Listen2Reason's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Sphere Core]

Difficult and pointless...

It was well coded and everything, but I think some of the puzzles were just unfair. I hate those "hunt the pixel" puzzles. Looking through the walkthrough, I noticed that I hadn't found the code and the blue tile...And I STILL had trouble finding them, even with the walkthrough's directions. Forcing the player to hunt over areas of the screen doesn't make for good gameplay.

The other thing that bothers me about the game is that there's very little explanation. In the walkthrough you say things like "The Sphere needs more power to continue", but how is the player supposed to get that when they're just playing through the game? They end up trying random stuff until something works, which means they don't know what the story is.

Anyway, it was a good effort, maybe your next game will be better. ;)

Lazarou responds:

As I said, this is my first flash game, and I did learn a lot whilst making it. When I make the sequal I am going to take on board comments such as these, but I also want to keep the "spirit" of the point and click escape genre. I wouldnt say there are any real "hunt the pixel" cases in this game, its just a case of watching your mouse as you look around the screen. I have only hidden things in places where it would be logical to hide them.

Originally I was planning text comments which would give additional hints on the puzzle, but at the last minute i decided against it for several reasons - I liked the idea that you play yourself, rather than have someone elses disembodied brain feeding you information as you move around. Also I wanted to maintain a degree of difficulty to the game, however the balance of these things is always hard, what one person finds simple (opening the cryogenic cylinder in the corner for example) is infuriatingly difficult for others.
Of course, some things I would probably change, the screws around the wall safe are probably a little small, its hard to tell if you are removing them or not. I think the last part of the puzzle is very confusing for most people, perhaps a little more "direction" would make it smoother. I know what its like to get stuck on a game like this and it does get irritating, although I did try to make this game have very little of those moments.

Anyway, thanks for your comments and I hope that my next game will be more enjoyable for you :)

[Power Swing]

Okay...

It's all right, good animation, okay game. Unfortunately, there's still a glitch where a bird or something flies out and kills me. I didn't see anything about it in the instructions, so I have to assume it's glitched in some way.

[Nuclear Eagle]

Another pointless bugged game

Sure, it's animated well, but what the hell do you do? I read the instructions, seemed clear enough, but I couldn't figure out where the "food" was, whatever it was. At least, I think that was the point, to feed the baby birds on the right? I wasn't sure because when I tried to go back to the instructions to check I COULDN'T. There was no menu item to get back to them. I guess it stored some data object saying I had read through the instructions so I didn't need to read them again. I could try deleting that, but I've already wasted enough time on this pointless "game".

[String Avoider 2]

Difficult, buggy.

It's obvious you spent a lot of time polishing this game, but it's just too hard. Just the fourth level required intense precision, especially with the way the string moves so quickly. Human hands just can't move a mouse that precisely without jiggling it a bit. Beyond that, it seemed to have bugs that made it unplayable. I would just randomly die in a level, and I could see my string's tip wasn't anywhere NEAR a wall. All in all, this game was good for nothing more than a few minutes of frustration.

fwe responds:

I don't understand. Human hands can clearly beat this level as I have, along with every single other level in this game. I wouldn't release this game if it was as buggy as you claim it is. Maybe your 1997 IBM is processing it wrong, or your ball mouse can't handle the precision of such an easy level.

Thanks for the review, though

[Arctic Showdown Survival]

Pretty good!

Simple, but surprisingly fun game. I like the idea of a whale helping the boat along by blowing waterspouts. Why is it a zombie whale, though? Oh well, whatever. The graphics were nothing too special, but they were more than adequate for the game. The part I liked the best was the use of Alien Crush sounds and music. (Sounded like Alien Crush music, anyway.)

[Voodoo Essentials]

Not bad, needs more polish.

First, you should have some instructions, and they should be called "Instructions" or "Help". I started playing the game and was eventually able to figure out the keys, but I kept mixing up Attack and Jump. So, trying to attack spears and jump over enemies didn't work. Eventually I realized there was an "Options" link that had instructions...but why would anyone think to look there?

The other thing was that it seemed hard to kill the enemies. Basically there's no way to get rid of them without also taking damage yourself. Seems a little cheesy and boring.

On the good side, the animation was very smooth and it had a very interesting, distinctive style. The "voodoo" world really came across. Leaving aside for a moment the mixup in cultures...;)

[Super NG Missile Mastar]

Pretty good.

I thought it was okay. It certainly had a distinctive graphics style that worked well. I don't really like the idea of blowing up "noobs", but whatever...The game mechanic was simple, but interesting enough. I played until I got to bouncing Os, which made it more difficult, so I could tell the game wasn't simplistic. Which is good.

My one big issue was that it took so long to play. The first few levels were pretty much boring because you only had to move once or twice, and yet they each took like 30 seconds of waiting to get through. Oh well.

Casualty responds:

You might be right when you say the first levels are a bit long, but players need time to get into the game and it's way of moving.

Anyway, thanks for the great review!

[Word Destroyer]

Fun!

I liked this game. I'm glad I went through the tutorial...the game mechanic was very unusual, seemed weird and complicated at first. However, once I got into playing it made perfect sense. I like how you can play the game in different ways; every now and then I couldn't immediately figure out the answer, so I had to randomly place letters, then place *more* letters to get rid of the obstacles I created...like Hangman. So, anyway, good job!

[Firestorm Pong]

Not that good.

The spasming camera made it impossible to tell where you were supposed to move, because half the time you couldn't see your paddle. And the blue-on-blue color scheme didn't help. All in all, it was too hard to actually play.