matt-likes-swords's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Angry Bees]

Well that was a fun wee game. The presentation was great; cute graphics and even a few animated cutscenes.

I found the levels way too easy though, and they started to get a bit repetetive, but luckily the game was quite short so it never became grindy.

[Canary]

Very impressed to see some interesting puzzle mechanics in a sidescrolling shooter! The cutting and gravity puzzles sure added a lot to the game, and the level designs were amazing and clever. Almost every level introduced a new enemy or obstacle, so things were always interesting.

The advanced physics made it fun to play around with stuff, though also lead to a few bugs... but overall they weren't frequent enough to ruin the game for me.

The game presentation was great; the graphics, music and plot are all simple yet appealing and polished.

However, as many people have mentioned, the difficulty was a bit cheap. Most often I was killed by the scrolling screen. This is especially frustrating when you have to figure out a new puzzle or remove a wall, and you're really forced to play through trial and error, and memorize what's up ahead. That's bad game design, especially for a Flash game. Either a more forgiving scroll speed or some checkpoints would really help out and make death less frustrating. Or you know, you could add an easy mode.

A bigger screen resolution would be nice too. I noticed that stuff that's off-screen behaves normally, which is annoying when enemies shoot projectiles back onto the screen.

Another huge problem is that there's a lack of collectables and upgrades. People love those. They add replayablity and mean that even if you keep dying, it's not so bad if you can retry with new upgrades. HP and attack improvements wouldn't even be hard to implement, and having some other items to collect would make the score system more fun.

So overall, the game mechanics and presentation were awesome, but the pace of the game could really be improved by reducing the difficulty or adding some collectables.

I'm hoping to see a sequel with that stuff fixed!

[Burrito Bison Revenge]

I'm starting to see a recurring theme in your games: GRINDING.
Grinding should be there for players who aren't very good at a game and need some more power ups to get through. I should be able to afford an upgrade after every successful run, instead of every 2 or 3.

Well anyway, I guess your strategy for selling in-game money is working, since you keep doing this...

Anyway, I love everything about your games except all that.
The visual presentation and sound effects are always awesome.

[Untouchable]

Fun wee game.

At first I thought it was a bit shallow and generic, but when going after the Untouchable medal I learnt a lot of tricks and it turns out there's quite a lot of strategy required. At first I thought it would be really hard, but I got the medal after only 3 attempts. Just had to learn to ration my bullet time, identify and quickly destroy the most dangerous enemies, and remember to keep a look out for power ups.

Anyway, although it was a pretty short game, there was a fair bit of variety in the enemy types, and the humor added a bit of fun as well.

Only thing that I felt was missing was a bomb attack to clear the screen. Would have been nice to get at least 1 or 2 of those, since you don't get any breaks in the action.

[Gravity Duck 2]

Why can't I press a key to start the next level? What's the point of having to use the mouse for that?
I guess it's so that people have a chance to click that GIANT "more games" button. I think you've really overkilled it a bit with those links...

Anyway, I'm playing this because I enjoyed the first game, and this one's pretty enjoyable too.
Love your pixel work as usual.

It's a bit on the short and easy side, but I'm not really complaining.
A level editor would indeed be pretty nice.

[William and Sly 2]

Amazing

Most people have probably already said this, but the graphics were amazing; probably the best I've seen in a flash game. That and the music make a really mysterious and relaxing atmosphere.

In terms of gameplay there's a lot of improvements over the original; the last few items are easier to find thanks to the power ups, and there's no tedious boss fight. Still it does feel more like a remake than a sequel, the basic goals and mechanics of the game are the same. That's not really a bad thing though.

Can't really think of much improvements, but there were a few minor things;
I'd like to have a small version of the map on-screen at all times in the corner, because it's a bit annoying when it blocks the screen. Also having to press Escape to remove text is a bit awkward, could it not have been Enter instead?

Kajenx responds:

Hey dood, thanks for the review! I didn't realize we'd be submission rivals or I probably would have wanted to wait, haha. Hope your game does well! :3

[Particle Wars Extreme]

Sparkly

Extreme difficulty should be the normal difficulty.
Easy and hard difficulties were really boring to play through, and felt pretty grindy. At the very least beating levels on a harder difficulty should get you the achievements for the lower difficulties, beating the game 3 times is a bit much...

Anyway! The scoring system is fun and keeping your combo seems to be the main challenge, and that works well. The music is amazing and the whole visual style has a lot of energy.

The animations at the end of levels and at the start of frenzy mode are a bit long and boring to watch after you see them a few times, it'd be nice if they were skippable.

Overall; nice game but it goes on for too long. Levels should be shorter but harder in my opinion.

Also I can't seem to find how to get the LIKE ON FACEBOOK medal. I'm probably missing a really obvious button somewhere, but somehow I've not noticed it... help plz.

ZEGMAN responds:

Thanks!
I agree with the difficulty and unlocking the previous medals when you're on higher difficulty! Noted and used to improve my next game :D
Thanks for the feedback, the like on fb button is on the screen where you get game over, click the facebook icon.

Thanks for the 10 and review man

[Bullet Audyssey]

Too original

The whole grazing-bullets-to-get-energy thing took a while to get into. I'd like to be able to shoot normally, and maybe use grazing for a bit of extra power. That said, I got used to it after 3 levels or so, but it does create a bit of an entry barrier.

I didn't find myself using the bullet-time at all, because I'd rather put energy into attacking. I think bullet-time would have been better off as an extra power up, rather than a core feature. Would have liked a more traditional slow-down/focus ability.

But maybe that's just me. I play a lot of shooters and don't really care if they are original or not, I just want them to be easy to pick up and get into. Speaking of which, I found this one very easy. I only died twice in the whole game, but I guess I'm not really complaining about that.

Anyway, the lack of mouse controls is a pretty big issue. I'm personally not bothered, but it's going to limit your audience a lot since it's a pretty standard feature in Flash shooters. The key-sticking browser bugs don't help either.

And here's some extra minor complaints:
A bigger variety of enemy bullets would have made levels a bit more memorable, as they all looked pretty similar.
The enemies themselves looked rather plain, though otherwise the art syle was cool.
A sound to signal maximum charge would have been nice.

Anyway, although there's some room for improvement, I enjoyed the game a lot, and liked the whole music theme going on.

[Bullet Maze]

bullets

Felt it was pretty easy at first, but it got pretty hard towards the end.
It would be pretty nice if you could skip levels after a few tries and come back to them later, would make some parts less frustrating.

Also, I noticed that your ball doesn't quite move in the direction of your mouse if your mouse is at say, a 30 degree angle to it and quite far away. The ball moves vertically and horizontally at the same speed in this case, and reaches the mouse on one axis long before the other axis, when it shouldn't. It's hard to explain... but you gotta fix that.

[Flur]

pretty fun for a while

I liked how the game mechanics were pretty self explanitory and you didn't have to go through any tutorials, and the music gives it a nice atmosphere.

A bit too casual to keep me playing for very long though.