Today's review is on a super badass game from way back when, the original The Incredible Machine.
Cannons and boxing gloves and cats, oh my!
The Incredible Machine was designed and coded by a guy named Kevin Ryan and published by Sierra Entertainment in 1992. It was a Rube Goldberg-esque puzzle game with almost a hundred unique puzzles and the ability to create your own, making for a mind-bending blast of a game.
Story: N/A
There really is no story in The Incredible Machine. It's a pure puzzle game at its very best. You don't have lives or motivation; your only goal is to finish all of the puzzles.
Graphics: 7/10
There's not a whole ton to say when it comes to graphics. In essence, every object very clearly looks like what it is. A pair of bellows looks like a pair of bellows, a cat looks like a cat, etc. That's really all you need.
Beyond that, the game doesn't have a whole lot of graphical bells and whistles. The background is completely blue at all times. The score ticker actually looks pretty slick, but doesn't do much other than tick.
A lot of people might not like such barebones graphics, but to me, it completely makes this game. It fits; it just feels right.
Gameplay: 9/10
The Incredible Machine is an exercise in coming up with really complex solutions to simple problems. You get a pretty large range of items to help you create your contraptions, from simple objects like ropes and pulleys to much more complex items like generators, engines, power outlets, and mice in cages. Most objects connect to at least one other object in some way (seesaws to ropes, a conveyor belt to a cable, etc). The objects that don't connect will usually have some sort of interaction with another object instead (cats go towards a fishbowl when it's broken, scissors pop balloons, etc.).
You start with a very simple puzzle: putting a ball in a hoop.
Pictured: simplicity.
From there, you go through a series of 86 other increasingly more complex puzzles, teaching you how to use every item in the game.
Pictured: HOLY FUCK!
Thankfully, the game has a very nice learning curve. Some puzzles also have altered gravity where it's either very powerful so things fall quickly or it's very weak, like the moon, so things fall slowly.
There's always a score ticker at the bottom that counts downward at a set rate, so the faster you solve a puzzle, the more points you'll get. The points are largely meaningless other than to see how much better you've gotten at the game.
The best way to explain this game, though, is just to show it. Here's a short clip showing the first several levels. It clearly shows the entire setup including the start of a puzzle, the tips and information about a puzzle you're given before it begins, the bank of items (and how it changes from level to level), the score ticker, and the completion of a puzzle.
Sound: 6.5/10
The soundtrack in TIM did its purpose well: stayed in the background. A lot of it stands up on its own pretty well, but most of it is very background-y. I'm not a huge fan of listening to it standalone, but I'll say that it never interferes with finishing a puzzle. In fact, it can be quite soothing on some levels.
Here's your standard sample. This is a VERY well done YouTube video; it's long, but when it first starts, there's a popup for a 'tracklisting' of sorts. That way, you can just click and jump around from song to song.
Here's part two of the soundtrack, setup in the same way so you can pick your track.
Replay Value: 10/10
The Incredible Machine actually had a surprising amount of replay value. It was fun enough replaying through so many of the standard puzzles, but on top of that, they also included the freeform mode. Basically, you can build your own puzzles with no time constraints or item limits. There's no end to the Goldberg-style madness you can come up with, creating puzzles to try and stump yourself or having your friends try to solve the ones you've made.
tl;dr
The Incredible Machine is a phenomenally fun game. It's basically Rube Goldberg: The Game. Go, buy it now! If you can't find a copy, since the original is SUPER hard to find, download a freeware/abandonware version of it on the interwebz. It runs perfectly fine in DOSbox. Below are links to buy updated/newer versions of the same style of game.
Today's review was written by a guest reviewer, Megan. This one's 10x better than any I've done, so without further ado, here's her review of Portal.
I'm going to review a 2007 game called Portal, a single-player puzzle-platformer.
It was released for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. The developer was Valve, who also did Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead, and a bunch of other awesome first-person shooter type games. The game was actually based off of some students' senior project called Narbacular Drop.
I'm going to try not give away any big things about the story. When I played the game, a few things here and there were spoiled for me and it's really fun to find out things as they happen. The following trailer was released by Valve, so I don't consider it to have spoilers.
