Forces a delightful shooter game with a twist

Posted on February 8, 2007

Force is extremely colorful. If you get your purple circle to cooperate with you, that is. The game play isn’t very intuitive; it’s keyboard and mouse based.The beauty of the game comes from the fact that no two screens ever look alike.

Your bullets are not so much bullets. Actually, they are called “sparkles” and they don’t shoot in the interesting color patterns that you see on the left just on a whim.

That’s where the game play controls come in. Clicking on the left mouse button will cause the sparkles to repel away from you. When they hit the enemies (they usually aren’t colored in), some energy is drained from them. Sounds pretty simple. Until you realize that repelling is not the only way to shoot the sparkles. No, you can also attract them to you by pressing the “S” button, or the middle button on a mouse. Which leads to various sorts of strategies that you will, eventually have to utilize.

However, you do need to use the keyboard to change the special powers that your circle has at his disposal. These make some pretty interesting patterns on the screen. Oh, right. They also kill the enemies pretty well. Of course, these special powers can’t be used too often because they drain the power bar associated with them.

Perhaps the most impressive part of Force is the fact that it was completely developed by a high school student. He says the idea is based on eletromagnetic fields: repulsion and attraction. The idea is well-conveyed, and kudos should be given there, too. Who knew that electromagnetic fields could be so pretty?

This game is fun to look at and enjoyable to play. It’s worth the download and is quite addicting. However, it would have been better if controls were limited to just the mouse. It’s a little hard to remember to press the “alt” key when needing to change the special power.

Muppets cell game worth the weirdness

Posted on February 2, 2007

Most people would never want to touch a game based on the Muppets with a ten foot pole. I agree with this sentiment by and large. However, general facts of gaming life don’t seem to carry over to the cell phone, as Muppets Puzzle Party is actually a pretty decent game when it all comes down to it. Actually, it’s pretty addictive.

The story is, at best, strange, and, at worst, the foundations of some of your worst nightmares. Miss Piggy in a mid-drift bearing track suit? Erm… It’s actually not as bad as it sounds, considering that the pixel version of the aforementioned pig is rather small. Actually, the stranger images come from Statler and Waldorf, who had decided they were tired of sniping at muppet shows and decided they wanted to become Dee-jays. That’s right, disc jockeys who wreak more havoc than help.

Your job, then, is to thwart their evil radio take over plans by doing a little jig. Everything is controlled with the arrow keys (and the “fire” button if your phone happens to have one. It’s the button that is usually found in the middle of the arrows).

You have to match certain blocks and patterns. Your blocks can come in different shapes, colors, and patterns, and you have to match them depending on the level guidelines. For Kermit, you generally have to make X amount of color bonuses and Y amount of shape bonuses, while also trying to make “chains”–different trios of matching colors, patterns, or shapes. It becomes more apparent once you play the game… I have yet to figure out how to take screenshots of a cell phone.

The game is quite addictive. Some levels are quite challenging, but there is no “life” system, so you can lose to Statler and Waldorf as many times as you need to before digging yourself out of the mess. You may want to, as you won’t want the game to end. Not only is the gameplay addictive, but the game itself is colorful and imaginative, enough to make you rethink your swearing-off of Muppets-related video games. (Although, don’t let that extend to that party game for the bigger consoles).

Muppets Puzzle Party is interesting and engaging enough for the player to get over the weirdness that is Kermit the Frog dressed up in gangsta clothing. The game’s only downfall is that it’s quite short (although, not much more can be expected from a cell phone game). It’s a decent deal for the $2-7 that a cell phone company charges for downloads.

Cirque de Zale offers rather reluctant hero

Posted on January 14, 2007

In the over-documented fiction “map” (so to speak) of The Hero’s Journey, the hero always rejects the call to adventure. In the normal vein of the hero’s journey, the hero eventually responds to the call (albeit reluctantly). In Cirque de Zale, the protagonist (who is named Alexander Zale) doesn’t ever really answer the call.

Actually, he pretty much ignores it.

Although he is asked by a rather flat King of Diamonds to save the kingdom from some dreadful fate (and rescue the princess), Zale, instead, decides that he shall pursue his dream to become a ringmaster of the rather dilapidated circus outside of town. Of course, he does manage to save the world while doing so. Not that he wanted to, by any means.

Cirque de Zale is a point-and-click game in the vein of Monkey Island or (to have a more recent comparison) Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Therefore, you never have to utilize your keyboard during actual gameplay (although you do use your F5 key to access the load/save screen). Simple enough, right?

The problem lies in the puzzles. While most adventure games will let you obtain everything from dandelions growing on the ground to two-headed cats, there are relatively few items that you can interact with in Cirque. This actually makes the game a little easier, since you won’t have the 50+ item inventory to deal with. You use nearly every item that you are given; it’s just a matter of figuring out where to use them. The puzzles can be a little hard at some points, especially ones that require you to interact with items that are hidden very nicely into the background.

For any of you familiar with the adventure game genre, the story can get a little quirky. The humor is slightly distasteful at times, as one puzzle leads to the untimely demise of a circus-performing seal. Of course, you can grind your goldfish Sushi into a pulp by sending him through the garbage disposal in Zak McKracken, so there’s nothing really out of line in “Zale.” I mean, how can you hate a story that actually features a foreign performer who only knows awful jokes?

The odd humor never becomes strained because the storyline doesn’t take itself too seriously. Zale never sways from being the uncaring protagonist who wants to run a circus (and hit on a certain lady of the evening), and his actions follow suit. Sure, he’s a little bit of a shallow character, but the game is so short there’s really no way to flesh him out any more.

“Cirque de Zale” is an entertaining romp through a fictional world. My only complaint is that it’s a tad on the shorter side. If you don’t think that only 30 hour games are worth your time, then you’ll probably enjoy playing Zale.

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