Nicol3's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Zayo 2]

Ain't bad..

But there's so many things wrong with the game that they kind-of outweigh the good things.

Well, let's start with the good.

I actually like the character designs a lot. I don't know what it is, but I think the simplistic look is a good approach. It just kind-of works.

I like some aspects to the gameplay. That "Pump D!" part got some blood flowing. It was a pretty good idea for the rail-cart parts.

Let's get to the bad.

Playing the game is where the problems flood in. Yikes. Bad Coding here and there, and frustrating controls. That cart/gun part has a MAJOR flaw; the gun is too long to reach the little bat baddies at times. It's extremely frustrating when a horde of them attacks you UNDER the gun. You just can't reach them at all. A smaller turret might have worked out better.

I don't like the animation at all. It's shamefully lazy. You couldn't animate this extremely SIMPLE character and make him look like he's walking? He looks more like he's shuffling. What's up with that? If ANY animation in the game is going to be good, it NEEDS to be the animation of the main character. That's a CRUCIAL part in making a game great, even if it's just an experiment.

Plus, blur filters do NOT always equal actually animating. C'mon.

Finally, the Music (or lack thereof!) makes the game feel empty and soulless. And that annoying scratchy film loop nearly drove me nuts. Couldn't you just borrow some suitable music from the Audio Portal, or even Flashkit.com or something? Yikes.

Overall, a lot of things can be done to improve the game, but I like where you're going. I'll give it a 5 for being on the boarder of good and bad.

[The Treeva Experience]

Can ya' Dig it?

Originally watching this, I didn't think much of it. The only gimmick I really enjoyed was Slicing Treeva's Wrists to navigate; I thought that was pretty darned creative. And her scream was awesome, too. But I didn't think much of the pages (all except the Artwork Section. That one was definitely my favorite) .

So then I scrolled up and clicked "write a review". I was gonna give you a big juicy "7", but I stopped myself for a second. Was that really all that was in this animation? Just some "womg creepy" ear-tugging contact pages and some screams?

I played the animation again. I poked her bewbs for no reason, and it took me to a special page. Woh. So that's why this movie seemed so desolate. There's neat little secrets.

I ventured, I plummeted, I battled, I pillaged. I found them all-- and of course, I cheated. Thank gawd for that walkthrough of yours- perfect for dumb folks, just like me. And I loved, and I smiled, and I was satisfied. Be proud, my fried; for your awesome Secrets and tedious effort in adding extras definitely bumped this baby's grade up 2 whole points in my book.

But I can't scrub this feeling; this embedded desire for something more. No, not more effort or anything; I know you worked your hardest on this. But I've got the strangest feeling that the overall product wasn't in its full-fledged, wholesome and pure "Freaky Element". Honestly, I can't explain what I mean by that very well, but I'll provide a few examples.

Firstly, I think your art/ character designs are a bit of a hit or miss at times, and through your comments, you talked about how you felt about that. I really thought your more subtle designs were the most significant, and could have been brought to the viewer's attention in a more.. expressive way. I'm mostly talking about those "Psy"s. Probably the most disappointing secrets in the flash was the "dangling" one. It COULD have been one of the most terrifying and memorable parts of the movie, but instead that appeal and zest that the scene REALLY needed was lost. Yes, we all know billions of twitching Movie clips/graphics in one scene would have exploded a computer or two.. but C'mon. 10 bugs in the scene, and All I saw was Tween, tween, and more tween. I was expecting a pulsating mess of these Psys, splurtin' out slime and goo. Now THAT'S Disturbing.

When going for a creep-factor in ANY movie, never be afraid to go completely wild. Imagine your viewer SQUIRMING in their seat, wishing they had clicked on another movie in the portal. Just something to keep in mind next time you try to express your wacked-out ideas. With me, The ideas were great, but the scene layout was sometimes too tweened, or too repetitive to be considered scary.

So, dear friend; I give ya' a 9. It's a way to sort-of drive you to make more of these in the future, with absolutely no restrictions on your ideas. I think you've got a great mind, and GREAT ideas (plus, darned-impressive programming powers) and I wouldn't be surprised to see you make a game of some sort.

Keep tree-huggin.

Bobert-Rob responds:

Well, thank you for the indepth review, Nicol3, I appreciate the time you took in writing that. I definitely want to make another, but I don't have enough ideas for it just yet. It WILL happen, though, as this idea is too good of one to just use once. Thanks for the compliments, and thanks for going through everything! I'll keep all the points you made in mind when making the next one. Won't be for a long while, but when I do it, I'll try to deepen the experience.