished over this so the lack of super powers for our little boy is to be expected. In fact, you must take on a giant spider, traverse roof tops and run from plenty of sharp traps to get to the end. No idea what's going on but the credits come up so I assume it's the end...

Yes, let's talk story. Limbo hasn't really got one. It has a world you can explore and it's pretty and nicely presented like I'm walking through a Black and White photograph but I have next to know idea why I'm running through a run down city. Or why people are trying to kill me. Or where I am. Or who I'm playing as. Or where I think I'm going. In this silent little world, nothing is explained or asked for. It's simply run small child, run from the deadly spider!

However, if you see this on Steam perhaps going cheep, I'd certainly urge you to give it a go. It's entertaining, memorable and full of creativity. It's just that you better like silent movies as you'll effectively be playing one for the next couple of hours.
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeTue Jan 10, 2012 6:18 pm

A break from me documenting my slow journey through a few presents and on to something more traditional for someone in my position. Small and largely unimportant it maybe in the grander scheme of things, I do like sitting here writing about stuff. Especially games. If I'm going to get a job making them, And idea of how to pick one to bits to see how it works it handy. Also, it would just fly round my brain like a...fly...So I'm going to do one of those Wishlist things...But first...

Charlie Brooker's 2011 thing...

I'm not sure anyone outside of England has any idea who Charlie Brooker is. I'm not entirely sure everyone in England has any idea who he is either. So, I'll explain.

Charlie Brooker is a columnist for the Guardian who, for some reason, managed to get a TV show called "Screenwipe" where he could indulge in what seemed to be his favourite thing to do: Review Television. Sort of imagine me, here but mainly focused on TV with a film crew and budget. Now, the thing is that Charlie's style as a satirist is rather honest and has a frank, over-exaggerated and even angry view on stuff. Similar tones used, I dare say, he with in his articles. While he tore through how stupid everything on television seemed to be getting, he educated the audience in how it all works. As well as his and his crews' experiences within the Television world. He then went on to create spin-offs from this show about the news in general to one episode on Computer Games.

I do like Screenwipe and Newswipe and Gameswipe. I would pray nightly for Gameswipe to become a series if God would give me his e-mail. Since they have vanished from our screens for some reason, Brooker was roped into being part of a comedy team of satirists that took the piss out of stuff while the Elections took place. You know, when the whole country accidentally voted two parties into power rather than just the one. That show then seemed to become a series as Channel 4 (Only we seem to get that over here in Blighty, go and Google) using the same guys. This seems to have kept Brooker busy. The only reawakening of any 'wipe' show has been his yearly round-ups of the past year.

2011-wipe was depressing and hilarious at the same time...A bizarre tug-of-war between utter-horror and pitch black humour as though Brooker realised he was depressing everyone a tad with all the horrible things that happened last year. I missed most of this stuff. Like Gaddafi's body being filmed or the world being slowly destroyed (supposedly) by meaningless, weird numbers or mindless, violent rioters. Jeasus! The only way of looking at this stuff is to laugh at it. Comedy requires distance and I'd want to get as far away from this stuff as possible. I thought stuff like SOPA and Protect IP was bad enough, what the hell have I been missing else where? Why the hell are the news putting this stuff up on TV?

The fun seemed to have drained away as the contrast between laughing at stuff and staring in disgust seemed to be massive. It's a depressing, miserable show...

Anyway, a 'Wipe' is just sneering at stuff that desperately needs it, really. From ridiculous pantomimes of round the clock news coverage to obnoxious adverts to TV that makes me want to slap someone. Doesn't matter who...

But I thought I'd try and escape Brookerism; a weird mentality where everything is considered to be putrid filth unless otherwise proven not to be. So, I'm going in the other direction. I'm looking forwards to 2012. With a little wishlist in it's own separate post. Hang on...
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeTue Jan 10, 2012 7:26 pm

Right then! Sod retrospectives! They're clearly depressing and pointless. Let's look ahead shall we?

Tyro's Wishlist for 2011


OK, 2011. We're here now and there's a few things I'd like to get straight. Or at least very heavily imply that would love to happen this year. Ready? All righty then.

