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Weekly Gaming: Metrico (Vita) Review

I was sceptical about playing Metrico at first, I mean, a game where you mess with bar charts and pie charts? BORING. But after reading Eurogamers review of the game many months ago, I decided maybe it was worth actually looking past the boring exterior and seeing if Metrico was worth it’s time.

Well first off, I have to advise to seriously ignore the setting and the premise of Metrico, as it sounds boring on paper but makes for some excellent and amazing puzzles to overcome. The premise is simple: certain bars or platforms in the world will move or resize depending on how you move your player or interact with the environment. One of the most basic forms of puzzles in the game revolves around your players movement across a surface: move right whilst touching the floor and one bar may increase in size, whilst moving left will decrease it. It’s through these simple interactions with the environment that complexity starts to form, with bars or platforms interlinked, meaning your actions for one to progress may hinder another, causing yourself to be stuck until the solution is found.

Whilst the graphics look simple, there’s definitely a charm about the infographics look, one that oozes from start to finish of Metricos campaign

It’s through this simplicity of interacting with the environment that you’ll find some of the hardest challenges I’ve come across in a game to date. Whilst the environment starts off related to your movement, it soon starts becoming more complicated, with a shooting mechanic soon entering the fray, along with the gyro-sensor of the Vita, and finally, the light around you and colours surrounding you in the real world using your Vita’s camera. They’re all novel ways of using every feature of the Vita, but they all really add to the complications of puzzles that may arise, with latter levels requiring you to both hold the Vita at a certain angle whilst also moving your player and firing at the same time. Digital Dreams really deserve to be applauded for the great work they’ve done in accommodating each feature of the Vita, a task I didn’t think possible.

Through all the different methods of controlling the world, it’s a good thing Metrico has precise platforming down to a T, with each jump and twist of the Vita being as precise as it needs to be, ensuring you don’t blame the game rather than your own skills.

Metrico takes its infographic art style and runs with it, with pie charts and line charts appearing everywhere they possible can. Each is intrinsically linked to the actions you’re performing as the player, ensuring you have some control of what is being seen.

The graphics aren’t much to look at due to it’s simplicity, but perfectly suite the environment of infographics Digital Dreams chose to portray. Pie charts appear in nice 3D, but as I said at the start, that’s all boring without context, so it’s a shame Metrico doesn’t really have a story. You walk endlessly throughout a forever changing world, with a choice given to you upon clearing one of it’s 5 worlds. These choices are between two doors, with each one having percentage of how many players have walked through it. There seemed to be no intrinsic value as to which one you selected, so for the most part, I just went for the door which had the least amount of players walk through it.

Whilst there wasn’t much in the sense of music (I genuinely don’t remember the music at all, a bad sign when it comes to music that entices me to explore and adventure on), the entire atmosphere of Metrico was still fascinating to explore, with each puzzle enticing me on to the next one with no hesitation.

There isn’t really a story throughout Metrico, merely a thought: your actions have instant feedback in the world your avatar inhabits.

I think the thing that stands out so much about Metrico for me is the way that it brings to the forefront the code that’s happening in the background to players. Everything happening on screen in a game is usually linked to numbers in the background; from health bars slowly diminishing to the timing of an enemies movement, it’s all maths, it’s merely hidden from view. Metrico does a fantastic job of showing all these numbers to the player, and even helps in making players think more logically in how they approach problem solving. There are many times you’ll need to approach a puzzle from a different angle after you accidentally press a button too many times, pushing you on to find the correct solution as fast as possible.

Whilst most of the puzzles allow you to carry on with the progression of the game, there are a few that allow you to pick up items should you get all objects on the screen in the correct place. These “collectibles” are purely for the challenge for the most part, with no story or extras being unlocked for gaining them (apart from trophies). Whilst I missed a couple, I enjoyed these extra challenges, as you’d have to look at the same puzzle in a different way, ensuring nothing went over it’s mark and all objects were in the correct place.

As I said at the start of this article, ignore any and all preconceptions you have about Metrico and it’s style, and give it a go. I for one am ashamed at my preconceived notion that it would be boring, and feel that it doesn’t deserve that at all. Metrico is easily one of my favourite Vita games so far, which, for a console that’s been out for 4 years, is a damn great achievement.

4/5

13/08/2015
Weekly Gaming: Luftrausers

The art style of Luftrausers is fantastic. Just a glance of the logo conjures up WW2 aesthetics.