Story: 9/10
You play Chell, a woman we know nothing about. It doesn't matter; we never learn anything about her. The only other real character is an AI computer named GLaDOS who you hear talking to you from the minute the game starts. When the game begins, you awake in a stasis chamber, a tiny room with glass walls. GLaDOS welcomes you to the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. From here, you are taken to the first test chamber and introduced to the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (portal gun) and taught how to use it.
As you progress through the test chambers, GLaDOS talks to you, making you aware of the dangers present in the chambers, new things to do with the portal gun, and how there's yummy cake waiting for you. The atmosphere is creepy and surreal from the start and it just gets weirder from there. You're trapped in this empty testing facility with nothing but the portal gun and the AI's voice to help you (along with some tools they give you in order to advance, such as weighted cubes). The rooms get more and more challenging as you go, with new elements being introduced each room or so.
I thought the overall story was unique and amusing. The humor is great. It's cute, nerdy, and random, with tons of quotable lines. Even if you don't enjoy the humor, the gameplay will make up for it. You'll want to know if the cake really is a lie. This game is worth finishing.
Graphics: 9/10
The graphics are fairly simplistic, which is completely appropriate for the game. If you've ever played Half-Life, you know what the graphics look like. Plain gray walls and floors don't distract from the important part of the game - the puzzles. I thought they did a good job making the equipment and technology in the game look futuristic, but not really ridiculous. You can tell what everything is or what it might do, and you need to in order to figure out what to do next. The portals themselves stick out well from the rest of the environment.
One graphical thing that stuck out to me was when you shake the cursor around in game, your surroundings sort of trail along with you. It looks really nice and makes things more realistic. I haven't noticed this in other games, but then again, I haven't played many of the newest first-person shooters. The game has no visible health bar; the interface is very clean, letting you focus on the task at hand. The only things you see constantly are your gun and the 'crosshair' to aid you in creating portals.
Chell has metal heel springs to prevent injury from falls.
Gameplay: 10/10
The portal gun is your main tool to getting through this 'nightmare'. If you're playing it for PC, the right and left mouse buttons control your two portals - one blue and one orange. It doesn't matter which color you create first; you can enter either one and you will exit from the other. You can jump through them, walk through them, throw stuff through them, fall through them. If you go through one in a wall and exit through one on the floor, you'll come out and land back on your feet. It's dizzying at times. Sometimes you will need to create new portals in mid-air, forcing you to pay close attention and move quickly. If you create a portal on the ground and jump into it from several feet down, you will gain momentum, helping you get to higher places. This technique of creating portals as you're in the air and gaining momentum will be necessary for much of the game. It's also really fun to experiment with.
As you'd expect from a first-person game like this, you will encounter enemies. You don't exactly kill them... More like break them. As I said, you have no visible health bar. You can get hurt from certain things, like turrets, and if you move out of the way quickly enough you will not die. Your health apparently regenerates itself after you are hurt, because if you are damaged again (after your health has gone up) for a short period of time, you won't die. There are indeed plenty of opportunities to die in this game, mostly from falling off of platforms as far as I remember, but there are other things that will instantly kill you. You'll just start over at the beginning of the current test chamber if you die. The game will auto-save when you reach each test chamber or a 'checkpoint'.
The way the game introduces the new obstacles while teaching you how to play flows perfectly. The levels are brilliantly designed. By the end of the game, using the portal gun feels almost natural. The difficulty is just enough for me to want to keep playing. Don't get me wrong, this game can be frustrating... I did end up getting a couple of hints, but if I had thought about it some more, I probably would have been able to figure it out myself. It feels damn satisfying when you finally solve some of the harder puzzles.
(Also, after playing the game for too long and you stop, you might get the same feeling you do after you play Katamari Damacy... You'll get the urge to teleport across the room with portals. After Katamari, you size up the objects around you to see if you can roll them up. Am I the only one?)
Sound: 9/10
It won't threaten to stab you.
The sound is appropriate. The portal gun will make noises when you create portals, and also make a noise when you can't create a portal somewhere (like the darker-colored metallic walls). Sometimes all you'll hear is the sound of your footsteps. The best sound, though, is GLaDOS's crazy-ass mechanical voice.
"...all the cake is gone. You don't even care, do you?"
The lack of music for most of the game adds to its empty, surreal atmosphere. And then of course, there's the song, "Still Alive". You can look that up yourself. It's in the ending credits of the game.
