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Game Reviews

THE GAME I LIKE

 Spelunky is a platformer featuring roguelike dungeon-crawler elements, released December 2008 and remastered in high definition in August 2013. It is well known for being extremely challenging and unforgiving, as death rarely takes more than a simple minor mistake, and the game lacks save points, meaning a death in-game involves starting from the beginning. The idea of the game is to explore the progressively harsh environments, collecting gems, treasures and gear to further your exploration into the caves. It features two different endings, both of which are defended by a unique boss; the regular ending being guarded by “Olmec”, the large, golden head of an idol, which attacks by trying to drop onto the player, and “Yama”, a demon who guards the exit to Hell, a hidden ending. The latter ending is only accessible via a complex string of tasks involving several “Artifacts” scattered throughout the game, effectively meaning experienced players can seek the hidden ending for a fresh challenge once the initial challenge of reaching the regular end becomes mundane. Whilst randomly generated, the game also features a destructible environment to make levels with particularly devious layouts easier to traverse, but at the cost of bombs, a precious resource. I enjoy this game due to its challenge and near limitless replay value; even if you reach the end, there’s still another ending to uncover, and even the most experienced of players can find themselves failing in the early stages of the game due to its unpredictable and unforgiving nature.

THE GAME I DON’T LIKE

 Bubsy 3D is often considered one of the worst games of all time. Despite being one of the first 3D platformer games to be published, the game featured no coherent story, a graphic design that bordered on painful to look at, unresponsive and unintuitive controls (Bubsy only being able to walk in a straight line, requiring a player pauses to turn slowly), obnoxious physics and so on. The game features very little in the way of gameplay, feels unresponsive, unstable and buggy and is widely considered to be a cash-in on Super Mario 64, a similar but much more complete and well-made game released around the same time.