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The Daily Click ::. Downloads ::. Review Review: Unknown Game 6543
And so - the year is nearly over. The last of the turkey has been fed to the dog, the god-awful jokes from those crackers you bought are in the recycling bin, and the Daily Click’s Christmas Competition has come to an end. Judging by the tentative “Game of the Week” voting on TDC, there appears to be two stand-out games this year; Santaman Got the Blues, from Hayo, and Merry Gear Solid by Podunkian. The latter could be easily be called a parody game, but it has more merit than a simple spoof. Complete with codec conversations, ham acting and stupid enemies; these details implies that the author has either a good memory or has done his research (or both). And I applaud him for that. The gameplay is heavily inspired by Metal Gear Solid, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, but presented in a top-down grid based system, such was the restriction required to enter the competition. The mission is to deliver presents to the top floor of the house without being spotted by the endless stream of zombified children which inhabit every room. Imagine MGS mixed with Bonanza Brothers mixed with Christmas Day, but topdown. Got it? Good. Now keep that image all the while you’re reading this article, it will help a lot.mg3 There are nine floors to the house (representing nine different missions), but the only one which required any thought was the last one, disappointingly. Most of the other floors ended up with Santa picking up a new item, which invariably he needed to use to get past a certain part in that mission, which gave most of the game a self-explanatory feel. If you get a gun on a certain level, you know you’re going to have to use it to get onto the next level. Maybe a few more missions wouldn’t have gone amiss, certainly a few more red herrings as regards techniques go would have helped. Maybe a boss too - but then again there was a time limit for this competition - perhaps I’m being harsh. Whatever it was, I felt the game was rather too short and unsatisfying. If you have played Metal Gear Solid, you’ll instantly recognize the codec conversations which take place in this game. The voice acting is nothing short of superb, and humour plays a big part in this game. It could be argued that the game is more plot than play, but for me that isn’t such a bad thing. You’ll find yourself chuckling inside at the various references in the conversations (the fact that Solid questions everything, the intentionally crap jokes). I actually laughed out loud once, a rare occurrence, but perhaps it was just a cough which I misunderstood. That said, the codec conversation did interrupt the flow of the game. If you feel particularly rushed you can always press Ctrl, but you feel like you’re missing something then. Perhaps the odd pruning of the script would be a good thing, because the way it is, some people are going to miss all of it by skipping through it like this. Graphically, it’s very competent quality wise, but you’re not blown away. It’s hard to imagine how you could be though,mg4 with a game such as this. Nothing looks odd or out of place, so on the whole I’d give it a thumbs up. The presentation and menus are a solid back-up to all the MGS references, and generally are once again very good. The music is much the same, as are the sound effects. But this game isn’t really about those things, so forgive me for skipping over them. This game is purely about the gameplay and the storyline. To sum up: it’s hard to fault Merry Gear Solid, which makes my review slightly more awkward than I’d like, but which, more importantly, is testament to Podunkian’s knowledge of games and of the mechanics of them. You’d really get the feel that he’s an experienced game creator, even if you’d never heard of the guy. And if all that comes across in this admittedly short competition game, I can give it no less than 8 out of 10.
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