Replay Value: 7/10
The game is pretty short. I think it took me about three sittings to beat the storyline, but it could be beaten in one, for sure. Plus, there are bonus levels and little missions to accomplish, like destroying all of the security cameras. I would definitely sit down and play through this game again. It won't be as fun as the first time; learning to play and finding out the story were awesome. If you haven't played this game, you're really missing out.
Portal 2 is set to come out on February 9, 2011.
"When the testing is over, you will be... missed."
Today's review is a follow-up of yesterday's; I'll be covering the sequel to the insanity that is Katamari Damacy, an amazing title called We Love Katamari.
We really do heart Katamari.
We Love Katamari, like the original, was developed by Namco. It was released in 2005 in both Japan and America. It was also the first Katamari game to be released in PAL territories (most of Europe). This game is equally as insane as the first one, but better in almost every single way. The gameplay is infinitely superior, the graphics have been given a shot of awesome directly to the veins, and even the story is more entertaining. Let's dive in, rainbow first, and see why it's so much better.
Story: 10/10
The story in this game is even more bizarre than the first. This game takes place almost immediately after the conclusion of the first game. The King of All Cosmos has just finished fixing the heavens (which he destroyed during a drinking/drug binge) by throwing all of the katamaris that you have rolled up for him into the sky. He's ready to lay back and get some rest. However, he hears a voice calling out to him. It's a fan of the first game! Of course, for someone as vain as the King, there's no time to rest when there are fans to please. He quickly sends his son, the Prince, back down to Earth to talk to the fans and fulfill their katamari requests.
We Love Katamari is obviously very self-referential. The whole thing is set up around the idea of fans of the actual first game, Katamari Damacy, asking the King/Prince to roll up certain things or huge katamaris or roll under strange circumstances, all the while praising how awesome it is to roll. I really love this idea of breaking the 4th wall.
There's also a very cool side story that runs through the whole game. Every couple of levels, a cutscene plays explaining the King's origins; going from a little boy who wants nothing more than his father's approval to an angry rebellious teenager who moves out of his house (castle?) to the man that he is when we first met him in Katamari Damacy. This gives some great insight into why the King is who he is. No longer is he just an insane, fucked up, conceited, vain, weird-as-shit dude...he's an insane, fucked up, conceited, vain, weird-as-shit dude that we can all empathize with.
Graphics: 10/10
I gave the last Katamari game a pretty mediocre score for graphics. This game is why. They took the same idea for the first one but really put a lot more money and time into making it look absolutely beautiful. The environments are fully fleshed out, the katamari rolls seamlessly from 1 centimeter to 3000 meters, the colors are bright and vivid, and no detail that the PS2 can handle is spared. They really pushed this game hard graphically, and it just looks wonderful. I can't say enough how big the change is. I never noticed it at first, but after playing through both games at least twice, this one clearly had the budget and skill to fully take advantage of the PS2's hardware.
Compare this to the image from the previous review...a huge improvement.
From the image, you can see the difference in detail between this game and the one before it. The most amazing part is that this game only came out a year after its predecessor.
Gameplay: 10/10
This game takes the general idea from the last game and takes it 10 steps further. Instead of the Make a Star mode being the primary gameplay mode, you wander around on (a tiny portion of/version of) Earth, finding people who are shouting out for your help. Every single person has something different that they request of you. Some are like the original Make a Star mode where they want you to just build a certain sized katamari as fast as possible within the time limit. Some, though, are incredibly cool variations on the idea. One of my absolute favorites is a level where your katamari always has forward momentum, just like a racecar with the gas pedal held down. Another is a level that takes place entirely underwater. Another is one where you roll around in the dark, collecting only fireflies to make a katamari as bright as possible. There's one where you roll around a sumo, making him eat as much as possible to get him fat for the big fight. Another favorite of mine has you rolling up as many flowers as possible. Yet another great one sets you in a Hansel and Gretel-themed map, rolling up a house made of candy and then rolling up the children at the end. The diversity of the levels is mindblowing. Here's a video sample of a bunch of the different levels.
Most of these levels offer at least two modes, too. Usually, if it's a Make a Star-type level, you can do As Large As Possible or As Fast As Possible. Other levels have variations on the first mode, like in the sumo level, you have to reach larger sizes for each of three modes, rolling up a heavier sumo at the end each time. Another has you roll up things that are flammable to start a campfire, only the pile of wood you need to light is larger every time.