1) Don't contain the end of the world as we know it in anyway shape or form. Seriously, what would be the point? We've been joking about those ancient calenders for a good couple of years now. Then the film came out and we laughed at that too. Don't be a dick and actually do it. No body likes trolling the whole of the world.

1 a) And while we're on not ending the world as we know it, tell people still backing SOPA to fudge off!

2) Something more personal; Allow me the funds to buy Back to the Future: The Game, Skyrim, a Nintendo 3DS, Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance, Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

3) Give me the patience and time to finish at least one of my intended projects. Even if it's that weird time travelling thing for Everypony.com.

4) Allow some speed and interest in some of the RP's here to get off the ground...Preferably in the next few minutes. Yes, I would love to get mine off the ground too but there are others that deserve to take flight. Possibly more so.

Firstly, please! Please allow Dr Bullet's RP Painkiller's some life! Dr Bullets is new here and has had no chance to shine. She or he, I forget so I'll alternate, appears to be stark raving mad. I'd love to see his writing technique and ideas come into play as a GM as well as get to meet the oddball characters she would create for this. Also, because I would play as a version of myself that used my laptop in the same way a mage would use an ancient tomb of spells. In not sure even Skyrim could top an emo-boosting power-trip like that and Skyrim has you shouting at Dragons to death.

But if I could have that or Skyrim, then at least let me have the Dragons! Either Erin2341's RP 'The Great Dragon War' should get a go at life or Major Thomas' The Great Dragon Army. It could be awesome to play a character in a group of character's that is charged with saving an entire world from a possible dragon menace. Charging through caves and working together to overcome just one dragon only to discover yet more in the neighbouring peak.

And I would also like my own RP's to pick up a bit too. Like Three Faboulous Toys...It's gone rather quiet...

5) Please have someone else write a review here! I'm not a hundred percent certain I should be hogging this limelight here. Come on! Maybe someone who's been reviewed in their entirety can get some revenge. Or someone who's going to be reviewed at some point could get some revenge before hand. Another voice here might be nice.

6) I hope you'll bring another instalment of the Rayman fanchise. Not this Rabbids pap that's been going on for too long. Nope! Proper Rayman games.

6 a) I hope the technology they used to make that game goes Open-Source, just as Ubisoft said it might, probably...I want to play around with the Ubi-Art Framework, damnit! It looks like fun! Source thingies and the Unreal engine are all nice and MUGEN is all well and good but Ubi-Art looks straight forward and fun! PLEASE let it get onto the internet open-source!

7)Long may Extra Credits run.

8) I would like to see more people writing stories and poetry. Not necessarilly because I can write about them afterwards but because writing about them afterwards motivates me to read them and I'm glad I did afterwards every time. I know I laid into Thepsy's stories quite a bit and voiced some concern about Syl's tendency to gravitate towards a select group of characters over others. However, I thought that Thepsy's ideas there were awesome. So awesome, I'm planning on "borrowing" the one from 'A War Made Easy', if that's all right? And I never once found Joey, or his supporting cast, dull. He's an interesting character that got better and better the more I read about him. Again, if I find the time, I do wonder whether I could borrow the character of Taiju sometime and write something for him. Syl, Thepsy; we could do a swap. How about it?

And I've started flicking through some of the other poetry. I looked through Brandy's last year and now I've been flicking through Savvy's. I must say, "The Immortal" has emerged as a strong favourite so far. Let me blather on about Indie Games for a bit longer and I'll talk about why soon enough.

9) Please let the eccentric old man that's running our nations capital actually hit it off with the Olimpics. Please? He's already buggered up the logo and the mascots for the thing, it can't get any worse, right? We've put so much money into this, it's got to be good, right?

Did I mention that the mascots look like this?
Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 The-London-2012-Olympic-m-011

I'm going to have to have these two demonic cyclops on my TV for weeks at some point in the summer. At least make sure the Olimpics has been done right by the man that's most excited about 'wiff-waff' coming back here. Woo...Table Tennis is coming home...Woo...We'd prefer Andy Murry with a giant gold cup. Or our Football Squad with a giant silver trophy but that's good too...

Wow...Come on Tyro, positive!

