Gimmick's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Inspect and Shoot]

Not that good..

*It's a simple gun game, except here it's just a clicking game. You could've just as well put this under the genre "Point and click" because there's no interactivity apart from that, I mean, it's just shooting a poster with some funny special effects. I'll elaborate later.

The graphics: It's a vector image of a gun on the first screen surrounded with a very beveled background and frame. Next I know, I click on the arrow and what do I get? A long stick that moves up and down, decorated with black and grey, which changes when the mouse is pressed down. The poster is just different images of the actors which I guess is ripped from the internet.

The gameplay: Meh. The gun game was better than this. On the first page ("the specs") I decided to test out the gun, and instantly I found a bug after reloading: a bullet disappears into oblivion after I press the Left arrow key. The thing is, you press the left arrow key and a bullet disappears from the array of bullets -- and when you click, (pardon me, I don't know much about guns) it should theoretically have the combined force of 2 bullets...but that's not so. The bullet simply disappears. And to add to that, you lose yet ANOTHER bullet if you click the mouse button! And it doesn't even prevent you from pressing left after it's been pressed once! The "shooting range" was less than impressive. Like I said, it's a stick that moves up and down according to the mouse, and once you click a gray (grey) splotch appears out of nowhere on the place where the mouse is. I could assume it came from the gun, but no! You shouldn't leave room for the user to think that it could've come from somewhere else. You could've showed the splotch (which I'll refer to as a bullet) coming from the gun and hitting the poster, rather than playing a fire animation on the gun and letting us just assume it came from there.

The sound: Well, it was rather unexpected. There was no music, sadly, but I didn't even know there were any sound effects apart from the gun's, until of course, I pressed the left and right keys. It was funny because it was unexpected...but after a while, as always, it got tiresome.

All in all, not bad either...but not that good. It's a simple reskin of a button game, no offence.

~~ Summary ~~

~~ Good points ~~
1) Unexpected (and funny) sound effects
2) Good (your own) art

~~ Bad points ~~
1) Shooting range -- the gun is represented as a stick
2) Reloading bug
3) Reloading in shooting range is not the same as reloading in the specs
4) Simple reskin of button game
5) Sound effects got tiresome after a while..any way to mute it?

[Review Request Club]

[Madness Lunacy]

Nice

I liked this game because I could just take any gun and shoot it at enemies, as well as due to the art and the storyline behind it. I'll elaborate on this later.

The graphics: The graphics are nice, and I especially liked the characters; they are Madness sprites, sure, but they're also well redrawn. Also, the background was drawn to particularly suit the type of situation Hank and Sanford are in.

The animation: Everything is animated nicely, with the shooting and the explosions particularly smooth; however, some parts were slow, maybe because of CPU usage on my end? Dunno.

The gameplay: It's just Run 'n Gun, like the genre says, but then again it could've been improved. For example, both Hank and Sanford only shoot in two directions: left and right, whereas the other characters, the "enemies" can shoot at any angle! That's an unfair (?) disadvantage! Then again, it could've been intentional.

The sound: The sound was appropriately chosen for the situation; they also sounded nice. Nice choice of sound; the sound effects were also appropriately chosen, giving an atmosphere to the whole situation.

I noticed a glitch, though: if you press A on Hank and press 2 while holding A, Hank will punch when you release A, even though you're controlling Sanford.
Overall, though, the game was good. Add medals and you'd have an even better game.

~~ Summary ~~

~~ Good points ~~
1) Nice choice of sound, sound effects
2) Smooth animation
3) Tough difficulty (?)
4) Good gameplay

~~ Bad points ~~
1) Glitch

[Review Request Club]

Spudzy responds:

Thank you alot for this review, you've put alot of effort into it I can see. That point you made about only being able to shoot left/right is wrong, you can, it says in the Auothor Comments that up/down aims (aims up and down). But anyway, thanks alot for the review. Peace.

