Bijhan's Reviews

[Loondon]

*SIGH*

The story is a neo-gothic take on the story of Jesus. It glorifies the persecuted and depicts persecution - or at least some level of destitution - as the only thing standing between man and his own inner demon. The humanity of Jonas and the machinery worker is directly derived from their humility. I don't know if I agree with the message. It seems to be "a little power corrupts absolutely" and I'm not totally down with that. I can't say for certain the author thought these themes out, however. Ultimately the story comes up as a vomit of girl-goth cliches, regurgitated mostly out of Tim Burton work. The writing in the narrative cards got progressively worse, starting out excellent and then slowly dropping capitals until finally making one or two fairly simple spelling errors. It kind of looked like the author was sober when they sat down and had a beer after completing each successive narrative card.

The art was good. Original, detailed; the animations were fluid and well timed. Overall there was nothing lacking aesthetically. There was also nothing spectacular. Most of the figures were merely silhouettes, which is easily explained by stylization. I noticed, for example, the degree of detail on the character was directly correlative to their level of humanity. But it also seems like a cop-out for drawing characters. An outline is a lot less work than a silhouette, which would explain why Jonas stopped having any details for the fight scene.

But the bottom line was that this was not a game. None of the game's meaning is infused into the game play. There are no instructions because you can't get it wrong. It's more linear than Super Mario Bros. Basically it feels like the author wanted to make a movie, but wasn't comfortable animating at that level of difficulty. By placing the story into the most simplistic platformer I have ever heard of, there is the opportunity to tell a story without breaking a sweat when it comes to narrative structure. Have all the content you want (which is lacking, by the way) and try to paint it however you want (the art is good, there's just not enough of it!) but the whole piece of work falls apart if it's not structured right. The platformer game structure lends itself to weak, crappy stories.

In other words, you're not going to build a warship on a rowboat hull no matter how good your building materials are.

CONCLUSION: This looks like something Tim Burton would have tried to do in high school if he was in high school today. The artist can become more than that, but can also go their whole career being just that. Do you wanna be The Strokes, or just another Hives cover band?

[Hippolyta]

Fuck that!

I'm supposed to be playing a reaction game where I need to look for things coming at me while you've made these spectacularly animated boobies bouncing around like tweens at a Jonas Brothers concert? Those tits were HUGE. And AWESOME. I died four or five times before I realized I had not been looking at anything but those magnificent jumblies.

You get three stars for boobs. I can't say anything else about the rest of the game because I didn't get to play the rest of the game.

[How to Raise a Dragon]

Dude.... your understanding of science is...

Horrifying.

"Vestigal" means that it is, in evolutionary terms, evidence of an organ that is no longer used. The tailbone in a human is vestigal because it is esential for having a tail, but humans do not have tails. A baby dragon's wings, no matter how small or shriveled, cannot be vestigal because they do grow into functioning wings. They are just small. Don't use a word unless you're sure you know what it means.

(vestigal comes from the Latin word for "footprint", because vestigal organs are used to backtrack evolution)

But... THE GAME IS GREAT.

It's simple, but innovative; and who can argue with the retro graphics? Like Dino Run it's a re-playable and interesting to explore, but moreso. And the content is at least interesting if not scientifically accurate.

Looking forward to more, and keep up the good work!