II2none's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Super Brick Duel]

Shot yourself in the foot

Concept: Combining pong and break the blocks to get super, mega, ultra, happy fun time Brick Duel!!! ( Sorry the voice actor makes a convincing asian accent)

Aesthetic: Not much going for it. While the saturation of black wallpaper and 8 bit music gives an appropriate retro feel. There's not much else worth mentioning. I which there were sound effects that represented the action going on in a game as well as a more inspiring presentation of a power up such as when your ball becomes a fireball it actually LOOKS like a fireball.

Animation: Well of course there's not much to expect givin what the game is based on. The speed of the ball is appropriate and the paddles also move at an acceptable speed. But as I stated earlier you could've put more effort into the special effects besides a temporary color swap so there's something that actually stands out from all the black backgrounds and stationary bland white bricks.

Gameplay: (Go ahead and grab a cup of coffee I'll wait.....)

Okay, your single player is really stale, For starters the game isn't very engaging. You can beat the AI on any difficulty without the power ups, it almost feels like they're just shunned in. The only time it beats me is when it gets a fireball, and even then it only wins because there's no break period between starting a new round leaving the player feeling cheated.

But what really gets me is you missed out on the bread and butter, FOURPLAY. I played it (even though no one else was available to join in) and let me tell you it was more satisfying and engaging than playing against the so called "hard" AI in classic mode. It seems like this is the mode that was suppose to rack in the 7-10's stars, but damn it all, you decided to get lazy. Do you realize how much better off this game would've been if you went that extra mile into your game design? The gameplay would be faster, more chaotic and more enjoyable than that bland classic mode ever could. Were all human but hell I'd prefer to at least see the PROOF in the pudding that you have the potential to make a better game overall, rather than FEEL you have the potential but put it off because "you got lazy or some shit like that..."

Not to scold or put you down but it's just a shame that you decided to miss out on a golden opportunity to create what could've the savior of this game as well as the possible inspiration of a new stand alone game on its own. "4 way Super Brick Duel" From the title alone who wouldn't want to at least consider playing this?At least you were honest.

Overall: Inexperience is an inconvenience, laziness is the culprit . What could've have possibly been a mediocre game with a huge highlight unfortunately is just an uninspired fusion of two classics that had potential but lacked the drive.

2/5

"Review Request Club"

JPB responds:

Fourplay was supposed to be the star of the show, it was, I originally made brick duel, which was just classic, training was a result of bored evenings, fourplay is the whole reason a sequel was made, I played it with four and its fun as hell, the problem is that by the time I was working on this, I'd already decided flash isnt my thing like all noobs imagine when they come to newgrounds, all I wanted then was to do something fun for myself and friends, so why didnt I finish fourplay? I really dont know, one day I was in this huge time demanding collab, and when I finished it, i gave myself a break which became a whole year, then two days ago I was bored and said to myself I would submit this, so I did it, I expected a better score, but the reviews from you guys showed me that this really deserves a 2. I don't know why I submitted it, I'll probably take another year to submit again something just as simple, but where I know I did what I wanted to do from the beggining.

You probably didnt understand anything of what I just said, it doesnt really matter though.
Just opened flash, I havent written a line of code for a year -- This is why I love review request club
I'm happy with this score, just mad at myself for making something so boring.

[Ice Racer 2]

Unbalanced upgrading breaks the entire game.

Concept: make a action driving game. Or more accurately a slow paced crash testing game.

Aesthetic: Nice use of cool and cool/warm colors fitting for the even cooler environment. No sound besides music and because of flawed and or rushed game design makes the music even more repetitive, which is a shame cause it's pretty despite being repetitive in it of itself. Car design is pretty awesome too wish I could say the same on how it operates.

Gameplay:

If you're having a bad day and want that anger to continue to burn play this game. It has a broken upgrade system with your choices of power, balance and friction 2 of which are just a useless asthetic change. The "power" (speed) ability is the only thing you should focus on if you have any hopes of beating the game...you know what let's not kid ourselves, You can't even get pass level fucking 4 with it's MEGA RAMP without having your speed upgraded to at least 3-4 gauges.

