Christmas Carnage

Christmas is so depressing, even
Santa drinks to cope.

Christmas is fast approaching, which means its time for a slew of Christmas games to burst forth from the great Xbox Live Indie Game hole in the sky. Christmas Carnage, created by Bandana Games, is officially the first game to break the 2012 "Christmas Game" seal, but how does it compare to the many other non-Christmas themed shooters?

What a lot of people don't know is that this is how penises
work too. If one ball goes out, the whole thing ceases to function.

The two main themes found in Christmas Carnage are Christmas and simplicity. Up to four players can participate at a time, and all you really do is fly around the screen as a fairy and shoot projectiles at the myriad of Christmas themed objects that fly at you from every direction. From presents to Christmas lights to gingerbread men and candy canes, every major element found on a table full of Christmas crap is presented here for you and your friends to destroy beyond recognition. For those of you who harbor an unfettered rage towards the holiday season, you'll find yourself at peace here. For everyone else, you might want to grab a child-based relative to play with you, because as an adult you won't really have much incentive to continue playing after you beat the game.

These screen shots are starting to disconcert me... why are
the fairies always in a perfect square? Was this play tested by a
Borg family!?

That's not to imply that Christmas Carnage is bad, because it is completely playable. The game has a few power ups for you to find that sporadically appear, and the enemies that will assault you come in copious bunches. But other than that, Christmas Carnage has no learning curve what so ever, which is why I suggest playing it with a younger brother or sister. They'll have an easy time enjoying themselves and probably be delighted by the Christmas paraphernalia dancing across the screen. The game does have a small degree of difficulty, but it shouldn't be much of a problem for an older player to help defend a younger gamer if need be.

The game also counts down how many days are left until Christmas as well as provide snarky comments at the outset of each level. The game also promises to reveal the true meaning of Christmas at it's conclusion, so you'll need to massacre 21 levels of enemies before you can find out what that is.

I remember when my dad took me out to chop down a Christmas tree.
They were all pre-decorated with ornaments which they hurled at us as we
tried to hack away at their legs and take one home. Wait. I think I'm getting
confused with the time we tried to kidnap an old man and use him as a Christmas
tree. Nevermind!

I do think Christmas Carnage is fun, but it doesn't have a whole lot of depth to it. If you have little gamers who you'd like to get pumped up for Christmas so that they explode with excitement on the big day after you've presented them with the genetically modified Monkey Pony you got them so you can record their reaction and forever immortalize on the Youtubes, Christmas Carnage will be fun for the entire gaming family. You can even wrap grandma's gnarled arthritis ridden paws around a controller and have her join in on the fray, because even she will be able to recognize the value of an 80 MSP game.

Nobody won the code I have for Space Crüesader because only Luchalma commented! Since I still have that code and now one for Christmas Carnage, if you leave a comment on this entry I'll pick a winner on Dec. 21st who will receive the codes for both games! Good luck!

Weekly Indie Game Release List for Dec. 2nd - 9th

Hey everyone. Sorry for the huge lack of updates recently. If you want to know more about whats going on with my health, check out my update on my "About Me" page. Long story short, I'm okay. I can't guarantee I'll adhere to my update schedule until I get my surgery and recover from that, but I'll do my best until then. I'll be posting the release list for last week today, and then a review for Christmas Carnage later this evening.

Without further ado, here's the Xbox Indie Games that came out from Dec. 2nd to the 8th!

Release List for Nov 25 - Dec 1st

A ton of indie games came out this week.... holy crap! To help my blog not be such a chore to load, I'm going to start putting my posts behind breaks. Honestly, I should be doing that anyway. So, without further ado, here are the Xbox Live Indie Games that came out for the week of Nov. 25th through Dec. 1st!

(Note: If you're a developer of one of these games and you have a website, please tell me! In my opinion it's really important to have a website for you company, and if you have a forum it gives your fans a way to interact with you. People want to tell you how much they love your game... so make sure they have a way to do it!)

Space Crüesader

I found this in my attic!

I've been a long time fan of single screen bullet hell games such as Super Stardust and Geometry Wars. Super Stardust in particular I played extensively, as I had in on my PSP and could take it with me where ever I went. So when the recently released Space Crüesader came out, I had to try it out and see if it would cause me to get sucked into the genre once again. For only 80 MSP are you getting you're money's worth?