10) Have you noticed of late that Disney's not being Disney as of late. Where has all the cash grabbing been? 'Tangled', the latest Disney adaptation of a fairy tale was quick witted and a lot of fun while being able to work some creativity in there. Everything from exploring the Step-mother and forced-daughter relationship to a reasonably interesting depth to adding a fight scene we honestly have never seen: a man sword-fighting with a horse. And his weapon is a frying pan. Yeah! And the next thing their doing? Something that looks awesome with aliens, Conan the Barbarian-style brutality and dazzling prettiness with a story that's meant to be legendary in the science fantasy genre. Wow...I'm not complaining. I want this to continue. A good Pirates film after Pirates 4 would be nice too.

11) Make more Steam Sales appear. Please? Pretty please? With sugar on?

12) I wish to be able to complete the following games: Resident Evil: Outbreak (one and two) and Bit TRIP Bloody Runner!

I hope you deliver 2012. I really hope you do.

PS: If you must insist, they're here: Just click on whatever's there and read.
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeWed Jan 18, 2012 5:19 pm

Right. Back to business.

The Indie Saga

Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Braid_title

Braid

Does any one have a good handle on what the heck is going on here? I think I have a good idea but if anyone has a better idea of what's going on, especially that ending and epilogue? I think there might be references to things like fractured psyche and arguably the best instance of an untrustworthy narrator here. It's an interesting game to lift the lid off of and start poking around in.

Oh! And it's a wonderfully clever puzzle game too.

Braid seems to be a deconstruction of the whole Super Mario Bros. thing and that's the closest to a spoiler you'll get here. It's not overly subtle in it's references to that particular game either. If you rush through the first level, you'll arrive at a castle eventually where a dinosaur will come out, telling you that "the Princess is in another castle". Heh, riiiight...

The only other allusions to the existence of such a character are the books. Now, I know it's an unwritten law that games shouldn't ever be forcing the player to read something that could be conveyed through a more visual way, like a cut scene. But I'm willing to ignore the whole "Show, don't tell" Thing here as Braid has well-written gushy love-stuff instead of any straight forward scenes detailed in the books before each world begins. They're more heavily devoted to emotion than actions like a diary that was written in 3-d person. They serve to introduce the ideas but not specifically tell you what's going on. Braid's plot is more ethereal than tangible.

OK, so you might come for the weird plot just to make sense of what's going on but you'll probably stay for the game play which is inventive and challenging. It's a puzzle game that uses some of the mechanics of Super Mario Bros to have you collect puzzle pieces to then complete a ladder to the final level. But you can't get about 7 levels out of just jumping so Braid throws in Time Manipulation too for good measure. Depending on the level, time becomes a bizzare and potentially Timey-wimey thing that could end up looking like a Snake's mating ball if your not careful. You see, Tim, the little man in the tie you control, has the power to turn back time, Prince of Persia style! There's a massive difference though.

In Prince of Pursia, the rewind button was to fix your mistakes, making the complicated parkour jumpy-jumpy puzzles less taxing as you could re-write mistakes in an instant. But this power was limited in uses.

Here though, the power is unlimited and really does feel like your hitting a rewind button. You even have a fast-forward too. Plus, this power can be used as much as you like, for as long as you like. Screwed everything up? Just start the whole level all over again by speeding up the rewind and waiting the Goomba lookalikes leap back into a cannon and come back to life. Complications set in when certain items will sparkle with some sort of magic that change their behaviour when ever the timey-wimey effects are in play. When you rewind time, that door might stay unlocked and open or that enemy will carry on walking onwards like nothing's happening. These elements are introduced to us then we're let loose to try and use the time conditions available to us to our advantage some how to get that all important puzzle piece. Because's the main aim of the game: collect those pieces to build the puzzles to get to the attic.

The Time Elements really are the jewel in the game's crown, however. The puzzles here, while have a few that I could have never solved myself as they involved thinking in a way I had never imagined, are a good challenge but not overwhelmingly complex. They just need a little 4-D thinking. For instance, one set of levels has the condition that time is relative to your position within the level. Time will fast forward and rewind as you move forwards and backwards. You stop, everything stops. Then you have to use this to get to the ledge where the puzzle piece is. That's just one of the several inventive uses of time in the game.

