Dan Marshall's long awaited and much-hyped Gibbage has finally hit the streets, but was it worth the wait?
Around two years in development, Gibbage is a relatively simple concept with clearly high aspirations - playability over technological complexity, and thus a true "indie" experience in every way.
A two-dimensional platformer in the style of the 16-bit glory days, Gibbage takes frenetic platform-based item collection and adds a somewhat more modern one-on-one deathmatch feel to the proceedings,, game review, resulting in all the multiplayer madness of a game of Counterstrike but all the yesteryear charm of Bonanza Brothers or Chuckie Egg.
Gibbage has no support for networks, so look forward to the added retro-styled bonus of being within poking distance of your friend who, just like in the good old days, is being forced to share your keyboard as well as your screen!
Each player is represented by a pod-like chamber on their respective side of the screen, from which, one at a time, emerge an unlimited, game review, supply of controllable gun-toting "clones" whose mission, game review, is to gather randomly dropped power crystals from around the level.
These crystals are then carried back to the pod, and added to the amount of power the player has at their disposal. A tug of war ensues as each player increases their power by securing crystals, but at the same time risking power loss by being killed (and using power to spawn another clone) or losing crystals to the opposition. All the while, each player's power level is steadily counting down, and the first player to reach zero, game review, is declared the loser, game review, .
Weaponry can be improved beyond the supplied popgun by the occasional presence of power-up bonus crystals, and these are generally typical upgrades, game review, such as homing rockets, land mines or lasers.
However, the bonus crystals are also capable, game review, of enacting "negative" status changes upon the enemy, often with hilarious consequences. These include such gems as an "armless" state in which your luckless chum will spend several minutes running around unable to fire, with blood pumping from their limbless upper torso, or "cryo" in which the opposing player will be frozen on the spot for a length of time.
The gore, in fact, is another "feature" worthy, game review, of discussion, as this game is absolutely loaded with the red stuff.
Death will generally result in a shower of gibs (hence the titular choice) and a comically rolling skull, and, as battle ensues, these scattered remains will pile up until stages begin, game review, to resemble warzones of the highest, game review, order - not for children (or, presumably,, game review, Daily Mail readers), this one.
With over 24 maps, game review, available, there is plenty here to keep both the casual or more serious gamer occupied, and the developer has sensibly integrated an unlocking system to control the availability of each stage, adding further to the "just one more go" feeling that Gibbage seems designed around.
But for how long will you actually want to play Gibbage? For a start, as a single player game, Gibbage is bordering on useless. The AI opponent, game review, begins to become unstuck the moment levels with any form of dangerous obstacle are introduced - cheerfully hurling itself into lava pits in an attempt to recover power crystals randomly dropped onto the deadly surface. If you have no friends, stay away from Gibbage! Multiplayer (clearly the real aim of this game), however, is an experience that, once one acclimatises to the tiny sprites and often rather unpredictable physics, can become a real time waster.
A full round, either of long or short duration, will generally play out in a fairly balanced fashion, with a generally steady array, game review, of power and bonus crystals coming in regular supply. Perhaps the only criticism here is the tendency for something of a rush of crystals earlier in a game, game review, (often three or four falling in quick succession), with rather a dearth later on as players will find nothing left to do but turn their attentions to each other, often causing the rich to become richer in terms, game review, of power levels.
Attention too should also be drawn to the cryo bonus, which freezes the opponent for an almost unbearably long time; providing a real table-turner in game fortune, game review, and a massive frustration, game review, if a large lead was in hand before being crushed by this one swift move.
In conclusion, Gibbage is a bold, humorous and immensely playable title which, at only a ฃ6 price tag, can, game review, be forgiven for its niggling playability issues by offering a lasting, entertaining and surprisingly, game review,, game review, deep (multiplayer!) gaming experience which should out live its asking price, game review, by quite a while.
Roll on the next Dan Marshall release!
Score: 7/10.