And even if that's not entirely accurate WHO CARES. It makes the point of having the option to choose what to upgrade utterly pointless let alone the "upgrades" being virtually useless until MAYBE you get them half way maxed out but, good luck with that! Also the levels all look the same, and with the virtual impossibility of leveling up until you complete a level which I guarantee you most of your reasons for victory will be by memorization and cautiously tapping the gas button as if it's a bear in hibernating.

My patience ran its course at level 7 I'm sick and tired of trying to keep my buggy balanced from clipping the littlest hills I come across and taking unnecessarily cautious ramp jumps over and over again. This could've easily been fixed with a better EXP system getting big air and successfully landing "+1 point" doing difficult tricks such as a wheelie + "2 points" etc. Hell even a freakin check point may have been all you needed to make this game at LEAST tolerable.

Overall: Skip this, It feels like a rushed game. It has dull and repetitive levels and takes the "action" right out of it for forcing the player to go slow and steady which would've been fine if the ranking system wasn't complete shit.

Improvements:

You can easily fix this with no extra game design required here's my suggestion: For every new level include a recommendation on what to level up that way the other attributes(assuming the other 2 attributes work in the first place) will actually feel useful and people will know what kind of level to expect.

Or the better option they'll benefit EVERYONE in the long run.

Take this down and redesign the entire ranking system for this game. As broken as this was I don't even want to imagine what Ice Racer 1 was like.

1/5

[SAS: Zombie Assault 3]

Incomplete patching shoots this game in the foot.

Concept: Continuing it's tribute to Triple A zombie shooters.Except this time with ONLINE MULTIPLAYER!

Aesthetic: This flash has nice artwork, drawings and human models all look realistic and gritty. The sounds are what you expect in a zombie game convincing grunts and moans and of course lot and LOTS of gun fire.

Gameplay: Your goal: shoot to kill-level up, get new weapons, repeat. While the difficulty is a little too easy, (unless A master sergeant is considered a novice.) Single player is decent overall and helps players get far more exp then they can while "working together"Online. However the repetitiveness becomes apparent after seeing the same levels over and over again. I doubt many of the veteran and even some of the noobs like myself, bothered with the single player (unless their EXP is constantly getting robbed/not registering). The repeated splattering of zombie skulls offer hour, and hours of non-stop addicting online gameplay just exceeds single player. At least that would be the case if the game was patched before hand.

Too many times one of my movement controls came unresponsive and either force me to stop without warning or possessively directing me toward the worst kind of zombies you'd want to be around close in close quarters. This can be hella-annoying, especially when most of the crowd are the rarely missing red zombies. Another MAJOR problem with online multilayer is the game tends to freeze, this should've been top priority during development, if you even had this game tested to begin with.

Overall: Although I recommend this to anyone who loves zombie games I really hate the fact that this is incomplete. Your decision to get the game out ASAP has done far more harm then good (in my opinion) and forces me in a position of to slap a mediocre score on what should be (hopefully will be in the future) a top notched zombie shooter. Sure you say you'll be updating it but all of the basics (that includes the online multiplayer) should've been covered first. It's not exactly an "update" if the original content isn't completed to begin with.

I know I'll love this game once the finished product transforms into what the author intended and what the fans can look forward too. I can hear the useless clickers already but as it stands this is what were given so this is what has to be critiqued. And what should be a 5/5 has to be cut in half.

3/5

A second opinion will be in order once/if online is completed.

[Lab of the Dead]

For achievement hunters only

Concept: Conditioning zombies and achieving desired reactions through appropriate experimentation. Original and unique.

Aesthetic: The art is pretty much straight out of Road of The Dead I assume it's SickDeathFiend's style. the voice acting is just as tolerable as it was in Road of The Dead, the male voice actors can use some work. The music was okay and somewhat eerie enough to give a sense of tension although your never in any real danger.

