[EGD] Is It Below Or Above Average?

Below is a game created by lordeldar

Hey all,

JJS back again for another review, it'll be #37. EGD reviews are still going on and we hope to get them finished pretty soon. So here I am, reviewing Below by Lord.

Lord's a cool guy, who has made some really cool games in the past, a few favourites of mine such as Cryptic Ruins, Scorched Past and Eternity's Hatred. All fun shooter games, and those are mainly the games I like from Lord; shooters. I don't think I've played any of Lord's Retro Arcade games so I thought this'd be interesting to review.

REVIEW

The thumbnail didn't really give away anything, and in Arcade games they rarely ever do, actually. So there's no point in me really commenting on that, though the storyline I was interested in. A lot of Lord's plots are interesting, interesting in a way because they're different to the usual and repetitive things we see in game descriptions, it's a good start.

The gameplay was well paced, I didn't get any lag at all. The levels were fun to me. Why? Because in most arcade games I play, every few seconds there's a bleep speech popup, ruining all momentum and fun in the gameplay there once was. Below is great, the character people are spread out nicely and you don't have to stop every few seconds to click a button so you can resume the game. Below isn't one of those games, thank you Lord, you kept me interested, I actually kept PLAYING after the first level. Wewt.

The level design was good, there were a few puzzles here and there that weren't too difficult for the average game player, however there were some annoying parts, it may just be my rusty Arcade gaming skills (hadn't played many of quality for a while), such as the jumping from log to log on level 1, stage 3 from memory, took me about 10 minutes to get it right (embarrassing, I know, shut up). There were a few enemy scenes, jumping on their heads, that's always a bit of fun, right? The stages were short and sweet, so it kept the fun going, no level got boring for me.

You can usually expect some humour in Lord's games, think about Gangville, from memory is one of Lord's games with some humour. This isn't the kind of humour to get you to post 'lmao' or something, but it's definitely something, for me at least, that gets a small smile, the game doesn't go dry because of the little bit of humour that there is. Good job! Once again keeping the fun in the game.

The scenery was good, especially in the later stages of stage 1 for a while, in the underground areas, the first few stages were rather bland and there were a few faults with the backgrounds early on, such as a little bit here and there of the background scenery not being added in the middle of the rest of it, either that or it's just a glitch, in which case you've been forgiven.

The game wasn't overly challenging, just enough for the player to keep a watchful eye on their health bar as the later levels do arrive.

SCORES

Gameplay: 8/10

Fun: 9/10

Scenery: 7/10

Difficulty: 6/10

Overall: 7.5/10

Feature Worthy?

Sure, I think so. It'll definitely get featured because of the fact the game is good and in EGD, but I'd probably feature it even outside of EGD, I had a lot of fun playing the game.

My answer to the title? Definitely above average.