Jump to content

UHQBot

Forum Bot
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    39,331

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    25

 Content Type 

Posts posted by UHQBot

    Pong Quest Review – Mediocre Modernization

    in Game Reviews

    Posted

    pngquest.jpg

    Publisher: Atari
    Developer: Chequered Ink
    Rating: Everyone
    Reviewed on: PC
    Also on: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch

    In the 1970s, Atari’s Pong captivated fledgling gamers across the world thanks to its ability to translate the sport of table tennis to two electronic paddles on a screen. Pong Quest evolves the formula, delivering a procedurally generated dungeon-crawler where all enemy encounters are Pong matches with power-ups. While this does effectively breathe new life into the well-worn title and prove that Pong is still fun nearly five decades later, the changes aren’t enough to warrant more than a short stroll down memory lane.

    Strange happenings are afoot in a kingdom populated by sentient Pong paddles, and the king requests your help to venture into dungeons, retrieve magical orbs, and open the final area; it’s a story that’s as inconsequential and thin as you’d want from a lighthearted RPG built around Pong. Once you enter each themed dungeon, you have four randomized floors to work through, defeating NPC paddles in modernized Pong on your way to a challenging boss battle. 

    Despite myriad twists to the formula, the enemy encounters are essentially simple matches of Pong: Two paddles line up on opposite sides and bounce a ball back and forth. This basic formula hammers home the timeless nature of Pong; I felt a tinge of excitement each time I entered a match and the high-energy battle music ratcheted up. 

    Click here to watch embedded media

    While Pong’s basic action of rallying back and forth is still fun, the thrill of Pong Quest’s battles comes from the unique powered-up balls you can use. Some of the special balls deliver exciting effects to attack with and defend against; I love one that abruptly curves toward one of the walls and another that adds speed-increasing oil slicks across the field of play for a few turns. However, some are too overpowered and take away from the enjoyment, with the Fire Ball as the most egregious offender. If you touch it, it rapidly eats away at your health, meaning it’s much better to just let that shot go past you, defeating the entire purpose of Pong. Other balls provide challenging scenarios to defend, but with a select few acting as winning weapons, you’re better off filling your inventory with those rather than experimenting with the more unique ones.

    Efficiency is key in Pong Quest’s battles. Instead of winning by simply scoring more goals than your opponent, you must outlast them and whittle their HP down to zero. Unfortunately, your health doesn’t replenish until you reach the next floor, meaning things can get dire if you have more than a couple prolonged encounters. If you let a shot pass with no HP, you get booted from the dungeon and must start the floor over. Thankfully, one of the most abundant power-ups you can find is the Potion Ball, which replenishes your HP each time you use it. Still, when there are so many interesting abilities to experiment with, it’s annoying to have to constantly take up one of my limited inventory slots with boring-but-essential Potion Balls.

    Each battle grants you experience, which eventually levels you up. Each time you reach a new level, you can select from one of three presented perks. These range from added HP and inventory slots to various markers on maps and added damage to opponents. While it always felt like the least interesting option, I leaned heavily into the extra HP option to increase my survivability in the dungeons and reduce my reliance on Potion Balls.

    Click image thumbnails to view larger version

    pongquest_ss_pr_04.jpg pong_quest_screenshot_8.jpg pongquest_ss_pr_07.jpg pong_quest_screenshot_2.jpg pong-quest-dungeon-ss.jpg pong_quest_screenshot_6.jpg pong_quest_screenshot_1.jpg pong_quest_screenshot_3.jpg pong_quest_screenshot_5.jpg pong_quest_screenshot_4.jpg pongquest_ss_pr_01.jpg pongquest_ss_pr_02.jpg pong_quest_screenshot_7.jpg

     

                                                                                                                

    In addition to battles, you can earn extra items by completing optional objectives. At the start of each floor, an NPC will ask you to go the extra mile by clearing out all the enemies, battling zero enemies, or visiting every room on the floor before leaving. A carnival barker also lets you complete puzzle-based minigames like setting up surfaces to ricochet into a goal, matching cards, or even exploring a dark room to find light switches before time expires. Sadly, none of these are particularly rewarding or fun, often granting you special balls you likely don’t have space for. However, the black hole challenges – where you wager a chunk of your inventory for bigger returns on Pong-based minigames, like knocking out an approaching centipede or collecting every coin on screen – are thrilling and the exact kind of twist to the Pong formula I was looking for. 

    If you would rather forego the dungeon crawling and just play Pong, you can compete in local and online multiplayer matches. I like the option of stripping away all of the power-ups and visual flair to play classic Pong, but I wish there were more advanced options for the core multiplayer mode; it would be great to tweak the rules or set my own stable of special balls for the players.

    I enjoyed my time with Pong Quest, but with unbalanced abilities, generic dungeon crawling, and repetitive battles, the experience struggled to hold my attention. Pong Quest delivers a fun and unique take on the well-known classic, but the novelty wears thin even before the brief campaign comes to a close.

    pongquest_keyart_final_21012020.jpg

    Score: 7.25

    Summary: Pong Quest delivers fun and novel concepts in small bursts, but is weighed down by generic dungeon crawling, unbalanced abilities, and repetitive encounters.