Before I begin to wrap up, I was curious about one aspect of this game. While it borrows a lot from games like Super Mario Bros. and a little of Donkey Kong even, I was rather surprised to see the return of a mechanic I've not seen for a long while. And it comes from this:

Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 BanjoTooieCover

The bit where you reconstruct the puzzles has been lifted straight out of Banjo Tooie, except without the time limit. I thought it rather...sweet, I guess that this got some sort of homage too in this game.

As long as it is from Banjo Tooie...

Anyway, Braid is well worth your pennies. It's interesting, entertaining and well-written. It will probably keep you guessing all the way through the game. Highly recomended.


Last edited by Tyro on Tue Jan 24, 2012 6:36 pm; edited 1 time in total
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeTue Jan 24, 2012 5:12 pm

Oh for goodness sake....ACTA, why must you exist?!

This will explain things better, I'm sure. The Anonymous spokesman here is a little dull but it's informative. And frightening...


This is just irritating. We just gave SOPA and PIPA a good kicking. Why the hell is this threatening here? Well, it's been in secret debate for three years and might bring about all that 1984 stuff that our good friend Mr Wells has been banging on about for flopping ages. So! Everyone! Let's spread the word about all of this! And please! Do what you can! Bother people that represent you politically to do something because this'll effect all of us, not just America chiefly.

Come on! Let's make some noooiiiise!
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeThu Jan 26, 2012 4:06 pm

Down with ACTA! Come on! It threatens the world!

Anyhoo...

The Indie Saga

Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Thecatandthecoup

The Cat and The Coup

Well...I, err...Errm...I...er...I'll, I'll say this: It's free and it won't take you long...but, err...

Look, I really am not a hundred percent sure what to make of this. Seriously, this 'game' is bizarre and clunky. I barely understood what was going on and there are about four puzzles, although, developers Peter Brinson and Kurosh ValaNejad repeat one of them. Extra Credits mentioned it once and I was curious enough to find it and play it.

It's a really interesting specimen though.

All right. How to describe it? Err...something we might recognise...err...All right, I got it..

Hopefully, you would have seen the famous television show Monty Python's Flying Circus. If you haven't, well then Google is your friend in tracking down what I want you to see which are the animations. Every so often, the show would stop and be turned into the surreal, coloured cartoons made from photo cut-outs and drawings that I generally skip though. Seriously, go! Look these animations up if you have no idea what I'm on about.

It's OK. I can wait. I'm just a long stream of text on a screen after all. Take all the time you need. I'm not going anywhere as long as Thepsy's payed the bills.

Back? Good. The Cat and The Coup is like walking through that but a little more politically charged. It's a very pretty landscape that appears to go along with the story being told. It has a collage, mish-mash look of photos, patterns and drawings. They would probably blend in at almost any art exibit. I'm not an expert, of course, so my expertise stop at "Golly gosh, isn't it pretty!" when it comes to art appreciation. I'll leave it as saying that the art style is unique and fascinating. You'll probably get wrapped up in the game's style, easily.

Oh! And your a small, black cat. That's the cat in all this.

The Coup is the 1953 Iranian coup d'état directed at Mohammad Mosaddegh, former President of Iran. A 'coup d'état' is an illegal, often sudden attempt to overthrow one leader and replace him with someone else. Dr Mosaddegh coup d'état-ed by the intelligence branches of the US and the UK in something named the TPAJAX Project and then something called Operation Ajax. Dr Mosaddegh, once elected as PM, tried to nationalise the oil trade in Iran. England controlled the oil there already and was unwilling to give that up for a multitude of reasons. Soon, they decided to pressure Mosaddegh into giving up with this idea with a boycott of their oil. Soon enough, both nations ran in with armies, removing Mosaddegh from the Prime Minister spot and replacing him by force.

You may put your text books down now. No, there won't be any homework as I've just had to do it for you.