I bought Luftrausers months ago for my Playstation Vita in a sale, as it always intrigued me after having played it at the Eurogamer Expo last year. I don’t usually get on with Bullet Hell games, as my precision isn’t as good as it should be, but Lufrausers intrigued me due to its accessibility and stylish graphics. Needless to say, I’m glad I bought it, as Luftrausers is one of the best small games I’ve played in a while. Some may have their fill of the game within a few minutes, but I’ve played this little game for well over 8 hours, and don’t feel like stopping anytime soon.

The game starts out with a tiny cinematic giving a little context on the situation of Luftrausers (and by tiny, I really do mean tiny, its like 5 seconds long). Basically, crazy scientists have managed to create some ultimate ships that can regenerate health if they don’t fire their weapons. You then start your first of many flights in Luftrausers, launching from a submarine every time.

Customising your aircraft is a big part of Luftrausers, with each part you choose having a major effect on the way a life will play out.

Controls are simple enough to learn, but extremely hard to master. There’s the up button/direction, which propels you forward in the direction you’re facing, left and right rotates your ship, and finally the X button fires your weapon in the direction you’re facing. That’s it. Extremely simple to learn, but with the amount of bullets and enemies coming at you it’ll take you a lifetime to master.

There aren’t many enemies to learn about, and chances are,w within 3-4 playthroughs you’ll have met every enemy in the whole game. There are two types of enemies trying to get you which consist of both sea and air vehicles. Each class of vehicle has many variants, from small enemies like pawn planes that literally just follow you around and fire occasionally, to huge bosses that will take up the whole sky or sea firing so many bullets you cannot move without getting hit. Each enemy has different attack methods and movement, meaning some are easier to kill than others.

Being a bullet hell game, you’ll be glad to know that this is actually a fairly calm moment in most games, with the true challenge coming when bosses start to appear.

One of the things that sets luftrausers apart from other bullet hell games is your ability to regenerate your health whenever you’re not firing. Your health is represented by a white cloud that surrounds your plane the more you get hit. Score is completely based around a multiplier that will go up based on how many enemies you kill. If you go a while without killing anything, your multiplier will disappear, meaning you’re constantly in a risk/reward situation, where the longer you continue to fire you’ll probably kill more enemies, but in doing so you won’t heal.

Your ship can be customised in a variety of ways before launch each time you die, with a plethora of body types, gun types and engine types to choose from. Each plane part is unique, and will allow you to do a variety of things, from taking no damage underwater, to simple things like being able to turn faster. It’ll take some trial and error to see what combination of weapons and body parts you prefer, but that’s part of the fun. One of my favourite combinations was a gun that fired 5 bullets at once, a body that took no damage when colliding with enemies (fantastic for killing enemies in the sea that are hard to fire at), and an engine that allowed my plane to go underwater and above the clouds without taking any damage. It does have the disadvantage of only being able to take two bullets of damage before dying, but it’s one of the easiest ways to kill multiple enemies.

Easily one of the most annoying bosses, and the one you’ll come across the most is the battleship. This monstrosity has plenty of health, meaning they’re one of the hardest enemies in the game.

The soundtrack to the game is absolutely fantastic, with tunes fitting perfectly with the 1940’s style and aesthetic of the game. I found myself humming the tunes whilst playing other games, or even just walking down the road. It’ll definitely be a soundtrack that I’ll recommend for years to come, and one that I glad I experienced whilst playing through the game time and time again.

As I said at the beginning of this review, Luftrausers is easily on of the best mini-games I’ve played in a long time, keeping me coming back for more and more every time I boot my Playstation Vita up. What it may lack in content, Luftrausers certainly makes up for in polish and replayability.

4/5

11/07/2014
Gaming Week 46: Superfrog HD (PC/PSN)

As can be seen from the main menu above, the HD version of Superfrog comes with a level editor; a fairly simple to use level creator that allows you to make levels from brushes you unlock in the game.

I have extremely fond memories of Superfrog as a child, my dad would get his amiga out and let us play it for hours back in 1993. At the age of 6, I found it far too difficult for my young age, but everything about it fascinated me, from the Lucozade (Americans read: Energy drink), to the slot machine, all the colours and charm rubbed off on me as if it was a genuine product for a kid. Nostalgia has a weird way of changing ones perspective of pervious events, so I decided to take the plunge with Superfrog HD and see if it lives up to my high expectations from my youth.