Game-play: Unfortunately this game looked better on the drawing board. You point and click tons of options to test on your zombie but this falls short from the tediousness it takes to get something interesting to occur. It feels repetitive after the first 30 minutes of play gradually going from interesting.

Overall: This was not the follow up game I expected from the makers of the action packed Road of The Dead. In an attempt in trying something original this game has sprung poor results. Repetitive game-play with medals as it's only incentive to keep going.(And even that may not be enough) At first glance the game seems like it was on to something but execution was off by having to much of a waiting period between research and overall unsatisfactory presentation of results.

Evil-Dog responds:

I think a lot of people would like to make games that only look good on the drawing board and is #2 best of all time....

[Rebuild 2]

Far too difficult for it's own good.

(Don't like reading?Skip to overall section and PLEASE read before you dismiss.)

Concept: Second verse same as the first, thrive or die in a zombie apocalypse.

Aesthetics: Alot more creepy than last time art has definitely improved loosing it's cartoon like style for an increase sense of horror. Although the music is garbage just sounds like a bunch whining guitars not eerie or giving any sense of isolation just annoyance. But everything else sets the mood nicely, for some reason I can't get that game over screen out of my head.

Game play: At the very start of a new game I was impressed on how creative the options and story were mixed together you could edit your character, their equipment/weapon location name and difficulty while getting sucked into the intro. It was a very creative way to set a mental image of the theme and setting for the player.

Your goal is to save survive collect food protection and expand your personalized city to survive and thrive or die trying. (and boy did I die.)
What separates the sequel from its prequel is the mini games and choices that you come across to get a quick increase (or decrease if your unlucky) in food, guns, and morale percentage. These events new and old start occur more often as you expand and take over new environments.

Difficulty: Not only does the game have the potential to be impossible to beat it's difficulty is also based around luck. And sadly from my hours of experience on Kind of tough difficulty (Medium) I suffered a most bullshit end in the last half hour of game play.

The outcome of the choices that you make in each event occurring in your city that you may think are good (strangely if not unbelievably) turn out to be bad. I don't see why a bunch of survivors who were once outside the walls of my fort at the mercy of one billion+ undead abominations want to read a book about the monsters that destroyed their lives are the future of "humanity". I understand what the author or whoever made this decision was goin for the whole "knowledge is power,keep an open mind" route, butabout zombies in a zombie apocalypse? I doubt in a real life situation people will be enthused about the revolution of these monsters, most likely they'd be more interested in literature on how to destroy the bastards.

But nope not your citizens, no everyone there at heart have completely lost their damn mind. As evident from when one of my churches started "celebrating" buy having random suicide parties every time a few days pass all because of my assumption that every time I try to discipline the masses they get pissy and weaken the morale.

But the one freakin time I was merciful and just assumed some of my citizens were just whining cause they were atheist or something. One by one they off themselves as they develop a suicide cult called "The Chosen Ones" and they're is NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP IT. To add insult to injury Even YOU, THE MAYOR is fine with it, annoyingly stating " I wish I was apart of the chosen ones" every time a "celebration" occurs. This possibly could be a cruel reminder that this game is not The "SIMS" but for God-sake that's over doing it. I think fighting a tons of cannibals versus your 20 citizens is enough to deal with without adding some trap where you and your entire city go insane ESPECIALLY when the damn morale meter is at 95%, containing enough food to feed Africa a 1,000 times over and enough fire power to bring a zombie T-REX to it's knees.

In short: You seriously over did it.

Overall:
It offers new strategies bringing weapons and equipment in the mix and plenty of challenge for first time and BEYOND dedicated gamers who dare to even think about attempting impossible mode. But with so much unfortunate and gimmicks and a "suicide button" in the game, Rebuild 2 new refreshing concepts are overshadowed and shot in the foot by bad events occurring WAY too often sacrificing strategy for a frustrating game of chance needs a Rebuild in its game design.

