Full Mojo Rampage- Preview

Full Mojo Rampage takes the twin stick genre and mixes it with the roguelike genre. For those who aren’t familiar with roguelike games, they are essentially procedurally generated levels and contains permanent death. In multiplayer, however, you will get three lives for four players. Over The Top Games puts you in a world of Voodoo where you can go through multiple quests to collect multiple Mojo and voodoo items.  As a young apprentice, you will be prepared to die fairly easily and when you do, your quest is over. As unforgiving as this seems, you keep all your gold, medals and experience making your next run through easier.

As you progress through levels and collect mojos, you can combine them to save inventory space and create new, more powerful mojos.  You also collect wands that will run out of magic and build up a Rampage meter that has various effects based on the God you choose. The particles on these effects look great and the dark and cartoony asthetic works very well for this game. The soundtrack and sound effects also work to the games favor. The games art is essentially a giant Halloween level from classic platformers like Banjo Kazooie and Super Mario 64. Even though the game is dark and some enemies and bosses are creepy, the game is still very charming.

This twin-stick shooter is simple to pick up but difficult to master. The game is also full of content and the difficulty is fun without being frustrating keeping players engaged. The art style and music is great and the gameplay feels great. Over the Top Games has yet to confirm a PS4 or Xbox One version but lets hope the next gen consoles can get this twin stick shooter that definitely mixes up the genre.

 

 

Opinion: Free To Play is the New Arcade Genre

The Free to Play business model is not only a way developers make money, but a key factor to how a game is designed.  When creating a free to play MMO, designers have to decide how to get users to play their game with the intention of spending money on “uber weapons” or “sweet skins.” Facebook games like Candy Crush Saga and Farmville limit how much the players play due to time limits. This should cause gamers to stop playing the game, but the fun and reward for paying the developer counteracts the frustration. Even in free to play twin stick games have items that make the game significantly easier and thus, more fun.

I would say the more “Hardcore” audience gets turned away from free to play design because it is obvious that the game was built around the business model. As long as the game is fun, gamers will deal with it.  Which leads me to the discussion of the Arcade genre and business model. During in the late 70’s to mid 90’s, the “Golden Age” of the arcade cabinet was the go to place for gamers.  It wasn’t until the N64 and PSOne era that arcades started to die because we could gain the same experience at our homes.

Arcade cabinets with games like Blitz and Street Fighter, required you to pay to play until you lost or wanted to play somebody else. It was simple and made sense. These types of games were very fun to play and the ones that weren’t died and made no money. Then there were games I like to call “quarter munchers.” Games like BattleToads and NARC were “so hard” that they required gamers to keep putting quarters into the machine because they kept dying. Now don’t get me wrong, there were games that took a serious amount of skill to beat like Donkey Kong but a lot of these games were just near impossible.  The design of arcade games became a standard and continued into our homes except instead of putting quarters in your NES or Genesis, you restarted the game. Super Mario Bros is a tough game that will require multiple playthroughs to get good but it’s possible to get through the game without losing a life. Silver Surfer for NES however, takes the quarter munching genre without the quarters giving you an impossible video game.

Both arcade games and free to play games can charge you extra for lives and continues.  If you play the games long enough you will get better at the game allowing you to pay with your time. Of course, Candy Crush Saga and NARC are nearly impossible without some type of cash unless you have months to get past one level in Candy Crush. With twin stick games, I have seen the free to play design and quarter muncher design leak into these games even if they don’t have these business models. When they do, they can be very fun games because they were designed to fit that monetization model.

So what am I exactly trying to say? Well the free to play model and design is not that bad unless the game is clearly designed to eat your money. Arcade games of the past did the same thing and we shouldn’t give them a free pass. The developers intentions can be sinister but when done right, the design of these games can provide hours of entertainment and you may not have to pay a whole lot.

 

Extreme Exterminators- Final Kongregate Update

Abysmal Ninja LLC has announced on the Extreme Exterminators Facebook page that they have released the final update on Kongregate.  If you haven’t checked out the game yet than you won’t really know how far the game has come from it’s initial Kongregate release in November of 2013. Extreme Exterminators is a twin stick shooter based on the Extreme Exterminators book written by one of the developers of the game.  The game will have local 4 player co-op but the Kongregate build only has one player as well as one map. The single horde map contains one starting weapon and one melee and grenade type. The starting weapon is the machine gun type that can be upgraded by picking up one of the three colored crates. The green contains the machine type that increases speed, red contains spread that increases the bullet spread radius and blue contains rifle that increases range and damage dramatically.  The game provides players to mix and match the three types to best fit the style of play for players.