Making things much easier, the control scheme hasn't changed at all in this game. Other things, like the cousin and present system, both make a return, but in a much more awesome way. There's now an ASSLOAD more presents that you can find hidden amongst the levels, and you can also wear two of them at a time (3 if you can manage to find the bikini). With cousins, instead of them only being usable in multiplayer mode, you can select amongst all that you've found to use as your character for any given level. There's also a lot more of them, and trust me, some look too hilarious for words.
The one on the top right is actually named Johnson, I shit you not.
Multiplayer mode has also gotten a HUGE overhaul. Instead of the crappy little versus-type mode from the previous game, there's now a cooperative roll mode for every level. It's a bit tricky to get the hang of: each player controls one side of the katamari rather than each getting their own (except in the snowman level). Usually, the game will give you more time to complete a level due to the difficulty in coordinating movements. It is pretty hard to get used to, but once you do get used to it, it's an absolute blast.
Sound: 10/10
I almost feel like giving this game's soundtrack a higher score than 10. The soundtrack is absolutely perfect. It takes the range of genres from the first game and widens it and increases the quality of the songs in those diverse genres. I won't even bother writing any more on the soundtrack, as it will do them much more justice to be heard rather than described.
Replay Value: 10/10
Holy shit, this game will make a completionist wet his pants. There's still a collection just like in Katamary Damacy, only there's a shitload more items to collect. There's trying to get a shooting star for every level (doing it in under a certain very quick time), there's collecting all of the cousins and presents, and there's finishing the extra levels that open once you finally do get all the cousins.
There's also the rose level. Holy shit...I don't know if this raises the replay value or lowers it, honestly. Basically, when you've done everything else you can possibly do, a rose shows up along with all of the other fans. It asks you to do it a favor...roll up 1,000,000 roses. This is an INSANELY LONG task to complete. Your katamari never gets larger in this level. You can pick up a single rose or a bouquet of 10 roses. The roses constantly replenish, but seriously, this is a several months-kind of task. Your progress saves every time you quit, so you can do something like get 1,000 roses a day, but wow...it's a helluva task. I've completed every aspect of this game several times, but I will never ever get all 1,000,000 roses.
All things considered, We Love Katamari is vastly superior to its predecessor in every way. Katamari Damacy was onto something amazing, and We Love Katamari fully realized the developers' lofty ideals. I've yet to play any of the newer games, so I can only hope they've continued this theme of getting better and better. However, the creator left the series after the second game, making me a little reticent to play on. Perhaps it's best to keep the memories we have rather than risk tarnishing them.
Normally, I wouldn't do this, but the quote from the King of All Cosmos that I used as my title strikes me as being so profound that I have to end with it. Think about this quote in relation to almost every game you've played, video or otherwise; even in relation to most other hobbies, I think there truly is some weight to this idea.
"Is it that it's fun, or that it lets you forget yourself?"
Today's review will move into more modern realms and focus on a little game called Katamari Damacy.
Those cows are unaware of their impending doom.
Katamari Damacy is a game developed by Namco for the PS2, released in Japan in March of 2004 and USA in September of 2004. This game was developed for less than $1 million, pretty cheap by today's standards, but holy shit, did they hit the jackpot with this one. It's fun, unique, completely bizarre, insane beyond all reason, humorous, quirky, and charming to no end. This game is completely worth checking out. Let's look at this LSD-influenced creation a little more deeply.
Story: 8/10
The story in this one is just the beginning of how truly insane and unique it really is. It opens with the King of All Cosmos flying through space after an epic drinking (and presumably drug) binge, destroying every star and planet he flies by. The King of All Cosmos is an amazingly large humanoid who always insists on speaking about himself in the royal tense ("We are very displeased with you") and who is consistently disappointed with everything his son does.
A staple of the series is the King's tights, which are way too tight for comfort, both his and mine.
You play as the Prince, the king's incredibly tiny son. You're given the task of cleaning up the king's mess by going to Earth and rolling up a series of katamaris, gigantic sticky balls that pick up anything smaller than themselves. By rolling up a large enough katamari, the King will throw it into the sky, turning it into various stars and constellations, basically rebuilding the universe.
