Sneezies Review (PSMinis)

            When I watched a video of Sneezies, I thought it looked really interesting; extremely simple and cute, yet with a cool chain reaction mechanic. Although I typically go for much crunchier gameplay, I wanted to give it a try. It's my belief that very simple games with good graphical design can be a lot of fun despite the hate they sometimes get. Unfortunately Sneezies is much less of a game than I thought it would be.

            In the game, a bunch of Sneezies (cute, colorful, round creatures) float around in bubbles on the screen. They are constantly in motion. You move a cursor around and can drop one blast of sneezing powder by pressing X. Any Sneezies the blast touches will sneeze, which pops their bubble and lets out another blast of sneezing powder, hopefully causing a chain reaction. They then parachute to safety. Some levels feature just a few Sneezies and some feature close to 100. Unfortunately there isn't too much strategy to Sneezies. You can try to optimize your drops, but it all seems to work out pretty randomly. I try to drop between two Sneezies as they are moving apart so that the chain reaction spreads throughout the screen. I tried a few other strategies too. But it seems that you get a pretty similar result if you just press X randomly. Your goal is to get a certain number of Sneezies to pop their bubbles and fall off the screen. Usually you need to get almost all of them.

            Watching the Sneezies sneeze and cause big chain reactions is amusing, but the game wears out its welcome with its length. A full game of Classic mode is close to 50 levels and seems to take forever. The game might have had some potential for high score chasing with friends if you could play it in five minutes, but it's hard to imagine ever playing it again after sitting through over an hour of sneezing.

            There are four game modes. Classic has you go through progressively harder and bigger levels. Easy mode is like Classic mode but you get a second drop of sneezing powder if you don't beat the level on your first. Score Ex mode gives you an increasing amount of points for each Sneezy you get in a level, as opposed to Classic mode, which gives you 1 point per Sneezy. Challenge mode is slightly different than the other modes. In it, you get 5 drops of sneezing powder and try to reach a goal number of Sneezies. After each drop, more Sneezies are added to the screen. If you drop 75% or more in a single drop, you earn another drop. Unfortunately this mode is really easy, and you can meet most of the goals by mashing the X button. After completing Classic mode, I quit Challenge mode after about ten levels as I was really bored. I was starting to miss drops on purpose to hurry things along when I met the goal, and I did that thing where you start to fall asleep and almost drop what you're holding; in this case, the controller.

            The animation and sound of the Sneezies themselves is quite good, and it's cool to see a huge chain reaction go off, or to watch a hundred sets of blinking eyes watching you, waiting for the powder to drop. The sneezing sounds are pretty amusing, which is good since you will hear them a lot. Unfortunately the backgrounds are pretty bad looking. The music is passable; a gentle guitar and some other subtle stuff. After awhile it's annoying though.

            Sneezies would be cool as a mini-game or a mechanic within another game, or if there were more interaction to it. As it stands, an animal could literally be trained to press X and could beat the game and beat your high score. A game like that could still be silly fun, especially if you had a high-score rivalry, but no one is going to play this game for an hour to try and beat your high score. I'm sad to say it's a bad game, tier 1. 

Strength of the Sword 3 Review

            Strength of the Sword 3 is the long-awaited ending to the long-running trilogy... just kidding. There actually isn't a Strength of the Sword 1 or 2, just 3. The developer says this is because they start by ending their trilogies... or something. This weird kind of humor/ attitude is all over the developer's website and in a few spots in the game, and I know it sounds like it would be annoying, but I like it.      

            This is a melee-based action game that brands itself as a game where you will die a lot and have to learn from your mistakes and keep trying. And indeed, this is true. Any enemy from the simplest grunt to the final boss can kill you in just a few hits, and you will die many times. Fortunately, like many hard games in this vein, the difficulty and gameplay are pretty finely tuned, and the process of dying, learning, and finally succeeding is very gratifying.

            Unlike many other such games, this one is pretty short. There are 11 levels, and each only takes around five minutes to beat. A straight run through is less than an hour. A straight run-through is not going to happen though, due to the many deaths needed to learn how defeat each group of enemies.