[Professor Madness]

Not bad

This is among one of the first madness games I've played, but I guess I've been under a rock all this time to not have played more madness games; however, this is a good game. I'll elaborate later.

The graphics: I honestly couldn't make out the man was a madness character. Seriously. The zombies and the scenery, as well as the character, were well drawn, very well drawn, however I didn't like the style of the buttons.

The gameplay: Not bad! Even though it's just a shooting game, I presume this is what to do in the upcoming "zombie apocalypse"? Hah. Anyways, I couldn't finish the game on easy, let alone medium or hard! The fat chef kept whacking me while the gun timer was taking too long to reload. I'd adjust the value if I were you. Either way, it's a wonderful implementation.

The music: It's a bit loud, and reminds me of Deus Ex in a way, although there is, sadly no music for the game, but rather in the main menu; however, it fit well for the storyline. You can include some music and set its volume to around 45% or so during actual gameplay, just so that the player won't be distracted, but no noise in itself is a distraction. Anyhow, the sound effects were good, except for maybe the sword slash one.

The storyline: I couldn't get past one point so I don't know the full storyline, but from what I read from the author description it seems nice, kinda like a Chibi Knight style game, except here it's a platformer all the time.

All in all, good. Deserves an 8 from me. Keep up the good work!

~~ Summary ~~

~~ Good points ~~
1) Good music choice
2) Nice graphics
3) Good gameplay
4) Okay storyline
5) Good choice of sound effects

~~ Bad points ~~
1) No music in-game
2) Some sound effects didn't fit.

SimiyonkE responds:

Thanks for that deep review man, means a lot...

[9/11 Simulator]

Kinda good

It's not an accurate depiction of 9/11, but hey, this game was made as a source of entertainment, who cares whether it shows what happened on September 11 with reference to this game? It's just the gameplay that counts.

The graphics: They were nice, I liked the style of the drawing of the missiles and the airplane, especially when it was tilted; it seemed realistic and smooth. The explosion wasn't good, but it wasn't drawn too bad either. All in all, good.

The gameplay: Fairly basic, use the WASD keys to move, the moving is rather smooth and I think that's what's making it tough: because you always hit a missile if you slide too much. However, I think that that's exactly what would happen to an airplane in air; it would slide because friction's not a lot. Anyways, the hitbox, for me, was only around a circle or so, since the missile touched the surface of the wings as I turned and nothing happened.

The medals: Eh, they're all secret, so I can't say what they are, but I'll give a hint: just play the game.

The music: Meh. It didn't fit very well and was a bit loud, but then again I guess you could say that that's an 'appropriate' choice of music in a situation like this.

Any things I didn't like? Sure, many. One: things would zoom by too fast, and the learning curve is too steep. One minute it's normal, the next it's zooming by fast. Two: The plane slid a little too fast, as if it were out of control. I don't know whether it was intentional or not. Third: Bad music.

I don't see why it deserved the "M" rating, because frankly, everything seems rated like T. Unless there's some part at the end that involves excessive graphic
violence or something; I couldn't get to the last part.

~~ Summary ~~

~~ Good points ~~
1) Nice art
2) Smooth animation
3) Okay gameplay

~~ Bad points ~~
1) A tad hard (good? bad? you decide)
2) Loud-ish music
3) Didn't think it deserved M tag

Kevin responds:

Nice review!

The reason I kinda made it hard was just kinda a wink to old school NES/SNES games that were buttfuckingly hard and stuff... Even though this is nowhere near as hard. Also adds some cheap replay value (Hence the 23k views)

Music was just kinda thrown in last minute as a filler, I think it kinda fits in with the actiony sense... Also I'm a huge fan of Metal Gear Solid.

The M tag is mostly for the -mature- subject matter... Or lack there of.

[Castaway 2]

Good

The game was, in my opinion, simply great. It was not too easy, but neither was it too difficult; it'd be a great time waster for me. I'll elaborate later.