Improvements:
Balance between good/bad events

MORE FOOD! (all difficulties)

2/5

[The Last Stand Union City]

Last Stand makes an unanticipated welcomed return

Concept:

Last Stand breaks the repetition with a new open world game play style similar to one or two certain leading video game zombie titles.

Aesthetic:

Last Stand retains its same gritty realistic style shown in its art as well as the music. It does a damn good job at making you paranoid for the first hour or so.(Especially if you play in the dark and have the volume at max)

Story summary/ customization:

The story is the same fool proof story in many zombie media, your in a post apocalyptic world trying to save your lost loved one while avoid becoming a undead corpse yourself. At the start your graced with often overlooked option of character customization from race, to hair style, to personal skill. The player is free to make his avatar look as badass or silly as he wants. As you progress through your quest you level up and depending on your avatar's expertise some skills will be far more effective then others. I picked a martial arts profession and in turn was graced with better survivability then most of the other options. However each profession is useful and interesting in their own way and there are plenty to experiment with already giving this game a superb amount of potential replay value.

Game-play:

I jumped right into hard mode so I could experience the full potential of the game. I assumed it was the same controls as last time, I was wrong. Fortunately tutorials are available on all levels of difficulty great for avoiding being forced to play on easy and anyone who wants the immediate hardcore experience.

The gameplay is adequate, your graced with plentiful and many never before seen weapons in this latest installment, from nailed boards and crowbars to Auto-shotguns and RPG's. The difficulty rises gradually as you get stronger and earn more effective weapons and even a potential partner increases your survivability greatly.

However lag and bad luck make up the overall "difficulty" feel. TOO many times I found myself getting gang banged by zombies in 4x4 rooms without even a fighting chance to hold my ground, on one occasion I was even RIGHT AT a door nearby and no matter how many times I pressed E I couldn't GTFO. But I guess being realistic nobody can get massacred by the undead and just walk out unscathed. Another annoying bug is the hit detection with melee weapons. If getting swarmed the hit detection only registers for one zombie at a time, I narrowly escape these lag moments but it's still an annoyance to put up with every time a large horde "bogeyman" it's way through a ceiling. The hit detection itself is off as well, it feels like with many MELEE WEAPONS a hit only counts if your right in the enemies face. Sure that makes sense if you have a kitchen knife but not a Battle Axe. A slight nitpick but it can be problematic when lag occurs. Although mostly overlooked maybe that's where the LUCK stats come into play. If so I guess that clears up some "WTF/HTF?" moments. (Was a horde suppose to break in in a survivors repair shop? Must be accustomed to it cause he didn't do jack squat about it.)

Regardless difficulty isn't coming from the game play rather the mechanics game itself. In early stages of the game it almost makes having an ally mandatory when it shouldn't be, and that just takes away some of the fun and experience.

Overall:

Last Stand is the greatest offline open world zombie flash game I have played, and the best in the trilogy. However It does carry the same lag issues seen in its previous two games but, this time there's no heavily defensive wall overlooking this flaw that has plagued the series. Fortunately the good outweigh the bad, and in my opinion its worth an addition to gaming library for any shooter/ zombie fan.

4/5

[Fear Is Vigilance]

Vigilance is lacks the fighter/brawler spirit

Concept: very unique brawler and not at all what I was expecting. The 8-bit style, strangely amusing story and the protagonist themselves give off a Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, influence.

Story: The two protagonist are down on their luck when trying to sell personal alarms to the brave college populous. How do they fix the problem? By deviously putting the fear in them of course. After all there's nothing to fear but a masked violent psychopath in the hands of fighting game fans.

Game play:

A 2-d fighting brawler with simplistic, and flexible movement and fighting controls. You'll be utilizing the strategic use of the Z(guard breaker) and X (punches) buttons for combat.This mechanic works very well especially when getting ganged up on by an angry mob students, After dying a few times I was easily developing strategies to tango with 10+ enemies at once.

