Forum | XBLIGR http://www.xbox-360-community-games-reviews.com/forum/action-games Simple:Press Forum Version 4.1.0 Callabrantus on Xbox Indie Game Review of Adrift – Does This Modern Take on Pirates Float Our Boat? http://www.xbox-360-community-games-reviews.com/forum/action-games/xbox-indie-game-review-of-adrift-%e2%80%93-does-this-modern-take-on-pirates-float-our-boat/#p20 Action Games http://www.xbox-360-community-games-reviews.com/forum/action-games/xbox-indie-game-review-of-adrift-%e2%80%93-does-this-modern-take-on-pirates-float-our-boat/#p20 Developed by: Wicked Smiles Studios Genre: Action & Adventure Countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States Price: 240 Microsoft Points (US $3.00) Languages: English Players 1-4, Co-op 2-4, Features: HDTV 1080i, Custom Soundtracks

Developer Summary:

Adrift is an arcade style action oriented 3D game. Players control boats loaded with weapons and command a squad of ai assisted boats. The campaign tells a story of a young Somali pirates climb through the ranks of a deadly pirate organization based in the Gulf of Aden. Invite your friends to join you in co-op story play or fun packed party mode.

What we think:

Pirates of the So-mal-i-a...n....

When I think of a pirate game, some of the first things to come to mind are ummm...parrots...eye-patches...cannons...planks... swashbuckling, I could say more but I would only be serving to further the cliché. I guess what I’m getting at is there are very few games that have ever delved in to the more current pirate genre. Well Adrift is here and they’re swapping cannons for AK’s and planks for..... well... more AK’s. You play as a nameless Somali pirate who is trying to shoot, steer, and steal his way up through the ranks of a powerful pirate organization who is currently at war with multiple other pirate organizations but mostly against those dogs the Gode (shakes fist in anger)....I honestly never knew that pirates were so organized, but I stand corrected. Along the way you encounter other characters who ask for your help as you amass stronger ships and raise your reputation. But the question is, did I want to sail into the sunset, or throw myself overboard?

Rainbow Ships Ahoy!

On the surface (pun intended) this is a good looking indie game. The core graphical element and the environment that you spend all of your time navigating is the ocean, and Adrift does a fine job of recreating your watery warzone. A simple shimmering effect on the ocean’s surface as well as the appearance of a slight cloud-cover overhead help to give the ocean a sense of depth, and If you sit still long enough you can watch tiny ripples scatter about in the sun and your ships rise and fall with the tide. There’s also a nice variety of day-time/night-time missions and although the water is the exact same (just different color) in each setting, It’s a solid enough paint-job to make you feel like you’re in another location. [caption id="attachment_668" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The sea... she’s angry tonight....."][/caption] One slight graphical mis-step comes as your boats carve through the water, at first glance the wake that your cruisers create is well handled and it helps to bring about a sense of speed as the tide extends back further the faster you go, however at times while you’re not really moving, or are just circling about, giant blotches shoot out from your ship for no reason and it looks as though your vessel has been equipped with a Photoshop smudge tool. However the rest of the game sees enough care in other aspects such as a variety of ships types in various colors, each, although simplistically modelled, are varied enough to do a good job of alerting you to what type of ship you’re commanding or consequently what type of enemy you are encountering. Textures are also solid on the boats, water, and even small islands that you come across. The mission briefings are also highlighted with some really well drawn character sketches. Overall the game doesn’t have a stand-out artistic aesthetic, but the core mechanics are solid and do a good job of creating a consistent environment. My major gripe with the games presentation however is in the games audio.

Aflac, Poor Yorick:

I think what started as a minor irritation is slowly turning into a pet peeve for me, and that pet peeve is this: Even though people may have more access to Pro Tools and a microphone, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should be voice acting your games especially when the voice acting is painful at best. This is unfortunately the case with Adrift. Each mission is briefed to you by one of three different voice acted characters; the bad-ass female pirate, the wise general, and of course... the fat crazy Russian...? Each one however sounds as though they are reading word for word from a script, complete with awkward pauses and fumbled words, leaving it somewhere below the original Resident Evil, without the campy horror value (No! Don’t open that door!). Don’t get me wrong, I like the ambition behind it all (and again I know it’s fun to hang out with buddies and read scripts), but if you are going to be selling your games to people, you should make sure that whatever you put into it is quality. The in-game voice clips were so bad they had me laughing at first, and then wanting to mute my TV shortly afterwards. I think I can sum it up this way: I would rather read Hamlet in peace and quiet than have Gilbert Gottfried screech “Alas, poor Yorick” in my ear.  In short, there is no shame in using a scrolling text box.  I used to love old RPG’s simply because I could create what the characters sounded like in my own head and not have to cringe at the poorly delivered Japanese translations. On the other hand, the in-game sound effects work fairly well , with a variety of boat sounds and water crashing to keep things lively out at sea. The gun sound-effect could be a little more convincing though, especially as you level up in weapons power, but for the most part the sound effects help to add a layer of immersion to the often pretty looking scenery. The music is also really well done and deserves a nod.

