Review: The End

You ever have a moment where you wonder if there’s more to yourself than you realize? Where you ponder deep questions, the kind that keep the average person up at night? The End is a game that’s all about that, and if nothing else, it’ll get you thinking.

One part platformer and one part personality quiz, The End calls itself “an intriguing game about morality that asks big questions.” The good news is it delivers what it promises. You play through three worlds of six levels each in fairly typical platforming style. At the end of each level, you duel one of three deities (I think. It’s never really explained) in a sort of card game, vying for a “death object.” Only by collecting all of the death objects can you win the game. The interesting part comes in at the end of each level, right before your card battle. In order to exit the level, you have to answer a yes-or-no question. This may not be the type of question you were expecting if you went in expecting something like your typical Jung types test. The questions are less like “Do you consider yourself an organized person?” and more like “Should a person ever hold the power of life and death over another person?” or “Do animals understand death?” Ones that require a little bit of premeditation before you answer. As you progress, your answers are plotted on a chart, and the game tells you which of several thinkers, writers, politicians and such your answers are closest to.

Now, I do like what the what the developers are shooting for with this game. It definitely did make me look inside myself and some questions had me sitting for quite a while, thinking about the answer. But here’s the rub. While the questions and personality quiz are nice, but the game itself falls flat. I’m all for having a message in your game or making an “artistic” type of game, but the thing developers have to remember is that you’re making a game first and foremost. No amount of fluff is going to save a bad game.

As I played the game, I found myself dreading each level, like it was a chore to get to the big question and card battle at the end. The platforming element as a whole feels very unpolished. You have the player’s avatar getting stuck on random bits of ground that should be flat, puzzles with very unintuitive solutions, a shadow-controlling mechanic that could have been very interesting but feels like it was just sort of tacked on so the platforming levels would have something original to them. It’s just a mess overall.

On top of that, the card battles are an interesting concept, but they come up a little short too. I think my only big beef is that the AI is only challenging during the latest levels. Other than that, it’s decent and solid. Clearly inspired by games like Othello, but different enough that it doesn’t feel like the same game, and the unlockable power-ups are a nice touch.

I don’t know what to make of the art style. The art used for the character, the levels, and the web page itself is crisp, well-done, and you can instantly tell it’s unique. Then you meet the three deity-like-things I mentioned above. Their character design clearly has love put into it, but I feel like the designers tried a little too hard to make them “out there.” The result is the kind of art you see on an indie metal band’s t-shirts, and I have a hard time swallowing it. Obviously, that’s the kind of thing that’s most subjective, but it simply doesn’t jibe with me.

This review was kind of hard for me to put together because I really do like the concept here. At the core, I can see that The End really has some heart put into it and has tons of potential, and I absolutely adore the morality test part of it. It’s just that the game as a whole, the gameplay in particular, is very, very unpolished. I can’t give it a thumbs-up as a game, but if what I said about deep thinking and examining yourself interests you, you should still give it a spin.

Final Summary:

Game: The End

Genre: Platformer

Cost: Free

Pros: Very deep “personality test” really makes you think

Cons: Game as a whole is unpolished; feels like just a vehicle for the test

Rating: 4.0/10

Review: Hearthstone

Good afternoon, good evening and good night, everybody.

First things first, a quick housekeeping sort of announcement. I’m shifting my update schedule to “some time on Monday” to Tuesday evenings. Not really a big deal, it’s just what works better with my new schedule. That is all!

Now, the game I’m reviewing this week has been generating quite a bit of buzz lately. I was quick to write it off, for reasons I’ll explain soon, but I’m enjoying it very much now that I’ve given it a shot, and I’d easily recommend it to anyone who enjoys trading card games like Yu-gi-oh or Magic the Gathering.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is an online-only trading card game based loosely on the Warcraft/World of Warcraft storyline. It’s hard to give it much more explanation than that, really. It feels like most other TCGs on the market. Gameplay mostly consists of you gathering minions and casting spells, trying to be the first to knock your opponent’s life points to zero. Anyone familiar with the genre should feel right at home as soon as they open the game, but simple rules and a quick tutorial mean it’s hardly intimidating for newcomers.

Now, before I get into the review proper, let me tell you where I’m coming from. I’m a huge fan of Magic the Gathering. I want to say I’ve been playing it for five years now, and everything about it has enchanted me. As I said above, my history with the game has sort of colored my opinion of Hearthstone. Note that I didn’t say it colored my opinion. Which is important because it definitely still does. Not deliberately or anything, but I find myself comparing it to other card games a lot. It’s sort of been something I argue with myself over, whether the differences make it better or worse. But I’m going to try my darnedest and keep comparing it to Magic out of this review, and stick to other topics. Though, I may wind up making a separate post later this week about that kind of thing.

But I’ve been yammering for a while. You guys are here to hear about the game itself.

First thing you’ll notice right off the bat is that the game is eye candy. Every bit is of the game board is awesome looking, which sucks you in right off the bat. On top of that, you have a bunch of cute little add-ons like voices and sound effects for the characters and cards and the ability to interact with the little widgets and decorations around the edge of the board. I think charming is the best word to describe the aesthetic feel of the game. You get all of the fantasy feel of your typical card game, but it’s like you get little reminders that you’re still just playing a game.

Gameplay is very straightforward for anyone who’s played a TCG before. You have nine characters to pick from and you can switch between them freely. Each has their own special ability and a different pool of cards to pick from, which gives them their own strengths and weaknesses. Your cards are typically divided into minions, which stay on the field, have attack points and hit points, can attack your opponent and his creatures and usually have some kind of ongoing effect; and spells, which are one-shot cards that have their effect then are instantly discarded. As I said, very straightforward.