Avatar Monster Truck

Let's go jump over a line of school buses!

A lot of times when I think of Monster Trucks I think of the huge, trailer trashy version of normal cars with their engorged tires leaping over other vehicles and crushing everything that passes under their wheels. An announcer screams the day of the week over and over again while the behemoths shred the earth beneath them, and if the audience is lucky they might even get to see someone get hurt, or better yet, die. Recently the indie game Avatar Monster Truck was released, and I was curios to see if it lives up to the epic sized tires found in the real life arenas.

Indie Game Release List for Nov. 18th - 24th.

Nov. 18th

• Alpha Ship

• Xbox Live Description - A new exciting and fun way to learn the letters of the English language! Hear their sounds and enjoy the fun experience of learning!
• Price -  80 MSP
• Co-Op - NONE
• Website - Dingy (The developer doesn't have a website, so I assume this game was designed by a dingy bobbing up and down in a lake.)
• Game Type - Educational space... thing?

Rainbow Rapture

Nothing about this box art implies the
 mass murdering you're about to commit.

I've had Rainbow Rapture sitting on my Xbox 360 since it originally came out on December of 2011 and I've been playing it off and on ever since. In the game you play as a Rainbow Cloud who has awoken from his slumber and is entirely dissatisfied with what’s going on down on Earth. So what does he decide to do? EAT. EVERYONE.

Avatar Farm Online

The horse is watching.
He's always watching.
Always.

Avatar Farm Online was recently released on November 16^th 2012 and made by Milkstone Studios. They originally created Avatar Farm, which has been their most successful game to date. Avatar Farm is much like the social Facebook game Farmville and its ilk, but the original version had no online components. The newly released Avatar Farm Online fixes this problem, and now you can visit other people’s farm and help them out with it, if they allow visitors to do so. How are the online components, and how does Avatar Farm Online compare to other farm sims?

Indie Game Release List Nov 11th - 17th

Nov 15th

• Hostile Hustle

• Xbox Live Description - Overhauled Version of 2011's "I Accidentally In Space! EP1" with 30 updated levels, graphics and gameplay! Platformer meets vertical shoot-em-up in this retro genre mashup. An explosion at the Mining facility on Deimos has scattered valuable space gems all over space, & the aliens determined to protect them are doing everything in their power to keep you from getting them back!
• Price - 80 MSP
• Co-Op - NONE
• Website - Lethal Martini Games
• Type - Platformer/Shooter

Johnny Carnage

Yeah! What am I implying by pointing my finger at my head?
Am I so crazy I might just shoot myself?
Or do I just have my gun in the wrong hand?

Johnny Carnage is a game developed by Milkstone Studios and released on October 6^th 2012. The description from the game states you’ll be rescuing girls from evil skeletons from Mars, and call the game a platformer/shooter. Milkstone Studios has a pretty good track record, with several of their previous games also being very good. Does Johnny Carnage live up to their high quality precedent Milkstone has set for itself in the XBLIG?

FromPulse

So... many... colors...

From Pulse is a rhythm game made by Pixel Molotov and released on October 23^rd 2012. The description for the game state that it is heavily narrative driven retro inspired rhythmic plat former. I haven’t seen a whole lot of rhythm games lately that doesn’t try to follow Rock Band/Guitar Heroe’s track formula since Fret Nice, and had been interested in trying this out ever since it was released. Is From Pulse the melodic experience that it promises to be?

Shark Attack Deathmatch

Yeah! Sharks! SHARK WEEK! BEER!

Shark Attack Deathmatch is an Xbox Indie game made by Lighthouse Stuido Games and released on November 9^th 2012. The game description states it’s an online multiplayer death match game featuring sharks. So for those of us who wish Shark Week was a yearlong event, does this satisfy that niche that needs filling?

Xbox Indie Game Release List Nov. 4th - 10th

Nov. 4th

• Easy, Medium, Egghead

• Xbox Live Description -  Compete to be top of the high scores and complete exciting challenges to earn awardments for your trophy shelf. Gain experience to improve your Brain Name, move up the matheletic ladder and become Einstein! 'Easy Medium Egghead' is a new quiz style XBOX Live Indie Game for up to 4 players. Who's the best out of your friends at mental reasoning? Now there is a fun game to put it to the test.
• Price: 80 MSP
• Co-op: 4 player LOCAL
• Website - Fire Plum Studios
• Type: Party Game/Puzzle & Trivia

Xenominer

OH GOD THE SUN! RUN AWAY!

