Hopes For A Sequel...

So I pull up the game and the first thing I noticed: I can't use my gamepad. Not a problem, not a problem. I'll just switch to my keyboard. So the switch is made and I notice the menus are all still controlled with the mouse. Not something I enjoy. Of course this is after I didn't realize I had to hit a key to move to title screen, the intro left me hanging for a while in hopes it would zoom in on the title or something. Maybe it eventually does, I don't know.

So I begin moving, and taking into account the showcase of the physics given by the control scheme, I notice details. The speeding up/slowing down of the ball is awfully slow, which comes into a lot of problems when I rotate the camera at an extremely fast pace to make it through that next gap around the spikes, flames, pits and right into the next five zombies. A small speed increase would have been wonderful here, so I try out the Boost. New problem: the boost is completely nullified by the fact the rock bounces off walls. Some sliding physics would have greatly improved the enjoyability of this game.

The sound of the ball slamming against the walls and the rolling sounds were extremely well done though, and they even change based on the speed of the ball. Nice! The music was nice and immersed me into the environment very well, a few more themes wouldn't have hurt, and most of the sounds were too in-your-face and didn't quite feed into that environment. I noticed some clicks and pops in the rolling too.

So of course I get back into the control scheme, and after thinking about it, a more standard control scheme would be really nice, and lend itself to much better level design. Experimenting with new control schemes is nice, but the game would have been far more enjoyable with accelerate on Up, decelerate on Down, and rotate with Left and Right.

I played until I died, which was around level 15-16. The game got challenging not because of lack-of-skill, but because of the physics and speed of the ball. It ran me into far too many obstacles, and of course I should have died long before I finished. Some proper enemies and platform areas would have been nice, I didn't quite understand why the spears hurt me or why the fire continued to burn at my rock. I don't think a small fire like that would really harm it any, should have been more of a power-up.

Which of course leads me into power-ups. They should have been left out, they were far too random. Environmental power-ups (like the flame rock I mentioned) would lend itself nicely to a game of this type. Every game has its hit-or-miss moments, remember the Bonus Stage icons that the original Crash Bandicoot had? They were alright, but were replaced in the second game with Bonus areas built right into the levels. They improved on something that just didn't quite fit in. Holes in walls, slopes, ramps, boost pads, electricity, some wind powers, anything that plays right into the god role and the fact that you actually take control of a rolling rock would be ideal.

The game had great presentation though, and I would thoroughly enjoy a sequel if everything I mentioned was touched on. Good job.