Their is only type of melee and grenade and both are used as crowd control.  One for close combat and the other for longer range. The grenade button can be held down to change the distance of the throw which is nice and clear with the visual indicator. The melee weapon is not recommended on the larger enemies, like the snail because it will explode in your face. Speaking of enemies, Extreme Exterminators has introduced a lot of variety in enemies.  The melee type enemies have various speeds making you act differently when encountering flies and ants. Seeing the snails come in and termites gather up to assault you will keep you on your toes. The speed boost power up helps you escape these insects easily and health power ups spawn frequently enough so you can build up your score.

Abysmal Ninja LLC plans to fix any bugs (no pun intended) that are found but don’t expect to see anything new.  Extreme Exterminators is set to get an Alpha release by the end of the month so stick around Twin Stick Diaries for further details as well as the Facebook page and the website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ion Assault: Preview

Coreplay’s, Ion Assault, is a twin stick shooter that forces players to think about their shots as opposed to shooting all willy nilly. The game puts you in small arenas where you shoot down asteroids to complete the level. If this sounds a lot like Asteroids, than you wouldn’t be wrong.  The game even controls similar to the classic arcade game which doesn’t translate very well to the dual stick controllers it was made for.  It makes it one of the few games where I prefer keyboard and mouse.

Ion Assault is not just a clone of Asteroids.  It’s core mechanic is to charge up your ships gun by taking in the multiple particles that surround the map.  The more you have, the stronger your gun gets and the more asteroids you destroy, the more particles you get.  This makes it easier to destroy the bigger asteroids as well as multiple smaller ones with one shot. Like Asteroids, the more smaller asteroids that are present, the harder it gets.  Thats not all, enemies will spawn in the small maps that all have unique designs and attacks that create more chaos in the particle infested world.  Power ups that spawn within the asteroids range from useful to “what did that do?”  It’s really frustrating collecting a useless power up that may or may not have caused you a life.  The game doesn’t do a great job explaining what the power ups do either which is a problem since these top down shooters should be simple.

Ion Assault is a beautiful game and the amount of particles in each level is impressive technically.  I really want to know how Coreplay did this without bogging down the frame rate because there are a TON of particles on screen. The game has nice sound effects but the music isn’t very memorable. From the first hour of playing, Ion Assault doesn’t do a whole lot to change its gameplay or aesthetics enough to keep me engaged in the game.  It felt like I was doing the same thing over and over again with some more challenge upon reaching the next level.  The game is cheap on PC and I would recommend twin stick gamers to give it a shot. You can pick it up along with six other games here if you have any interest.

 

 

5 Genres I want to see in More Twin Stick Games

As games evolve each year, we see most of the innovation in new games melding genres together. The RPG genre has been melded into just about every genre known to man so I won’t be mentioning it in this article. I should also mention that the term genre in all video games is fairly vague so I will try my best to explain what parts of the genre I would love to see in twin stick shooters.

 

Platformer

As you saw from last weeks post, I played Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. Before playing this game, I never really thought how one of my favorite genres of my childhood could fit with the twin stick genre. Now, I can see exactly how jumping around in a top down perspective can work as well as the chaos of twin stick games.  I can imagine the level designs of Super Mario 3D Land/World but with hundred of enemies hindering your progress as you make your attempt to jump across platforms and maneuver across narrow passages.

Puzzle

The puzzle genre would fit perfectly with the top down perspective seen in twin stick games.  Puzzles would help the pacing in these fast paced action games similar to how the Devil May Cry and the God of War series uses them to pace their games.  Sometimes its nice to slow down the action and think about how you will go about a specific problem.  Think about a twin stick game having dungeons or even a Smash TV like setting with puzzle specific rooms.

Beat-em Up/Hack’n’Slash

Games like Double Dragon and, again, Devil May Cry have similar action pacing to twin stick games but is geared towards melee combat. The camera in twin stick games aren’t necessarily geared towards Beat-em Ups but I think it could work. Having it similar to Hotline Miami and making enemies more vulnerable to melee or ranged combat could add a bunch of new challenges to the genre.

MMO

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Exploring a giant world with friends, collecting loot and raiding dungeons would be a blast in a twin stick game. Would the shear amount of bullets hold up in a twin stick game? I sure hope so.

 

Tower Defense

Think about the Sanctum series but top down. The tower defense genre is already top down and contains an obscene amount of enemies. Having players worry about their towers and their player adds to the chaos of the genre.

Any genre’s you’d like to see melded with the Twin Stick Shooter genre?

