(EGD) Sniping Out The Competition

Review by matthade2 on Friday, July 18th 2014

When trying to compare Solar Sniper to something for this review the first thing that came to mind was not a game but a good song from than 80's. They're both stylized, fun, and have a lot of heart. While that was surprising another surprising thing about this game is just how good it was. This PPG (Physics Puzzle Game) in my opinion was the best that EGD (Epic Game Drop) had to offer in that category. Yes, I think this is better than Armored Warfare and even Super Sploder Kart. While that is a big claim let me explain as we review this stellar game by Shadross.

Prethoughts

Believe it or not my first thought about this game was not a positive one. Sure it looked impressive but my first thought was "ANOTHER GUNMAN GAME! Dang Shadross you crazy." Eventually though I put my ignorant thoughts aside and actually played the game. After failing miserably because I'm horrible at games I decided to look at Matty's guide and my opinion changed instantly. I remember thinking to myself, "Wow! Shadross pulled out all the stops on this." One more thing to mention before we move on is the thumbnail which is just okay. I mean yeah it works but it doesn't even compare to how great the rest of the game is.

The Review

Okay so either Shadross has listened to all my bashing on bad presentation or he's a graphics god. While I believe the latter he did make a game that features no problems in presentation. No boring levels,No abundant use of gray,No poorly made characters,and the music is good! For example in the lava level he picks the track: I'm out there but. This track is awful (Seriously it's horrendous) but it works so well in lava level because it sounds atmospheric. For the last boss he picks the track: The Flag. The weird thing is almost nobody ever uses this for a last level but again it works so well. I can only think of two levels where the music choice wasn't perfect(The levels being level 7 and level 5). Visually speaking the amount of details in both the levels and the main character/bosses is outstanding. One example of this is the in the lava level where the lava pulsates and changes color. It might also help that Shadross is great with color. He'll go from nice blues in an ice level to an immediate contrast in the next level with orange and red just to keep your eyes interested. Other environments like the Earth realm,The lab,or the hellish final level keep the stages from never looking stale. This game is a visual treat not only to play but to look at and even to listen to. Bottom line while graphics and music aren't everything it does help make your game stand out.

One really interesting thing about Solar Sniper is it's use of narrative elements. Whats even more interesting is that none of it is used for character development or anything like that. Most of it is actually used for hints in the level. These hints come in the form of monologue right before you start a level. I haven't played a game in awhile that made me read the level prompt like Solar Sniper and was well done on Shadross' part. That's not to say there isn't a plot though. According to the description the plot is as follows: "Everything was good until the fire nation attacked." Wait a minute..Oh! My bad that avatar's plot. Oh well the similarities are there for better or for worse. The actual plot in the description is that death and life are fighting when death gets the guardians Earth,Water,Fire,and Air to gain the upper hand. Overtime Death's plan succeeds until you "The Solar Sniper" decide to defeat the guardians. I like the story even if it is basic as it does give you context to your quest. Other than that there's not much. There is some dialogue between you and the bosses but it's nothing to write home about. Overall the plot is a nice touch to this game and even helps out the gameplay when it can.

I guess it's time to finally talk about the gameplay. Please note I'm not going to talk about bosses in this particular paragraph. Anyway in Solar Sniper you have a solar gun which is prominent in the later gunman titles. You can only shoot in sunlight or by the use of solar shields which you can activate using the space bar. The other main way of dispatching enemies is by luring enemies into the sunlight. This other option is where Solar Sniper's stealth element comes into play. You see since sunlight and solar shields are limited you can't go in guns blazing. No instead you have to sneak and think of practical solutions to beat a level. This aspect of solar sniper saves it from being a spam fest and can lead to some satisfying puzzle segments. The cool thing about these puzzle segments is that they don't even feel like puzzles. Throw in a Megaman power system and some bosses and you got a great game with nine levels of awesomeness. Of course it's not all perfect. The tutorial level for is horrible and left a bad taste in my mouth. Look, I understand it had to be made but it could have been done so much better. Some puzzles later on aren't as fun or difficult as the earlier ones (I'm looking at you level 7) which is a shame. Overall while the gameplay is good there a couple of factors that weigh it down.

