JonBro's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Life Of A Pacifist...]

Interesting in some ways, lacking in others.

I'm not sure that this qualifies as a game, since the occasionally options don't even do anything different to the script, and the script in general could be improved. The adamant in-game developers don't exactly feel alive as characters, mostly because all of their personalities were the same, but their dialogue did clearly emphasize the inner struggle of the pacifist cat. The biggest problem I really had with this is how abruptly it ends. Maybe the message you intended to get across was made, but it felt rather anticlimactic not to be able to see the cat's decision in the end. You could have just about turned this into a game by allowing the viewer to choose an ending, whether the cat would go through with the game design or try to take work elsewhere. I guess I was actually kind of engaged in the concept and message of this little story which is why it was especially disappointing to see how it ended without any bang.

This needs some work, but it does have a little flair of its own.

[VVVVVV Demo]

I got the full game yesterday.

I could go as far as saying VVVVVV is one of the best games I've ever played.

Played it for almost four straight hours. In that time I beat the game and got all the trinkets. It's simple, challenging, addicting, relatively lengthy, has lots of replay value, and the soundtrack is phenomenal.

I know that there's just a two-level demo here on Newgrounds, but if it were up to me, I would give this the Newgrounds Tank Trophy for best game of 2010 right now.

[Condition]

Not much sign of creativity or planning.

Well, it's hard to play this game without comparing it to Cave Story, considering its controls are so very, very clearly based on those of Pixel's game, and the game-saving message even ends with Balrog's often-said phrase "Huzzah!" ...

Cave Story is an awesome game, not really so much because you shoot everything you see with a gun, but because there was an actual story, real thought was put into the level design, and everything was carefully put together with both first-time players and long-time players in mind.

This, on the other hand, isn't nearly as fun of a game, because it seems very little thought process was put into anything besides the basic programming, which I assume was made easier with Flixel although I've never used it. You more or less dive into the gooey action and everything moves just a little fast. It's a difficult game but only because a lot of details seem unnecessary or highly inconvenient. It seems like all you ever do in the "Uh oh..." stages is shoot constantly because the boxes have to be shot as many times as the enemies do. Sometimes the areas are so tightly-designed that it quickly becomes literally impossible to pass a face-sucking enemy without getting hurt a good many times. If I could have possibly known every security camera was an enemy, I wouldn't have gotten near them. And why is it that the few rooms where you can save happen to be the same rooms where people walk in front of you and talk to you, keeping you from saving the game? There's not much contrast between the layouts of every room and there's not a lot of explanation for what certain things actually do so it's not hard to get lost in the areas near the beginning, which is sort of sad because a game so linear shouldn't be so confusing. Then, after all the frustration of the game was supposedly over, the ending was a mere two still screens with a bit of text.

Regardless of the Refinery that was put in this game, I didn't think the gaming experience was very refined. I really feel this game was pretty much thrown together without a lot of planning and that didn't make it a very fun game to play.

[Miami Shark]

While the art's nice, the game itself is mediocre.

I'm going to give this game my honest rating, and I won't go into a big speech about how overrated I think it is, but I just don't really understand how people are in awe by this game.

This game has some decent graphics, what with the scrolling city, the boats, the swimming people, so on. It has eye candy, like explosions and blur effects. But that's pretty close to all that's interesting about this game.

The gameplay is very, very simple. You move up and down, and you keep pressing A, and meanwhile, stuff explodes and dies. The only real variety is in the objects and people you pass. I like the little minigame-style feature of pulling down helicopters and planes, but was disappointed to discover there was nothing else like that anywhere in the game.

Overall this game feels 'choppy'. It doesn't lag for me or anything like that, but it feels thrown-together excluding the artsy backgrounds. The ActionScript, while impressive for things like chain reaction explosions and camera zooms, could have been much smoother for the controls and the motions of everything. The shark's tail is the only thing on the screen of the game that seemed to move with ease, which seems out of place when the rest of the shark suddenly moves in any direction without acceleration, seeing it suddenly shift in rotation going up or down.

Granted, this game did entertain me for a few minutes, mostly with pulling helicopters and planes out of the sky, but that wraps up as the whole game to me. Nothing really keeps it going, and only the explosions and the speed of the water give off the illusion that this game is 'intense'.

[William and Sly]

Amazing graphics, very very average game.

The graphics are beautiful in this game, and there aren't any big flaws in the programming as far as I can tell.

But this really isn't much more than your typical platformer. You run around, jump, and collect stuff, just like every other platform game ever made. You did say you wanted to make something accessible, but I'm saying this could be something much more creative.

