Game Review Example (ZaciSa's Last Stand)

I am currently building up a bank of essays, game reviews, and retrospective for a blog called "Downloadable Context."  The following example is one such review that I have written.  Once I have a cache of roughly a dozen posts that I can schedule, I will be taking the blog live.  In the mean time, here is a sample of my style of game review:

Relentless enemy attacks and only you and your dogged persistence and cunning to prolong certain doom?  Count me in fellow Missile Commanders, I am up for the game! I’m a longtime fan of the tower defense genre so when I saw that the price had dropped on ZaciSa’s Last Stand for the Wii U, I decided it was time to give it a whirl.

In ZaciSa’s Last Stand you defend your base or bases, through the use of various drones, from an unending onslaught of spaceships bent on death-ramming your base to kingdom come. You can choose from several difficulty modes, and the chalkboard look of the ships and space provide an interesting and unique visual style to the game.  Those things said…man, I tried so hard to like this game, I really did.  I tried numerous times as a matter of fact.  Each time I hoped it would get better.  That somehow, some way this would be the magic time when things clicked for me.  However, I would pick the game up after about a week, play for ten minutes before getting disappointed with it all over again.  Why did it get frustrating so quickly?

The ridiculous, almost obnoxious way ZaciSa's ramps up the difficulty on you early into the gameplay experience creates an enormous stumbling block right out of the gate.  As you would expect with any tower defense worth its missiles, the number and strength of enemies increases as you progress.  You earn money for every enemy you defeat, and you use the money you get to buy various power ups for your base or various drones to defend it.  However, the difficulty acceleration in ZaciSa’s goes beyond what might considered a reasonable difficulty increase.  A good tower defense game builds on challenges, each wave a little more difficult than the rest while introducing you to new enemies that require new strategies and weapons to handle them.  However, the way in which ZaciSa’s ramps up the difficulty so suddenly, it feels less like a tower defense game and more like you’re playing a trial and error game.  If you’re lucky, you’ll stumble on the right combination of drones and power-ups.  If you don’t, you’re toast.   Personally, every time I tried to play the game, I found even my most heavily powered up drone woefully inadequate when this sudden difficulty bump took place.  On the upside, the game makes clever use of the game pad which is both nice to see and adds something to the gameplay.

Something unique to several Wii U games is the need for the player to constantly switch their attention from the action on the TV screen to a menu screen on the game pad.  With a well done game like the conversion of Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD or the real time strategy game Swords and Shields, there is virtually no hiccup in gameplay and the action feels natural.  ZaciSa’s has its players look at the gamepad menu screen in order to upgrade the various drones used in base defense.  You can be strategic in a number of different ways from switching out types of drones to powering up some drones and not others.  The menu also offers three game speed settings in an attempt to balance the game-play and give players an ease of transition between the two screens while playing the game.  As I said, it's nice to see that some developers are embracing the game pad technology.  However, because of the sudden increase in difficulty, you don't have a chance to get comfortable looking between the television screen where the action takes place, and the Wii U pad where you select how best to use the money you've earned beating enemies.  Worse yet, the difficulty jump would always seem to happen when I was looking at the Wii U pad navigating the power-up screens, so the opportunity to delivery a more natural experience was lost--at least on me.  Now, it should be noted that you can control the speed at which the game happens, but this is also a determent rather than the feature it should be.

For example, if you select the “0x” option to bring the game to a standstill so you can upgrade without worry of enemy attack, you have no idea if your powering up wisely.  If you go for the “1x” speed, you get a little bit better feel for what is working and what is not, but the game moves painfully slow.  If you try your hand at the highest “3x” speed you can at least feel like the game is moving along, but then you will find your eyes darting back and forth between screen and gamepad in a mad dash to keep up and keep ahead of the multi-colored triangles that kamikaze their way through your defenses.

Speaking of multi-colored triangles, a brief word on the game's visuals.  Admittedly, the animated chalkboard look was a selling point to me.  I think it is a fun and clever twist on the usual highly detailed and specific looking enemies you can get out of a tower defense game.  I don't think you need to always have crisp, super shiny bosses in order for the game to be interesting and fun to play.  The problem once again though is that the hope when you are going for simpler graphics that the gameplay and control will draw you in, but it doesn't.