Unfortunately the game may be too simple, after beating the story and taking on challenges it does get pretty repetitive relying on the same two safety and attack buttons. Especially the fact that you have to continually press Z to push bloodthirsty mobs back, not only is this repetitive it's tiresome. This should've been replaced with a guard button that the player can HOLD DOWN or better yet, added as another defensive option. True their is a hide option but in my opinion its pretty useless especially since you can just outrun your enemy, line them up and hit Z and X (2x) and repeat.

The offense while effective is pretty stale and shares the same problems as the defense button. I personally think the game play would've been more refreshing if we had some special attack button, or even a basic combo system. This way the game play would be more solid, more like a brawler, and worth having sore fingers after an hour or 2 of game-play. The arcade mode could use more variety since most of the "gimmicks" in the 4 stages were already done in the story mode. While some of the environments were eye-candy the only one that affected the difficulty as well as strategy was the ice rink. However factoring in the medal system added to the game it may be enough for some to overlook the games problems.(at least until you collect them all.)

OVERALL:

The controls may not have been brainstormed enough and It's options may not feel very varietal. But the story concept is interesting, the game-play is simple and somewhat brings back the feel old school games. It's an adequate game but, aside from sore gaming fingers, doesn't quite live up to Fighting/Brawler genre.

3/5

[The Abusive Review Quiz]

educational and slightly entertaining

Concept: A quiz game that test the players knowledge on reviewing flashes. Simple and refreshing from the countless Rated Adult quizzes in this site. (not to say that anything is wrong with them.)

gameplay:
While the only thing interactive here is the left mouse button like most quiz games. The quiz itself is pretty challenging and requires players to use their head rather than their feelings on each of the reviews in question. After 2 rounds I can't get past a bronze whistle and I like to think I have a good eye for critiquing user reviews (considering a lot of them are garbage.) So I feel safe to say the game is accurate, and yeah apparently I have a lot to learn about when and when not to label a review abusive.

Music: the only sound in the game and I gotta say I didn't really enjoy the the remix to the "Newgrounds Rumble" Theme because of the weird lyrics, it was good enough as an instrumental. I THINK There was another song after that but it started to bug me so I muted the volume. No offense to FDA but that track was kinda disappointing.

OVERALL:
The quiz game is pretty nice, it may lack appealing presentation and has a remix that could use some work. But makes up for it with what I like to think, truthful answers, as well as challenging questions for those like me who haven't fully mastered critiquing reviews. NG is crawling with users who put forth useless/abusive reviews and hopefully this game can turn those so called reviews into real reviews that are fun to read as well as being useful to the author.

I'll definitely put this on my fave's to see if I can eventually reach the gold whistle and beyond.

Nice job guys

3/5

[NINJA Brawl]

A mixed bag of decent gameplay and repetitiveness

Concept: a brawler which apparently is based on an old classic game, Golden Axe. Since I never played golden axe I'll compare it to another classic brawler streets of rage. The game play is pretty much like any side scrolling brawler except your a ninja and what concept isn't awesome if you throw in some ninjas?

Gameplay: You start off with A and S combos upgrading along the way as you take down bigger and stronger enemies. The combos are initiated with the comfortable use of the A and S buttons and your objective is go from spamming light and heavy swings to spamming them with combos.

At first combos feel like they don't do much damage until you start to get stronger.You start off with un-named Sx3 or Ax3 combos, Racking damage is relied on consecutive hits and mix ups between light attack (A) and heavy attack (S) buttons. Not only does the combo system because more crucial in tougher battles they also make fighting 6 to one a little less overwhelming. However this game is not a mindless hack in slash (until your close to maxing out).

Difficulty:

If you tried playing this game with a lack of strategy then you know why you suck. The later enemies are no push overs with varieties of stronger melee attacks and projectiles similar to your own. The game isn't impossible if you use your head knowing when to jump charge attack and what enemies to take out first in a swarm is the key to survival. All this needs consideration on normal difficulty alone so I'm not surprised the game got some of the negative and occasionally not so thought out criticism it was given. I don't understand the complaints of getting stuck to walls and all this nonsense others are complaining about. The author has invented a easy difficulty setting so there's no excuse why some can't beat most of the levels. Overall this is a balanced game.