This is a documentary more than a game as you run through the surreal little world bouncing from room to room. You complete simple, quick puzzles and it'll all be over in about two minutes. So, it's weak gameplay-wise. A few surreal puzzles were your trying to get Mosaddegh out of each room and you'll be done. Most of which deal with tipping the whole of the room left or right in order to make things slide into the right place so that something can happen. It has relevance to the time period the room is supposed to be showing us, not what we're actually accomplishing which isn't how I thought it should be. The game made me feel more like I'm outside of the events going on, so less able to get engaged with what's going on more so than "What the hell? It's pretty but, huh?".

It's all lovingly created but confusing. It succeeds and fails to do what it set out to do. The story here is told through a timeline of events but never explains the basics of a narrative like location, characters or even any sort of motivation for the UK or US's coup. We're just following an old man into a few teetering rooms. As a history lesson, it failed to teach me anything.

But! As a spark to the curiosity of the player, this works far better. Effectively, the game doesn't end until you've Googled what was supposed to be detailed here. It sets you the homework of asking what happened and why. Your brain won't be able to get what's going on till then. Hurrah! I've learned a little bit of history about Iran. Cool! Why did I have to do the leg work?

I think it's an interesting, if not wholly successful, experiment in how our medium could branch out. Just because it failed as a learning device on it's own doesn't make it useless. We could study it's mechanics and use it's shell as a template to improve Game Documentaries in the future, providing anyone is going to make more of them. The Cat and The Coup has good intentions and has dared to try. I think, especially if your looking to play something unique or educational from a Game Design standpoint, this is worth a look. Remember, it's free and it's short. You could do worse.
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeTue Jan 31, 2012 6:45 pm

The Indie Saga

Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Eversion_lg

Eversion

Link to the Game

Now, I honestly can't talk much about it without you, yes you, having actually played the game. So go on, find it and play it. Links up there. It's not all that lengthy so you won't be too long without my inspiring and enchanting words of good sentences and word and stuff thats cool that you clearly crave. Go on! Yes! Yes, you! Your not allowed to read what I got hidden until you do. Go!

Don't worry. It's got my approval! I don't bother with percentages and scores anyway so your not missing anything. Just rest asured that I enjoyed this and you should play it.

Wait! Before you, gallivant off there are two versions of this game. One version is the free one from the developers website. The developers being Zaratustra, by the way if your the type to grab-n-go. Like me...The Steam version for about £4 or roughly $6 or about €5 or maybe even 3 hugs, a doodle of your cat and a bag of dreams, is also availiable. For that, you get a few extra stuff like HD graphics, an extra ending and a score table. Either are fine. Still the same game.

All right! OK. Go play and no review till you have. Go on! Like I said, free and short.

Highlight the bellow space when your finished.

Spoiler:
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeWed Feb 01, 2012 5:22 pm

Geez, I remember playing Eversion for the first time. I never actually finished it myself, but it sure managed to be creepy for a game reminiscent of Mario Brothers in play-style.
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeWed Feb 01, 2012 5:28 pm

Ah yes...I've only recently be indoctrinated. It freaked me out even though the friend who suggested it gave away it's true nature before hand. Its that good. Or I'm that much of a whimp, either way...
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeTue Feb 07, 2012 4:19 am

Game Review Hero's been dictating what I've been looking at for a while. I think it's time I did something else. As much as I'd like to add to the string of Indie Games, I'm gonna do what I do best; talk about stuff I'm only just catching up on.

Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Scott-pilgrim-vs-world-review

Scott Pilgrim vs The World


My word...Oh my word, this is a lot of fun.

Edgar Wright. Hit Anime Books. Video Games used as one giant metaphor. Awesome Battle Scenes. Pretty Sweet Music. Kinda Funny too. Awkward Teen Romance Stuff.

I could end it there really. I like this movie. Next chance I get, I'm sticking it on again. It's a strange juggling act where a film has awesome battles with comically oversized weapons with daft choreography, balanced by a story about a love-blinded fool attempting to get the girl of his dreams despite already dating someone. All dressed up with an Anime style of visual metaphor. It's unlike anything you might have thought possible from one of the guys that brought you Shawn of The Dead and Hot Fuzz. They weren't serious minded movies, no. But they're still pretty close to normality compared to this.

Let's start off with the Main character, shall we?

