Flashback Friday Bloody Rage Retrospect

Retrospect: Bloody Rage

For the flashback game today I've chosen and old fighting game that was based off “Mortal Kombat” and includes many video game, movie, and comic book characters. The game is called Bloody Rage and it was released in 2002 to a several game sites back in the day, but I always played it on newgrounds. I played this game quite often in computer labs in school, because I really liked the character roster. Let’s see how it holds up today.

There really is no story here unless I made one up. Just popular media icons at the time in 2002 duking it out in a death match tournament.

The visuals here are not that great. The characters are all drawn out, but they don’t look good at all. The bodies for everyone are the same template with just different colors and accessories. The levels also look really bad, and remind me of low res screen savers.

Im on fiya baby!!!

Visuals aside the game play is what made this game fun. I mean there are 18 playable characters. For a little flash game in 2002 that’s impressive. The character roster is just smart, it has all popular choices from different genres. You have Spiderman, Yoda, Bruce Lee, Goku, and many more. What’s also even better is you can create your own custom character and take parts from any of the full character roster ( this probable explains why all the characters are built from the same template). Doing the review, I made a Goku – Blade hybrid. I guess you could call him Blaku. The only thing I don’t like is that every character has the same move pool which means no character is unique, so really playing with anybody in the roster is just for looks than skill. Which really sucks is a lot the characters have weapons, but don’t use them at all because they all share the same move pool. That aside the move pool is pretty big, you can throw fire balls, do round house kicks, shoot harpoons, and many more attacks. You also get a rage bar which charges while you fight, and when it is full, there are 2 rage moves which your character can unleash to do massive damage to the opponent. Like the "Street Fighter" series there are also little bonus stages where you can break barrels for extra points, but it doesn't hurt you if you suck at them. Also like "Mortal Kombat", there are fatality moves which after you defeat your opponent, if you put in right combo you can pull their heart out, punch them in half, throw into fire-pit, and more (I wasn't able to do all of them). There is also strangely no two player mode. I know two people huddle over one keyboard to play a game is weird, but a lot of other games have done it before. I think a multiplier mode would have been a nice addition.

Blaku is ready for you all >:)

For fighting games on the web, it’s not horrible but it has not aged well at all. The single move pool and generic stages make every fight seem just the same as the last, although the difficulty in opponents increases the farther into the tournament you advance. It still is a lot fun, there are a lot of different combos in the move pool and using your favorite character, or your own created one to beat up on enemies is a blast. It still by no means isn't a masterpiece but it’s a great little game that’s earned its spot in web gaming history.

um can I have that back? I sort of need it to live

I’m going to give Bloody Rage 3 roundhouse kicks out of 5

“OMG does this mean I have to fight evil Aliens and Vampires now … damn, Blaku is sad :(”

OVERALL SCORE: 3

Created by Flash Game Studio

Hosted on newgrounds.com

Flashback Friday Defend Your Castle Retrospect

Retrospect: Defend Your Castle

For the flashback game today I have chosen another classic from the past. This title comes from xgenstudios.com is probable their most known game Defend Your Castle. The game was originally release in 2003 and practically started defend scenario web games. I use to waste hours in computer labs playing this game and trying to get as far as possible. Now 10 years later we will see how well it has held up.

The story here is that there is invading army of stickman who wants nothing but to tear your castle down. The come wave by wave until the reach their goal. It’s up to you to defend your castle as long as you can.

The visuals are nothing impressive by today’s standards. The castle is very generic. The scenery is just a grass field with clouds passing overhead. All the game units are stickman with white faces. Your units just differ by color of faces.

The game play is fun but can get very tedious. To defend your castle from the sticks you have to individual click on each one and throw them high enough so that when they hit the ground they splatter. At first this is very easy with only a few stickman attacking your castle, but in latter waves it gets extremely hard and tedious. There are upgrades for your castle including fortifying it to make it stronger from attacks. You can also get an archery upgrade, suicide bombers, repairman upgrade, and wizard upgrade, which will help you fight off the enemy attacks. Before you can hire additional units though, you have to convert enemy units to your side by buying the temple upgrade and placing an enemy in your castle. The game also has a save feature which you can save after every wave, so there is no need to start all the way over if your castle becomes overrun.

