Tuesday, July 31, 2012

GameLight Review - Defy Gravity Extended

Steam Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/96100/
Source: Youtube Channel pfischify

Developer: Fish Factory Games
Publisher: Fish Factory Games
Platforms: PC (Steam), Xbox 360 (XBLA)
Release Date: Jul 25, 2011
Genre: Puzzle-Platformer

Pros:
-Simple concept, but creative level designs made it fun
-Challenging with multiple solutions
-Normal price is only $2.99

Cons:
-Very short game (depending on your skill level or familiarity with platformers)
-The game's fun, but nothing extraordinary
-A lot of the "enemies" or "objects" have random pathways later on, so some luck is involved

Defy Gravity Extended was a fun distraction while it lasted.  If you're looking for great graphics, an intriguing story line, or hours upon hours of replay value, then you should probably avoid this game.  Defy Gravity Extended is stripped down to its very core to being all about game play and level design.  It's an easy game to pick up and learn, but the level designs provide quite a few challenges.  It was fun flinging my character around with the gravity wells and flying all over the place (sometimes to my death, which was funny).  After you complete the game, you are presented with a "hard mode" which takes away the anti-gravity well and causes all enemies to be affected by the gravity.  I played half way through hard mode before I got bored as the game has changed a little, but the levels have not at all.  As a side note, I bought the game at $1.49 during the Steam Summer Sale, beat the game in an hour, and played hard mode for about 30 minutes.  So I got 1.5 hours of entertainment out of 1.5 dollars.  It was a fun game and recommended for those who enjoy Puzzle-Platformers, so long as you don't have high expectations for the game.

Aesthetics
The background, user-interface from the menus, the character sprites, music, and overall gameplay felt like the old school shareware/freeware PC games back in the 90's.  The graphics certainly did its job: set the theme and environment, distinguish objects that interacted and what could kill the player, have the background music occupy the player's aural senses to get them excited, yet everything felt less than what it could be.  A lot of the sprite work are static and don't have an animation to them.  As such, the game felt minimalistic in a limiting sort of way.  "The graphics weren't ugly, but they were kind of boring" is what I'm trying to say.  The music definitely had that same "90's shareware/freeware" vibe to it.  It's not a bad thing as some of the songs were somewhat enjoyable to listen to.  They aren't entirely memorable or outstanding, but they're pretty good for the game.  It's the one aspect that semi-stands out and had a lasting impression on me.  A lot of the sprite work, backgrounds, enemies, and animations could've been more detailed, have moving parts, and have little things changed to bring them to life.  Aesthetics: 5/10

Buttons

Puzzle-Platformers need to have tight controls that's comprehensible and still creative so that they may be utilized to its fullest potential.  The controls can be a bit much in the beginning with two gravity well/pool keys, two keys to disable them, left and right movement, jump, and a gravity shield to nullify the gravity pulls and pushes.  The controls were fairly easy to grasp from the get go as many 2D platformers that utilize the mouse uses the same key layout.  Juggling the jumping, shield, two pools and their disable keys were tricky in the beginning, but the game eases the difficult techniques to the player fairly well.  The game would've been a frustrating struggle had the character felt sluggish or if the keyboard layout was out of whack.  Fortunately, the controls were tight and it was fairly easy to perform some crazy techniques of jumping, pushing off the spike ground with an anti-gravity well, hovering a bit with the gravity pool and then finally jumping out of it with the shield activated.  In short, it gets to a point where performing tricks like that feel natural.  The only bit of complaint I have is that sometimes instead of a normal jump, I get a booster jump which is most likely a problem with collision detection and not with the controls itself.  Had this project been drawn out with extensive work and fully fleshed out projects, I think there could've been more done with player controls (a tether of some kind).  Buttons: 9/10

Concept and Content
The concept is simple: Get from point A to point B.  How the developers created levels based off of the capabilities of the gravity wells is quite creative.  By using the gravity wells, the player manipulate platforms, change the course of movement of enemies, and aid in hovering/jumping to hard to reach places.  The core gameplay was simple, but it was fun.  The problem is that it's very limited.  Right when it gets really interesting, the game ends.  There aren't that many levels, only a few enemy types exist, a lot of sprites and objects don't have an animation to them, and players can't create their own levels.  I don't think there's DLCs to the game, and I don't think it'd be worth buying them if they ever released one.  It was fun (and a bit frustrating near the end), but I was over and done with the game after getting through it once.  It's rather entertaining flinging yourself around with pools of gravity.  Concept and Content: 6/10

Duration
The flow of the game was pretty smooth.  It eased me into learning about how the gravity wells worked and how I can utilize them.  It introduced the enemy types one by one so I'd be able to prepare myself on how to approach each one.  And once I learned everything, it literally says in the game that "everything will get tougher from now on" or something along those lines.  I completed the game in less than an hour.  It then presented me with a "hard mode" which took away the anti-gravity well which made half of what was possible limited to using only one gravity well.  I played half way through before I got bored.  If they had worked with Valve to allow steam works compatible with the game, the community could build their own levels and share them.  Alas, no such thing exists or seems to be in the works.  Still, I enjoyed what I played, yet had hoped for a bit more.  Duration: 5/10

Fun
The game started out entertaining, and then it got really frustratingly hard when enemy paths were random rather than set.  It finally ended with it being very interesting and challenging without it being unfair.  I guess I was expecting a hard mode, but I didn't expect to be limited to only one of my gravity wells.  I got bored of hard mode after I got to the half way point.  I had fun while it lasted, but I think I was done with the game after I beat through it once.  Fun: 7/10

Overall
I think it was a fun little game to play.  It wasn't revolutionary, but it had entertainment value and didn't cost me very much (only $1.49 and 1.5 hours of my time).  The concept of using gravity to get through tough platforming has probably been done before, but this game did it right, just without all the dazzle and gleam that it could've had.  The game could've looked better and been longer, but at least they got the core game down and made it fun.  If I were to recommend a puzzle-platformer such as Defy Gravity Extended, I would have to make sure they didn't have high expectations.  Overall: 6.4/10

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