            The game has a quite thematic and well-done little story which is told almost entirely through wordless, textless cutscenes that depict simplified, cardboard cut-out versions of the game's characters on this neat rotating map. An underground evil is corrupting and invading the land, so God sends down a mechanical warrior (the War Golem) to set things right. That information is communicated  very effectively through the opening cutscene. It's actually pretty ingenious. A few more cutscenes like this show the War Golem's journey to the source of the invasion. These cutscenes are really amazing, but unfortunately about half of them have noticeable slowdown. It's really weird, because they are pre-rendered movies. The game's ending is also very cool, does something I've not seen done before in a game. I'm really biting my tongue here to not give it away. It's very cool. I've heard the game's creators say that the game has only the most basic story as most of the focus went into the gameplay, but what is here is very well done. Most games that try to have a story would do well to take note of this game's style of communication and interesting ending.

            In each level, you are in a round-ish arena and have to fight a few waves of enemies. Waves usually consist of one to five enemies, and there's usually three or four waves to a level (or just one in the case of boss fights). There is no camera control. You automatically lock onto an enemy and then always keep them in front of you. You can switch which enemy you are locked on to with L1 and R1. The camera will very often go outside of the arena, and when it does the walls will turn translucent so that you can still see what is going on. In general I feel that idea is not ideal, but it's implemented pretty well in this case. Another quirk about the camera is that the game is letter-boxed a bit on the top and bottom. This seems a bit strange, but allows for some interesting ideas. The way the screen shakes when you take big hits is enhanced by this frame. The frame itself also moves around, narrowing even more when you charge an enemy, and even rotating to focus the action in when you do certain finishing moves. The game also employs slow-motion when enemies or the player perform certain attacks. This isn't over-used, so it's actually very cool, especially since the game has really great animation. All these display quirks sound kind of wonky, but each one is actually pretty well-done, and together they give a pretty unique perspective on the action. Because it's so unique, it takes some getting used to, but it's really impressive and functional once you understand it.

            R2 is your dodge/ charge button. Tapping it and a direction makes you roll out of the way. The game handles this in an interesting way. Most of the time, if you are in your dodge animation, attacks won't land on you even if they physically hit you character model. It's an interesting idea and is implemented pretty well. Pressing R2 and forward toward an enemy puts you into charge mode, where you rush at an enemy and are able to perform a bunch of attacks that can only be done while charging. Dodging and charging both drain a meter on the left side of the screen that re-charges rather quickly when you aren't dodging or charging. This prevents you from constantly rolling around as you can't dodge or charge when the meter is drained.
           You move the War Golem with the left stick. Square is your basic slash attack. Triangle is the stab attack, which works a bit differently than in other games. When you stab most enemies with your sword, you also grapple them. You then can repeatedly stab them by mashing triangle. You release them by pressing square. If you wait too long to release them, they will gain the upper hand and knock you off, causing you to take damage. This is visually represented by a kind of arc that appears above the enemy when you stab them. The angle of the arc moves as the enemy prepares to throw you off, and when the release prompt changes to red, you better start mashing square!.

            X is jump. Circle is block. Each shield has two different ratings, its defense and its durability. The higher the defense, the more powerful attacks the shield is able to block. The higher the durability, the more hits the shield can take before breaking. This is represented by a blue bar above your health. If this bar is depleted, your shield breaks, and you no longer have a shield for the rest of the level. For me, this didn't really come into play too much. I wasn't big on blocking for most of my time with the game, and when I was, I only had my shield break on me once. Mashing circle when you have taken a big hit also helps you get up faster or land on your feet if you were knocked into the air. If you have taken a big hit and are on the ground, you can also roll around to dodge attacks with the left stick.

            Moving the right stick pauses the game and lets you select an item to equip by pointing the stick at it on a wheel. Well, actually this doesn't pause the game, it just puts it into super-super-slow motion. You can still get hit if you were a mili-second from getting hit, and you can still see movement, which is really cool. Once equipped, you use an item by pressing L2. Items include weapons, such as throwing knives and grenades, and recovery items like a health pack and a mana pack that refills your mana bar. Certain attacks require mana, which you can refill using packs, executing finishing moves and double-kills (and a few other maneuvers), or by holding circle and up on the left stick. You can't move while manually charging like this, so there is an interesting dynamic of needing to build up mana while enemies aren't attacking.