Scott Pilgrim has just come out of a break-up rather badly-scathed. He's behind on his rent, lives with his promiscuous house-mate and is dating a school girl on the rebound. After a dream about a girl with blue hair, Scott spots the dream girl in a shop and has a date with her before breaking up with his current girlfriend. Yes, Scott is a bit of a dopey idiot. He gets dragged around by fantasy and infatuation quite a bit. It leads him into awkward situations that require him to have a certain resilience of character to do things the right way. Instead, he cowers away from such things as breaking up with his current girlfriend before finding another, for example, and must now get away with cheating on them both. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen!

So far, so Rom-Com right? If this was called simply Scott Pilgrim this would actually still be a half decent movie. The cast are colourful and can tell a joke well. Michael Cera seems to be the go to guy for playing a struggling teenager character well. The supporting cast pop in and have their gags and parts of the story that they can help with to make sure it makes sense. They might not pop up all that much but they seem to have been distilled into a more concentrated character to make up for that. They get one or two token lines in the whole thing but it's more of a quirky addition than a forced subtraction. Cheesiness isn't all that abundant in the film and when it is, it seems justified. Or it's countered with an anti-climax for comedy. The ending, for example, when Knives says to "go after her" because Scott fought for her, it feels perfectly fine. To top it all off, there's Wright's style in here too. He is a director that is able to work quick transitions, visual gags and good, over the top action. Just look at Hot Fuzz if you don't believe me. Look at when Sergeant Tony Fisher is first introduced and look at the flip-chart behind his head. Look at how quickly we get from London to Sanford in under roughly 10 mins. And take a look at the awesome gun battle in the Town Square. All of this is here in this film too. It's just done in a slightly different way...

Have you ever seen in an manga or anime random cuts away to something that appears to be utterly unrelated? I can think of one example and it's from Ouran Host Club (what a show...). The first episode when the characters are all slowly discovering that the new recruit is actually a girl despite vaguely looking like a boy. I think she looks around in the middle of both genders but, hey! It's anime, doesn't matter. Did you happen to notice that each time they got a clue about her real gender, a light bulb appeared on screen turning on? Yes, that was a visual metaphor for that character having a sudden realisation. Anime tends to slide towards the arty side of animation where it can convey ideas about what's going on through their visuals quickly. Partly because it's easier as Anime rarely has the same level of fluidity Westen Animation has often due to a large amount of character detail. Partly because of the Directors and that kind of visual style seems to be a running thing over there.

Wright seems to embrace that same kind of visual variety here. The same kind Computer Game themed metaphors of the books are carried over to the screen. So, there's little things like stat bars, collecting extra lives and enemies bursting into coins with points flying out. One of the best parts is when Scott is asked who the girl approaching is. We cut to a gauge in his head that gets stuck between "I gotta pee!" and "Who's her?", resulting in him spluttering "I gotta pee on her." Simple but effective and get's the point across in point two of a nano-second.

As for this style in a broader sense, it seems to be a series of trials to force some character development into Scott as well as jazz up the story with excitement. Scott's Dream Girl, Ramona Flowers, tells him that her evil Ex-Boyfriends are going to try and destroy him. To stay with her, he has to defeat all 7. Yes...They took teen drama and added some Megaman to the mix. As well as other things like maybe...err..Bleach, Dragon Ball Z, Naruto. Anything where people are fighting in huge battles with largely unexplained powers. They are an unexpected but certainly welcome break from the story as everything turns into a comic book for a bit. Or maybe Viewtiful Joe. They are tons of fun that work with the whole idea of the story being Scott having to fight against everything to become master of his own life. Each Evil Ex is a unique character with maybe one quirk about with everything is based around. The Indian guy has fire powers and a Bollywood Dance Number. The Vegan guy is psychic. The DJ Twins fight with music. And on and on. It's done with just the right amount of that video game style of camp that I was washed away with it. Everything in it makes you wish battles like these could happen to you too...