Originally posted on Retro 247 Games at http://www.retro247, game review, .co.uk
Copyright ฉ 2006 Peter Michael Gothard
About the Reviewer:
Peter Gothard is a lifelong gamer, collector of rare and unusual Sega stuff, and eagerly anticipating the Nintendo Wii! He is just graduating in English Literature and Linguistics at the University of Manchester if you'd like to give him a job so as he can buy DarXside.
2009/12/10
Half-Life 2: Episode One Game Review (Avg Ratio: 89.2%)
One thing you can say about the team at Valve, game review, Software: they don't like to rush. After taking six years to craft the sequel to Half-Life, it's taken another eighteen months, game review, for the first mini-expansion, Half-Life 2: Episode One, to arrive. As the initial installment of a trilogy to be offered in episodic format, the good news is that Episode One is a welcome return to the world of Half-Life 2, with the same great graphics, game review, and gameplay that helped that game win numerous awards in late 2004 (including, game review, GameSpy's PC Game of the Year).
Episode One starts off exactly where Half-Life 2 ended: with you (as scientist/killing machine Gordon Freeman) atop an exploding Citadel, with your sidekick, the spunky Alyx Vance, about to be toast. Without spoiling things, let's just say that Alyx is kept out of harm's way, and the two of you are quickly reunited outside at the base of a smoking Citadel. After establishing an uplink with old friends Dr. Kleiner and Alyx's father Eli (once again voiced by Robert Guillaume), you discover the Citadel is about to go kerplooey, and in order to give yourself, Alyx and countless other citizens more time to escape City 17, you'll, game review, have to go back in to try and delay the meltdown.
There's a good deal of exposition at the start of Episode One, as characters are quickly reintroduced and tasks are laid out before you. The intro includes, game review, a reappearance by Dog (Alyx's pet robot), who makes your re-entry into the Citadel a memorable, game review, one. Once inside, you and Alyx spend a lot of time exploring the deteriorating monolith, giving you a chance to get reacquainted with the gravity gun. Before long, you'll be flinging around Combine soldiers just like the good ol' days.
As you work your way to the Citadel's central reactor core, you're confronted with a healthy dose of puzzles, which start out simple enough but require more imagination to solve as you proceed.
Once you've delayed the Citadel meltdown (and picked up some extra intel on what the Combine, game review, is up to in the process), the second half of Episode One focuses on Gordon and Alyx's, game review, efforts to haul ass out of City 17. Of course, the escape is anything but simple, as you're first forced underground where you have to deal with headcrabs, zombies, and ant lions,, game review, and then you make your way onto the streets where you get knee-deep in combat, game review, with Combine soldiers, who are none too happy with the information you pilfered from the Citadel.
The gameplay in Episode, game review, One never strays too far from the familiar Half-Life formula: levels are kept pretty linear as you're steered from one challenge to the next, with lots of scripted events to move the plot along. The opening levels, game review, in the Citadel feel the most unique, due to the heavy emphasis, game review, on storytelling, the gravity gun, and all the puzzles involved with stabilizing the reactor. Things slow down a bit once you go underground and start fighting zombies, although there are a few interesting scenes where you have to shine your flashlight on enemies so Alyx can see and shoot them in the dark.
Once you get outside with a full complement of weapons, things move along much faster, although it can sometimes feel a little too familiar, as if you're replaying the later sections of Half-Life 2 instead of new content.
Probably the biggest change introduced in Episode One is how Alyx fights at Gordon's side for the majority of the game. Plenty of shooters have tried this and failed, with NPCs who get lost or get in the way or are just plain annoying. Valve strikes just the right notes with Alyx; she doesn't nag Gordon, she can competently follow you around, and even provides useful support a lot of the time.
There's a fun sequence in the later chapters, game review, where you're free to run ahead and fight alone, but it's far more fun to draw enemies into Alyx's line of sight so she can snipe them from afar. Aside from, game review, her use in combat, Alyx is also effectively used to put a human face on things and keep the story moving along, and Episode One is a better game for it.
As was the case in Half-Life 2, the graphics in Episode One are drop-dead gorgeous; there may not be another graphics engine today capable of consistently producing such attractive scenes in so, game review, many different settings.