             The main story mode introduces you to new enemies, items, and swords and shields as you go along. You typically fight a few rounds of enemies and then a boss level, and then you move to a new area on the map and repeat. There are many different attacks you can execute that require a few types of button inputs. Some are done by pressing some combination of square and triangle. Others are executed by pressing a few buttons and then two at the same time. Others are executed only if you are charging the enemy or if you are in the air. Some take mana, others do not. These attacks can be input as fast as you like. You don't have to wait for animations to finish to press the next button. For example, one attack has you press square, square, triangle, triangle triangle, and you can just mash that as fast as you can; it doesn't matter that the first slash animation is probably still going. Experimenting with the game's many moves will lead you to a few favorite techniques to use on each of the different enemy types and bosses. Some of the unlockable swords you get as you go introduce some new types of attacks that add an interesting twist to the gameplay as well. After certain levels (mainly boss fights, I think) you get a choice of unlocking a sword or a shield. There are 4 of each to unlock (plus the starting gear), and you'll only get half of them if you play straight through. You need to re-play the correct levels to unlock the other gear. The shields you unlock include a nice mix of shields of different weights (which effects how fast you are) and blocking abilities, and they are fun to experiment with. 
            The fights are really fun and fast. Whether you're fighting a few minions, a pair of bigger enemies, or a unique boss, it's a lot of fun and great to look at. Much like other great action games (such as Monster Hunter and El Shaddai) the game's animation is really great. Every enemy and the player character all have tons of unique animations and interact with each other in great ways. Grappling enemies looks impressive and the finishing moves you can do on the enemies are very cool. The brutal finishers you use on the bosses especially stand out. There are also a handful of ways to use the environments to damage enemies, but I'll leave these for you to figure out as the game never tells you about them and some of them are shockingly cool when you discover them.         

            Character design is also really well done in this game. All of the enemies have a really evil look to them. They typically have some mechanical element grafted onto them. I wish there were action figures. There aren't a ton of enemy types, but each one is fully realized as a moving character and as a unique gameplay challenge.

            After you beat the game, there are trophies for beating each level quickly, aggressively, and without taking a hit. These are very fun to get. And something strange happens as you do this; you start to level up your items so that you can use them a lot more. Once they are all leveled up fully, you can really start to spam them and massacre levels that used to be very hard. The items are helpful but not over-powered during your first playthrough, but when you level them up by beating different levels a few times, they become extremely powerful. The game feels very different as you level up your items as you can start to just press L2 over and over to take enemies out. This helps you clean up the last few trophies you can get in story mode, and leads into the challenge pit.

            The challenge pit is a mode where you pick a difficulty level and then fight tons of enemies for points. You can use points at any time to buy certain advantages, such as re-filling your health and ammo for your items. You can only buy each advantage once though. Also, a timer ticks down as you go through this mode, and if it runs out, the run is over. You gain time by killing enemies. If you crank the difficulty up to insane, you start to see why the items become so over-powered if you play story mode through a few times. You need every advantage you can get, and you will still die often. That's because challenge mode throws bigger mobs than you are used to at you, and will even make you face off against multiple bosses at once in some cases. For example (mild spoilers ahead in whited out text): In one round you fight two of the last boss at once, and in another you fight 2 of the first boss and 1 of the penultimate boss at the same time. This is the fight I refer to in the next paragraph that I can't beat. Let me know if you beat it, I want to know if it's the last or if there are more rounds!

