[EGD] Unique Concept, Average Execution

Review by spidapig on Wednesday, September 5th 2012

Has there even been a candy, toy, or any kind of product that promises something new and never been thought of? I have some examples. Pillow Pets: It's a pillow and a pet! Who could've thought of this? If we're willing to get old school, we have the new Coke, and more pertinent to this game, those third Pokemon games. You know what I'm talking about; it's the ones that are the same game with some different features (e.g. Versions Yellow, Crystal, Emerald, Platinum). The main one I'm going to mention is Platinum. That game was nothing new AT ALL. I was ready to receive a new experience, and I got the same thing as Pearl with like 1 new character, 1 Pokemon change, and 5 script changes. Well, Blind is just like that in my opinion.

Blind has a cool concept. It's not new for sure, but it has been lost. In addition to this, the concept in the older games was never carried through to the extreme. There may have been some black floor, but never maze-like patterns or trick paths; however, just because it re-introduced a lost idea does not make this game a perfect score. What this game sought to do well, it did. The game was tricky, making false paths and forcing the player to focus. One thing it failed to do that I wanted it to have was a sense of haste. I was never in a hurry playing this game at all. I could easily meander my way through the pathways and kill off enemies from afar. I finished this game with almost full health. The enemies at the intro were unavoidable, and there was one mortar that was too far for me to hit. Speaking of what gave me damage, let's talk about what didn't: Everything else. The enemy placement is what really ruined this game. There are other things that it could have benefited from, but what it really came down to was the poor enemy placement. The second best remedy would be a time limit, but even that doesn't even add that feeling of urgency and haste as best as better enemy placement. If there was a time limit, I could easily solve the enemy problem with some bots, mortars, and mines. I wouldn't have to take any more damage with a time limit than without, but if there was better enemy placement, I would have to move into more walls, traps, and mortars. The clusters of enemies around nitros and acids made me think: "Really? He just ruined the entire idea of putting enemies there." All I had to do was position myself for a perfect shot at the nitro/acid and KABOOM, no more enemies. In the end, it was made so that the game's concept actually added little to the actual game. If the map color was white, the game would be as easy as if it was black.

Now, with all this criticism, you might be thinking: "Oh no! Spida no like his game; he get bad score!" But that's not really the case. The game itself was pretty good. It just wasted the entire idea of it being a pitch black map. The traps/puzzles were pretty good, making the player think a little. If the game forced you to hurry, it make the puzzles better. (2 birds with one stone) The other complaint about one trap was that they were unforgiving if you got trapped. I simply hate it when I am forced to manually reset the game, but that's just a personal opinion. The action of the game was almost nonexistent because of how easy it was to just snipe enemies from afar. To reiterate what I said in the beginning, what this game sought to do, it did well, so it's not all storm clouds and rotting corpses from my point of view.

My rankings are as follows:

Puzzles/Traps: 4/5

Action: 2/5

Ingenuity: 3/5

Enemy Placement: 1/5

Map Design: 5/5

Overall Percent: 72%

For a letter grade, it'd be a C, something average (I'm grading this honors scale)