Mochi Game Review Mash-Up:Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2009 (14 Games Graded).
.Again, Wednesday seems to be “new release” day at Mochi. I couldn’t get to all the games (many of them Dress up games), but I will attempt to cover them all this week as releases slow down.
8bitrocket Featured Game Of The Day: Spider Challenge
8bitrocket Highlight Game(s) Of The day: Red Code 2, Beat Up Mushroom Men, Swattin’
8bitrocket Capsule Reviews: Word Shoot, Allied Escape, Ball Beater, Must Pop Words, Monkey Collect, Space Jiggy, Bulldozer, Hopover Puzzle, Keymory
8bitrocket
Featured Game Of The Day: Spider Challenge
Why is this the featured game: Gems like this are sometimes buried in the mounds of games released every day. It isn’t the absolute best game of the day, but it certainly is finely crafted and deserving of praise. Mochi didn’t feature it and I feel they missed an absolute gem, so I want to give it its due.
Description: This is a great little of a puzzle game. You are a spider and you must escape a web by passing through nodes. Most nodes will have something special about them – transporters, buttons to click, slides to other nodes, etc. Using these, you must move the spider around other nodes and escape.
First Impression: Your job is to get to a node that is on the outside of the web. I like this one. Mochi didn’t feature it, but they may have missed one here. The presentation and unique puzzle play are refreshing.
Grade: Grade B+.
8bitrocket Highlighted Games
Name: Red Code 2
Description: This is a very polished, high quality side scrolling blaster. You must blast all of the alien creatures who are controlled by a “borg” style collective mind.
First Impression: Everything is done well, but the action starts out slow and aiming is difficult. The game is deep though, with many upgrades, and missions. As I progressed, it became easier to aim with upgraded weapons, but the enemy became more difficult (obviously).
Grade: A.This one should be a hit
Name: Beat Up Mushroom Men
Description: A classic Tower Defense game (a single tower with enemy attacking from right to left). This is a quality production that is not easy to beat.
First Impression: The presentation is well done, but the music doesn’t loop properly. The Mushroom Men are kind of a bitch to beat. You have arrows and cannon balls, but I had a difficult time destroying the airborne attackers. In any case, this game is well done with an original theme. The game play is similar to many classic TD games, but that is not a bad thing.
Grade: B+
Name: Swattin’
Description: An action-packed game of swatting flies.
First Impression: It includes power-ups, nice visuals / sounds and fun game play. This one was a little treat to play.
Grade: B.
8bitrocket Capsule Reviews:
Word Shoot: This is a fun, but strange little word game. I love the music and the overall presentation. It is a little on the difficult side, but puzzle games are supposed to be challenging. I am always astonished at how Flash games can contain an entire word dictionary as those types of data structures are wild and unwieldy to manage. The screen updates can be a little slow in places, but overall, I like it. Grade B.
Allied Escape: A nicely presented point and click (with inventory) adventure game. You must escape the “room” (actually many rooms I think) by hunting around, collecting items and solving puzzles. This certainly is not my “cup of tea”, but my sister (a classic consumer of casual games) would eat this one up. That’s good for portals looking for the 30-50 female demo (and there are a lot of them). Grade B.
Ball Beater: An unfortunate choice of names leads to a unique little physics basic puzzle game. You need to use the white ball to “beat” back the colored balls and keep them in or near their own color spaces. I’m not quite sure if this is an allegory for 21st century race relations, or a commentary on the struggle of the proletariat in 20th century Russia. In any case, the music is sweet and the game is well programmed. It isn’t a bad little fun time. Grade B.
Must Pop Words: Balls (with letters on them) fall from the sky and you must type in words with the collected letters to pop them. It is pretty straight forward and fun. Grade B.
Monkey Ball: Press the mouse button and see how far down the timeline the monkey can kick the ball. Cute graphics and a good use of sound (simplicity) accompany this classic Flash style game. Nothing new or really original here though. Young kids might enjoy it for a bit. Grade C+.
Monkey Collect: This is much more original than Monkey Ball. It is a well presented arcade-like contest where you must jump (tile by tile) to leaves in a tree to collect food. It’s really not too shabby, but the game play isn’t anything extra special either. Grade B-.
Space Jiggy:An odd, but different Match-3 style game. You place items on a grid like pattern to make match-3s. The graphics are cute, but the game is a little bland. Once I got to the instructions screen, I could not find a way back and had to re-load. Grade C.
Bulldozer: Scroll along the time line (right to left) and use your “bulldozer” (actually a crane with a wrecking ball) to destroy homes. The crane and the ball are fun to play with (I’m not quite sure what that says about me), and I had some fun breaking things. I think boys 3-6 might really get a kick out of this one. The presentation is clean and nice and the vectors are well drawn. Ultimately though, the fun will not last. Grade B-.
Hopover Puzzle: This is a challenging little puzzle game. I don’t know if there is more than one level because I am too lame to figure out the first. Nothing exciting, but it will have an audience. Grade C.
Keymory: A matching game played by typing letter with the keyboard. Not bad, but nothing special. Everything works well and it can be used as a good memory / typing tool. Grade C+.