halfshallow

A guy walks into a shop: "Hello, I'd like to buy a steaming pile of manure". Shopkeeper: "Ah, I have just the thing", quickly serving up a double pack of Breath of Death and Cthulhu Saves the World, "That's 89 pence please!" This game is just so bad, where do I begin? Well, I want my 89 pence back! I should have bought that hot chocolate instead... It's a game of hammering the A button on your gamepad for about 30 seconds whist not really looking at the screen, then getting a 10 second break, then repeat... kind of for eternity, or so it feels! Really? Yes, really. Oh come on it can't be that bad? Oh, how I wish... read on, Dear Adventurer, read on!... You can't explore for literally more than 10 seconds without having a combat encounter. All the combat encounters save for the boss fights are so ridiculously easy (on normal difficulty) that they are simply an exercise in using the default attack on the first creature for the first member of your team, using the default attack on the second creature for the second member of your team, and so on. As you have to do this every 10 seconds, after 5 minutes you can do it without actually looking at the screen! Still, it got the A button on my Xbox gamepad a good workout (before you nay sayers say "Xbox groupie who doesn't appreciate PC games", I don't own an Xbox, just the controller as it's the most compatible controller for PC games, and no I don't use it for FPSes!) And that is the game, that pointless combat, that IS the game! About 90 percent of it. The rest of the time is spent exploring (only you can't in any type of satisfying manner because after 10 seconds you've got the pointless button pressing combat again) some terribly badly designed maps (on roughly the same tech and inspirational level as Horace Goes Skiing - seriously that lost world of dinosaurs game on the Spectrum 128K had way, way better level design), following a story line that is so shallow it makes Jet Set Willy look like story telling genius, buying weapons and armour and levelling up which is all pointless because the combat is just so useless. Oh yeah, there are special skills and combo moves in the combat, but you don't need them except against Boss monsters so that's about 1 in 30 to 1 in 50 fights then. Oh, and Boss monsters are announced on the exploring map, which is nice because then you know to look at the screen during that combat! Stay away from this game the way you'd stay away from leprosy. If you just want to play an decent indie game, Bastion, Aaaaaaa A Reckless Disregard for Gravity and World of Goo spring to mind...amongst others.

A guy walks into a shop: "Hello, I'd like to buy a steaming pile of manure". Shopkeeper: "Ah, I have just the thing", quickly serving up a double pack of Breath of Death and Cthulhu Saves the World, "That's 89 pence please!" This game is just so bad, where do I begin? Well, I want my 89 pence back! I should have bought that hot chocolate instead... It's a game of hammering the A button on your gamepad for about 30 seconds whist not really looking at the screen, then getting a 10 second break, then repeat... kind of for eternity, or so it feels! Really? Yes, really. Oh come on it can't be that bad? Oh, how I wish... read on, Dear Adventurer, read on!... ****If you've read my review for Breath of Death you'll notice I've just copied and pasted that review here, and that's because ITS THE SAME GAME!!! OK, combat is now more difficult but still really tedious and the maps look cleaner but are now even more badly laid out! What follows is the remainder of my review for Breath of Death, replace pointless combat with utterly tedious combat and you'll get the idea!**** You can't explore for literally more than 10 seconds without having a combat encounter. All the combat encounters save for the boss fights are so ridiculously easy (on normal difficulty) that they are simply an exercise in using the default attack on the first creature for the first member of your team, using the default attack on the second creature for the second member of your team, and so on. As you have to do this every 10 seconds, after 5 minutes you can do it without actually looking at the screen! Still, it got the A button on my Xbox gamepad a good workout (before you nay sayers say "Xbox groupie who doesn't appreciate PC games", I don't own an Xbox, just the controller as it's the most compatible controller for PC games, and no I don't use it for FPSes!) And that is the game, that pointless combat, that IS the game! About 90 percent of it. The rest of the time is spent exploring (only you can't in any type of satisfying manner because after 10 seconds you've got the pointless button pressing combat again) some terribly badly designed maps (on roughly the same tech and inspirational level as Horace Goes Skiing - seriously that lost world of dinosaurs game on the Spectrum 128K had way, way better level design), following a story line that is so shallow it makes Jet Set Willy look like story telling genius, buying weapons and armour and levelling up which is all pointless because the combat is just so useless. Oh yeah, there are special skills and combo moves in the combat, but you don't need them except against Boss monsters so that's about 1 in 30 to 1 in 50 fights then. Oh, and Boss monsters are announced on the exploring map, which is nice because then you know to look at the screen during that combat! Stay away from this game the way you'd stay away from leprosy. If you just want to play an decent indie game, Bastion, Aaaaaaa A Reckless Disregard for Gravity and World of Goo spring to mind...amongst others.