From the dramatic sights outside the crumbling Citadel to the shimmering reactor core to the dramatic lighting effects when fighting zombies in the dark, it's almost impossible to take a bad screenshot in Episode One. The NPCs are once again rendered with amazing detail and animations, and Valve has included the advanced HDR lighting effects that it showcased last year in the Lost Coast tech demo. Best of all, Episode One appears to be every bit as hardware-friendly as Half-Life 2, and ran without a hitch at 1920x1200 on our test machine (a 3.
4Ghz CPU with 2GB RAM and a GeForce 7800 GTX video card), game review, .
One of the most unique features in Episode One is the addition of developer commentary, which, once enabled, can be accessed, game review, via chat bubbles sprinkled throughout the game. There's a healthy amount of commentary,, game review, with Valve developers mainly offering insights about design decisions that influenced sections of the game. The commentary offers a fascinating look at why parts of the game turned out the way they did, and while Episode One isn't the first game to try this (the PC version of The, game review, Chronicles of Riddick had a commentary feature as well), it's a, game review, feature well worth checking, game review, out once you've finished the game, and something we'd like to see more of.
The biggest question you'll,, game review, game review, probably have about Episode One is whether it's worth the $19,, game review, game review, .99 price tag, game review, . With about four to five hours of new gameplay, it goes by really fast, which is all the more disappointing when you consider we've waited so long for new Half-Life 2 content. (Episode Two is currently scheduled for the end of 2006.) There's, game review, also the Steam factor: so far, Valve's download service appears to, game review, be holding up okay, but the game is also in stores now for the same price for those of you (like me) who like having a box and a disc.
(For the record, Episode One is a standalone title that doesn't require Half-Life 2 to play, and includes access to the previously released Half-Life 2 deathmatch.)
Half-Life 2: Episode One delivers exactly what you'd expect from a Half-Life expansion: it returns to the intriguing setting of City 17, delivers, game review,, game review, lots of tight action sequences and well-crafted puzzles, and is arguably, game review, the best-looking shooter out today. At $20, it goes by pretty quick, but the developer commentary adds some replay value, and it's impossible to imagine anyone who enjoyed Half-Life 2 passing it up.
It's exciting, game review, to see developers finally embrace the idea of episodic content; the big question now is whether Valve can keep up with the demand.
Go to http://www.zopcuk.eu/en/game_reviews/half-life_2_episode_one.asp to read the full article.
You can find more articles on http://www.zopcuk.eu
Episode One starts off exactly where Half-Life 2 ended: with you (as scientist/killing machine Gordon Freeman) atop an exploding Citadel, with your sidekick, the spunky Alyx Vance, about to be toast. Without spoiling things, let's just say that Alyx is kept out of harm's way, and the two of you are quickly reunited outside at the base of a smoking Citadel. After establishing an uplink with old friends Dr. Kleiner and Alyx's father Eli (once again voiced by Robert Guillaume), you discover the Citadel is about to go kerplooey, and in order to give yourself, Alyx and countless other citizens more time to escape City 17, you'll, game review, have to go back in to try and delay the meltdown.
There's a good deal of exposition at the start of Episode One, as characters are quickly reintroduced and tasks are laid out before you. The intro includes, game review, a reappearance by Dog (Alyx's pet robot), who makes your re-entry into the Citadel a memorable, game review, one. Once inside, you and Alyx spend a lot of time exploring the deteriorating monolith, giving you a chance to get reacquainted with the gravity gun. Before long, you'll be flinging around Combine soldiers just like the good ol' days.
As you work your way to the Citadel's central reactor core, you're confronted with a healthy dose of puzzles, which start out simple enough but require more imagination to solve as you proceed.
Once you've delayed the Citadel meltdown (and picked up some extra intel on what the Combine, game review, is up to in the process), the second half of Episode One focuses on Gordon and Alyx's, game review, efforts to haul ass out of City 17. Of course, the escape is anything but simple, as you're first forced underground where you have to deal with headcrabs, zombies, and ant lions,, game review, and then you make your way onto the streets where you get knee-deep in combat, game review, with Combine soldiers, who are none too happy with the information you pilfered from the Citadel.