            Taking out two bosses at the same time is extremely satisfying, and also hilarious due to a great implementation of friendly fire between enemies. Insane mode takes the idea of fighting multiple bosses and enemies and runs with it. I can't beat it. I beat what I thought must be the last round in it only to have a new group of enemies spawn, and I couldn't believe what I saw.... the group that spawned killed me within a few seconds. It was beautiful. I don't know if I have it in me to get past that round... I tried the challenge pit with several different load outs and strategies, all of which were really fun and different. My high sore in the challenge pit is 259,680.
            After failing in the challenge pit for awhile, I decided to re-play the story mode without using items and only using the more lightweight but less powerful sword. This forced me to utilize moves I rarely used my first time through and changed the way I played the game quite a bit. The 2nd playthrough was a blast and was diametrically opposed to the way you have to spam items in the challenge pit. I highly recommend playing story mode again without items and with a weapon you're not used to.

            The game's music is another high point. It has some orchestral scoring, and some tribal sounding stuff, all punctuated by some cool sounds and themes that are all stuck in my head pretty good now. 

            Strength of the Sword 3 is short, but everything in it, from the gameplay to the character design to the way it presents itself are all unique, interesting, and well-executed. It's a short romp through the sub-genre of hard games that make you learn from your mistakes. Those types of game's are usually more epic affairs, but SOTS3 does so much right, it's a great little experience. It's easy to imagine it as a more epic-length affair with lots more enemy, weapon, arena, and attack choices, but as it is it's a stream-lined version of that type of experience, like a Monster Hunter or Dark Souls that you can experience in just a few hours instead of dozens. It's a great game, tier 2.

PSP Bucket List

      I did a mini version of the bucket list for PSP. I took a look at every PSP title and picked out ones I wanted to take a closer look at, then made this small list of what I want to play before I move on to another portable. This list is in order of interest. DS list to follow soon!

Carnage Heart EXA amazing looking robot programming – 20 hour tutorial

Cladun 

Crush – amzing 2d – 3d switching puzzler

Gurumin -cool action rpg

N+ - awesome platforming

Coded Arms – cool fps – has sequel

Hamerin hero – hit things with stuff – looks funny. Variety in levels, not in gameplay

Killzone liberation - 3rd person, demo was fun

NOVA – fps

R-type command – complex cool strategy

Platypus – claymation shooter

Maverick hunter x

Ecoshift – puzzler where you record actions

Crimson Room Reverse – maybe, has some other rooms too

Medievil resurrection – remake of original with new stuff – if I really like 1st one

Ultimate Ghosts n goblins – if I like original on ps3 list

                                                          

The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 2: A House Divided SPOILER POST!!!!

!!!WARNING!!! THIS POST SPOILS THE WALKING DEAD SEASON 2 EPISODE 2: A HOUSE DIVIDED AND ALL PREVIOUS WALKING DEAD STUFF!!!! DO NOT READ IT UNTIL YOU ARE DONE PLAYING OR YOU WILL HAVE NEEDLESSLY RUINED A STORY YOU SHOULD EXPERIENCE FOR YOURSELF!!!! THAT MEANS YOU JON!!!!!!!!

Here are my choices:

     I said that Carlos told me to distract Sarah, so Carver seeing the picture isn't my fault. I don't know why this is a big deal though, as there's no way I could have known that taking her picture is a bad idea.

I sat with Kenny at dinner, of course!! I was so happy to see him and felt so much loyalty to him. Then I remembered some of the messed up stuff he did in season 1, like not going with Lee to find Clem. Jerk. This made me realize that it's hard to find people you can really trust, and that maybe I would be better off in the new group of people I don't know that well. I miss Lee. Still, I'm trying to stick with Kenny as much as possible and stay with him. Forget this new group. I tried to warn Kenny that Nick is stupid by saying I can't vouch for everyone. I think Luke took that hard thinking I was saying that I didn't trust the group. But I do trust Luke. I just wanted Kenny to know that Nick might turn on him pretty quick. You know, because he's stupid.

     I told Walter the truth about Matthew. That was a tense scene. Seeing Matthew almost lose it after all that goody-goody talk was crazy. But he really stuck to his principals and saved Nick. Darn, I just remembered that he died. Darn.

     As previously said, I got Walter to not attack Nick. I considered throwing Nick under the bus even more than I did, but I said that he saved my life, because that is totally true. Although I don't trust him now that he killed Matthew like that. Since this is a major choice that has stat tracking, I wonder if Walter does kill Nick if you do that scene differently.