Would I recommend Scott Pilgrim vs. The World? Well, I managed to pick up the DVD for about £4 in HMV. I have no idea where you might be, reader, or what they trade with there but £4 is a good price for a film like this. It's concentrated Game Fandom on top of a decent story, is what it is. That's money spent on a film we probably should have seen already.
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeMon Feb 13, 2012 5:47 pm

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Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D


I wouldn't bother watching this if I were you....You probably already knew it's a bad film anyway. 3D'll do nothing to help.
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeTue Feb 14, 2012 5:04 pm

Wanna know what I'd recommend instead?


Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Cptz50jdjzzb5zjc

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events


Is this a good Valentines film? No. Good lord no but I think it's a beautiful, well-written and often grim story aimed at kids. And really should have been taken further.

A Series of Unfortunate Events is a series of kids books written by Lemony Snicket (the pen-name for american writer, Dan Handler) that's openly dark and miserable in it's portrayal of the world. Three children are placed in the custody of their distant cousin Count Olaf who then attempts to embezzle any inheritance the orphans might have had, mainly through murder. Once he's accidentally found to be an appalling guardian by the clueless banker Arthur Poe, the Baudelaire orphans are taken to a variety of different relatives to become their next guardian. Each one is bumped off by the villainous Count Olaf, using his ridiculous acting abilities to sneak into the children's lives, often murdering the children's current guardian in the hope of getting custody of them again. Each time, the ingenious orphans trump the Count, escaping into the care of the next guardian. All of this is going one with a mystery of the spyglasses throughout this family.

Firstly, I love the anachronistic details of this film. It's all over the place deliberately to bring out the gloomy setting of this film. Snicket and the film-makers don't shy away from the ideas of the book just because it's for kids. There is death, abuse and cruelty here counter balanced by the cleverness of the main characters. But, back to the setting, the Victorian details in what could pass as a relatively modern period with cars and fridges makes for a Poe-esque feel. It's gothic and knows it, choosing to flaunt the strange world the events sits in. The weird creatures in Monty's menagerie or the precariously perched home of Josephine, for example. It makes you sit up and notice any warmth in the colours when they do appear.

Secondly, I really like Jim Carry in this. In other films, I've found him bloody annoying. Ace Ventura is funny, yes, but I couldn't watch it forever. He was al'right as Scrooge but an annoyingly over-the-top Riddler. That's my take on it. Here though? Fits really well. He's clearly just pissing about in the guise of a terribly incapable actor. It works, I think. Carry is seems to always play high-contrast characters that will have strong, obvious characterisation and it's clear here in the way that Olaf is given huge amounts of ego and pride. Carry's Olaf feels the need to fill every single syllable of dialogue with theatrical tones. He even stops the conversation to say something in the way he thinks he ought to have. He's a man that doesn't ever want his show to end, right down to his idiotic plan to get the orphans back.

Thirdly, generally everything else. The film remembers to add some levity to this harsh, grim world. Olaf's bizarre disguises such as Stefano and Captain Sham. Poe completely missing what the Orphans are telling him. The warmth of Billy Connelly's character. The character's of children are good too, effectively sitting into the roles of the knower, the do-er and the muscle. Sort of...Sunny doesn't really count as muscle...except in the jaw department, I guess.

What I find odd is that this film hasn't been picked up and ran with more. I for one, would welcome more of these films. They have room for them and it's not like Jim Carry wouldn't come back. He's mentioned that he had "a lot of fun" in an interview, saying that he could play a variety of characters in one film as Olaf. I'm sure they'll have to replace the children through as the actresses and actors are far older by now. For example, Violet's actress - Emily Browning- was recently in Sucker Punch and probably isn't likely to be able to play a 14-year old all that convincingly. Otherwise, you could argue it's mainly one of those "Shouldn't have released it around the time of the Harry Potter films" victim stories. Quite a shame. Maybe I should go pick up the books instead...
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeTue Feb 14, 2012 5:37 pm

Lovely movie, but it completely bastardized the books. |:
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PostSubject: Re: Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions   Tyro's Critical Reviews and Opinions - Page 3 Icon_minitimeTue Feb 14, 2012 6:00 pm

I couldn't tell you I'm afraid. I grew up on Artemis Foul rather than the books and the film seems to be a mash up of them. I like it all the same on it's own merits, though. I would like to find the books cheep somewhere though.
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