It’s a Pirates Life for Me... and Three Friends.

Apparently the life of a pirate is nothing if not dangerous. Adrift absolutely backs this theory up in it’s initially punishing difficulty level right out of the gate. Upon starting the game I found myself trying desperately to destroy enemy ships only to be sent plummeting down to Davy Jones’s locker time and time again. No matter what I did, whether it was trying to stay back and fire from a safe distance, or juke and jive with finesse around enemy ships, their sticktoitive, magnetized AI and higher powered weaponry always seemed about 20,000 leagues out of my reach. The good thing about adrift however is you get to keep whatever loot you make after each run and in turn use this money to upgrade your fleet's weaponry, speed and shields. As I was able to gradually beef up my ships offence and defence, encounters became less intimidating and much more fun. I found myself luring ships away from the stashes that they were guarding and into open waters where gun fights now became a test of skill and positioning. This is the ultimate compliment that I can give to its game play, where as in many top-down shooters the action just boils down to a chaotic fire-fest, I actually found myself trying to strategize my enemy encounters instead of just launching myself in all willy-nilly. As you become more and more powerful, you may find yourself taking on more and more opposing ships at once, however it’s never a good idea to just launch yourself into a full-fleet of angry Gode as you’ll more than likely find yourself bunking with the Edmund Fitzgerald. [caption id="attachment_669" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down..."][/caption] There’s a healthy mixture of mission types in this game as well that range from simple loot and pillage runs, to defending your base from enemy onslaughts, to craft retrieval and escort missions. I found that each level did a good job of making me play the mission with slightly different tactics, with only the looting/pillaging and territory defence scenarios feeling vaguely familiar to each other and in turn repetitive. The big bonus to all this though is the ability to play any of the missions with up to 3 friends (quad split screen) or local multiplayer VS games.

At Least it’s not Water World.