    Concept: Take a procedurally generated dungeon-crawler and replace all enemy encounters with Pong matches fueled by power-ups

    Graphics: Simple graphics harken back to the visual aesthetic of the original title, but the anthropomorphic Pong paddles are kind of creepy

    Sound: High-energy battle themes help propel the action while you’re in a match, but the dungeon-exploration tunes are hit or miss

    Playability: Whether you’re bouncing through a dungeon or competing in a match, Pong Quest keeps its controls as simple as can be, even if the power-ups feel unbalanced

    Entertainment: While unique twists on the Pong formula make battles enjoyable at first, the repetition quickly wears on the experience

    Replay: Moderately low

    Click to Purchase

    View the full article

    Super Mega Baseball 3 Review – Its Own Brand Of Baseball

    in Game Reviews

    Posted

    supermegabaseball3_03.jpg

    Publisher: Metalhead Software
    Developer: Metalhead Software
    Reviewed on: PlayStation 4
    Also on: Xbox One, Switch, PC

    The Super Mega Baseball franchise doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of a long-running series created by a company with deep pockets. That said, Super Mega Baseball 3 not only delivers solid gameplay that sticks close to the fundamentals and nuances of the sport, it also adds a dash of style that’s all its own. People think of tradition when they think of baseball, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do things a little differently to still give fans a good representation of the sport.

    The age-old battle between pitcher and batter is very much alive in Super Mega Baseball 3. Pitching is particularly important to master; it consists of matching your pitching reticle (on the left analog) to a second moving reticle in the batter’s box. Even on medium difficulty (more on this later), nailing your pitches to paint the corners and avoid serving up juicy meat for batters can be difficult – especially when your pitcher has decreased stats because their stamina is low or because they’re tense due to their performance.

    Click here to watch embedded media

    Sometimes you barely hang on to pitch another inning. Other times, you walk a batter and give up a few runs, which leads you to dip into your bullpen unexpectedly before sending it into a full-on death spiral only four or five innings into the game. I like that I started to have success not only by getting better at the physical act of matching the pitching reticles but because I started to pay more attention to my pitcher’s own strengths and weaknesses. For instance, if I had a good amount of stamina and velocity but not a good command of junk pitches, I had a better time if I threw power fastballs more often than trying to get the batter to swing at my not-so-accurate curveballs – even if that meant throwing less variety of pitches overall. It was simply the risk I had to take given my pitcher. Also factor in individual positive and negative traits, and Super Mega Baseball 3 can give you all you can handle, or not if you prefer, thanks to customizable sliders for fielding, batting, pitching, and player speed.

    Upgrading your squad in the new franchise mode can be a lot of fun, and while the mode restricts some of the ways you construct your roster, at least developer Metalhead is giving you its own take on a mode that sports gamers are more than familiar with. Player development opportunities (PDOs) are a big part of the mode. They sound like performance-enhancing drugs – and sometimes that might be true – but they’re actually skill boosts you can buy to permanently affect specific players’ attributes. The twists are which ones can be purchased, how long they are available for, the extent of their effects are random, and they can come with negative traits. Furthermore, the money you generate to buy PDOs is tied to your payroll. The less you spend on veteran players with high salaries, the more you can spend on PDOs to develop new talent. It’s a nice tradeoff that keeps teams in check while still letting you build your roster in different ways.

    Click image thumbnails to view larger version

    supermegabaseball3_07.jpg supermegabaseball3_08.jpg supermegabaseball3_09.jpg supermegabaseball3_10.jpg supermegabaseball3_01.jpg supermegabaseball3_02.jpg supermegabaseball3_03.jpg supermegabaseball3_04.jpg supermegabaseball3_05.jpg supermegabaseball3_06.jpg

     

                                                                                                                

    The downside of the franchise structure is that dropping and adding players to your roster is one-to-one, so to add a new third baseman, for example, you can’t drop the salaries of two lesser players to afford the single new acquisition. Also, pitchers must replace pitchers, and fielders must replace fielders – another restriction that stops you from being creative with your roster. Despite these stipulations, in a broader sense, I respect that the game isn’t trying to be a hardcore baseball simulator; things like offering your pitcher named Reef Sandwalker a teeth-whitening PDO for more velocity puts a unique spin on the mode.

    Super Mega Baseball 3 could use some tweaks to its gameplay, such as the automatic triggering of small defensive animations to prevent your player from getting turned around on a routine fly ball or missing an easy tag, for example. But on the whole, it provides solid gameplay in a fun, stylish wrapper. Add in the series’ own touches, such as extensive customization options, cross-platform online play, and the abundance of co-op (online or off) opportunities, and you’ve got a game that makes an already-familiar sport stand out.

    supermegabaseball3.jpg

    Score: 8

    Summary: The game delivers the baseball fundamentals with its own sense of style.

    Concept: Add a franchise mode and more adherence to real-life rules (such as the dropped third strike) to an already-solid baseball experience.

    Graphics: The colorful, matte art style still shows off some detail such as the dirt at the plate and the background crowds.

    Sound: Stadium announcers read off some funny advertisements if you turn down all the other audio sources, which is fine to do as you’re not missing a lot during games.

    Playability: Despite the game’s arcade look, the pitching and hitting are nuanced, and can be challenging as you scale up the custom difficulty sliders.

    Entertainment: I enjoy this game for what it does on both the casual and hardcore fronts, which is not an easy line to walk.

    Replay: Moderately High

    Click to Purchase

    View the full article

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines Privacy Policy.

  I accept