Concerning the music, it has an appropriate sound comprised of techno beats and okay rhythms that cycle after a few minutes.  It’s pleasant enough, but it’s also not exactly anything to write home about either.  It falls into that category of music where it works at the time, but is completely forgettable.  I honestly have nothing more to say about this, which is a shame in itself because there are games out there with multiple problems like this one, but at least the soundtrack made them a bit more worthwhile.  Sadly, this wasn't one of them.

All of these aspects fail to deliver a smooth game experience and instead make ZaciSa's have a rather hodgepodge feel.  

Final Analysis:

ZaciSa's Last Stand is a mildly amusing tower defense game that offers a unique, simplistic visual style and interesting game play that I would welcome to the genre.  I hope that the forthcoming patch Zenfa Productions LLC is working on makes necessary adjustments to gameplay and adds some new sprites, but my hopes aren't too high.  In the end I would like to see a sequel to the game but one that does not ask so much of its players so quickly and one that has more interesting enemy sprites while making use of the chalk-board style art.  There is potential here for a genuinely fun and challenging game experience with its own unique flair.  As is though, the game just feels like the budget title that it is.  If you want to try your hand at it, the game is pretty cheap and goes on sale from time to time but you’re likely to forget you even downloaded this game a month after having done so.

Graphics/Visual Style: 7/10
Music: 6/10
Control: 7/10
Gameplay: 4/10

Overall Rating: 6/10

Reboot write up for CaptainKYSO

Link to original write up as it appeared on CaptainKYSO. (CaptainKSYO is currently under construction as it changes ownership. The original story follows below.)  If you look closely at the design, you can see that the robot is actually made up of individual living spaces.  This element was not only great detail on the part of the artist, but it also made it easier for my mind to make the connection between this design and the original Steelscape design.  The idea a sentient city would find larger and more deadly ways in which to defend itself seemed a natural fit to me, and this was a great design for continuing that narrative.

Intro:  Today’s robot t shirt gives off sense of how grand a scale a machine as tall as building would look.  Would you take convincing to live in such a home, or would you be recruited to reside there against your will.

Over video screens in the City, an advertisement comes on, and a smooth, gentle female voice begins to talk…

                Greetings citizens!  Have you been feeling it’s time to move up in the world, but you are just not sure how?  Do you feel fiercely loyal to our wonderful way of life and wish you could live, and die, for the City in the comfort of your own home?  Would enjoy an added bit of excitement to your apartment life within the City of Steel?  Then perhaps it is time to fight for that dream and for the City, by getting into your very own fighting robot home!  Reboot your life in the newest addition to the City of Steel, Mechapartments.

                Yes, Mechapartments, the latest development from your fully automated, artificially intelligent City of Steel.  Why deal with the average urban living, when for less than what you pay now, you could be living in a wonderful new Mechapartment.  Like every apartment in the City, it features fully automated living and dining experiences.  Unique to Mechapartments is the exciting possibility that you and your fellow residents may be called into action to fight in battle against those outsiders who threaten our way of life.

Mandatory volunteer duty may be necessary to help defend the city.  If you or any of your fellow citizens should perish and your Mechapartment be destroyed; your deposit will not be returned.  For some citizens, new living arrangements will made should your home suffer structural damage while defending the City.  Such minor skirmishes are unlikely, and you or your next of kin will be compensated should damage or death occur during occupancy of any Mechapartments residences.  Start your Mechapartments application today!  And remember the rules of the City:

Do not tolerate littering; keep the City clean and healthy for all citizens.

Do not tolerate violence against your fellow citizens; keep the City free of crime.

                Do not tolerate those who speak ill of our beloved way of life in the glorious City.

                Do not try to escape the confines of the City, you are safe from the dangers of the outside and are here for your own good.

                Do remember that you love your City, and it loves you back.

                Do report those who speak of leaving the City to your local, automated re-education center.

                Thank you, and remember, a loving person is a loyal citizen who will help defend the City, even unto death.

Keep This Shirt On If:  You think urban living can be daily battle at times.

Like artistic cityscape t shirts that leave you in wonderment, awe, and perhaps a  bit of fear?  See more artistic city t shirts and read more of the story of the City of Steel with SilentOp’s sci fi city t shirt and his modern urban themed t shirt. Or with Pinkstorm’s beautiful skyline t shirt.