 

 

 

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light: Preview

The Tomb Raider series was never the most well received franchise but players hold many fond memories of the sexy polygonal explorer.  It wasn’t until I played the 2013 reboot that a finally learned to appreciate Lara Croft and her action and puzzle solving franchise. Before the reboot, Lara Croft was given a spin off title that gained great reviews and praised for its new co-op experience and gameplay.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (GOL) is a twin stick shooter with puzzle and platforming elements.  After being forced to find a magical mirror for some goons, an evil spirit named Xolotl is reborn as well as the warrior of light, Totec.  Your goal is to stop the fiend from bringing chaos to the world. As an arcade style shooter, don’t expect a dramatic story like the reboot.  What you should expect are some great gameplay mechanics and a great adventure.

My short time with the game, I was grappling on hooks, jumping on spears, shooting undead warriors and solving puzzles.  I always felt that puzzle elements in a top down shooter could work great considering most of the Zelda series have the same perspective.  Overall, the first couple of puzzles in GOL are relatively interesting and they provide optional puzzle rooms to gain new collectibles and upgrades. GOL proves that platforming in an isometric view can work really well. This is mainly due to the tight controls Crystal Dynamics has created.

GOL uses the Tomb Raider: Underworld engine which looks great with this arcade game when in motion. During the in-game cutscenes, you can see its limitations but the opening 2D cutscene looked fantastic. The music and sound is also very good but the voice acting besides Lara Croft, doesn’t fit the mayan warrior and the Xolotl.  I could obviously complain about their ability to speak English but an accent would have been nice.

I’m hoping to play more of the game in the future because it was very fun and holds true to the Tomb Raider series. Even with the new camera perspective and gunplay, the game still feels like a Tomb Raider game and I hope to see Crystal Dynamics bring this style of game back.

 

Halo: Spartan Assault Xbox 360 Preview

It has been quite some time since I mentioned the need for some AAA twin stick shooters.  Microsoft Studios more than likely (obviously not) read my article and brought us Halo: Spartan Assault.  The current Halo developer, 343 Industries, and the creators of the twin stick shooter, Gatling Gears, Vanguard Entertainment bring everything Microsoft a solid twin stick shooter.

As a disclaimer, I have not touched the Halo Series since the third entry so I am not familiar with any of the 343 Industries games giving me a strange sense of nostalgia coming back to the universe about seven years later. Playing through the demo, you will be introduced to a completely new story that Halo fans should appreciate assuming they follow the lore of the series.  The game lacks cutscenes and gives players briefings for the missions instead. The game feels like it was built for mobile devices because the missions are incredibly short and lacks the chaos we see in most twin stick games on PC and console. The game is very good looking and environments really pop out. The characters also look really good and have that “shine” I tend to see in the enemies and players armor. However, the lack of power on mobile devices can be seen with the amount of enemies. Drop ships will spawn about three grunts and I never saw more than five enemies on screen at one time.  With that being said, I did only touch the demo and the pace of the game is much slower than other top down shooters. As one would expect, you aim with the right analog stick and shoot with the right trigger. Halo: Spartan Assault does a great job feeling like a Halo game giving you all the same options with guns, power ups and grenades.  You can even get into vehicles and melee enemies.  Although it’s rare for top down shooter to have a jump button, I feel strange not being able to do so in a Halo game. Especially when the levels provide small barriers that I would like to jump over.

As I said before, the two developers do a great job converting the FPS experience to the twin stick genre but the slow pace of the Halo series adds for a underwhelming experience.  The plasma charge gun is powerful when charged but the lack of reticle or even a red dot sight makes aiming the gun hard in the top down setting. Turrets manned by grunts are relatively easy to take down but, from my understanding, you can’t take the grunt out without destroying the turret.  Turrets are extremely powerful and are incredibly useful. Unless, of course, you have to destroy it. Even the tutorial was structured in a strange manor.  The first thing you learn how to do is get hurt.  The point of the game is not to get hurt and even though you are teaching us the shield mechanics, the player will learn that anyways.

This demo didn’t give me any reason to come back to the Halo series but fans of both Halo and twin stick games should definitely check it out.  There is a great amount of gameplay variety for a twin stick shooter and a fair amount of replay if you want to get the high score or play with friends.

 

 

Hyper Princess Pitch: Review

Hyper Princess Pitch is not exactly a twin stick game but it is a top down shooter and obvious shout out to the arcade classic, Smash TV. The game was created by some guy named Daniel in Game Maker stating that is a a remake to the old DOS game, Operation: Carnage. Hyper Princess Pitch is a spinoff to his game Garden Gnome Challenge where Pitch plans to take down Mecha Santa.  Princess Pitch is angry at the mechanical being for not bringing her presents as a child so she plans on killing him.