Xenominer is a voxel game created by Gristmill Studios and released on September 19^th 2012. It advertises itself as being a space voxel sandbox game, where you crash land on a foreign satellite and must fight to survive the harsh space environment. With the glut of voxel games on the Xbox, does Xenominer stand out?

Behold! Space HQ! The purple is giving me Saints Row 3
flashbacks...

The graphics of Xenominer are pretty standard. You’re stuck on an asteroid that has strange tree looking structures dotting its surface. The “leaves” of the trees are actually blocks of ice, something essential to your survival in the game. You’ll also find hills and mountains, some floating disembodied islands, and a few large alien structures. But most of your time is probably going to be spent underground gathering resources. The graphics are darker and more defined then something like Minecraft and Total Miner, but not over the top glossy like you’d find in Fortresscraft. I really like the effect of going above ground and being able to look out into the galaxy above you. It adds to a very cool atmosphere the game has going for it.

The game has sound and music, which serve their purpose and nothing more. I was not overly impressed with either, but nor was I aggravated or turned off by them.

I'm going to colonize those space islands. Just kidding, I don't actually know what I'm looking at. I don't even know
how to play video games. I really an 80 year old man who likes to look at video game screen shots and write stories
about them.

The gameplay for Xenominer is pretty typical for a block survival game, but with a whole lot more focus and polish than the standard voxel survival game. You’re dropped into a situation with just your wits, a mining tool, and a friendly computer AI who is all too happy to run you through a tutorial. This is the first great thing about Xenominer, is that it contains a tutorial. If you follow it, instead of panicking and not knowing what to do once you run out of air, you’ll figure out what you need to do to ensure your continued survival. This seems like it shouldn’t be an issue, but I’ve come across multiple people who didn’t pay much attention to the tutorial and couldn’t understand what they needed to do to keep their oxygen full.

As you collect resources you’ll be able to create items that will facilitate better equipment and supplies. You’ll first be tasked with creating a device that can use your resources at to fabricate items. Once you’ve built this you’ll need to create processing cores to increase the item fabricator’s power. More cores give you access to better items. When you start out, each core will provide one unit of processing power. Cores can be built later on that will provide additional processing power. You’ll also have options for building lights, storage units, more powerful equipment, grav pads, and solar arrays. You can also find a “Bot” hidden in your game that is a programmable robot. You can use it to mine and build structures while you do other things.

You see this other voxel game developers? This is how you
make a unique terrain that screams "EXPLORE ME BABY!"

One thing Xenominer doesn’t have is multiplayer, a common trope found in the voxel genre. I don’t feel that this really detracts from the game. Multiplayer feels like something a lot of developers are throwing into their voxel games just to have it. I really do appreciate games like Minecraft and Fortresscraft, but Minecraft was in development on the PC for a long time, and Fortresscraft has suffered some strong growing pains while it’s gone through its development cycle. I have no ideas if Gristmill Studios plans to add multiplayer or not, but I much happier having a fully functional game first and getting multiplayer at a later date.

Personally, I think Xenominer is doing a lot of things right that a lot of the other voxel games are neglecting to do. I know that companies can be successful by release a semi- finished game (Ala Fortresscraft, Mine4Ever, Block World) and then patch it as they go along, but I’m getting kind of sick of this. I liked Xenominer for its refreshing premise, and I feel like Gristmill Studios did a good job of releasing something new and original in the voxel genre. If you look at their forums you’ll only see people excited about the game and what they can do in it, as opposed to Fortresscraft which is constantly plagued by people decrying them to be a Minecraft rip off. Since Minecraft is now on the Xbox, developers really need to step up their game to compete with it, and Xenominer has done a really good job of this. You can buy the game right now for only 80 MSP, which they claim is a limited time offer, so get it at that price if you’re at all interested in it.

O.C.D.

Kind of dissapointed by the lack of
door locking and hand washing mini-games.

O.C.D. is an indie game created by Pouncing Kitten Games for Xbox Live released on February 2^nd 2012. It is a match three game that is RPG centric, stating that it guts frivolous role playing tropes in favor of a game that just focuses on character development. Is it a good Role Playing match three game, similar in vain to the Puzzle Quest series?

