3. Super Meat Boy
A cute little indie game which follows a story and gameplay similar to Super Mario Bros, developed by Team Meat, the masterminds behind Binding of Isaac (which will probably be included in a later article).
Super Meat Boy puts you in the ‘shoes’ (he’s actually barefooted), of Meat Boy who had his girlfriend, Bandage Girl, captured by the game’s boss, Dr. Fetus. Your mission is to recover your damsel in distress and put an end to your archenemy.
Like the game from which it was inspired, Super Meat Boy’s levels are split into several worlds, each one with its own theme. You will visit cemeteries, salt factories (which will harm you) and even Hell itself. Certain levels will have hidden entrances to bonus mini-games which, if completed, will unlock new characters to play as. Most of the characters come from other games like Bit.
Trip series or they are versions of Meat Boy. The unlocked characters will also possess certain abilities that should, in most cases, help you get through the levels easier. For those that got married with Dark Souls, Super Meat Boy offers a Dark version of the World you’re currently in. The only request to try the Dark World version of a level is to complete the said one with an A+ grade. In order to acquire such a grade, you will need to beat the level’s time.
Other levels will offer a dark version of them, with a higher graded difficulty. On all the levels you will be able to find band-aids that will unlock other characters once you collect the needed number. The last level of each world is a slightly difficult challenge that can be either a survival run or a boss fight.
The game’s huge replayability consists in the possibility to fast respawn every time you do with no other penalty than painting the level with your body’s leftovers. That means you have infinite lives so have fun dying.
After completing a level, all the lives used will be played all at once in one replay footage so it might be quite funny to see maybe even dozens versions of you smashing into a rotational blade or fall into a bottomless pit. If the 7 available worlds are not enough for you, there is also the option of trying the levels made by other players in ‘Super Meat World’.
Pros:
– Funny little game
– High replayability
– Great level design and art
– The ability to paint almost all the level’s walls in dark red.
Cons:
– Sometimes it can get annoying to repeat the same level over and over again due to one single small error near the ‘finish line’
Genre: Platform
Price: 13.99 $/€
Steam Store Page: Click Here
Score: 4.8/5
2. The Typing of the Dead
This might be one of the weirdest genres ever encountered (and trust me, I have played some weird games before… *hint* *hint* Envirobear *hint* *hint*). It was meant to appear on the previous article ‘6 Great Games about Zombie’ which can be found here (take a look, you know you want to). The Typing of the Dead started as a PC mod of the popular 90’s game called ‘The House of the Dead 2’, which, as you might have guessed by now, is a zombie game.
In The Typing of Dead you take the role of one of the 2 detectives sent to investigate another alarm regarding a zombie invasion. As you advance in the game, you get to, if you didn’t get it until now, kill zombies, save people (if you’re fast enough) and fight with bosses that have certain weaknesses, which are presented with the help of a book at the beginning of each such encounter.
Gameplay and Features
Now, here’s the part where the freak kicks in. Instead of fire weapons, the players will fight with … keyboards… no, not the musical kind, but the computer keyboards. And they are powered by big-ass Duracell batteries (Aaaah, good technology right there). Each enemy that you encounter will have a word or a phrase or even an entire sentence, that doesn’t have to actually make too much sense, which you will have to type on your own keyboard in order to kill them.
Speed and precision are the most crucial abilities you have to possess in this game since every typo you make gets you closer to being killed and we both know that you don’t want that. The smaller enemies or the items thrown at you have a smaller number of letters needed to be inserted due to their shorter time needed to have a… letteral impact on you (Eh? Eh? You get it? … Bad pun is bad)
When having multiple encounters at once the game will start shooting the one that you choose to terminate, so be sure to type-kill the one closer to you, even if the word written on him contains a bad word or an insult that you deem funny, like poop or ass or anything like it. The bosses will usually contain entire sentences since they are … you know … bosses.
Maps and Enemies
There isn’t much to say about the maps, they are all darkish, with tons of grey clouds, giving you an authentic feel of London’s lifestyle… except for the part where the zombies try to kill you. As for the zombies, they are ugly, they try to kill you, and the bosses are even uglier but they still try to kill you. Well, whaddaya know.
Sequel:
Years later, a sequel has appeared, which I have not tried yet, reason why I didn’t review that one instead of this. It is called ‘The Typing of the Dead: Overkill’, so I guess it means you can kill the zombies again with the keyboard. Yay, technology!
Pros:
– Your fingers’ muscles will have their own muscles
– Tons of screaming and death
– Big-ass Duracell battery
– The conspiracy people will be happy since they think they will send weird messages to the ones that spy them, meaning that while playing this game, the tinfoil hat can safely come off.
– You can become the Sonic of speed typing.
Cons:
– The zombies are really ugly … and pixelated.
Genre: Survival horror
Score: 4.8/5
Similar Games: Crimsonland (Typing Gamemode)
1. Blades of Time
Starting with one of the most fast-paced and entertaining hack’n’slashers, Blades of Time is the spiritual successor of the game X-Blades, which shares the same fast gameplay and is developed by the same studio. The main difference between the two games is the art style: if X-Blades focused on an anime design from art to style of fighting, Blades of Time took a western approach with better detailed graphics, combat style and a simplistic version of the skill tree system.