The gameplay in Episode, game review, One never strays too far from the familiar Half-Life formula: levels are kept pretty linear as you're steered from one challenge to the next, with lots of scripted events to move the plot along. The opening levels, game review, in the Citadel feel the most unique, due to the heavy emphasis, game review, on storytelling, the gravity gun, and all the puzzles involved with stabilizing the reactor. Things slow down a bit once you go underground and start fighting zombies, although there are a few interesting scenes where you have to shine your flashlight on enemies so Alyx can see and shoot them in the dark.
Once you get outside with a full complement of weapons, things move along much faster, although it can sometimes feel a little too familiar, as if you're replaying the later sections of Half-Life 2 instead of new content.
Probably the biggest change introduced in Episode One is how Alyx fights at Gordon's side for the majority of the game. Plenty of shooters have tried this and failed, with NPCs who get lost or get in the way or are just plain annoying. Valve strikes just the right notes with Alyx; she doesn't nag Gordon, she can competently follow you around, and even provides useful support a lot of the time.
There's a fun sequence in the later chapters, game review, where you're free to run ahead and fight alone, but it's far more fun to draw enemies into Alyx's line of sight so she can snipe them from afar. Aside from, game review, her use in combat, Alyx is also effectively used to put a human face on things and keep the story moving along, and Episode One is a better game for it.
As was the case in Half-Life 2, the graphics in Episode One are drop-dead gorgeous; there may not be another graphics engine today capable of consistently producing such attractive scenes in so, game review, many different settings.
From the dramatic sights outside the crumbling Citadel to the shimmering reactor core to the dramatic lighting effects when fighting zombies in the dark, it's almost impossible to take a bad screenshot in Episode One. The NPCs are once again rendered with amazing detail and animations, and Valve has included the advanced HDR lighting effects that it showcased last year in the Lost Coast tech demo. Best of all, Episode One appears to be every bit as hardware-friendly as Half-Life 2, and ran without a hitch at 1920x1200 on our test machine (a 3.
4Ghz CPU with 2GB RAM and a GeForce 7800 GTX video card), game review, .
One of the most unique features in Episode One is the addition of developer commentary, which, once enabled, can be accessed, game review, via chat bubbles sprinkled throughout the game. There's a healthy amount of commentary,, game review, with Valve developers mainly offering insights about design decisions that influenced sections of the game. The commentary offers a fascinating look at why parts of the game turned out the way they did, and while Episode One isn't the first game to try this (the PC version of The, game review, Chronicles of Riddick had a commentary feature as well), it's a, game review, feature well worth checking, game review, out once you've finished the game, and something we'd like to see more of.
The biggest question you'll,, game review, game review, probably have about Episode One is whether it's worth the $19,, game review, game review, .99 price tag, game review, . With about four to five hours of new gameplay, it goes by really fast, which is all the more disappointing when you consider we've waited so long for new Half-Life 2 content. (Episode Two is currently scheduled for the end of 2006.) There's, game review, also the Steam factor: so far, Valve's download service appears to, game review, be holding up okay, but the game is also in stores now for the same price for those of you (like me) who like having a box and a disc.
(For the record, Episode One is a standalone title that doesn't require Half-Life 2 to play, and includes access to the previously released Half-Life 2 deathmatch.)
Half-Life 2: Episode One delivers exactly what you'd expect from a Half-Life expansion: it returns to the intriguing setting of City 17, delivers, game review,, game review, lots of tight action sequences and well-crafted puzzles, and is arguably, game review, the best-looking shooter out today. At $20, it goes by pretty quick, but the developer commentary adds some replay value, and it's impossible to imagine anyone who enjoyed Half-Life 2 passing it up.
It's exciting, game review, to see developers finally embrace the idea of episodic content; the big question now is whether Valve can keep up with the demand.
Go to http://www.zopcuk.eu/en/game_reviews/half-life_2_episode_one.asp to read the full article.
You can find more articles on http://www.zopcuk.eu
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