I like to match weapons and pretend
my character is cutting... monsters!

The graphics are very simple. There’s not even a background to speak of, just the color blue. The circles that you’ll be matching are colorful and contain a lot of variety, but I feel like this almost hurts some areas of the game. Sometimes I have trouble distinguishing what color a circle is because the overlapping symbol takes up most of the space. This isn’t really an issue when you’re doing the collapse-esque puzzles. The music is forgettable and the sounds include popping. Lots and lots of popping.

This is where you pick up resources for item crafting. Collect
all those... squid... tentacles? You'll use them to make
awesome Whale's Squid Plate of Tentacle Rape + 5.

As I previously mentioned, the main game play aspect is match three, like Puzzle Quest or Bejeweled. There’s also item crafting, which has you rolling dice to get certain numbers, almost reminding me of Yhatzee. But to do the crafting you first need items which require resources, something you accumulate in the Collapse-esque mini games. You can also level up and gain skill and magic points, and this is where the match three aspects comes in. When you choose Level you match circles to gain experience. When you gain a level you get LP which you use to boost your main stats, Health, Magic, Stamina, Strength, Intelligence and Dexterity.  Each of these stats will affect various things, such as how many turns you have when doing the different Collapse and Match games, or how many re-rolls you get when forging an item.

Not exactly sure how a mace can suffer from a mental illness,
but I'll take it!

When you play the skill match three game you gain SP that you can use to boost the several different skills that you have access to. Examples of these include Courage, which reduces the number of experiences points you need to reach the next level, or Survivalist which increases the amount of food you get when playing the food gathering Farming game. This is where you’ll encounter a bug in the game, as some of the skills are mislabeled. The skill Observation says it reduces spell costs, but when you put points into it your skill costs go down.

A warrior named Addicted. I named mine Criesinbeer, after
my favorite activity. Well actually it's my second favorite, I just
couldn't get Masturbatesinawell to fit.

Though this game is simple and kind of repetitive, I still found myself enjoying it. It does present you with the simple pleasures of building up a character, but I can’t help but feel the game is lacking for this very reason without any clear objectives or a story. I know that this is one of the selling points of the game, that it doesn’t include those extra frilly features, but it also makes the game feel like it’s just a generic time waster. Since the mini games start out only giving you a move or two, you often want to play “just one more game” which frequently turns into ten more games. Increasing your stats and crafting and farming is fun. But the game is only 80MSP, and for that price it’s hard to complain. If you like match three games and RPG’s, this will definitely be a dollar well spent for you. I think there is room for another game like this, so I’m hopeful that the developer is working on a sequel or that someone else may have another match three RPG in the works, because I think it’s already been established that these games can work well.

Sushi Castle

Oh man, it's Final Fantasy VII all over again.

Sushi Castle is another rogue-like game created by MilkstoneStudios and released on July 7^th 2012. Milkstone Studios currently list twenty different games on their website that they have released for the Xbox Indie Game Arcade, many of which are really good. On their website they claim that Sushi Castle is heavily inspired by the PC game Binding of Isaac. How does Sushi Castle compare to it, and other games in the rogue-like genre?

Oh, gooey brain monsters that leave behind a trail of filth that
causes damage. How original.

The graphics of the game are colorful and crisp. One of the things that I really appreciate is being able to play this without having to worry about turning the graphics down so the game doesn’t run slow, something that is a common problem with Binding of Isaac. Another thing I really like is the interface on the right side of the screen that shows your stats. This keeps you from having to pause the game or bring up a menu to find out what your stats are at. I feel like the character design is a little uninspired though. I found myself sometimes fighting multiple version of the same looking enemy with simple color palette swaps. I understand that the game is supposed to be about Ninjas, but there’s lots of Japanese mythology that could’ve been drawn upon to create a bigger variety of enemies. I guess sometimes you can have too many ninjas.

Ninja zombies! Or mystic zombies! Or homeless people!

The game play is exactly like Binding of Isaac. You run around in a randomly generated Zelda-esque dungeon collecting items that boost your stats or change your weapons. One of the differences in this is that while in Binding of Isaac you can only shoot up, down, left, and right, in Sushi Castle you can shoot in the diagonal directions as well. This actually makes the game somewhat easier, especially when faced with enemies who can only fire in the original four directions. The game also controls exceptionally well, and really makes me wish that Binding of Isaac offered this option too.