[Llama Adventure]

Text-based games like these are always fun.

The programming on this one was particularly impressive with the colors and word recognition setup. The script was funny and so are llamas. Though it sure would have nice to get to that green pasture of freedom. D:<

[pandas BIG adventure]

Many aspects of this game make me smile.

This game is quirky, well though-out, and professional. The art is detailed and fitting, the sounds/ambience sets a mood for all the time periods, and along with the funny concept of the game itself, there are some pretty good lines spoken by the characters. It's not too easy or too hard, either. Every puzzle makes sense, and they're complex enough that you don't immediately solve them all. Though, the bit with the Egyptian tomb confused me a lot, since I thought the symbols on the sarcophagus showed the order of the torches to be lit. I eventually found that not to be the case.

I'm looking forward to more of Panda's adventure. I really do want to know what happens next.

robotJAM responds:

Thanks very much for the review, I want to get on and make the sequel now.

[Super Mario 63]

This game annoys me to no end.

It seems every review for this game as well as several posts on the front page praises this game which is clearly the best game ever made. What makes them immediately say this? I downloaded the .swf and extensively played this game just to see what all the fuss was about, maybe for a few hours, just trying to get Shine Sprites and Star Coins.

Then I realized I simply was not having fun.

Some of the features of true Mario games were changed in such a way that was entirely unnecessary in this game (such as Metal Mario being vulnerable to attacks). Features like the FLUDD and the Wing Cap were made fairly well, but they also had some issues. Sometimes, if you're in a level with a FLUDD and you die someplace, you return to the same area and you still have the water pump with you. Other times, it's suddenly gone from your back and there's no getting it again. Then there are those stars that give you invincibility, invisibility, the Wing Cap, along with the Silver Stars that can get you Shine Sprites. All of these stars look exactly the same. There's almost no way of knowing what you're getting next, which of course helps a WHOLE lot in the slapped-together level designs. Most of the levels are just a barrage of platforms that move in circles, followed by enemies that are so ridiculously inconveniently placed, you MUST get hurt before continuing a part of the stage--no option. There are "secrets" all through the castle that for the most part you just have to find by accident, and they just lead to more shoddily-designed levels. You can't possibly expect someone to get half of those Star Coins without Mario committing suicide in the process seeing as they're usually at the bottom of death cliffs.

There are too many glitches in this game for me to even name, and some of them I can't even tell if they were really 'intended' to be viewed as glitches or not. Any time I lose some life, I find myself collecting coins and nothing happens. It's like there's a certain number of coins, or maybe a time limit, before you can refill any of your health. I had to restart the beginning of the game multiple times because one of the flying Goonies was randomly placed directly underneath Mario, which moved him aside and ended up freezing Mario's movements completely, since it wasn't intended for him to move until he went to read the first sign. I also experienced a crazy glitch on the first Bowser where he got thrown BACKWARDS into a spike-bomb and his 'hurt' sequence looped off the edge of the screen over and over. I had to kill poor Mario to continue. Then there is a level with an invisibility star that does not end. I couldn't tell if that was supposed to happen or not, but it took a very long time to beat the level. Musical fanfares such as those when you exit a painting or activate some switch don't always stop the music playing in the background, which makes all the sound clash together.

Another thing that irks me is the storyline twist after the second Bowser battle. It's enough to have a cliche "the whole world will be destroyed by an item of power", but you even made up some out-of-place Japanese thing CALLED "The Orb of Power," and of course everything will be destroyed except Bowser's castle, which has a happy force field around it. Bowser is not the type to destroy an entire universe. He'd take it over like he tried to do in Super Mario Galaxy.

Other things, like the techno Bowser stage music, the total lack of clarity in the way things are explained, the many problems with the basic controls, how much the World Maps don't help, the 4chan memes and references mentioned by all the Toads in a game that's already a giant parody... I could go on and on simply with the 13 Shine Sprites I obtained. But I seem to be running out of room for much more of a rant.

So, why do so many people like this game?

This game is big. It has Mario in it. He can triple jump. But everything else is a jumbled mess. This game could have been infinitely better.

People think this is a useless review.

[Use Boxmen]

I beat it.

I only really had to resort to the walkthrough for Level 10. How was I supposed to figure that out?!

This game isn't perfect, but it's a whole lot of fun. I think it requires you to be a bit too precise with controls at times, but the creativity of the gameplay and difficulty of the puzzles themselves makes this worthy of a 9/10.

[OCD+]

Ayayayayay.

I officially clicked the button 11,001 times and then claimed my medal.

Now my hand hurts.