As far as gameplay… Okay, guys, here’s the part where I actually have to get into comparing it to MtG. Bear with me. The elephant in the room: It’s very simple when compared to other, mainstream TCGs. That’s completely true. That was the main reason I was willing to just let if fly by me before I took it for a test run. What I’ve discovered is that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A lot of people refuse to get into MtG because they feel like they’ll need to take a couple of lectures in it in order to really get what they’re doing. While that’s not exactly true, Hearthstone doesn’t feel the same way because it is, in truth, a lot more simple. But the thing is, it’s still a strategic game and it’s still engaging. You can genuinely feel like your decisions have an impact on the gym, and very rarely does it really feel like you lost due to luck, and I think that’s the number-one sign of a well-designed game.

Plus, since it’s all online, that affords it some opportunities to do things that a traditional TCG can’t really do. For example, most games will outright refuse to have card effects that will put one of your cards into your opponent’s hand, because that just causes a bunch of problems with logistics. Hearthstone, however, has one or two cards that do exactly that, because the same logistics issues aren’t there anymore. On top of that, something that blew my mind is the idea of patching cards. With Magic, if the company makes a card that’s just too good, it either gets banned, which makes everyone who bought the card mad, or you have to stick it out until enough cards are printed to combat the overpowered card, which makes everyone who has to play against it mad. Just about a week ago, Hearthstone put out a balance patch, that basically went back and altered the text on certain cards to rebalance them. This is the kind of thing that really sold me on Hearthstone, the fact that it has found it own solid niche among TCGs.

 

Now, I do have my complaints. Number one being that it’s both an MMO and a “casual game” and it’s got the negative aspects stereotyped with both. The only way to make any real progress is to grind for days, unless you want to pay real-life money to skip all of that. Getting new cards comes at a snail’s pace if you’re only using in-game currency, and it just doesn’t feel very rewarding when you do earn them, given that 3/5 of them aren’t going to be worth anything.

The idea of the in-game quests just makes this problem worse. Just to give you an idea: a pack of new cards costs 100 gold. Playing Arena (or “draft mode”), a more entertaining way to net yourself at least a pack, costs 150. You get one quest a day and it grants you an average of 50 gold, usually less than that. The only other way to get gold? Every three matches you win, you get 10 gold. The grinding aspect wouldn’t bother me nearly as much if, instead of the pointless quest system, the player simply got a decent amount of gold for actually playing the game. While there is a crafting system for earning new cards, you are literally throwing away the cards you earned previously, and it makes so much more sense to just let players use their gold.

Overall, I recommend anyone at least give Hearthstone a shot. It’s gorgeous, it’s fun, it’s skill-intensive, and it may just open the doors for you to a brand new hobby.

 

Final Summary:

Game: Hearhstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Genre: Trading card game

Cost: Open beat; free with microtransactions

Pros: Very fun, simple card game, easy to pick up, difficult to master; aesthetically appealing

Cons: Grind-heavy, new cards come slow, no proper chat

Rating: 8.5/10

 

I’m Back, Baby! Review: HabitRPG

Let me open up by saying I’m sorry a review didn’t go up last week. My internet went out on me just last Monday, I wasn’t able to get it working again, so I had no option but to wait til I got back on campus and could reliably connect again. So, again, sorry for the lack of posting, despite, you know, promising to post throughout the holidays and all that.

But, hopefully, all that is in the past now! I’m back and better than ever, and this week I’ve got a review of something that, while not a game per se, is a neat little doodad that is perfect for all of you that are plugging away on your New Year’s resolutions. It’s called HabitRPG, and it turns the task of making or breaking habits into a fun little hobby.

Above is a pic of my account on HabitRPG, and, pretty much, what you’re seeing here is what you get. The idea is that you are making yourself into an RPG character, with the biggest change being that there are no monsters to fight. You gain and lose help by following, or failing to follow, the to-do list and various habits you insert for yourself into the game.

Your various “quests” are sorted into Habits, Dailies, and To-Dos, and each effect your experience points and hit points in different ways. But the main idea is that getting stuff done and following good habits will give you experience points, whereas shirking your responsibilities, breaking your good habits, or slipping into bad habits, causes you to lose hit points. Hitting 0 hit points causes you to fall back on your experience points, so you effectively have to start your current level over again, and the only way to recover is to level up. At the same time, you accumulate coins for doing well on all of your habits and responsibilities, which you can spend either to upgrade your character or on little rewards for yourself.

This is another game that I’m having sort of a hard time approaching, because it’s so different. It’s not solidly within an existing genre, so there’s not a lot to compare it to. But, I feel that whatever it’s doing, it’s doing it well. I’m the kind of person who’s promised myself multiple times that I’m going to accomplish something major, that I’m going to make some major change to my lifestyle, then quitting in frustration before I even get started. The thing that I’ve found makes HabitRPG so effective is that it’s an effective planning tool for something that a lot of people overlook, and that’s a way to quantify your little achievements and small progress. Ways to encourage long-term changes like this aren’t exactly common knowledge, but HabitRPG takes that kind of thing and encourages you to apply it in a way that’s fun.

I’m not going to bother with the normal wrap-up on this one, because it’s kind of hard to encapsulate this “game” in a couple of bullet points. Just know that I give it my complete recommendation. It’s helping me a lot personally, and it’s the kind of tool that can keep you working towards your life goals, offering you just the right kind of encouragement along the way.