Oh look! A fat ninja! Those ninja stars should bounce right off him.
That's how fat works, right?

The game has a lot of items that you can find, but not near the massive amount to be discovered in the Binding of Isaac. Another problem I find with the game is a lot of items, enemies, and bosses seem to be ripped straight for Binding of Isaac. I understand Sushi Castle is inspired by Binding of Isaac, but it almost seems like they recreated the things they found in Binding of Isaac and didn’t put much work into making these things their own. As you progress through the game this becomes less of a problem, as the enemies in the later levels of the dungeon actually are quite different than what you find in Binding of Isaac. However, this is a game you replay over and over and over again, so you spend far more time in the first few levels than you do in the last. Once again, it makes the first chunk of the game feel uninspired, and I just wish more effort would’ve been put into trying to differentiate themselves from Binding of Isaac instead of just trying to be clear where they drew their inspiration from. When you get to a boss for the first time and it has the same exact attack pattern as a boss in Binding of Isaac, as a player I was left with a feeling of “Been there, done that.”

THE PROBLEM: The bosses period. THE SOLUTION: Your giant tampon.

Binding of Isaac is one of my favorite games, and the due to past experiences with publishing a game on the console market, Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl have been hesitant to release it on that platform. They have only recently begun to discus that avenue, and my only worry is that Sushi Castle with seem like an inferior game once that is released. If Milkstone Studios makes another one, I really hope they put more effort into making the game as different as possible from Binding of Isaac. They game could also use a slew of more items, enemies, and bosses, along with lots of secrets for players to find and explore. The large amount of things to do and find in the game is one of the things that make it so fun, as each play through should be vastly different from the last.

Otherwise, if you don’t have a computer I HIGHLY recommend this game. If you can play it without being able to look through the lenses of Binding of Isaac, you will have a LOT of fun with this game, because it is very good. And it’s only 80 MSP. You’re going to get a lot of entertainment out of that dollar, and Milkstone Studios has a great track record for their games, so we need to support them so they can continue to put out great games.

Comedy Night

I guess I don't have a choice, I have to try this game.

Comedy Night is a “game” created by Lighthouse Games Studio and released on August 13^th 2012. Lighthouse Games Studio is actually quite prolific on the Indie Game Marketplace, with at least eleven games listed on their website. When I saw Comedy Night I was immediately curious as it claims to be a venue for people seeking out new comedians and a place for aspiring comedians to practice their craft from the safety and comfort of their own home. How does this translate to an Xbox Live Indie game?

Are those avatars having fun? I... I can't tell...

Let’s start with the sound and music. The music is horrible and goofy, and I was glad to see that I could turn it off. You can also supplement your own music via an in-game menu, which is nice, but I fail to even see the purpose of music since it’s going to drown out the “comedians” you’ll be listening to. There are very few sounds in the game, such as a buzzer noise when people attempt to vote someone off stage or cricket noises that can be generated by the audience.

Next up is the graphics. They are simple and feature player’s Xbox Avatars, which I really like. There’s also not much to look at because you’ll spend most the time sitting in the same club watching people perform on a stage. I feel like a variety of venues would’ve been a nice addition.

Just wait, a squeaker* is going to come in here and ruin everything.

And now on to the actual meat of the “game”. You can either be an audience member or a performer. When you perform you can pick from three different show types: clean amateur shows, mature amateur shows, and professional shows. In the amateur shows up to two people can perform simultaneously. The audience is allowed to vote them off if they choose to do so. There are also a slew of options for expressing your avatar’s level of interest in the show, from cheering to booing to yawning. You can also talk through your mic, but audience chat can be disabled if you choose so. You’re freely allowed to switch between audience member and performer if a spot is available on stage. In a professional show only one person is allowed on stage and they cannot be voted off.

What this often boils down to is an eclectic group of people sitting together and taking part in a themed voice chat room. At its worst the room is chaotic and can often be dominated by one annoying person who refuses to stop talking. Often times this same annoying person will spout racists, misogynistic, homophobic non-sense ad-nauseum, making it feel like you’re playing popular online shooters without the shooting. Other times there will be players on stage who will say nothing, and then when you start heckling them to tell some jokes, usually they’ll throw up their hands in exasperation and say “Why don’t you tell some jokes then?!” I have no aspirations to be a comedian, but at one point I took the stage and told dead baby jokes until I got sick of doing so. This was entertaining to the people in the audience, but it was honestly the first time I had heard actual jokes being told. Every other time people just said random offensive things in an attempt to be funny, such as the time one player entered the room and made fun of everyone because he thought this was funny. A female player entered the room and he harassed her to great extent until he was removed from the room.