The graphics: I like the cartoon-ish style of art, and it reminds me of a lot of other cartoon RPGs I played in the past. Great job on the art; it's drawn wonderfully. That's all I can say...I am rather speechless.

The music: It was calm and soothing, often stepping up the pace when required, and was rather cheerful and lively at times, and fit well. Good job on that.

The gameplay: That of a typical RPG, with an overhead combat system and a clear storyline...typical, but not bad. I've seen this a lot of times before, and frankly it's getting a bit overused, but it's not that bad; it all lies in the execution, and that was done well.

The storyline: A character being wound up on an island, and has to figure out a way to exit, and completes quests...not that bad, but a bit overused as well, see above. I've seen this before, in games such as Dink Smallwood, amongst others, and it's just the same recycled crap all over again.

As a final note, I'd like to say that there's too much for me to talk about, I could go on and on about the crafting system, the battle system in detail, the this, the that, so on and so forth...but since there's so much to talk about that I can't cram in this review box, I think I'll just leave it at this for now.

~~ Summary ~~

~~ Good points ~~
1) Great art
2) Nice music
3) Good gameplay

~~ Bad points ~~
1) Overused storyline

["-The Random Generator-"]

Hmm...makes sense!

I liked this. The point in particular being the generator, obviously.

The graphics: They were clean and simple, with some frills, and the visual effects were pure eye candy, but it's not bad; I like eye candy.

The music: I didn't very much like the music, but that could be due to the fact that it's night right now where I live, but either way it was good and I loved the fact that there was a music on | off button.

The actual sentence generator: Wow, I didn't expect this, I mean, the sentences make perfect sense sometimes, and other times it doesn't make as much sense...but it helps for generating long sentences sometimes. I got "No-one knew why the stupid assassin tickled the garbage man". Very interesting, indeed.

All in all, nice. What I'd look for in a generator's here.

~~ Summary ~~

~~ Good points ~~
1) Sentences made sense
2) Nice, clean interface and graphics
3) Okay sound
4) Eye candy!

~~ Bad points ~~
1) Music was loud
2) Music didn't fit very much (to me)

[Crystal Story]

Good

I very much like games like these, but there were a few hitches here and there. My main problem was with the movement system. I'll talk about it soon.

The graphics: The graphics were wonderful, and I thought it had a kind of cel-shaded look, if it was. The monsters were drawn wonderfully and the characters more so; the tilesets and the character in the dungeon in the overworld view was convincing, but lacked detail, but I guess that comes when you're naturally looking from above.

The music, sounds: The music was chosen nicely, and portrayed the correct situation at the correct time; an example I liked was the dungeon, and the battle music. The battle music was fast-paced, and the dungeon music was slow and eerie. Nice job on that.

The animation: It was fluid, and was fast. Now that's not a problem; rather the opposite. If anything, that's good, however in the battle scene the character animations being fast posed a minor problem, since I found the enemies' attacks a bit too fast for my eyes to even notice what has happened to the character.

The gameplay: Not bad, I quite liked the battle system and the level system; for one I didn't find it too hard to level up, although I can't really say this on others' behalf. However, I did find a flaw: I don't really like point-n'-click games, or at the very least moving in the overworld was a bit tough since I normally move using the arrow keys. Perhaps you could've added an option to switch from arrow keys and mouse buttons, but then again it could've been there and I might not
have noticed.

But all in all, a good game, one that I'd like to play for quite a while. Then again, I remember seeing an exact clone in RPG Maker XP, except there I could control the character with the arrow keys. It's your choice to decide whether that's good or bad. I'm leaning more towards the bad.

~~ Summary ~~

~~ Good points ~~
1) Nice animation
2) Nice music
3) Good graphics
4) Good gameplay

~~ Bad points ~~
1) Could not control with arrow keys.