The story revolves you, a fighter named Ayumi, which arrived on a mysterious island called Dragonland, together with her colleague, Zero, but on the journey towards the island, you got parted by unknown reasons. The main quest is to find Zero and search for the Dragon Treasure. On the journey you will discover a few secrets as well as some cool abilities that you can perform.
Gameplay and Features
The most notable and critical mechanic in this game is the Time Rewind. Time Rewind allows your character to go back in time, creating at the same time a clone that will do exactly what you previously did up to the point when you started the ability, vanishing afterwards.
This allows you to do something completely different like taking on a different part of the puzzle, attacking another enemy or attacking a different part of a boss. You can create as many clones of you as you want until the juice inside the ability’s bar finishes up.
The protagonist can hold 2 weapons, 1 melee and 1 fire weapon. There are various types of fire weapons, from carbines to rocket launchers. Rings and amulets that increase different abilities can also be found throughout the crates and chests spread around the game. As part of the fighting arsenal you can also dash at a high-speed in any direction allowing you to do a few fast backstabbing attacks thus killing the enemies faster.
You are allowed to perform finisher moves on all ground enemies by pressing the key E. Each of the finisher moves includes a special animation with some slo-mo mechanism for extra-drama. Got to admit though, it looks badass, but after you have killed dozens of the same enemies, the animations become boring since there are too few.
Upon purchasing any of the first category items, you will be teleported to a small arena in which you will fight guardians, while a hovering message will show an objective to reach as well as the way to do it. As probably guessed, this is the tutorial level and it will appear every time you purchase an ability. As for the skills from the second category, the tutorial text will appear in the same style but without the arena, usually with a real situation that needs to be overcome in order to continue.
The currency consists in soul orbs dropped by mobs, crates and chests with which you can purchase spells and abilities like higher HP, Flame/Ice projectiles and so on, at the Altars spread throughout the maps.
The shopping goes by the system ‘Buy 1, get 1 free’. The second category of ‘products’ include new types of combat like dashing in air towards an enemy, grabbing on him followed by a shoving of sword inside the victim. The acquired spells can be used to keep the crowd away while you’re fighting another enemy.
The spell will shoot towards the direction set by you through the free camera, so be sure that you’re pointing at another enemy while fighting the current one. Unfortunately, some combos don’t work; for example: when you create a shockwave that knocks an enemy to the ground, shooting the spell towards him will not damage him, so try to aim those that are still standing.
Later in the game you will also have the ability to glide with the help of a pair of wings. As well as with everything else in the game, you will have a precise tutorial on how to properly use them. The developers took care of the skybox to look marvelous so you can have an amazing view while flying from point to point.
Another interesting mechanic integrated the game is the ‘Chaos’. It has several shapes, the most often encountered are the areas that are filled with it, causing the player to move in a slow-motion pace and frequently attacked by enemies. At that point, Ayumi can deploy an Order spell which will create a semi-sphere around you that has normal reality properties allowing you to effectively fight the threats.
The second often shape in which you will encounter the Chaos is as an object which deploys a magic door. The object is invulnerable as long as there are guardians around it, so your main objective will be to clear the area in order to destroy the said item.
A compass with 2 pointers is available to the player with each of them pinpointing a certain path. The inner, yellow arrow shows the path throughout the map, in case you get lost, while the one in the exterior, the red arrow, only appears when you’re close to a chest so be sure to check it often if you want to get everything.
Maps and Enemies
The level design is in some places quite poorly made, attempting to create an impression of space but during combat you realize that you’re hitting the wall way faster than you hoped. There are several types of environments, from jungles, to temples as well as deserts and flying cities. Hidden places are not lacking in number either, rewards usually including new gear items.
The bosses in this game will usually require one or more tricks that you have learned throughout the game like the Dashing + Time Rewind to take them down so pay attention and try everything you remember. It feels more rewarding than just searching how to defeat him on YouTube.
The variety of enemies is quite welcomed, each of the types having its own set of movement, skills and attack behaviors and some will prove tougher to crack until you get used to the combat system.
Sidenote
This maybe will be the only game that I advise to play for the gameplay and not its story or voice acting since both get a strong 0/10 from me. There are too many lines where Ayumi talks by herself when she shouldn’t, in an attempt to engage player’s curiosity, but it honestly just made me laugh.
The voice acting for Zero and Ayumi will most likely just drown you in tears since they sound like those kind of actors that put accent on every word they speak thinking it will make the game more dramatic… it doesn’t work. The only bearable voice actor through the whole game was that of the Altars, maybe because of the voice synthesizers.
Pros:
– A multitude of well combined mechanics and gameplay features
– Challenging, fast-paced and superb combat scenes
– Semi-tough bosses, enough to provide a good challenge.
– Beautiful puzzles that sometime require a keen attention to detail or extreme precision.
Cons:
– OH MY GOD, THAT VOICE ACTING!
– Boring story.
Genre: Action, Hack’n’Slash
Price: 17.99$/€
Steam Store Page: Click Here
Score: 4.0/5
Similar Games: X-Blades