It was at this point that "WeedzKillaz42069" informed everyone that they were a collective bunch of "faggots".

Comedy Night is an interesting experiment, but that’s about it. It does a good job of what it sets out to do, which is to provide a virtual venue for aspiring comedians to perform and an audience they can perform in front of. It’s unfortunate that the majority of the participating audience is often comprised of children without self control and young adults full of social ineptitude. I think Comedy Night is interesting for what it is, and for only 80MS points you’re not taking a huge risk. If you’re interested in something like this I would suggest at least supporting the developers, because I would like to see them make another game like this with some expanded options so that we can at least vote to kick fellow audience members, and maybe allow us to make our own profiles that other players could vote up or down, so that we can at least have vested interest in performing.

* - Squeaker - a very young person found on voice chat programs with a high pitched, squeaky voice

Dungeons of Desolation

Yeah! Swords and Maces! And Luck! And...  intense feelings of despair?

Are you ready for another rogue-like? I sure was when I picked up Dungeons of Desolation on the XBL Indie Market when it was released on October 25^th 2012. It was made by OnlyLuck Interactive, the team behind another XBL Indie game, Corrupted. How does it fare compared to the other rogue-likes that can be found on the Xbox?

In general, if it moves, it must die.

Let’s start with the graphics and sound. The game has a simplistic cartoony style of graphics. Your character actually changes in appearance as you put on different types of weapons and armor, something I really appreciate because you can actually see your character getting stronger as he wears different types of equipment. The enemies are colorful and distinguishable, save for a few that I couldn't discern what I was looking at until I saw their names. The music is non-intrusive, and the sound effects in the game serve their purpose.

So many skills... I'm going to turn into a skill dragon and LEARN THEM ALL!

Unlike many rogue-likes, who 

simply offer equipment as a means to level up, Dungeons of Desolation gives you two skill points when you level up that you can spend however you want between four different skill trees. There’s Combat, for all things melee related, Black Magic, for the pyromaniac in you, White Magic, so you can heal yourself, and Grey Magic, and utility school of magic focused around buffing yourself and getting around the dungeon. There’s a lot to pick from, and for anyone who likes to micromanage a characters skills, this is a lot of fun. There’s also a robust amount of equipment options.

Linen Shoes of Haste. They're like dungeon Chuck Taylors!

The game comes with two modes of difficulty. I started with a melee character on “Normal” and died multiple times. Whenever I died Death spun a wheel to determine what my death penalty was, be it loosing experience, gold, both, or receiving a temporary de-buff.  Later I started another character on “Hardcore” where if your character dies, they stay dead in true rogue-like. This didn’t really seem to have any effect on the actual difficulty of the game. I created a black magic centric character, and managed to get him to level fourteen. On this second play through the game was actually pretty easy. Thankfully you can save the game and pick it up later, which I will continue to do so.

In summation, this is a very good rogue-like, albeit a bit on the easy side. If you’re a new fan of the genre, or you’re just interested in trying out a game like this, I would highly recommend Dungeons of Desolation due to its less punishing difficulty. Even if you’re a veteran of the genre, the expansive skill system is fun and interesting. At only 80MS points, you’re only spending a dollar on the game, and if I can’t convince you I at least urge you to try out the demo. Dungeons of Desolation is a great rogue-like for the Xbox, and should not be passed up.

March to the Moon

This looks like a trip worth taking.

                March to the Moon is an XBL Indie game released on August 31^st 2012 by Califer Games. It’s a top down shooter with some RPG elements. There are twelve different classes from which you can pick from, and when you level up enough you can pick a secondary class, or choose to stay with the one you already picked. How does this game stand up to others in the SHMUP genre?

                I’ll start with the two things I didn’t like about the game. Number one is the graphics. I can appreciate simple, retro styled graphics, but that’s not what this game has. It looks like most of the graphics were created in MSPaint and imported into the game. Normally I don’t like to hark on a game for graphics, but sometimes I had difficulty reading the on screen text. And the graphics are just downright silly otherwise. I would like to point out that on their website for the game, the art is awesome. I wonder why that wasn’t put into the game?