Graphics: 6/10
My opinions on the graphics have changed a lot since first playing it. The very first time I saw it, I was just so blown away by how insane and fun the game was, I took it for granted that the graphics were amazing, too. It was only after playing the sequel (We Love Katamari) and then replaying the original that I realized that the graphics in the original were really not very great.
See? Not terrible...just a little...umm...'blocky'.
Don't get me wrong, they're not terrible by any means, especially for being done so cheaply, but they're just nowhere near as good as the graphics in the sequel that was also released on the PS2. It's a little blocky and largely devoid of any real detail.
Gameplay: 8/10
First things first, let me just say that this game is fucking FUN. Using the two analog sticks, you act like a snowball, rolling up everything smaller than you. The goal is to roll up to a set size (measured in centimeters and meters) before the allotted time runs out. The amount of time and size necessary increase as you move through the main mode, a series of 'Make a Star' levels. As you play, you also unlock bonus levels where you attempt to make a constellation by rolling up as many of a certain object as you can, like rolling up as many crabs as you can for Cancer, and as many pairs of objects as you can for Gemini. There are other bonus-type stages like rolling up the largest bear possible, but you can only roll up one bear, and a similar stage with cows. Certain Make a Star levels also allow you to unlock an endless mode for that level by rolling your katamari up to an excessively large size. To demonstrate the gameplay rather than just describing it, here's a video showing the entire intro and then the first level. Seriously, just watch how completely insane the intro is. How can you NOT want to play this game?
The controls work spectacularly well for being so simple. Holding both analog sticks forward, you go straight...tilting the right one forward and left one back will make you turn left and vice versa...holding both backward, you move slowly in reverse. Moving both back and forth quickly will give you a huge speed boost for a short time (very helpful when the time is running out and you're not quite to size yet). Hitting R3 and L3 at the same time makes you flip to the other side of your katamari quickly. L1 brings you to a first-person viewpoint, and R1 sends you high in the sky quickly so you can see your surroundings but not move.
This game's a blast for a completionist, too. There's a collection that's viewable from the main map that shows every type of item you've collected. It can be very difficult to collect 1 of every item, but also super rewarding. Also, hidden in every level is both a present and a Royal Cousin. The presents are all mostly useless, but aesthetically pleasing nonetheless. They're all wearable, and there's items like a wig, a guitar, a scarf, and a mini royal crown. The cousins are little dudes similar to the prince, but usually a lot stranger looking. The cousins can be used as playable characters in multiplayer mode.
Speaking of multiplayer mode, that's one of the reasons Katamari Damacy doesn't get a perfect score for gameplay. It's entertaining enough for a short period; you and another player roll around in a small arena, picking up items that constantly respawn, seeing who can get the largest. If you get big enough, you can roll up your opponent. This tends to get very boring very quickly, though.
The other reason Katamari Damacy doesn't get a perfect score is because it's just too damned short! The game really is amazingly fun for how simple it is, but you can finish the main story easily within 10 hours. The sequel really remedied this issue, but this one could have definitely had 10-15 more levels.
Sound: 10/10
This game has an absolutely amazing soundtrack. Most of it is Japanese or Engrish styled music, but you don't have to be a fan of Japanese lyricism to enjoy it. The genres range from jazz to swing to samba to J-pop to electronic and everything in between. Seriously, nothing I could possibly say will do justice to how amazing it actually is, so I'll just post a song or three here so you can check it out yourself.
I'm a huge fan in particular of the last two songs there. They tend to get stuck in my head for days at a time.
Replay Value: 10/10
I guarantee you, if you give this game a try one time, you will play it many multiple times. It's so much fun to jump in and play through a level that you almost can't resist coming back to it. You'll find yourself trying to just make the largest katamari possible, rolling up every single object in a level. Present and cousin hunting, completing the collection, getting 100% on the constellations, making a perfect North Star...this game may be short, but there's an assload of bonus things to keep it fresh.
Go out, get this game whatever way you can, and play it. If you've already played it, replay through it. It's the start of a phenomenal series of games, and they only get better as they go along. It's quirky, it's weird, it's 110% Japanese insanity...and it's one of the best games you'll ever play.
Time to catch a ride out of here on the Royal Rainbow.
