Lab 14

Lab 14 by SuperCasey4 is a platform puzzler, though a very nontraditional one.

Achievement Unlocked

Achievement Unlocked by Armor Games, published in 2008, is a flash platform game and parody of metagaming.

The player controls a small blue elephant on a single screen, which can run and jump and fall and die and not much else. The goal of the game is to unlock the achievements listed on the right, for which only the titles can be seen until they are unlocked.

By my count, 15 of these achievements can be unlocked simply by starting the game and standing still, although it looks like one of them shouldn’t be unlocked that way and is a bug. Most of the achievements can be unlocked just by stumbling around, and the way to unlock most of those that remain can be divined pretty easily from their titles and the nearby achievements. The last few that I got I had to look at the hint page for, but fortunately that’s an achievement, too.

The game ends when all 100 achievements have been unlocked.

Achievement Unlocked can be played here.

Gameplay: 8/10

The controls do what you’d expect. More importantly, achieving the achievements is pretty nice. I spent about fifteen minutes on it, which wasn’t long enough for me to get bored with it, so I’d say that the game is a success.

Graphics: 3/5

Even as flash games go, the graphics aren’t so good, but since that’s not really the point, only half weight.

Sound: 7/10

The music isn’t really annoying, but it is a bit repetitive. The sound effects are okay.

Personal Slant: 8/10

I enjoyed this, especially since I’m a spade, and it didn’t go on too long. Nice.

Total: 7.4/10

This game doesn’t take long, and it’s pretty amusing. We need to laugh at ourselves, so why not give it a shot?

First Impressions: The Adventures of Rad Gravity

The Adventures of Rad Gravity is a platform shooter by Activision.

The game begins by giving us our mission: to discover teleport locations by infiltrating the computers on the planet below.

With this goal in mind, we are sent down to begin. The enemies are rather odd, and the level designs leave a great deal to be desired.

It isn’t obvious from these pictures, but certain of the blocks which make up the scene can be walked through, and others must be jumped over. There’s no particular indication which is which, although I think that they are color coded.

After passing through a few screens, we encounter these robots, which are initially very difficult to kill. The weapon we have at the beginning is some sort of energy knife or something, and its range is about the width of Rad’s body. The robots move fairly quickly, so you have to tap the button pretty quickly as well in order to kill them.

As you move through the level you pick up powerups, including additional life bars and a gun, which seems to be slightly less powerful than the knife, but has the enormous advantage of being a ranged weapon.

Not all the levels are identical, as you can see in the above screencap. The thing with the up/down arrows on it is a sort of elevator (which I got stuck on and had to jump to disembark), and the thing center-right is a teleporter.

Here we see an example of extremely stupid level design. Every horizontal line is a surface, so you can–if you release buttons at the right moments–move yourself to whichever height you desire. Of course, it’s much easier to dodge the electricity (which is bouncing between the ceiling and floor) when you’re at the bottom of the screen, since it gives you more time to run past it, so there’s no particular reason you want to be anywhere except on the the ground.

If it weren’t for the rather painful graphics and horrible level design, Rad Gravity might be a pretty good game. If you can stomach those faults, give it a try.

First Impressions: The Adventures of Captain Comic

This time a platformer, The Adventures of Captain Comic.

Like The Adventures of Bayou Billy, Captain Comic is frustratingly difficult. Most of the time, there are three or four enemies on the screen at once, and they respawn a few seconds after you kill them.

The level designs place many obstacles in your path, and though the controls are generally quite responsive, I found it difficult to manage the fine control to move on small platforms without running off into the abyss.

There were several different areas with unique backgrounds and enemies, each of which had different movement patters. This variety is nice, but unfortunately each area is similarly difficult.

Having read a guide after my attempt, it seems like some of the areas seemed so totally unfair because I tackled the game in the wrong order, but the complete lack of guidance made it impossible to know just what I ought to have done. Were it not for the benefit of save states, I’m sure I would have given up before seeing the third area, for the effort to get through the game is completely disproportionate to the entertainment granted.

The game looks fairly good for an old NES game, the music, though very repetitive, isn’t bad, and the controls are good if a bit too enthusiastic. Unfortunately, the game’s difficulty more than compensates for these positive points. I can’t recommend the game unless you don’t mind frustration.

First Impressions: The Addams Family: Pugsley’s Scavenger Hunt

Another Addams Family-themed platformer, in which you play as Pugsley who (apparently) has to rescue his family.

Much like the previously-reviewed Addams Family game in which you play as Gomez, this is a pretty standard platformer.

I have no idea what’s wrong with Pugsley’s eyes. The other graphics are pretty decent, but the character sprite for our hero is kind of… bad. But that’s not a major issue.

You can run about outside the mansion or enter it to find several doors, each apparently leading to a quest to rescue a particular family member.

The stairs are a bit annoying, since you just run right off the side if you keep going. You have to jump back to the left in order to ascend them, which is a bit of bad design.

Once you choose a door, you are presented with the usual obstacles: enemies, projectiles shot by those enemies, blocked doors, and spikes (or something) on the floor that kill you. Additionally, there are hints scattered about that tell you what you should be doing.

I didn’t actually rescue anyone, but this game seems like it could be pretty decent. Probably better than the previous Addams Family game, so worth a try.

First Impressions: The Addams Family

This one is a platformer in which you play the part of Gomez Addams.

It’s actually a pretty standard platformer. Collect the treasures, avoid the enemies and spikes.

I’m not totally sure what the goal is, since I couldn’t quite work out how to exit the level, but I doubt it’s anything special. This game does seem to have rather uneven level designs. The above pictures show the usual screens: walk right and jump over the bad guys, or bounce off of their heads. On the other hand:

This is way too many spikes for a single screen. I couldn’t get through this part after a few tries, so I gave up and tried another screen.

In all, this is an average platformer with nothing special to set it off from the rest, as far as I can tell from playing the first level. Try it if you want to play every platformer ever, but otherwise the mario games are much more worthwhile.

First Impressions: 8 Eyes

This game is like Castlevania, except much, much harder.

When the game begins, you select which country to play in first. I understand that it’s something like Megaman: play in the wrong order, and the game is much harder.

The game really looks quite a lot like Castlevania, and plays similarly, too, with one major difference: in 8 Eyes, you have a falcon with you, and some enemies can only be destroyed by the falcon. Unfortunately, you only have control over the falcon when there are two players–the second player controls the falcon. With one player, the falcon just flies left and right, and your control is limited to telling it to swoop down to attack or return to your shoulder.

The result of this lack of control is that the game is way too hard with one player, and I can’t imagine why anyone would play it just to control the falcon. Give this one a miss.