WritingPad's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[William and Sly]

Beautiful.

I understand you were going for somewhat -- an artist game, I certainly can't disagree with that, it looks great, plays great, it's all very pretty. But besides that, it has one small downfall, it's gameplay.

To set the story: you're playing a fox (Sly), as the story continues we're told you usually go hunting for mushrooms, however your master (William) asks if you can activate the runestones that are in the forest. So there's your main objective, watching out for darklings that will likely ambush you on the way.

Sounds easy enough, but if you want to rack up some extra points at the end you can do the optional objectives, slaying darklings, gathering mushrooms, switching leavers, etc.

The controls are fluid and they work perfectly. Graphics are without a doubt the best in a flash game I've seen for a while. Sound choice was perfect, it suited the artist feel of the game, this creates a great atmosphere.

As I said previously, the gameplay does let the game down slightly. It's tedious, a little boring in fact. I think that will only apply to others who are getting the achievements though. You can easily just get your main objective done and finish. The game is huge, and it does feel longer than it should. That's what generally let this game down, it's just short from a 10/10.

Overall, a wonderful game. If you enjoy the classic -- run around, get this, that and that too, you'll love the game in everyway. So I'll leave William and Sly with a 9/10.

[Lastman]

a few problems.

I have a fair few problems with this game:

having the gamer bombarded with advertisements every 25 seconds isn't user friendly, it's annoying and ultimately you'll just drive people away from the game, despite the badges you have implemented. (which should bring gamers back for more, but your giving the opposite effect)

now don't get me wrong, I don't mind supporting developers, programmers and artists, but, in this case, it was just greediness, and a total abuse of flash.ads.

as for the gameplay, very basic, controls were ok, nothing special I might add. pretty awkward to be honest. personally, I didn't like the fact that when you die once, just once, you go back, and from what I've noticed, there are no checkpoints. even though the game is very difficult, it's definitely a challenge.

graphics were also very basic, but I'm under the impression you were going for a simplistic NES style, and judging by the gameplay, I think it's a good assumption.

here are a few notes you can follow to hopefully improve :

- please be more forgiving with gameplay. add something like a checkpoint or even lives.

- tone down the advertisements. sitting through five seconds of advertisements doesn't make me want to keep playing through this game, despite it having achievements.

- add some music and sound effects. there were like two sound effects in the whole game, not a great variety, eh?

overall, a fair game, but let down by greediness, and lack of consistency.

[Darkbase: incubation]

not that bad

the graphics and overall animation was smooth and clean, however, I had a few problems with gameplay.

first, you need to add an auto-switch. meeting up with ten aliens, ammo runs out and I lose more health trying to press 'Q' - those few seconds are valuable when I'm trying to save my ass and shoot the fuck out of some aliens, and what if I didn't have sound? - I wouldn't be able to hear the 'CLACK' when I know my amo is out, therefore I'd have to keep checking my ammo, which isn't something I want worry about when I'm busy blasting the shit out of aliens.

secondly, as many have said, the flash light is horrid, it's too dim, I have to keep looking behind every corner, and I mean, EVERY corner, just to see if there's some pesky small aliens hiding in the dark. I understand you wanted to keep the game dark to create dramatic-suspense and possible surprise encounters, but with a flash light as crap as this why bother? to improve that, make it more user-friendly; make the flash light more powerful, or atleast make it chargeable, this is the future afterall, you can let your imagination go a little wild when experimenting with things like this.

thirdly, I couldn't tell what was interactive, and what wasn't, try and make the slightly more clearer in-game, perhaps red-to-green.

that's mainly it for gameplay, graphics wise was awesome, very polished and clean. the in-game graphics are perfect, combined with the music, which is fast-paced and was well implemented creates a sense of fear and suspense, which I assume you were going for.

to re-cap, this game great, just a few gameplay ticks that annoyed me, I hope you look into my suggestions and consider them at some point, I hope to come back again later and possibly finish this game, well done.

[3D Fighting:Bloody Rage 2]

great idea, horrible execution

poor execution on what could have been a great game, and to be personally honest, your first game was better, atleast in some aspects.

let's start with gameplay, it's 3D, but that doesn't make everything else any better, the animation is choppy and doesn't feel smooth at all, I feel like I'm forcing the attacks, which isn't user-friendly. the default controls are disgraceful, you could have atleast made them "A, S, D, W" instead of "E, S, D, F" for moving. that also leads on my next problem. when making fighting games, never use one specific key for attacks, they should be a variety of keys, one for kicks, one for punches and anything else, atleast you've allowed the player to customize the movement and attack keys, which is great. to improve; a unique keyset, more unique attacks (less Street Fighter attacks, more unique ones), combos, and possibly a special attack.

I haven't got too much to complain about graphics, it was defiantly a breath of fresh air, and was great improvement from your last game, only problem is, the animation is choppy when walking and attacking, to improve, the animation should be much smoother. besides that, the 3D was great. one last mention for graphics, the "Paint my Fighter" option was actually really great, good job on that, it kept my interest for quite sometime.

overall, the gameplay needs a drastic change; saying this, I did manage to kill thirty minuets of my time, despite the negative feedback I've given. I'd defiantly play this more if you fix up a few things, which I've mentioned earlier in my review, I do hope you fix some of the things I've mentioned, it could be alot better, and it deserves to be.