     I left to find Kenny rather than turning myself in to Carver. I thought it was the best bet to survive and to help a majority of the group, even if some ended up dying. I figured Kenny and Luke and I could find a way to get out of the situation, or get some people out. Didn't work out that way though. Luke is still out there somewhere. I wonder if he'll try to save us or if he really did run away like Carver said.

     There were some great subverted expectations in this episode. Not that subverting expectations automatically equals good writing. I feel in these games it fits the theme of things not going according to plan or things just happening without a reason. When Matthew got shot by Nick, I thought it was just a sad, random thing; a possibility that can never be explored because it was cut short by violence. It took me quite awhile to figure out the stranger Nick blew away was Matthew. Right in the middle of exploring the lodge and talking to people, bam, it hit me, and I knew Walter would have a bad reaction to it if he found out. I had hoped the group would move on and I would stay with Kenny, then I would tell Walter about Matthew.

     Kenny calling Clem “Duck,” was pretty interesting. At first I thought that is pretty unhealthy for Kenny to kind of replace Duck with Clem in how he thinks about her. She's not Duck. But is it really that bad in a situation like that? Maybe not. Maybe that would be good for both of them to have that relationship.

     Nick killing Matthew is a great example of the kind of morality that exists in this situation. You have to stay with people even if there crazy some times as long as they are loyal to you. You have to move on with them and hope they do better, or find a way to ditch them. Or just wait for them to die. And hopefully it doesn't come to killing them yourself.

     That's Bonnie, the lady from 400 Days, with Carver, right? Looks like she will be in the next episode too. I loved her section of 400 Days. I think she ran away without that guy she loved after killing his wife in my game. Can't quite remember though. Interesting what she is up to now. Carver seems like a bad guy, but I have a bit of a sinking feeling about the group that separated from him too...

     Anyway, I want to stay with Kenny. He did a lot of good stuff for Lee and Clem in season 1, and I wondered if he had really died. He was a total jerk and idiot a few times, and he seems a little high strung now, which is not good, but I feel a lot of loyalty to him just because he is a familiar face and has done a lot of good for Clem in the past. I think he will be loyal to her to in many situations that could come up.

The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 2: A House Divided Review

      You know, playing these Walking Dead episodes as they come out is like watching a series of connected films. They draw you in for about two hours of no-filler story telling. Of course, the interactive element takes things up a notch, making you really get inside the character's head. You really feel the tension of a decision when you actually have to make it yourself.

     Or at least you do when the game is as good as The Walking Dead. Another day, another similar Walking Dead episode review that complains about the technical issues and praises the story.

This time around, we have an extreme frame-rate issue. After every one of the episodes 6 or so load screens, which are too long, the game's frame-rate slips down in the extreme for about 10 seconds in the new scene. This is not the way to start a scene. It is really jarring to have every scene start that way, and really takes you out of the situation. Those loads screens are already too long, but seriously, if we could load for another 10-30 seconds and not have this problem, I'd be a happy camper. I would probably give this episode a perfect score too, because once again this series does not disappoint.

     The scenario in this episode is tense. Now that the setting has been established in the first episode, we really start to learn about the new characters, and take part in a few rough situations. It's a fantastic episode. Really enjoyable. See the upcoming spoiler post after you play it.

     A House Divided is a great game, tier 2. It's perfect in so many ways, but the frame-rate problem cannot be overlooked. Come on Tell Tale, I'm rooting for you to have the rest of the episodes free from major problems!

Everyday Shooter Spoiler Post!!!!

WARNING! READING THIS POST WILL SPOIL EVERYDAY SHOOTER FOR YOU. THE GAME HAS NO STORY, BUT IS ENTIRELY ABOUT DISCOVERING THINGS FOR YOURSELF. DISCOVERING THEM HERE IS LAME, SO BEAT THE GAME FIRST, OR COME HERE FOR TIPS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

So, here's all the stuff I figured out in the levels (and one thing the internet told me).

