Demo Review 42: chick chick BOOM

Volleyball with chickens! And explosives! What’s not to love? Oh, and weights. And chomping plants, too. Get your seatbelt, we’re in for a ride in a serious game here. The idea behind chick chick BOOM is that there are five chickens – more like balls with feathers and beaks – on each side of a fence. Each side has its turn, during which they can summon either a bomb, a weight or a plant; the idea is to defeat the other team’s chickens by inflicting damage to them. However, there’s more strategy to it than it seems, as both sides can use ink to summon lines that will protect them from the other team’s nasty tricks.

Aside from that, we also have thunder clouds that appear at random, that both teams can activate. Oh, and each arena apparently has its own traps, such as UFOs that kidnap the chicks. But don’t worry, if you lose too many Hit Points, you can wait for Corncobman to appear in the background and shoot it! Oh, and of course, if enough damage gets dealt regardless of side, a piñata may fall on the fence, and then you can shoot it to get a power-up!

You probably have no idea what I just said. And yeah, it does sound pretty insane. The tutorial alone will take you at least 15 minutes to complete.

Although I really find the idea funny, I’m really not a fan of this game. For starters, almost everything is done through dot-to-dot games; as in, to activate any power-up, you need to hover the cursor on a circle on the screen and connect the dots. After which, if you were quick enough, you can shoot a target to gain upgrades to your weapon, and then activate it.

Dammit, every line I add to this review removes some sense out of this game!

But, um… yeah, no, it’s not for me. It sounds like a funny strategy game, really, but I don’t like how just about everything is down to how well you control the cursor. Because that’s pretty much what it is; move over the dots to connect them with the cursor; draw lines with the cursor. Though, the art style is alright, and there are enough features to keep one busy if they like this sort of funny yet complex game. But no, it’s just not for me. Try the demo. You might like it more than I did.

Demo Review 41: And Yet It Moves

We don’t get much of a backstory for this one. We follow a white guy – and by white, I mean chalk-white – as he ventures across levels containing who knows how many death traps. You move with the Nunchuk’s analog stick and jump with Z. You can also press A and turn the Wii remote – yes, turn – with your hand to flip the world around. See, the main point of And Yet It Moves is that you can play around with the gravity. Walls become platforms, platforms become walls. There’s a catch, however; this main character really has the consistency of a chalk; if he falls from too high, he’ll crash to the ground in pieces. And since the character’s momentum remains even if you twist the world around for a softer landing, it may already be too late. And crash, your character will need glue to put himself back together. Thankfully, there are multiple respawn points, represented by a black guy – no, I don’t mean an African-American type of guy, I mean a character of solid black with white outlines. Like a drawing on a blackboard.

I’m starting to realize the theme… Chalks, blackboards…

The first level takes us in a cave, where we get to test the controls. We also get to see some of the traps, such as a large boulder that falls along with the character… And big masses of blackness akin to endless pits, which we must avoid. The second level, a forest area, introduces swinging platforms, which are affected by the gravity, which means that if you want to land on them without any danger, you’ll need extra caution. Last but not least, the third level introduces an environment that decided it had had enough of standing still while you flipped the gravity to your heart’s desire. Now, branches and other platforms will, too, spin around to make things more difficult for Chalk-Boy. The third level also marks the end of the demo version, though it’s still possible to earn a few achievements during this short playthrough. The previews for the full version show even more complex traps for Chalk-Boy, which all look more interesting than the levels available in the demo.

I felt the demo was kind of boring, but that’s probably because the early levels served more as a tutorial of sorts. The art style is pretty good, and the game as a whole is a great concept, though it’s a very difficult game to master and sometimes, victory hinges on the exact moment needed to mess around with the gravity. Beyond being a platformer, this is also a puzzle game. It’s not much for me, but feel free to download the demo and give it a try.

Demo Review 40:Gods VS Humans

Such an ominous title should mean an interesting game, right? Well, appearances can be deceiving. This game takes place over several eras where Gods were being worshipped, the first one being Ancient Egypt. As is normal for a demo, this serves as a Tutorial of sorts for the game. The story is simple: You represent the Gods. The humans, down there, are attempting to climb all the way to the residence of the Gods, and they are hoping to achieve this by building a giant tower. If they reach the top, you can kiss your godhood goodbye. The idea is to rain blows of fire, lightning and hail on the different floors of the tower to weaken and destroy them… but since those powers are granted to you by these very humans you’re trying to stop, and that angering them will severely slow down your power recovery, you will need to be careful not to hit humans!