 

There isn’t much of a story and really isn’t that much game. You can beat it in under thirty minutes but the multiple difficulties and multiple areas should keep players coming back. There is also a secret stage that will take quite some time to unlock for intense players. I forgot to mention that this game is extremely fun to play and easy to pick up. You control with the arrow keys and shoot pressing X and change weapons with Z (Or vice versa, I don’t remember). Your default weapon has unlimited ammo and shoots bricks while your other two weapons, ice and rainbow are limited. The ice is short range and the rainbow shot splits into a line when shot hitting more enemies and bouncing off walls.  There are multiple power ups that enhance your weapons and yourself.  There are also multiple power ups that just blow things up and clear the board. Once you beat the game, their are multiple secret combos that make the game easier and more fun. Getting this power ups is essential because the difficulty, even on normal, is extremely hard.  Bosses act similar to bullet hell games and enemies come from all directions.  The game is never frustrating because it rewards power ups quickly and it always feels fair. The only issue I have with the game is the shooting controls.  It would have benefited from a twin stick layout or a Binding of Issac control scheme.  I understand that it is aiming to be retro but like I said in my remake article, times change and you need to move with the times.

Hyper Princess Pitch is a very good looking retro game.  The pixel art is minimal and lacks the animation that we have seen from newer titles like Sword and Sworcery and Shovel Knight.  However the explosions and weapon animations look great and the game sounds great.  This game provides more value and polish than most video games that you pay for. That’s right folks, this game is free as well as some of Daniel’s other games on his website HERE.

 

Renegade Ops: Review

If you were following the Twin Stick Diaries, you would have seen that last week I posted a preview on Avalanche Studio’s vehicular top down shooter Renegade Ops.  The small team at Avalanche Studios have developed one of the purest arcade style video game to our home entertainment systems. They successfully balanced difficulty and gameplay making it feel like a challenging arcade game as opposed to a blatant quarter muncher.

Renegade Ops looks to bring back the classic 80’s action films with their story and gameplay. Like the title states, you play as the Renegade Ops, an anti-terrorist group who are working on taking down the evil organization known as Inferno. As I said in the preview, each of the operatives has a special set of abilities like invulnerability, disabling weapons and heavy artillery.  These special abilities are unleashed by the press of the button once your meter fills up. You can also level up your characters and earned perk points by completing quests and side quests.

Renegade Ops does feel like it is aimed toward cooperative play which is not a bad thing by any means but even on normal mode, you will die a lot and rely on your perks to get through stages. Luckily the game is fun enough to go through missions over and over again. The game is also great looking and driving through environments and flipping your car over is actually pretty fun.  This can lead to unwanted deaths though because of the lack of control on your car.  The helicopter does control very similar to the car without the flipping over but ultimately feels the same, which isn’t bad.

As I said before, the game is fun enough to go through the game more than once but their isn’t a whole lot of variety in quests and upgrades. Most of the quests are similar with different text, kill this and collect that.  Boss battles are also uninspired and you will face the same one over and over again (three times in one level!).  Going through the lush and colorful environments and seeing the beautiful explosions will also keep players driving around in their little car that could. Twin stick gamers need to pick up this game and developers who want to make twin stick games need to play them too.  It is by far the purest form of twin stick game and how they should be designed and played aside from the precise movement controls.

Score: 9/10

 

Renegade Ops: Preview

In 2011, Avalanche Studios and Sega released Renegade Ops for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. This twin stick shooter allows you to choose from a variety of different characters including Gordon Freeman from the Half Life Series (Steam Version only).  Each character has a different special ability and, from my understanding, different upgrades to use when you level up. The higher the level you get, the more slots you unlock to place perks for a total of four different perks.

Perks are unlocked as you complete objectives during missions.  Objectives in missions are given linearly on large maps but you have the option to perform side quests when they are opened up to the player.  Some of these side quests are along the way which is nice but if you have to get out of your way to perform a side quest then thats when your map awareness truly comes into play.  You are allowed to open up an overlay of the map like in the Diablo series but you are timed if you don’t find the main quest right away.

These maps are fun to explore with your tiny car of destruction.  Environments are detailed and gorgeous so even when there are long stretches of peace, its nice to enjoy the scenery and shoot up the occasional house. The shooting controls are great but the car controls can be a little off for such an intense game where every life counts.  You can go on easy mode for unlimited lives but you lose the ability to gain levels which makes that mode almost useless.

Renegade Ops also has multiple upgrades for your machine gun as well as special weapons like flamethrowers and rocket launchers.  The special weapons have limited ammo but it is easy to find pick ups to get max ammunition.  There are even perks that upgrade special weapons when you pick them up making them stronger or increased ammo. Staying alive to keep these weapons and fully upgraded machine gun really makes you feel powerful allowing you to go through multiple objectives with out losing a life.  Their are very difficult enemies like tanks that have pinpoint accuracy which make it that much more satisfying when you take them down quickly with your OP arsenal.

A few missions in, I am enjoying my time with Renegade Ops because of its over the top action and challenge. Expect a review coming up soon!