Upon listening to the initial mission briefing, I feared the worst for this game. I almost didn’t want to give it a chance, however after trudging through the games frightfully difficult opening level and putting some time into the game play itself I grew accustomed to my new sea-legs. Though a few moments of repetitive game design, and the unfortunate use of voice acting made me, at times, want to abandon ship, the game play itself made it worth taking this skiff out to sea if only for a couple of hours. Who knows?  Costner may have a script for this one yet. [xrr rating=3/5] ]]> Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:38:48 +0000 XNA-Game-Freak on Bricks4Ever - Xbox Indie Game Review http://www.xbox-360-community-games-reviews.com/forum/action-games/bricks4ever-xbox-indie-game-review/#p11 Action Games http://www.xbox-360-community-games-reviews.com/forum/action-games/bricks4ever-xbox-indie-game-review/#p11 bricks4ever cover artTitle: Bricks4Ever Developer: Running Pixel Genre: Action & Adventure Price: 80 Points Countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States Languages: English Developer Summary: A whole new light on the breakout style games world. Play with the double stick mode, enjoy the coop modes and the 50 levels. Play for ever with the neverending mode and the relaxing Zen mode; hours of fun for all the blocks/bricks games fans!  Ready for the challenge? What Our Reviewers Think: Bricks4Ever is a classic arcade-style brick breakout game.  At fifty levels, plus a randomly generated infinite level mode, its a decent sized game for the price. The graphics are a little on the retro side, but rightfully so. Mixed with higher resolution and bright colors, they add a great overall feel to the experience.  The co-op mode seems tacked on. This is the style of game you play by yourself.  As much as I enjoyed it, I can only give this one a two for originality - it's not hard to go wrong with a classic proven game-style especially when many of these XNA developers are essentially retro modding already working templates; the breakout game has been done and redone so many times they all kind of blend together and there is nothing ground-breaking about this latest execution which will likely fade away into obscurity. On the positive side, it has a great soundtrack, some decent glowing neon graphics and a list of power-ups that seem to comprise almost all the iterations you have seen in previous versions, rolled into one package.   Twin stick mode?  You will love it or hate it - imagine another platform on the opposite side of the field that you also control.  You can use it to steer the ball from both sides for more accuracy, but purists may find it just gets in the way.  If you feel like revisiting Arkanoid, this time with extra KoolAdeTM crystals, then 80 Microsoft points will be a small sacrifice to pay, it is among the better breakouts on XBLIG, not that that's saying much. [xrr rating=3/5] ]]> Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:00:12 +0000 XNA-Game-Freak on Paint Boll - Xbox Indie Game Review http://www.xbox-360-community-games-reviews.com/forum/action-games/paint-boll-xbox-indie-game-review/#p9 Action Games http://www.xbox-360-community-games-reviews.com/forum/action-games/paint-boll-xbox-indie-game-review/#p9 paint_boll_xbox_artTitle: Paint Boll Developer: CandelaCreations Genre: Shooter Price: 80 Points Countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States Languages: English Developer's Summary: Shoot paint balls at your opponent and hit the most splashes or collect max bonus points to win. 5 independent levels including level customization for personalizing challenges. May the best player win! What We Think: For this game you need two players, so scratch out playing if you are a lonely gamer looking for some "shoot-em-up fun." It's a basic set up with minimal places to hide and in the end I found it rather boring. I do like the premise and I think the creators should elaborate on it, make it for 1-4 players with more hiding areas...or obstacles in the way that would defer your attention to your opponent. With all the amazingly artistic and creative indie game ideas emerging on the market, I give it 2 out of 5 stars. For the idea, the work that was put into it...but I think it is a work in progress that has room for further development. I'd definitely want to play this game if it was more exciting, or in other words, elaborate. [xrr rating=2/5] ]]> Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:29:27 +0000 Ighuaran on Review: I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!1 for Xbox Live Indie Games http://www.xbox-360-community-games-reviews.com/forum/action-games/review-i-maed-a-gam3-w1th-z0mb1es1-for-xbox-live-indie-games/#p7 Action Games http://www.xbox-360-community-games-reviews.com/forum/action-games/review-i-maed-a-gam3-w1th-z0mb1es1-for-xbox-live-indie-games/#p7 Sun, 27 Sep 2009 05:12:17 +0000 XNA-Game-Freak on Review: I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!1 for Xbox Live Indie Games http://www.xbox-360-community-games-reviews.com/forum/action-games/review-i-maed-a-gam3-w1th-z0mb1es1-for-xbox-live-indie-games/#p6 Action Games http://www.xbox-360-community-games-reviews.com/forum/action-games/review-i-maed-a-gam3-w1th-z0mb1es1-for-xbox-live-indie-games/#p6 zombies artCreator: Jamezila Genre: Top Down Shooter Players: 1-4 Price: 80 Points Countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States Languages: English Developer Summary: This video game product represents a culmination of years of intensive psychological research, bleeding edge engineering, and artistic collaboration by over two dozen internationally recognized art houses, using such technologies as the HYPERMAGIC 3.0 engine to power never-before-seen eye candy with the MEGACORE X parallelization processor for smooth-as-glass presentation. What We Think: I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1, more commonly referred to as I Made a Game With Zombies, is a relatively recent addition to the growing XBLA Indie Game lineup. Featuring a twin stick shooter setup, the action will be immediately familiar to anyone who has played the XBLA game Geometry Wars.  In Zomb1es you play the part of, well, a tiny character running around a landscape riddled with zombies.  There are numerous weapon power ups at your disposal, including such zombie bashing classics as the flamethrower, the shotgun, and the machine gun, while adding new favorites like a missile launcher and a weird green tri-attack-star-shooting-thinger.  You’ll also enjoy the occasional extra life, speed boost, and temporary shield.  As you shoot more zombies, the game begins warping to include netherworld like backdrops and puddles of green slime, among other odd creatures. zombies for XBOX 360 In all of the simplistic glory that unfortunately too often comes with an Indie Game, I would hesitate to call title truly original or even mildly thought provoking (unless of course you aren't fluent in l33tsp3Ak and are caught in the headlights by the game's actual title). That aside, Zombies still has a lot of good things going for it. The graphics are both polished and smooth, the controls are very responsive and the addictive soundtrack is comprised of one long song hammering on about making a game with, well, zombies in it.   At 80 Microsoft points, the zombie killing is frantic, the pace is unyielding, and most importantly, the game costs 80 points. Next time you're thinking about getting a candy bar, a can of soda, or 1/3rd a gallon of gas, save yourself the trip and purchase this game instead. [xrr rating=3.5/5] Get I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!1 at the XBOX Live Marketplace ]]> Mon, 21 Sep 2009 02:19:47 +0000