Ah rats. I'm going to burn a lot of you to death.

                Also, the music. Oh god, the music. It has one song that plays on a loop throughout the entire game, and while it starts out inoffensive… I eventually found it stuck in my head, and not in a good way. I still hum it to myself sometimes without even realizing it. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I got sick of the one song in the game. But I did a few power sessions where I just played the game straight for several hours at a time… maybe that was my fault. But a few more songs for variety would’ve alleviated this.

                Now onto what I loved. I love RPGs, so when I started this game up and was presented with twelve classes to pick from, I got excited. I created characters with combinations of all the classes so I could find out what they were all like. I eventually went with a fire/arrow character, because it turned out to be easy mode. You gain three skill points as you level up, and at level 8 you pick your second class. Then you distribute your stat points between many different types of skills.

Which was a machine that produced rats. Like a pile of rags.

                The game has three different levels of difficulty that unlock as you beat the game. It gets progressively harder on the high difficulties, and dependant on how you built your character, the game can either be really easy or really tough. Using my fire/arrow character as an example, I put all of my points into the skills that made my main fireball/arrow attacks stronger. I could shoot multiple projectiles of each type. By the end of the last difficulty I was shooting nine fireballs and nine arrows, which took out everything on the screen, most of the time.

                You can also customize your character with different options that you unlock throughout the game. You can change your character’s look at any time. This has no intrinsic effect on your characters stats.

AHAHAHAAHAAHAAHAA! I'M BURNING EVERYTHING!

                If you can get past the graphics, and just use your own music, this game is awesome. I really hope they make a second one, or at least someone makes something similar to this. It left me wanting more, and I would gladly pay to get more. Even if they didn’t change the graphics and produced a “second campaign” with more classes and character options, I would still get it. If you’re a fan of indie games and SHMUPS, for only 80 MS Points, this is a great deal.

Super Amazing Wagon Adventure

                SuperAmazing Wagon Adventure is an XBL Indie game released on July 6^th 2012 by sparcevector. SAWA suffers from the same thing a lot of indie games suffer from. First of all, look at the name. What kind of game do you think you’d be playing if you played SAWA? It better be a pretty damn awesome Wagon adventure. The XBL Indie game description states that it’s a fast paced 2D action game with a random story. This leaves the buyer wondering “What the heck am I getting if play this game?” At least, that’s the way I felt. The images on XBL don’t explain as much as I’d like either. So, what is SAWA, and is it good?

                SAWA turns out to be a side scrolling 2D SHMUP where you have to make a choice at certain points in the game. Either choice leads takes you on different paths, which isn’t always the same. Ford the river or try to have your Wagon jump it? Sometimes if you ford it, you’ll cross the river. Or you end up on an underwater adventure. Jump and you’ll just make it. Or you’ll fly into space. This is one thing I loved, the random and ridiculous situations you’d find yourself in.

SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!

                Though the game has many crazy situations you’ll find yourself in, you can tell by playing the game that it is heavily inspired by Oregon Trail. You have three characters who each have their own independent health, that diminishes as you take damage. When a character runs out of health, you lose that character forever, often to a gruesome death. You can also find different weapon upgrades as you play the game such as firing hawks that return and dinosaur eggs that explode into baby pterodactyls. In addition you can unlock new wagons, that each have different unique abilities, such as starting with extra health, a weapon upgrade, or moving faster.

I bet this is what the Oregon Trail was really like anyway. Driving your wagon into a herd of stampeding buffalo while you fired upon them with your machine gun.

                The graphics are pixilated and retro. The music also reminds me of an old video game. I really loved how upbeat and fun the music was, which was one of the reasons I bought the game. I sat there, after I completed the demo, needing more.

She's going to go in there and get violated by giant poisonous snakes. OR FIND TREASURE! Snakes be damned!

                So, does Super Amazing Wagon Adventure provide what its name advertises? Yes, of course it does! Go pick it up! It’s sparcevector’s first game, and at only 80MSP, there’s really no reason you shouldn’t be flying through space on your dinosaur wagon dodging asteroids and unloading shotgun pellets into said asteroids RIGHT NOW!