[Ultimate Crab Battle]

totally insane!

this game is completly insane, and I love it!

let's start with gameplay, extremely awesome, it's the last boss, it's a crab, and we're talking about a cavalry of sea animals, sharks, eels, and anything else he can throw at you, now I love the fact I'm shooting three, nearly four types of projectile at this guy, the only thing I'd ask to make this better is too add commands to different keys, for different projectile, (A for rockets, S for lazer)

the only other problem I could pick at was parts at the ending, when he goes rambo mode near the end, my computer started lagging, so that would be nice to clean up; besides that, the rest of the game was fine.

the graphics are decent, I can understand you not making them heavily detailed due to the nature of the game.

overall, great, addicting game, well done.

[Orbular]

somethings need work on

the concept is great, graphics are great, the overall felt extremely polished, just a few things that ruin the game immensely, sorry if this review seems rather harsh and negative, I'm just trying to provide some constructive criticism;

atleast you've got a mute button? but ruined because I have to pause first THEN click (why not M or S?) and why no sound effects, just music? I would have preferred sound effects over your choice of music, quite honestly. nice game, but have you thought to provide mouse support with arrow keys, instead of separate options, which varied the difficulty of gameplay. the game has potential, but would just feel better using the mouse rather than the keyboard. and one more nit-pick. please don't use words like "FAILURE" to indicate game over. you might laugh, but it's really not user-friendly. seriously. all things considered, it didn't hold my interest very long mostly due to forcing me to use the keyboard. it's a bit frustrating due to the looseness of the controls.

that's the negatives out of the way, for positives; as I said in the beginning of this review, the graphics have impressed me, polished and clean, considering I didn't play this game for a long amount of time, due to the controls, I'm going to try again and see if I'm just being a dick when picking out negatives, in this case the controls, but besides the negatives and positives, I hope you'll make something better, taking some of the criticism I have said.

[Green Terror]

could be better

it's a really lovely game, however a few things are letting it down.

first, great solid gameplay, the physics engine was pretty awesome. so my main goal is to hit the alien with a small orange ball, easy enough, and I was happily welcomed by "WIN" - when I had successful finished that levels task. a little bug I found however, at one point of gameplay, I managed to fire the orange ball at the alien's torso, however no "WIN" was given, however I was still allowed to continue onto the next level.

graphics wise, it's really amateur, quite basic, if you could polish up the background and some of the main aspects, (alien, spaceman); they done the job though, which is better than nothing.

the only thing I was a little disappointed about, please don't use words like "FAILURE" to indicate if I've done something wrong (i.e shooting the spaceman) you can laugh, but it's not really user-friendly, all things considered, it's an interesting game, and I enjoyed playing it, as I've said, just a few things new polishing up.

[Super Mafia Land]

Cute.

A very nice little remake on a childhood game that most of us would have played at one point or another in our lives.

The gameplay was decent, quite smooth, it lagged slightly throughout parts and made it unplayable, cleaning that up would be nice, artwork was thrilling, wasn't too mad about it, however it's inspired by SMB2, and should resemble something similar to that, and you perfected it, well done.

However, I had a few problems with the "Mafia" part, there seemed to be nothing in the game related to the mafia, besides that Mario, Luigi and Peach resembled mafia figures. I would've rated this higher if you included more mafia crap in there, perhaps guns, a don; something on the lines of that.

not too bad, a few things needed cleaning up as I've stated, but overall well polished submission.

[Cell Warfare]

Great,

however, everything else is lacking and is slightly unoriginal, it's very, very similar to Anomorphous+, many of the same mechanics like colour coded enemies with different abilities as they would die while scrolling across the screen, an innovative achievement system, which is also quite similar to Anomorphous+ with the odd few new achievements.

-However, I refuse to down rate the game harshly because of this-

Gameplay in perticular was quite fun, I can't say it's fresh, as I've said before, it's similar to Anomorphous+, but I still enjoyed it, nothing really annoyed me about the gameplay, besides one thing, there was a horrible lag when killing the enemy cells. I also refuse to down rate the game on the lag behalf, but I suggestion would be to sort that, thanks.

Graphics were evenly polished, can't really argue that they were basic, but good enough.

I will consider coming back to replay the game at a later date, to accomplish a few more achievements. I had a hard time rating this properly, and it is possibly due to the fact, it's nearly an Anamorphous+ clone, that aside, it's still a great game.

[Jump !]

One major problem...

It's extremly tedious and boring after +10 minuets, it's quite frustrating in that respect. However, it did has some replay ability that I loved, I'm still trying to beat my highscore of 1024.

The art is amature at most, background could have a bit extra I suppose, could be a few more dangers in the game, although it's nice and relaxed.

Besides that, it's perfect, gameplay is nice and calm, a lovely 5-minuet game to mess with. Only thing I can suggest is, to add something that makes it more worth playing for, besides a highscore. Great nonetheless.