Plenty of Time To Explain

Newgrounds is the birthplace of many an internet oddity, one such oddity made it's way to Kickstarter, raised over $25,000 and made a full fledged game of itself. That game was: No Time To Explain.

The game starts with your future self telling you that there is no time to explain before being promptly snatched away by a giant UFO crab or something, I don't know. It takes a page out of the insane book and slaps it on the classic jumping puzzle. Using the future blasting device that is both laser gun and rocket boosting device, you use it to navigate an increasingly difficult array of pits, spikes and the usual array of slightly-hazardous-to-you-health obstacles.

The great thing about this game is the pace, snappy music and instant respawning from the last place you touched safe ground keeps the game running smoothly, at least till you get to a boss. There are several boss levels, each one increasingly more difficult. They start out easy enough, even though most will one-hit-kill you, you instantly respawn and don't have to start the level again, so there is no challenge on those ones; then there are the bosses that use certain attacks that set you on fire. Fire is a different danger all together. If you are set on fire and don't jump in water quickly, you burn to death and must restart the room completely. With several later bosses using this power, and the glitchy and uninspired fights that take place, the game goes from face-paced platformer to annoying and frustrating grind.

Aside from the annoying boss fights, the rest of the game is fantastic. The randomness is thrilling and the variety of challenges keeps it fresh. One second, you're a failed clone sticking to walls and sling-shotting wall to wall and the next you're flying through the air on a jetpack blasting at dinosaurs.

It's short, so you won't go nuts playing this game, but I found the overall comic nature to slightly outweigh the letdowns of glitches and the boss fights. Oh, and on of my favorite quote of all times.

"My ribs are in my eyes! THEY'RE IN MY EYES!"

IWBTF!!! Why do you do this to me?

I am raging. I re-found IWBTF which stands for I Wanna Be The Fangame. I really don't wanna play The Guy (yes that's his name) on his quest through %*#^&@^ HELL!

Seriously, this game is so bloody rediculous. I found myself in the original PokemonTM house and you need to go down the stairs, BUT WAIT! Try to touch the stairs and YOU WILL DIE. If you shoot the stairs, THEY GET SUPER F-ING BIG AND SLIDE ACROSS THE SCREEN! If you don't stand in a specific place within 0.8 seconds YOU WILL DIE! Then, when I got past that bit and went downstairs, a flying stool jumps out and YOU WILL DIE! So you jump onto the tv and jump over the trigger spot and fall down where the bookcase turns and falls down above you and YOU WILL DIE! This continues when you get outside, where you get massive giant Pokemon fly across the screen randomly. If they touch you, YOU WILL DIE! You'll see this screen a lot:

Do you see a trend yet? And there are over 100 rooms apparently. And you know what's worse? It the kind of game that says to you, "You can beat me, come on. HAHAHA I KILLED YOU. But no, seriously, you can beat me, you know how to, just do it. Oh, you got past that bit, see! You can do it, now for the next bit, HAHAHA I KILLED YOU AGAIN! You didn't expect that random flying object did you?"

You can beat this game, it is so simple that you know you can. But it's not going to make it easy for you. And when you fail, you know it's all your fault for not being good enough.

See, making you rage will do one of two things, rage to be better, or the other...quit.

Dead Space 2

I've had Dead Space 2 for a while now. I played it before my super-awesome computer upgrades and it ran really sluggish on the lowest settings. I also got to a very difficult point in Chapter 15 or so which was made even harder by my poor framerate. So I ragequit...indefinately.

But I've come back and running in beautiful max graphics; though the rendering on my 3D monitor is awful and gives me real headaches, so I've not been playing in 3D. Probably why Nvidia says the game is 'Not Recommended' for 3D; some newer games just weren't designed with 3D in mind, but that's for another post.

Now I love Dead Space to the point of fan-dom. It's one of my all-time favorites and I've played ALL of them. I've bought all the movies, read all the comics, played Dead Space 1 twice and also played the Wii prequel, which was very decent for a Wii game. I loved it so much that I pre-ordered the special edition and got a mini plasma cutter. Awesome!

What I most love about Dead Space 2 is that they took an appropriate change in pace. The first game was about the scares and the horror, because it was new and nobody knew what they were getting into. This time around, it's more action orientated but still with the horror and gore. Oh man the gore is horrible. This game really just wants to show off how many different ways it can kill you.

So far, I really don't have anything to complain about. The level design is solid and the story is mostly comprehensible, especially since your not meant to really know what's going on until later in the game. Here's a little preview of just how intense this game can be sometimes.