[Mine Blocks]

Nice

This is a very nice remake of Minecraft in 2D, except that there's already one similar to this called "Terraria". However, since that's not based upon Minecraft, I'll not push this further; I'll focus on this flash.

The graphics: They're not half bad, and it's good in my opinion; however the character's design could be improved on, but apart from that, it's not that bad, it's acceptable.

The music/sound: There was no music, alas, and the sound effects were mediocre, but I can understand since it gives me the space to play other music while I'm playing this game.

The gameplay: It's similar to Terraria's, and that's nice, but there's a problem that may or may not be huge: the game lags like hell. I guess this could be due to all the thousands of collisions being detected throughout the game, but it simply lags on my 2GHz computer. And that can't be good.

But it's good for an attempt in flash, I'll give you that. I like the save and load feature; it can very much be a "poor man's minecraft" -- and this is not an insult -- I've favorited this so that I can play it when I'm bored, but please, please try to fix the lag. It brings the overall points I'd give for this game down, and I can just bet the other reviewers whining about it when they play it, since I can't see the reviews when this is under judgement.

~~ Summary ~~

~~ Good points ~~
1) Managed to pull off the 2D version in flash
2) Okay sound effects
3) Save/load feature
4) Okay graphics

~~ Bad points ~~
1) Lags, lags a lot
2) No music

Zanzlanz responds:

Thank you for the response.
But there is music (starting at 3% of every day).
And there is pretty much no way to get past the lag right now. You can decrease the quality, and remove monsters to reduce lag if you didn't yet.

---UPDATE---
Well I did fix most of the lag. Easiest fix is reloading the page, if you do get lag.

[[SS]- Cheese is born]

Meh

I can't really say that this is good, and to be quite frank, this thing's quite below average.

The graphics: Well, what can I say? There's nothing to review, except for maybe the drawings of the cheese and the gun, so I guess I'll talk about that. The cheese? Well, it was drawn like an average cheese block, with holes and all, so it's quite simplistic and rather nicely drawn. The gun? Not bad either, that being harder to draw than the cheese, it's rather commendable that you draw a gun that nice, although you could've done better.

The music: Ooh, aah, eeh, um, well, the music wasn't exactly good, but then again neither was it bad, and it was quite soft and relaxing for the first part. Quite okay really, seeing it was the main part of the flash.

The story: Quite nothing here, I see a VCAM zooming into a bed whose quilts are slowly removed to unveil a cheese block holding a gun. Not a good storyline, but it's just borderline average. Just borderline.

You could definitely improve on it, nice concept but poor execution. Suggestions? Maybe a better storyline. Maybe a convert into a game wherein the character beats up other types of cheese. The combinations are endless.

~~ Summary ~~

~~ Good points ~~
1) Okay drawings
2) Nice music

~~ Bad points ~~
1) Short
2) Boring, if no, storyline

[Jump Girl]

Good

I can say that this is quite simplistic and good; I'll elaborate later:

The graphics: Well, the graphics were quite nice; even though there were many lines and the character had a fearful expression when you got a combo, that could be forgiven, I guess, seeing as emotions are particularly hard to display and can be hard to pull off.

The music: Nice, the music fits well into the game, and gives a sense of urgency and increases the pace of the game overall. Kudos to the author of the music; it is a true experience-changer.

The animations: Well, the skipping rope animation is okay, I guess, rather simple, two curved lines going up and down, and the girl jumping is also a simple animation, but quite good.

The gameplay: Not bad, the essence is in the simplicity, and it's a real game changer. Generally, the simpler, the worse, but in some cases, it makes the game better. And this is one of those cases. But there's a bug -- if you stay still, there's a small time before you lose, even if you're hitting the rope all the time, the animations just continue.

All in all, good. Keep it up!

~~ Summary ~~

~~ Good points ~~
1) Nice art
2) Nice music
3) Simplistic gameplay
4) Smooth animation

~~ Bad points ~~
1) Gameplay would stop only after a while even though you're staying still