The Daily Click

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Author:	Hill Gigas
Added:	12/01/2005
Overall:
Average:	6/10

Paths to ?Aether? is a nifty little shoot'em up that should occupy 15 minutes of your time without too many regrets. It has a simple design, simple objective, and straight forward controls.

The main variety in this game comes from selecting the difficulty level. Each difficulty mode has a different enemy that you shoot over and over again. As time goes by, the rate of spawning increases, thus increasing your need for accuracy since enemies will soon be swarming you if you miss.

The graphics are original, and they fit the game nicely. The play window is very small however. I know that its a Game Factory game, so it cant be full screen. But I would have gladly downloaded a file twice the size for a game... well... twice the size! The play window was painfully too hard to see while playing.

Sounds are simple, but get the job done. What else can you ask for?

Play control is straight forward. You use the mouse curor to move a crosshair, and click to shoot.

The game will not hold most peoples attention long. As I said, there is one enemy per difficulty level. I think it would have been a MUCH better idea to include all of the enemies in all of the difficulty levels. Shooting the same enemy over and over gets tiresome very fast. A little variety would have made a huge difference.

Also, you reach a limit where you WILL fail, skill or no skill. Your rate of fire is severely limited, and soon the rate of enemies spawning is higher than the rate that you can shoot, meaning that enemies WILL overtake you even if you have a dead-aim. Players who hit their mark everytime (which isn't hard) will all get their "game over" at the exact same time. They will get their "game over" when the midi track reloads, allowing a few too many enemies to get an unfair drop on you, and leaving you stuck with a weapon that has no chance of fighting them back again.

Its a very small download, and this is why Im recommending this game. Its not too deep, and you wont play long. But its a good 10 minute distraction.

If a sequel is in the works, I recommend having levels instead of just playing forever for a high score. I also recommend more variety in enemies.

Keep it up, and I hope to see a knockout sequel.