Yeah, there’s quite a number of things to keep in mind here: The number of floors on the current tower, the different types of humans, the powers available (most of them are offensive, but others are defensive, such as summoning a pin-up to disrupt the workers’ concentration on a floor of the tower – I gotta admit, that one was really funny). The tough part is to avoid hitting humans, because then they get angry and your spells don’t recharge nearly as fast.

In the end, this is a strategy game, so I’m sorry if you expected some epic battles between humans and godly beings like a cartoonish God of War. Forget about that. Though, this game isn’t without its challenges, and it would be very interesting… It just didn’t do anything for me. And yet, the 3D is simple but pretty and effective, the controls work fine (well, aside from a few issues when it comes to selecting one of the Gods’ abilities), but the game may be a tad too complicated. It would take me more than just a demo to get used to everything that has to be taken into consideration. In the end, though, the experience felt very… underwhelming.

Still, I suppose the demo is still on the Wii Shop Channel, so go try it if you feel like it. Maybe you’ll like it more than I did.

Demo Review 39: LIT

In this survival horror / puzzle game, we follow a student on a quest in his almost entirely-dark school. Something happened. But nobody knows what exactly. What’s more, this student has a friend, and she’s in danger. But wait, how can we go from room to room? Merely stepping into the darkness is an instant life lost! Using a flashlight to see what’s on the way doesn’t always help. Thousands of little bugs… and vaguely human-shaped things… are roaming in the darkness. Though, the flashlight may help in finding tools required to go across each room…

You move with the analog stick on the Wii remote’s Nunchuk. You can interact with objects by pressing C, whether that’s to light up a lamp or open a toolbox to find ammunition for your slingshot. You can switch between your tools by pressing B. Yes, you have to fend off the forces of darkness with a slingshot. Poor protagonist. You can also pick up TV remotes here and there. How can you move through each room? You find ammo for your slingshot, then you break a window. After which you can move in the newly-created path of light (wait, is it daylight outside? And… is it daylight behind every window, even in rooms that have windows on three out of four walls?). Find more ammo, break windows, disperse the darkness… also, find a remote to turn on a television and create a zone of light. Or you can turn on lamps that create arcs of light, and then move from one to the other until you reach the door at the end of each room.

The demo ends after five levels, thus about ten to twenty minutes of gameplay. This game turned out a lot more enjoyable than I thought. Adding to the ambiance is the few telephones here and there, which you can answer to hear the protagonist’s friend as she waits for him to help her out of this horror story. And when you answer the phone, the voice comes from the Wii remote’s speaker.

My first issue is that you'll usually have only one stone for your slingshot, so if you make one mistake, you have to try again – but there is no option to try again, so if you make a mistake, you have to step into the darkness and see the character get dragged down by lots of grey hands. Creepy. Thank God we have reserves of protagonists. Also, after you’ve used your slingshot ammo, the item currently used reverts to being the flashlight, so every time you pick up ammo, you need to press B to equip your slingshot again and prepare to shoot with Z.

But all in all, a really good idea, well done. I strongly suggest that you try this one. The demo ends before the first boss, however… it would have been nice to see what boss battles are like in LIT. Oh well. I know Halloween is long gone, but give it a try anyway.

Just Dance 2015

I’ve covered most of the elements of Just Dance last week, in the long review of Just Dance 2014. Go check it out, you might need it as I won’t spend words re-explaining core elements of the franchise for this review. Also, there’s been an itch recently, like I have an impression that I won’t be so nice today…

The new edition of a Just Dance game always changes many elements from the preceding edition. As such, new modes can be added, new features be implemented… but old modes and features can also be removed. As an example, the hand-in-hand choreographies from Just Dance 3 (where there were only two) and 4 (where there was only one) disappeared from Just Dance 2014. Note that I don’t blame them, that particular type of choreography was a load of crap. But sometimes, good modes can be removed, good ideas can be taken out. Well, “good” is subjective, and it has always been, so your opinion may vary on each feature. As for me, I always try to have a positive judgment of things. Ultimately, the choice of adding or removing features is left to the creative team behind the game; they choose what stays, what's new, and what goes. If they get rid of a feature you liked, well, I’m sorry, but that’s how it works. And, in the end, things have to evolve. It’s only normal that every next edition of a game that comes out yearly has to have some changes. Change is a part of life, we can only accept it.

I bought Just Dance 2015 last year, in… October 2014, I think. Yeah, pretty much around the time it came out. That was right after I had returned the only game I never wanted to see in my collection ever again, and I think I had also bought another Ubisoft Wii game around that time… No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle. Yes, I remember now. I also remember going straight to Just Dance 2015 when I got home. Despite the blood games of NMH2 and the promise of fun, gratuitous violence, I instead started with the dancing game, and... I really liked it. Although, now that I have played another Just Dance game, I can allow myself to be more critical of it. Let's start now!