The Final Boss and lack of interesting options is what's killing this game(Repetitiveness):

Because of the final boss those 20 levels quickly become repetitive as hell because the final boss is ridiculously strong. And This could've been fixed with some way to gather EXP faster or more useful weapons. The game should not force you to max out or lower the difficulty just to beat the game. The process of maxing out should be more rewarding if thats something the player must do such as achieving perks or having some sort of medal system Or better yet we should've gotten a REAL final weapon not some generic weapon with a miniscule stat upgrade to challenge the overpowered boss. Unfortunately the game looses it's fun factor because completion will get bored.

In turn this makes playing new characters virtually pointless and entertaining because you'll have to go threw the same old obstacles and replaying levels over and over just to beat the last boss. Let alone the characters you unlock are already unappealing and generic alot of them just look like average, fragile citizens rather than warriors. Maybe if they all had their own unique stats, or better yet, have customizable options so we could use a character that looks cool to the player.

Single handedly making 9 music tracks is pretty impressive. To bad many of us will be inclined to play our own stuff by the time the boss is defeated. I'm sure you think everything sounds the same and generic if you hear it over 50+ times. These tracks are cool but it's not worth listening more than a few times let alone mp3 worthy.

Overall: This brawler has hits and misses. The game play is enjoyable for those seeking a challenge but offers little to inspire players to stick around. With little to virtually non existent customizable characters, unsatisfying weapons and an overpowered boss that forces you to replay the game.

NINJA BRAWL makes a great first impression but lacks any sort of lasting appeal.

3/5

[Symphonic Tower Defense]

Music and gameplay harmonizing epic results

Gameplay: The controls are are easy to learn and thanks to the easy to understand tutorial vid theres no excuse for not knowing how to play. But DO NOT underestimate this game it may seem easy at first but lack strategy and you won't be gettin anywhere.The "enemies" (Notes) come in variations and the harder the song the stronger the notes. The game does a great job at balancing everything you will never feel overpowered until after you complete all stages and even then redoing some on normal is still somewhat challenging.

Asthetic: Everything about this game is lively, almost like a game you'd expect on the Wii or XBA (if only) very kid friendly and anyone can enjoy it. Colors are vibrant and even the title screen interesting to look at.

Sound: It should go without saying that this is the key element in the games design. I was absolutely blown away with the EXcellent taste of the Author. It be a shame if anyone who's played this game didn't enjoy the instrumentals that are definately Itunes worthy. Even through times of getting my ass handed to me I wouldn't mind cause cause the music is worth getting beaten by.

And that electric piano for "Throwing Fire" is kickass, NG community is very unique (especially in musical taste) but if that song doesn't make you wanna get up off your feet then your obviously to old to be on NG.

Possible Turn offs...(I guess):

The music probably wouldn't appeal to those who are strictly one genre or hit radio listeners.

I'LL WARN YOU NOW don't expect any justin beiber or lil wayne. (most of there songs wouldn't be fun to play anyway,let alone having to listen to it...particularly bieber.)

To some maybe notes and lightshows goin on isn't visually interesting but the game does do its job and isn't a just a interactive animation. Besides you should know what to expect from the title alone.

The game is pretty fast paced but no one is asking you to be Sonic The Hedgehog.

For newcomers difficulty WILL be challenging no matter which level of difficulty you choose. If a simple tutorial didn't help you then you know not to play this game.

Summary:
Symphonic Tower Defense is a techno music lovers and stategy gamer's wet dream. The gameplay mechanics are PERFECT in everyway. The difficulty should provide a moderate challenge to casuals and can even make the hardcore sweat. (wonder how long it took one user to get 2million points?!) I challenge anyone to prove this isn't THE BEST MUSIC GAME EVER MADE!

FrozenFire responds:

*thumbs up* Matt Ackerman likes this!