Unmasking This Game

Unmasked is a game created by ninjacollabs

Hey everybody and welcome back to one of my rare reviews that happen once in a blue moon (mainly because I bleep at playing games and usually cannot get far enough in one to feel comfortable reviewing it)! Gaminator is a rather popular maker (due to his game Oogar) paired up with Mr.Woodchuck who is an old member who has had his time in the spotlight I believe. Both are reasonably decent gamemakers. When I first clicked on this game I had a good guess of what I would get and I was right. Let us get into this game now, shall we?

Let's first address the big obvious review point, the scenery. The aesthetics of Unmasked are utterly gorgeous. Using an appropriate combination of in game scenery tiles and graphics, Woodinator (new collab celebrity name :D) was able to create a visual masterpiece. The scenery was able to convey a good idea of my location, which is always important when using scenery in a platformer (i.e you don't want to be using lava tile backgrounds in an ice area, ect). Gaminchuck (second pick for celebrity name :D) demonstrates extraordinary skill with the background tiles, providing an appealing blend that efficiently fits the open world style of the game. The graphics (where they appeared) were also pretty well made and I never thought to myself that anything was particularly out of place, or that any of the graphics stuck out to much. This is usually a problem in most reviews, but I feel that woodinator handled this very well. I feel like I understated how aesthetically pleasing this game is. ITS UTTER EYE CANDY. The structures made from actual tiles look great and the background walls also look very well done, rather than just a generic pattern for the backwall placement. Gaminchuck particularly shines in the vegetation department, as his jungle level is particularly well made. Overall I think the team accurately displayed detailed characteristics of the environments given, and to a level at which I would expect in modern EGL games.

Now that I'm done gobbing over the scenery, let me get into some substantial criticism. My main problem with Unmasked is the lackluster gameplay offered to me, and unfortunately I feel that this is a bit of a common theme in gaminator's games (A Scenery & mediocre gameplay). The game to me was a bit linear, and there weren't a whole ton of secrets to go and find, meaning that although the maps were beautifully designed, there wasn't much motivation to just go around and explore in hopes of making easier passage through out the game. When you have an open world game that is essential to making your maps come to life. With a lack on exploration the game was left with just the basic pattern most mediocre games go with, find random switch to open random door. In a few of the levels no explanation was given why some switch in for instance, a tree, opened up a door to a cave on the ground. Logic aside, the lack of objectives and uninteresting level characters (aside from a few), didn't make me to excited to be playing the game. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad game, I just didn't find myself thinking about what to do very often and the running around without much combat or puzzle solving became rather tedious after a while. While the gameplay wasn't bad at best it was mediocre.

Some health would have been nice to be honest. I made it to Level 9 and then died on the boss...oops. I know woodinator did provide two extra lives (one on an early level, and another at the boss on level 9) and they did have a smidgen of health on one level, but considering how many enemies they crammed into the late game, some additional health would have been nice. Had I been given a single health pack on Level 9 I would have likely made it through at least to the next level, which I didn't get to experience thus robbing this review of any gameplay I may have missed to do the lack of desire to play the game again stemming from the lackluster gameplay. Now, the lack of health isn't all a bad thing. The constant state of crisis did keep me on the edge of my seat and it truly kept me invested in the game. Gaminchuck did pace the difficulty very well, so I felt like any damage I took was fair, rather than from a cheaply placed trap or poorly positioned enemy, something not a lot of the current games can do. The pair had a nice enemy selection in the sense that they weren't throwing tough enemies at me 24/7 but I did have to occasionally fight a monster who would trip me up. Overall I felt like the game wasn't overkill, but a little bit of extra health would have made bounds to how far I could have gotten.

Creativity is difficult to come by in sploder games of this day and age, at least in the platformer creator. I'm not sure what to think of this game. The plotline was a bit murky and I'm not sure where it was going, so it was difficult to tell if it was generic of genuine. I'm going to assume it was somewhere in the middle due to some unique story sequencing. The game itself was rather generic, aside from the innovative scenery design of course. I'm not sure I got anything special out of playing this game, mainly because of the lack of new gameplay elements. While the consistency was nice I would have liked to see something fresh added in to the game so I would have to drive to play it again to see what I missed. I felt like the game was mildly innovative in some places, but in other places it failed to impress me.

Ratings

The game wasn't anything stellar overall however the scenery was beyond excellent and I think gaminchuck should be proud of what they made here. Good work guys.