Level 1 – Robot – Basically, you want to start a chain reaction on one of the spinny, shooty guys while he is shooting. This makes the biggest flare and also gives you some glowing points for the bullets he shot out. Don't kill any enemies except in chain reactions; you can usually hold out and dodge everything until you start an explosion, unlike in the other levels where you have to shoot to survive. Also, do you see how the pillars in the background follow your movements? Took me awhile to notice that.

Level 2 – Root of the Heart (I'm including all the level names because they are amazing. They remind me of the chapter names in Atlas Shrugged and The Zombie Knight. Always shoot the biggest base. That will usually make all the others explode and give you points when it dies, although occasionally, some rogue base won't be linked up and will survive this. Also, if you cause a chain reaction to go off while those search light lasers are firing, the whole beam will turn into tons of glowing points.

Level 3 – Lush Look Killer – This is a hard level. Shooting the yellow eyes once will cause them to expand. If you wait until they are huge to shoot them again, they will kill many more little eyeballs than if you blow them right away. This causes points. As does killing the glowing robots, obvs. But the one thing that I didn't discover for a long time is that if you shoot the center eyeball a lot until it shrinks to its minimum size, it will start spewing out tons of glowing points as you continue to shoot it. Killing the big eyeball bases it spawns at the end of the level makes lots of points too. Notice: those eyeballs are watching you!

Level 4 – Porco in the Sky – Is that a reference to Porco Rosso? Has to be, right? In order to take out three red-baron guys, you have to kill both suns in the first section. This isn't too hard; if you are really aggressive you can do it most of the time. One way to do it is to wait until they spawn a lot of planes, then fly inside the circle of planes real close to the sun. This gives you a lot of opportunity to fire on the sun. Or stop a cube right in front of a sun to kill all the planes just as they are spawned. Then, to kill all three porcos, you must be really aggressive again. The times I did this unlock, I lost many lives in the level. I sacrificed them to take these jerks out, and it felt great. The best way to fight them is to back away directly from their flight path, dodging their shots with subtle movements and firing the whole time. It seemed so impossible at first, but just be really aggressive and use all your lives and you can do it!

Level 5 – Build 88 – This is a more straightforward one, as many of the things you kill automatically give out lots of points. Of course, lots of things in the level can shoot, so it's really hard. Those red guys are healing stuff, so make sure you kill big structures before they fix them, or kill the red guys themselves.

Level 6 – Bits of Fury – Also more straightforward. There are tons of bombs, and using them will get you tons of points. Grab any bomb you can, then stay by it and detonate it when things get hairy (read: 1 second later). Fly into the bombs' explosion as it goes off to avoid fire. In the short time before the boss spawns, link up as many bombs as possible up near the top third of the screen. Hopefully this will take out some of his lasers and a big chunk of his health right away. Otherwise fighting him is going to be real cringe-worthy.

Level 7 - Earthworm – For a while, I couldn't figure out how to kill a worm without it splitting in two. Destroying a section near the head seems to do the trick, and net you a bunch of points. Those green spinny things turn into worms if you don't kill them quickly enough. A few shots will postpone this if you are dealing with many at once and they are all about to turn. The brown shots come out of the worms. Because of the raindrops, I didn't realize that for awhile and didn't know where they were coming from. Knowing they are from the worms helps. I find that staying on the edge of the screen and firing across the level helps you to dodge the brown bullets (at least until the bush starts growing). I don't know what is up with the all spider section at the end. I guess it's just a calm way to end the level. I can't find a way to generate too many points out of that part.

Level 8 – So Many Ways – In the first section, when you see one of the arrows stop moving and pull away from the group and turn purple, shoot it quickly to cause an explosion that will usually protect you from the other flying arrows. Keep shooting as you move toward points, and you should be good. How to kill the boss is the only info in this post I got from outside the game. I figured out that shooting the circles when they are near him hurts him, and that it hurts him more if they have those vibration lines on them, and that the circles that hold still hurt him a whole lot. But the internet told me that if you shoot a circle once when it has vibration lines around it, it will become a circle that holds still. Of course, if your bullet hits any of the other circles, they will set it off, so it is hard to create these still circle bombs. But using ten or so of them is the only way I was able to kill the boss. And even then, it took about 4 tries. I can't imagine doing it at the end of running through all the other levels.That's hardcore. I lost almost all my lives when doing it on level-select mode. Once it dies, it will float in the middle of the screen and gush points like nothing else in the game. It also still shoots those long purple seeker bullets, but I found that I gained so many lives from the points gush that I didn't have to worry about that too much. Of course, that was in single-stage mode, so gaining a life still took fewer points. If you were playing on full game mode, you probably wound't gain more than 1 life this way, so you would have to be careful. Of course, you will be tempted by the points though...