The bosses in this game deserve their own paragraph. After all five levels in this game are straight up boss fights. I guess I should start out by saying some of these bosses' names reference real life things (This by the way adds to the game) which I thought was really cool. Novacula the ground boss sounds made up right? Turns out Novacula is not only a species of fish but also "razor" in Latin. Amadeus is the ice/water wolf boss, the suffix "deus" means god but Amadeus could also be a last name to Mozart or even a play. I thought this was a nice little tidbit to the game and it actually got me to learn something. Anyway let's move on to what I really like about these bosses. I mentioned earlier that this game has a Megaman power system meaning the weapon you get from defeating a boss can be used to kill the next boss. Not only that but the weapons can be used outside of boss encounters. This kinda system makes fighting bosses worthwhile not because you killed some evil thing but that you got something worthwhile. Which is only reinforced by how challenging the fight can be. These bosses all have different strategies and each require a different strategy to kill them. For example: the final level fights an evil dark sniper (kinda like dark link) who shoots in darkness. So because of this you not only have to use a another weapon (from an earlier fight with a wind banshee) but you also have a limited view in the darkness. It's this idea that you have to adapt to change in solar sniper that I really like. No hints are ever given about them and it's up to you and your skill to not only defeat them but to dodge their multiple attacks. All of these elements work nice together making the boss fights feel thought out. No boss is not a joke to fight and each of them offer this fun sense of the challenge that the levels don't have. If more games had proper bosses like the ones presented here we would have more difficult than the ones were used to.

Before we get to the ratings I would like to mention some other problems that hinder the game overall. These two things are the difficulty and pacing. Let's start with that pacing shall we? If you were to count all the levels you would have 3 levels, A tutorial level, and five boss fight levels. Also keep in mind that two of those boss fights are shoved at the end and are back to back. While all the boss levels are good I feel that they were way too many of them. The levels on the other hand I feel we needed more of or at least fixing the mediocre levels. The two levels I speak of are the first level and level seven. The first level is so boring and suffers some bad tutorial syndrome. Level seven is way to easy and has no clever puzzle like the previous levels did. Either switch the levels around, take out a useless boss fight, or fix the difficulty on those levels. Which ever way you wanna look at it I feel like I'm playing a disjointed game which is attributed to bad pacing. If I could describe the difficulty in five words it would be: It's all over the place. Seriously though some levels are challenging while others are a joke. Like I mentioned earlier level 7 was super easy and was near the end of the game. I'm not saying the challenge is bad or that there isn't any challenge. I'm just saying the difficulty is a mixed bag. These two things not only hurt each other but also the gameplay and the game overall.

The TLDR Version: Good and Bad

Good:

Presentation

Placement

The Bosses

Gameplay

Plot Elements

Music and Length

Bad:

Level 7 (screw that level LOL..)

Horrible Tutorial

Pacing

Difficulty (Not horrible but a mixed bag)

Ratings

Presentation: 10 out of 10

Gameplay: 7 out of 10

Difficulty: 6 out of 10

Placement: 10 out of 10

(Placement is what makes these levels so amazing)

Concept/Plot: 8 out of 10

(Yes it's a "gunman" game but the plot more than makes up for it)

Feature Worthy: YES! YES! YES!

Overall:

8 out of 10

8.2 out of 10

41 out of 50

(Yes there are three ratings but there all the same)

Final Thoughts

As you can see I like this game and for good reason. The levels are well designed and the emphasis on stealth/puzzle gameplay really benefited Solar Sniper in the long run. In almost every level and every boss fight there was always a fun,clever,challenging, and satisfying to beat the level or the boss. If you saw the trailer for this game and were skeptical let me tell you it promises everything shown it and then some. Unlike Super Sploder Kart or even Armored Warfare this PPG had some challenge and beats them both in presentation and gameplay. I hope you enjoyed my opinion even if you don't agree with it. Be sure to go play the game for yourself and tell me what you think in the comments.

This is Matthade2 signing out!