Superfrog starts out like most 90’s and 80’s platformers: with a small intro to show how your hero begins his adventure and his motivation for doing so. Apart from the HD drawings, nothings changed in this respect from the original, with the only glaringly obvious difference being the lack of advertising from Lucozade, which has now been replaced with a generic bottle of potion which makes Superfrog, super. These potions can still be found within levels to get your health back up, but it takes some charm away from the game that I don’t get to see that lucozade logo whilst trawling through levels.

Each world ends with a boss battle with the witch, a simple affair which just entails Superfrog firing “spud” (his companion) at her whilst occasionally jumping. You’ll be hard pressed to lose a life.

Maps are slightly different this time round, with Team 17 making 4 new maps per world for this remake. Original levels are still here for you hardcore players, but they need to be unlocked through playing the slot machine which appears at the end of each level. It’s certainly not great to hold original levels behind a wall, but it encourages the player to play through all the new levels first, which are certainly easier than the originals. Levels are laid out fairly simply, and any player with average gaming ability should be able to complete the game with no problems. Original levels on the other hand are extremely difficult, which reminded me how far we’ve come in both dumbing down games, and making them user friendly.

Levels are designed to make you collect as much as possible, meaning you are constantly collecting fruit or items for high score, or coins for ranking at the end of the stage. Brushing up against certain walls will unlock secret spots, something that has been lost to this current generation of games. One new item that has been added to each level is the golden lily-pad, something which was absent from the original game, and a item that is hard to find on some levels. It’s always hidden in secret passageways, so you have to make sure you go out of your way to find it. Finding all the lily-pads gives you a trophy for all your hard work, something some players may not give a damn about so can be overlooked.

Levels are jam packed with fruit and items to collect, meaning you don’t go more than 5 seconds without a sound effect going off and your score going up.

Not content with just remaking the original in brand new lovely graphics, Team 17 added a plethora of new features, from cross play saves (play on your PS Vita whilst you’re out and play it again when you’re back home on your PS3) to level editors, and even frog trials. Cross play saves is a nifty little feature that allowed me to play Superfrog when I was out and about with my Vita, but synced up with my PS3 when I got home, meaning I could continue the same game I was playing on my TV and on my portable console. I really hope game developers continue to do this in future, it was a fantastic feature that would do many games justice. The level editor is pretty basic, but does what it says on the tin, whether you want to make difficult as hell levels or a simple, clever level is completely up to you. Frog trials are distinct challenges that aim to push your Superfrog skills as far as they’ll go, which sounds simple but they’re never-ending, so best of luck with it. All these next features were nifty, but not essential to the core game of what made Superfrog so great and memorable in the first place.

In conclusion, Superfrog does a good job of replicating the original as best it can. It’s a bit jarring at first, especially with the new levels being similar to the original, and does’t live up to the nostalgia the original brought on. Superfrog HD isn’t a bad game in it’s own right, but in my opinion, it doesn’t live up to the original.

3/5

15/11/2013
Just a quick update

Just thought I’d update the site about what’s currently being played, so here it goes:

Bought Modnation Racers for the Playstation Vita as it was on sale in the PSN Store for only £11.99, so I’ll be posting my first thoughts about it soon this week. So far I really don’t know how I feel about it, so time will tell.

Dragons Dogma was released on Friday (25^th of May) and initially whilst I was serving all day it seemed to outsell Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Future Soldier, surprising and highly welcome. I can’t say sales will continue in this pattern, as knowing GAME they’ll stop stocking Dragons Dogma well before Ghost Recon, even when people still want it. (Exactly what happened with Kingdoms of Amular: Reckoning) I bought it on day of release, and so far I know I’ll love the game, but I can’t seem to get hooked. It’s definitely epic, I can feel that, but because of all of the training I so far feel distant from the action. A first thoughts and review will be up soon.

Going to post a review for Pullblox soon, the lovable puzzle game for the Nintendo 3DS. I’m about half way through the game, and loving every minute.

On my PC I’ve started to play Saints Row the Third seriously, for the last 4 hours of gameplay I’ve just been messing around, but I hope to have it finished soon and review to follow shortly after.

This all might take me a while as I’ve got an interview for a management position, so time must be given to preparing.

Either way I’ll keep this site updated with content over the coming weeks.

28/05/2012