That's it! If anyone knows anything I don't, please let me know! I'm curious if there are more secrets to the game's scoring. Thanks!

Everyday Shooter PS3 Review

     Nick Suttner of the Playstation Blogcast has said a few times on the show that real spoilers aren't necessarily the ones that ruin a game's story, but information that gives away the experience of playing the game and discovering things for yourself during gameplay. Everyday Shooter is all about discovering, learning, and experiencing the game's elements as you go, and is a perfect example of the ideas he talks about.

     Everyday Shooter is a twin-stick shooter. You play as a little square. The left stick controls your movement. Pushing the right stick in a direction causes you to shoot in that direction. Alternately, you can use the face buttons to control the direction of your shots. You can get diagonals this way by holding two buttons at the same time (for example, holding triangle and square makes you shoot north-west). And, as the creator of the game, Jonathan Mak, says in the in-game notes, I found the face buttons to be the way to go for controlling your shooting. I felt a lot more accurate using them. You can move while shooting, but you are faster if you aren't shooting. This seems like a small mechanic, and for awhile, I almost never stopped shooting. But then, as I learned how to play better, ceasing fire at critical moments to gain a speed boost became an important tactic. The square feels a little sluggish to me, and its bullets are kind of slow too. This was mildly frustrating throughout the whole game, but not a huge deal once you get used to it. Those are the only controls. Very simple.

     The game's complexity comes in its levels. In order to score points, you must generate them. They appear on the screen as small squares. You must physically run over them to score them. They follow you if you get near them, but only a little bit. It's not like they suck right into you if you get anywhere near them, you have to actually run them over. Some points glow, which means they are worth more than 1 point. All points disappear about 10-15 seconds after they are generated, so in order to score, you must generate the points and then get to them quickly. In each level, the method by which you generate these points is totally different, and only in the first level are you told how to do it. In most of the 8 levels, simply killing enemies will not net you points. You must jump through some hoops to actually score. This is in stark contrast with basically every game with a score system that I've ever played, and it is a big part of what makes Everyday Shooter so unique.

     Trying to figure out each stage's scoring system is fun and exciting. There's a sense of discovery in each new level, as if anything could happen. I'll run down the first level's scoring system for you, since the game explains it to you anyway. Basically, there are a bunch of geometric enemy types. One type will shoot salvo's of squares at you while the rest patrol the screen on a route (in other words they don't actually come after you). There are also these squares surrounded by floating pillars that will come on screen from time to time. If you shoot one of them, it will drift a bit in the direction you shot it, and then the pillars will open up and cause this weird lens flare effect. Any enemy hit by the lens flare will instantly die and leave behind a point, and also cause its own lens flare of varying size depending on which enemy type it is. As you might imagine, this can cause giant chain reactions if enough enemies are grouped together when you set off your first flare. If the chain reaction catches any bullets, they turn into glowing points. Shooting the lens flare also causes it to stick around longer and grow slightly, but it will always disappear after a few seconds. That's level 1. In level 2, you are doing something totally different. And then level 3 is totally different than both of them. Etc., all the way to level 8. I won't spoil too much about the other levels, as Nick Suttner would not approve, but in one level you duel with smart airplanes, in another you fight a single entity that generates tons of stuff, and in another you fight a fleet of troops that are built and generated on the fly. For tips and tricks for each level, see my spoiler post in the near future. By the way, my high score is 6520. Beat that!