Why do upgrades cost so much >:(

After playing the game after all these years it not as much fun as I remember. The biggest flaw I see is this game does not run well on a newer computer. The game runs much faster than I remember making the difficulty extremely hard. After playing 45 minutes and two retires I could only get to level 11. I just can’t keep up with all the units. I have many archers and I have to spam suicide bombers just to last on stage 11. The game is still fun, but I just which a lot the upgrades didn't cost so much, the wizard upgrade alone is 40,000p. Units also cost points, after every wave if you don’t have enough points left over to pay your units they leave. If the upgrades cost much less you could put more points into fortifying your castle and keeping your units, which would give you more of a fighting chance.

When the Wii first launched there WiiWare game distribution service in 2008, one the first titles was a remade version of defend your castle. It was tone-down, so there was no blood and the stickman were made of buttons. Defend your castle is still a good game, but with so many new defense type games available online is not as a glamorous as it once was. If you want to get the best experience of Defend Your Castle I would suggest playing it on an old PC from the early 2000’s or play the WiiWare version.

I’m giving Defend Your Castle 3 splattering stickman out of 5

“OH god their tearing down the door … DO SOMETHING!!!”

OVERALL SCORE: 3

Created by xgenstudios

Hosted on xgenstudios.com

Flashback Friday Alien Hominid Game Retrospect

Retrospect: Alien Hominid

Like Wednesday I've decided that Friday will also be a themed day here on the intrawebs. It will be known as “Flashback Friday” from hence forth. I will take a look at old games from the 90’s and early 2000’s, probable with a cutoff date around 2005. By doing this, it gives me access to all the great web games made since the birth of the web. Ill mostly be looking at well known high rated games, and also judging how well the game has held together all these years.  I hope you all enjoy this new section on site.

For the first Flashback Friday I’m going to look at one of the most well-known web games and probable the second most iconic figure besides Pico to come from newgrounds.com. I’m of course referring to the one and only Alien from Alien Hominid. The game launched on newgrounds.com in late summer of 2002 and was programmed by none other than newgrounds founder Tom Flup and the game art was done by Dan Paladin. So how does it hold up after 11 years? Let’s find out.

The story here is that an alien has crash landed here on earth, and out of all the places he could land, he lands in the worst spot ever, right in front of the US FBI Building. Right from the start every FBI Agent wants him dead and from there the story is unknown. If I had to guess I would say he just wants to fix his ship and go home, but he may also be a scout for an alien invasion. Who knows?

The art work done by Dan Paladin is Awesome. Some other games by Dan and Tom include “Dad and Me” and “Castle Crashers” on Xbox live arcade. His style is his own, a very unique look you see nowhere else. Everything looks hand drawn with colorful, cartoony, and funny animation. Even today you couldn't tell when it was made. A lot games and flash videos back then were made using game sprites from snes and genesis titles. It defiantly stood out in 2002 from everything else.

The game play is action packed, fast paced, fun, and challenging. When I first played it I got my butt handed to me hard. The FBI agents are no push overs what so ever and they move very fast and shoot often. Even today some people complain about the difficulty and slam the well-designed game. In truth you just gotta master the game play mechanics which can take a little time. For starters if you stay duck down the entire game you should make it to the end as all bullets go over the aliens head. The best way I find is to ride the agents and let the other agents shoot the one you're riding. You also get a combo score by doing this called a freak attack. Usually at most there are two agents on screen with more spawning every time you kill one. There are two power-ups for the alien’s gun, a fire upgrade and a electric one that tears through all the agents. There is also a melee weapon that works when you’re right by an agent. The best weapon, and my favorite is the alien’s mouth, where you can bite the agents head off after riding on their backs and instill fear into the other agents watching. The biggest short coming of this game is its length. It is only one stage long and then it’s over. Now today with some games being very long, for example Aqua boy, it took me an hour to beat that game but it wasn't as difficult. Plus this made in 2002 and the level of quality and programming put in, you can just tell doing the one level was tough enough, so I can let it slide.

YEEEEEEHAAAAW

In 2004 A full game of Alien Hominid was made for the PS2 with 25 levels based on the 2002 release game and received an above average score from most critics. I think the original holds up very well today and is still a great game.  

I’m going to give Alien Hominid 5 Headless Agents out of 5

“Did I kill the kid? Yezz im a bad person :(”

OVERALL SCORE: 5

Art by Dan Paladin

Programming by Tom Fulp

Music by LHM
Hosted on newgrounds.com