Caltrops - Bionic Commando: Rearmed





	[quote name="Creexuls, a monster >:3"]<font size="+2"><u>Bionic Commando: Rearmed</u></font> <b><u>Jhoh sez:</u></b> This is the first game that is actually worse with coop. You can't walk more than 5 steps away from the other player without reaching the edge of the screen and being unable to see in front of you, which is usually a pit or spikes or sewer lava that won't kill you instantly, but you can't escape from it unless they give you a nearby platform to hook onto which they usually don't. If you go an extra step (that is if you're able to, most of the time you'll be facing a wall but you can't even see it because its forcing you to the end of the screen) it forces a split screen that somehow makes things even harder to see. In order to do any swinging, both players have to be layered over each other and acting simultaneously, which is a challenge even for us. Most of the time even while swinging at the same time and acting in perfect unison and harmony, you will still miss the next shot because the screen still won't scroll properly to show you what is next. In split screen, you literally can't see in front of you. There are several dark rooms where neither player can tell who is who, and you will die over and over not because of the challenge of the game but only because the game doesn't allow you to see what is happening within the game. You can achieve pretty much the same effect by playing with your eyes closed. In single player, the game is thousands of times easier and is in fact not much of a challenge, especially without having a second player distract you by stealing your screen vision away from you like I did with Jso most of the time. He finished the game single player already, so when I played coop, I spent almost of my time dead while he soloed the rest of the game and I watched. I do like that they added things like the new damage mechanic, where your bullets do more damage to people (and make them flash red) while lasers do reduced damage (and flash yellow), but against machines lasers do increased damage while bullets do less. <b><u>Jso sez:</u></b> Unfortunately it seems they just did not work on coop play at all, adding it as a practical afterthought, then maybe one guy went back and decided that coop needed just a little tweaking, so he made the bosses like 5x harder on coop then brushed his computer off his desk and bolted away from the building he works in as fast as he could, to make sure that the game would not be properly balanced fixed or playtested. Otohotoh single player is worth the $15 and is a giant improvement over the original, which is a good idea and was worth the effort of the development team (Grin) to update a classic to make it less shitty and tolerable for modern times, now maybe we can get an update of Mario RPG. Also FUCKING INSANE load times, even just restarting the level equals an unbelievable load time. And there are no fucking checkpoints at fucking all if you lose all your lives (all fucking THREE OF THEM), the last level took about 10 continues just to figure out thanks to the motherfucking giant single level of nothing but moving platforms over a bottomless pit, and the timed event after you beat THE LEADER. Perhaps we are just spoiled by FAR BETTER DESIGNED GAMES but having to start a mission I was almost done with from the very start ALL FUCKIN OVER AGAIN just because I ran out of the arbitrary 3 lives I was provided with is very gay and annoying and it seems like the solution would be very obvious (checkpoints, infinite lives, whatever). <b><u>Overall (BOF of us):</u></b> The game is a good idea and works great as a single player remake with cool new graphics, actual ragdolls, and new updated mechanics, while retaining everything that made the original game fun. The new things added to the game help make it even more playable and user friendly, while adding some originality. However, all this goes out with the window with cooperative play. As soon as there is another player on the screen, the whole swinging mechanic goes out the window, because you can no longer see what you are swinging into with the screen restriction, therefore making it useless, but the game is impossible to play without the swinging, which means lots and lots of falling into spike pits or whatever death traps that you would've been able to see in single player but can't in coop. <font size="+2"><u>Castle Crashers</u></font> <b><u>Jhoh sez:</u></b> A four player coop hack and slash game in the style of old side scrolling beat em ups such as Golden Axe, Final Fight or River City Ransom. You can pick four knights who have four different special magic attacks, and go around hacking up armies of orcs. The graphics are cool and cartoony with cartoonish blood and violence, and a lot of references to olde video games of olde. Actually, a better comparison of games would be to the TMNT arcade games and The Simpsons arcade game, where you and pals team up to beat the holy everlovin shit out of an army of baddies, and then end an area with an impressive and chaotic but strategic boss fight. The design is cool to look at, there are lots of areas with dead guards thrown everywhere, distressed buildings. One area's background has two giant armies of thousands swarming towards each other constantly to a middle point that is just a big clusterfuck of fighting, and arrows flying and people swinging swords. There is some experience gaining added, where levels add new attacks and combos to your moves. There are also some shops where you can buy consumables such as potions, but the game is balanced enough to not force you to use those potions constantly. At least according to the demo, that's all we played. :( Still, looked pretty fun, and with none of the complications that Bionic Commando: Rearmed had. <font size="+2"><u>Braid</u></font> <b><u>Jso sez:</u></b> The genius required to solve braids puzzles: Guesswork and faq reading. There is a puzzle in the demo that requires you to flip one of the PARTIALLY ASSEMBLED puzzle paintings so you can use the backdrop as a platform. I found this out after about 10 minutes of just staring at the area wondering how the FUCK I was supposed to jump up there. After I figured it out on my own I did not feel like a genius, because the game gives you no motherfucking hint that you are supposed to do any of that shit or even that it would be possible. Then you have to figure out how that platform can be moved around to help you, because where it is set in the painting gives you no help in trying to reach either of the puzzle pieces nearby. The game really screams of pretense, but there are also some good ideas (the fact that you don't need any extra lives, the game is based entirely around reversing time to avoid death). So it's not a bad game but we are all going to get pretty tired of hearing how this is the best game ever made, since it isn't.[/quote]