     The game constantly pushes you to be aggressive to make your points. Being defensive will net you nothing, as just killing enemies to defend yourself usually won't get you any points. This gives the game a cool agrressive feel, but also leads to frustration if you die while trying to maximize points. I found that I usually got farther when I played more conservatively, but had more fun and got more points if I was really aggressive. More points per level anyway; I would die before getting to later levels.

     Each level lasts a certain amount of time. A progress meter creeps along the bottom of the screen. Each level is a song, and when the song is over, you go to the next level. This segues right into the music, which is excellent. I would call this game a music game in the same way Bit.Trip Runner 2 is. Everything you shoot and every point you collect adds a sound effect to the game's music. The music takes a little getting used to at first, as every song is just 1 electric guitar jamming. From what I understand, this is very literally true, the creator just jammed on his guitar to make the music for each level. This makes for a very different sound than most other video games. At first it might sound more like a demo tape than a game soundtrack. But man, once you get into the groove, it is amazing stuff. More games should have different sounds like this. It's one of my favorite game soundtracks. Each level is really unique and special musically, as is the title screen and transition screen songs. Jammin' stuff.

     The look of the game is something else too. There's a lot of stuff in the game that is in other games, like enemies, bombs, bases, and troops, but in many cases, they are very abstracted visually in Everyday Shooter. Enemies are often just shapes or blobs. Bombs and bases might be different types of shapes and blobs and colors. You have to learn in each level what things are, and often you can't tell just by looking at them. It's a really cool effect. Like the music, it takes some time to get used to, but it's great stuff. Being able to identify things visually and intuitively is often a hallmark of good game design, but this subversion of that idea is a perfect fit here. There are also some amazing, trippy special effects going on that really add to the game's abstracted feel.

     The game is very old-school in its approach, as you have to play the game through in one sitting, and you always start over from the beginning. The game is only about 40 minutes long from start to finish, but it is super hard, and if you lose all your lives, you start over from the beginning. Of course you can earn more lives by getting points. You can also buy more starting lives with your total pool of points from all your play-throughs. You spend these like money to buy more lives and visual filters and stuff. This loop of playing as far as you can, then buying some more lives with your points and starting over again is fun for awhile, but starts to get frustrating. This is because the game is really hard, and you will need to start over many, many times to beat it (at least I did). Losing a life is so painful, as each one matters, even if you have a lot. The amount of times you play the first few levels means you will get really good at (or at least used to) the first couple of levels, to the point where you might groan to have to play them again. That's why I highly recommend buying shuffle mode as soon as you can from the store. Once you buy shuffle mode and then unlock stages for shuffle mode use, this makes you play the levels in random order, which makes a huge difference in your experience with the game if you start to get bored or frustrated with starting over a lot. After many, many tries, I finally beat the game, although time ran out on me before I could kill the last boss. And then, even on level-select mode, it took me many tries and some internet tips to finally kill that sucker.

     Some of the things you can buy in the store are tied to trophy-like unlocks (this game is from the dark ages before there were trophies). Some have you killing certain enemies or bosses. Another wants you to survive one of the game's harder levels without losing a life. I wondered if I would ever get some of these as they seem impossible at first. But then, after repeated play-throughs, I got them all except for the one for killing the last boss in a whole-game run. It was a great sense of accomplishment to get these. Unfortunately the visual skins you unlock aren't very functional. They look kinda cool, but I found them too distracting to play with after a try or two and also not as great looking in general as each level's default graphics and effects.

     Everyday Shooter is a wonderful game of exploration and discovery. Sometimes I would discover a new way to get points or kill enemies in a level I had already played many times, and that is an amazing feeling. Unfortunately, frustration can set in after playing the game over and over without beating it. Shuffle mode helps a lot with this, to the point where it might have been better if it was the default mode, or at least kicked in automatically after you had played a bunch of times. Even with the variety that shuffle mode adds, I can still see the game being too hard and frustrating for many people. Personally, I was very much ready to be done as soon as I beat the last level, even though I hadn't managed to kill the last boss. Still, I had a great time with Everyday Shooter. So many of its design elements are clever, different, and beautiful. It's a great game, Tier 3.