A Review On "Lumberjay"

Review by rocketeer on Tuesday, June 24th 2014

(No, this not a review of Corruption...)

Welcome folks to another review, and on this random occasion, I will not be reviewing a specific game but rather will be reviewing a member, who in this case just happens to be Lumberjay. Now, I don�t know much about the dude himself by any means, but simply I will be giving an overall critique on his career as a game maker, particularly critiquing his best plats such as his well-known works like �The Legend of Ganondorf,� and �The Will of The Demon Slayer,� games that I believe to simply be extraordinary. On the same coin however, I will also be briefly going over his other games, like �Slender,� and �Atlantis,� games that, while were good, failed to compare up to his greatest plats. So, without blathering too much, let�s get on with the show.

Lumberjays plats have always been quite admirable. Having played through many games in many years, most of featured games (not all) that I�ve come across are platformers that have become so dependent on puzzles that they�ve become quite redundant, dull, boring and more of the same. Keep in mind though, that a game can have many puzzles and yet still be enjoyable; it�s only when all of the other game-play elements are stripped away and replaced by puzzles that it becomes boring and a chore to play through. Luckily, most of Lumberjays games do not follow this trend. One of the main appeals to me, for example, in The Legend of Ganondorf, was that it featured enjoyable challenges that felt satisfying to conquer. Unlike other games where I quit simply because I�ve come across some elegantly thought out puzzle that I simply couldn�t solve, the only that I�d quit The Legend of Ganondorf was if I got a game-over, which wasn�t fairly likely because the game just had the perfect balance of power-ups and enemies. The same things could be said about The Will of the Demon Slayer, which was a wonderfully straight-forward plat that actually had slightly more complexity than Legend of Ganondorf. The complexity however did not come at the cost of lack of game-play or anything for that matter, which is something that is wonderfully apparent in most of Lumberjays plats. Another thing which I liked was that Lumberjay was able to incorporate quite a tale in both �The Legend of Ganondorf,� and �The Will of the Demon Slayer.� Both games have quite a tale to tell to the player, and while the writing is nothing to write home about, it does add yet another layer to the gameplay.

While Lumberjay did have his wonders, some of his other plats, in my mind, fell short, especially when compared to his previously mentioned games. Take �Atlantis� for example. If I were to actually inspect and judge the game based on its elements, the game would seem like a fairly well designed game. There seemed to be no missing piece to the jig-saw puzzle that I could immediately point out. The reason for my distaste of the game however, was simply because it wasn�t all that fun to play through, and failed to stack up to Lumberjay�s other games. Most reviewers and gamers alike rarely discuss about a game�s fun factor, simply because it is not something that can be directly measured, or explained. �Fun�, however, is a very important and integral part in a game, because no matter how interesting your game might be, if it isn�t fun, then it�s very difficult to continue playing it. The platforming aspect of Atlantis felt dull and uninspiring as well. �Kill Bieber� and �Slender� on the other hand were both games that clearly had their share of flaws but were still fairly executed. Kill Bieber brought to the table decent game-play, but in the end, was killed by its own traps. I found it extremely frustrating whenever I accidently pushed a crate too far so that it blocked my path, forcing me to restart the entire game. Traps shouldn�t force the player to start all over again, but rather punish the player at best if the player falls into them. Slender, on the other hand, used pure darkness as its gimmick. Through-out nearly the entirety of the game, it is completely pitch black, and until you get the torch, you�ll have to use your radar quite a bit, which breaks some of the immersion that I had going. Although the darkness did serve its purpose, such as concealing enemies until they pop out of nowhere, along with providing some intriguing and innovative platforming elements to the game, it seemed to create more sins than blessings by turning some simple platforming sections into incredibly tedious pixel precise jumping platforming, which were never really fun to go through.

So, in conclusion, I think that Lumberjay is quite a brilliant game maker. His best plats have always been a pleasure to play through, as they are strangely addictive, sort of like Mario. They didn�t really have any ground-breaking gameplay or any great innovation, but they were simply incredibly fun to play-through, which I think many games have forgotten today. Games like The Legend of Ganondorf appear nearly flawless, and to me would even be EGL worthy if they were improved upon. On the other side of the fence, games like Innocence, Atlantis and Slender were games that, while were good enough to be feature worthy, they just had some major flaws that prevent them from seeing glory. Seeing as this is a review on a �member,� I will not be scoring the game�s individually, but instead I will rate the member on their pros and cons, which I think will more accurately describe my thoughts on them overall.

Pros:

1)�Will of the Demon Slayer,� and �Legend of Ganondorf� were both some of the best games that I have ever played on sploder

2)Lumberjay incorporates a well-crafted story in most of his games, which are interesting if you try to read and understand them

3)His games have an innate factor of �fun�, which I believe many games like today.

4)Games have consistent quality

5)Many of his plats do not require the player to know any complex puzzles beforehand in order to beat it. For the most part, you�ll only need overall knowledge and good platforming skills in order to reach the goal.

Cons:

1)In some of his games, like �Kill Bieber,� it can be very frustrating to have to restart the game if you happen get yourself trapped.

2)�Atlantis,� and �Slender,� while fairly good games individually, both seemed to have flaws that were basically impossible to overlook, and thus hampered their ability to match up to Lumber�s other plats.