First Taste - Wings (Gameboy Advance)

Heylo everyone! GBA week continues with Wings!

It's a flying game! You take on the role, at least initially, of a fighter pilot in the British military during World War One. You fly the plane, shoot other planes, and go all "Bwahaha" about it!

Except...the game is terrible. Maybe I'm not used to plane games or something, but the controls just felt absolutely terrible and like I wasn't able to really control anything! Like, in the very first stage I had to shoot down a German plane, and they put it in my sights right away, which was nice of them, and then it flew past me...and I never saw it again. It was behind me the entire time and there was no way for me to turn hard enough to ever regain the advantage! So I got shot down. Then I had to make a new pilot, had a top-down view as opposed to the previous cockpit view, and...the controls were still loose and horrible feeling as I tried and half-failed to bomb some German bases.

The music and sound are nothing to write home about either. They just sound like the typical noises of a low budget handheld game, and that's never all that pleasant...

And that's about how I'd describe this game on the whole. It's just not pleasant. >.<

First Taste - March of the Penguins (Gameboy Advance)

Heylo everyone! I've decided this week I'm going to do a theme week... That theme is going to be just, in general, the Gameboy Advance! So each post will be on a GBA title. :3 And starting off the pack is....oh. Um...March.. of the Penguins... Wasn't this basically a documentary?... How...do you even make a game of this?

By...making a Lemmings sorta game, I guess! You have a buncha little options and stuff to go and get the penguins past obstacles to safety and all that and...well, I dunno... I've never been big on Lemmings type games, and this one I didn't get very far into either because the stage was huuuuuuuuuuuuuge. And it told me not only did I have to get all the penguins to the end of the stage, I had to collect a buncha snowflakes and I just couldn't figure out how to get the penguins up there to grab some of them.

The music was nice and relaxing, and it makes me wonder if perhaps it was just a chiptune version of music from the movie.. I've never seen it, after all... But really there isn't a whole lot to say. And that pretty much sums up my feelings entirely about the game... I just don't know what to say.

First Taste - Death vs. Monsters 2 (Flash)

Heylo everyone! Just a quick one today, I'm afraid... It's another flash game! In it you play as, presumably, Death! And you fight monsters.

Aesthetically speaking, the game is alright. It's somewhat cute, and very simple in design. The music flows well and it's really a very simple, but well presented package.

Where the game falls off for me a bit is in the gameplay... It's pretty tight, and the game in and of itself is actually fairly fun. But at the same time, the way you fight the monsters is with a constantly-shooting attack...that trails behind you. If you move up, then the 'gun' positioning will place it behind you and will shoot down. This makes it a lot more difficult to aim where you want as compared to the keyboard-and-mouse or dual keyboard "Twin stick" models that you'd normally see in a shooter like this.. They do help you out a little bit by letting you hold the mouse button down to "strafe", or lock the 'gun' in place. However you wanna call it! But even still, this can be awkward.

I just don't really have much to say about this game... It's okay, but nothing amazerating, or bad, or anything... For now, I guess I'd say it's salty. But honestly it's closer to bland than anything..

First Taste - Rogue Soul (Flash)

Heylo, everyone! Once again we're poking around at Kongregate.com to see what sorts of games we might find! This time around I went with Rogue Soul by Soulgame and either "produced" by, or just made in conjunction with Notdoppler or..something like that!

You play as a..erm, character? I'm really not sure if they are supposed humans or not.. It might be just a race created by the developer to use! (As I think sometime in the past I played another game of theirs but I don't recall what it was off-hand...) Anyway, seems he's a thief! And he wants to be the most infamous guy with the biggest price on his head! ...Erm, for some reason, and so he goes on a stealing and guard-defeating spree!

Really. That seems to be about the long and short of it! The game plays like many others of its type. Said type being the auto-scrolling reactive running sort of game! You run and jump around to avoid enemies and obstacles as you try to simply get as far as you can and gather up as many points worth of goodies as you can. Honestly it doesn't feel a whole lot different than most other games like it, eeeexcept for one little thing that makes a big difference... You only get three shots. And once all three have been used up, it's game over and you have to start again. As for my thoughts on this....that'll come later.

Musically speaking, the game doesn't really jump out with anything memorable, but it's also nothing unpleasant. Just nice flash game music. Good for where it is, but not something I'd listen to outside of the game.

Honestly I found this to be a rather sweet experience! And it's specifically because you have limited tries. So many games nowadays, especially flash games, hold your hand with nigh infinite attempts until you finally complete the goal. A lot of times this is specifically the point of the game, as you do terribly to start with and then just keep buying more and more upgrades to make it easier and further. Most of these auto-scroll running games are like that. And while that's all well and good, it means the game is more an exercise of patience than anything truly skill related. That's where this game shines, as to get further in it you need to get better, and start recognizing patterns. There are no upgrades at all. Just the required temp-items found in-game. This does make the game a great deal less likely to be beaten, but at the same time as I've said, I actually like that in a flash game. It makes me feel like the time I put into it will be well worth it!

First Taste - bit Dungeon (Flash)

Heylo, everyone! Oh my today's game was fun! bit Dungeon (No that's not a typo!) is an action-roguelike flash game that you can find on Kongregate.com at least, perhaps elsewhere as well, in which you take the role of...well, a nameless hero of some sort as you traverse the dungeon to..um...do something.. Okay, yeah, this game doesn't seem to have any sort of real story that I can see... ^.^;

However! The game itself is still wonderful! It's a game that revels in sprite graphics.. You know that kinda game... Where everything is all intentionally bit-y? Like, some people might call it 8-bit or 16-bit or whatever depending on exactly what it's most akin to, but it still doesn't quite fit those... But yeah, that kinda game! I just wish I could think of an example off the top of my head... ^.^;

The music is very unobtrusive, but if you like chiptune music it will definitely stick with you while you play. Sound effects are of a similar breed!

The gameplay itself is wonderfully simple. Do you have a mouse? Do you know how to right click? Then you know how to play the game. :3 It's really very automated as clicking will move your character around, and he'll attack nearby enemies automatically. You can perform a special attack(and block!) by holding down the button! And really that's about it! You explore the rooms, slay the monsters, compare and change about equipment, and continue forward on your quest to do...something.

It's sweet. :D