Developer

Developer Summary:

Dive into this rhythm-based rail shooter and track down an artificial being born in an isolated network. As the music drives you and you will drive it. Feel the pulse as every action is represented through rhythm, visuals, and rumble feedback. Straddle the analog and digital worlds to prevent the artificial life-form from gaining control.

What we think:

The thing that most impresses me about the Xbox Live Indie blade is the ability of some developers to make a mash-up of two fundamentally different genres and still create something so satisfying. When I first read OLU described as a rhythm-based rail shooter, I could almost hear the big publishers shuffling in their seats. But so help me, it works.

In OLU, you take control of a hacker who is coasting through network after network in an attempt to track down an insidious AI that will do all in its power to thwart you. Security drone programs will strike back at you, and can be identified as either digital or analog. By switching between your digital and analog tool, you can select the weapon opposite the nature of the current wave of opponents to cause more damage. By locking multiple enemies in your sights at once, you increase the amount of points awarded, and you build towards a weapon burst from each of your hacking tools. One is capable of spraying out a large scale attack on several enemies at once, and the other allows you to lock enemies in place for a few precious seconds. The latter really comes in handy when you find yourself taking on dozens of enemies at once. You control a different interface tool in each of the games levels, and as you chain together attacks on enemies, I noticed that my “cursor” was gaining fortification. This is handy when you are confronted with larger enemies found later in the levels, but it also means you need to be really cautious early on.

The music is bass-heavy, and pulses with your assaults.  Chaining enemies adds to the musical score as they wink out of existence to the ever-present beat.  The graphics are austere, lending just enough to generate an atmosphere that conjured up what I imagined cyberspace looked like when I read Neuromancer years ago.  You feel like you are afloat in giant tunnels of the information network, picking off waves of tiny attackers piecemeal, until suddenly you find yourself boxed in, and are confronted with one of the game’s epic-sized boss battles.  The larger enemies were what impressed me most about the game’s design:  they appear truly massive, and easily dwarf both the player and the smaller enemies, but you never lose the sense that they’re just as much a digital (or analog) creation as anything else in the game.

I didn’t find OLU to be incredibly difficult. The on-rails format kept the game from getting overly complex from a control perspective. However, this didn’t take away from the enjoyment. You’ll still be craning left and right to keep up with the sudden appearances of multiple combatants, and the end-of-level battles will keep you on your toes. When the screen fills up with digital and analogue minions, OLU becomes a tantalizing dance of light and sound.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Title:

Price: 400 Points

Countries: Canada, United Kingdom, United States
Languages: English

Publisher’s Description
Save the city… or destroy it! Play as the hero and save the city by calling in tips, surrounding suspect buildings, and running down the bad guys. Or choose to destroy the city by avoiding the patrolling heroes and setting bombs inside the buildings – leveling the city building by building.

What We Think:
Chalked succeeds where so many other game developing upstarts have failed – the basics.  With simple and intuitive controls, wonderfully inventive and beautifully realized black and white visuals (the characters look like faceless Gumbys) and an awesome soundtrack, this seemingly simple take on Simon – that is, matching button combinations, is rather more challenging and multi-layered than it seems at first glance.

The game actually combines a variety of games – the Simon element, a puzzle solving element involving figuring out what buildings to topple in strategic sequence, and then the classic Pac Man – run from the ghosts element.  You see – you play the role of a miscreant with an insatiable lust for bombing buildings to the ground.  When destroyed, a building dissolves into the ground leaving a space where once it stood.  Then the “good guys” come after you for your misdeed.  It’s not an easy game at first, but it’s easy enough to navigate and fun enough to look at that it holds interest long enough to figure out some basic strategies.

We wish all community games merited the 400 points like Chalked does.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Have you played Chalked? What were your impressions?