Forget About It If:  You don’t like the idea of fighting your way through traffic to get home, especially if you had to fight through it with a giant sword and arm cannon.

Prefer your robots a little smaller and a little less inclined towards destruction and more inclined towards the better things of life?  SilentOp has an artistic robot music t shirt design that shows a rather Gifted little droid.

Color:  Red was the dawn on the day of the apartment rental.

Artist Bio:  Jay Maninang, through years of careful research and study in both advanced robotics and architecture; has come up with perfect gigantic fighting robot.  The one drawback to this is that officials at his local zoning commission will have him filling out paper work for years before he can even get started.

Steelscape write up for CaptainKYSO

Here is the link to the original appearance of the story. (Edit Note:  It appears that CaptainKYSO is under construction as it changes hands.  The original story is posted below, however I will leave the link in for the future when the site is up again.) The first in series of hard lines and perspective tee shirts by the artist known as SilentOP.  Given the futuristic look of this shirt, I wrote a short story with a Twilight Zone feel done in the style of a letter written to a loved one about the dangers posed by the sentient city.  I left it a little open-ended because I knew similar style designs from this artist were going to come along.  Part of selling this shirt in a compelling manner meant I wanted the emotional link the customer formed by reading this story to pique their interest in not only reading the story when another shirt by this artist came along, but make them feel a connection that would make them feel like they needed to buy every shirt in the series.

Steelscape write up

Intro:  The city is not what it seems my love, this landscape of cold steel towers and glass walls.  It is always growing, and that is the problem…

                When we first created the City of Steel, it seemed only natural that all functions of its automation be run on an algorithm would do what was needed for the city to grow and thrive.  Automated construction and robotic maintenance seemed like a great thing at the time.  For people to live here in what we thought would be a peaceful world.  People moved in to the great gleaming edifices that the machine had created.  “Imagine it,” we told the people.  “A place kept so clean, so beautiful; ever changing to help you grow and thrive.” But it was not the people alone that grew and thrived. 

                For many years I’ve tried to deny what I knew to be true.  I thought perhaps it was mere fantasy, an elaborate analogy for this place.  I don’t know if you can see it Evelyn, but the city is dangerous.  It too grows and thrives just as heartily as any living thing within it.  I don’t know when it grew into sentience, but it has.  I know I sound crazy, but we aren’t safe.  No one who stays within its walls is safe, and no one who tries to leave it can be assured.

This wonderment that we created has eaten into the world, and it is literally continuing to devour it.  As it grew and fed on the landscape, we have sat idly by thinking that it was simply following programming, that it was doing its best for those who live inside.  I know that I should marvel at the ever pristine streets and how content everyone is from man to child.  Indeed I am daily filled with awe as I gaze out on our great city.  But the city seems to creep along like an ever endless ocean eating away at a dwindling shore.  Lately I have heard something that I have to see if it’s true.  People joke that there is no escape from the city, that the streets do not merely seem without end, but that the city itself will grow around you like a suddenly sprouting weed even as you leave its borders.  Evelyn, I think this landscape that once was the hope and dream of every person left in our war torn world, has now become an inescapable nightmare from which there is no waking. 

                At times I do love it, and the city seems to love me back.  I’m having trouble remembering when we were without the city.  Do you think it has made us forget?  Do the lights and streets have some inner hypnotic power?  Has it always been this way?  Yes, we have the forest preserves under the great domes, but are they enough?  Please don’t be afraid of what I am saying here.  I know it seems so frightening.  I myself fear to write it, but I don’t know how else to say it.  We think that it is so great, but how often do you think of leaving the city? 

                I think about leaving it, but not as much as I used to.  And I don’t know why.   I have to try to leave while I still can.  To try and fight against its allurement.  If I am right, and the city is growing in the ways that I fear, I am not sure what the city will do to me when it finds out that I am leaving.  If I don’t return, you have to fight the city.  But I don’t know if even that is possible anymore.

Keep This Shirt On If:  You think the march of progress is inevitable.

Forget About It If:  You like to hold back the tide of the future.

Color:  Towering Black buildings of the future.

Artist Bio:  Jay Maniang likes to think of himself as ever shaping the essence of reality itself, bending and shaping all buildings and structures to his will.  Mostly what he does though is sit in coffee shops wondering how cool it would be to build a tower out of empty cups.