[GR] That Is It?

Review by moolatycoon on Monday, May 14th 2012

Hey guys, today is the first review to GR [Grueling Reviews] so I might as well make it good. Today I will be played Riding the Snake by Probe5. I haven't really ever played Probe's games, besides for the infamous Coloring Puzzle ~shudders on how difficult it was~. Imma see if any of his other games are good. I'm reviewing this per request, so hopefully he gave me something to talk about for the next half an hour of my life, and the next 4 or 5 of yours. Let's just see how much bleep I can pull out of this game and talk about. Let's start, shall we?

Oh god, I found a lot of fun stuff to talk about today ~eye twitches~. Well, starting off here, this game is 3 levels worth of gameplay, all of which are rather agonizing. The concept of the game is rather simple, stay on the continuing snake of the switches that are timed. Easy, right, right? WRONG, it is really really frustrated to stay on the freaking thing as the difficulty increases with every freaking step you take, not to mention the snake gets longer very level, the second level has two snakes. When you finish the first snake you are like "oh thank the lord" BUT THEN YOU FIND ANOTHER FREEEAKING SWITCH, and oh, sorry. While I am rather frustrated with the difficulty I got to hand it to Probe, the concept was cool, but unfortunately I found it executed poorly (not much), but we'll talk about that later in the review. Anyway, you know how I was talking about the difficulty, and how it gets harder? Since the snakes are so freaking long, you are getting more time to die in the perilous lava below you. Each snake takes like two minutes to get through. That might sound exciting or cool, but its not. Its actually tedious, as half the time you are just standing on the same spot when the snake curls downward. "How is that hard?" You ask. Well, that isn't what you are doing sometimes. I got to give it up to probe that he had some clever bends, and jumps you had to perform whilst on the snake, but they were annoying. Now, let me get into the largest and most imminent flaw in this game. There were no extra lives, no checkpoints, NOTHING, and you know what that means ~eye slightly twitches~ IF YOU DIE....you....have...to start the ENTIRE GAME OVER. D-d-doesn't that sound fun kids? A frustrating somewhat difficult game that provides no back up what so ever, is tedious, and makes you want to rip out your entire skeleton and chuck it at the screen, er, makes you want to scream, yeah...scream. Anyway, there is another flaw in this game I found. The snakes are too long. I think he should have had multiple switches along the way of the snake, so just in case you were stupid like me, and you missed the Snake while looking at your Tv, you don't have to wait 20 minutes for the snake to end so you can reactivate it, feel my pain? Another flaw I found, was that the game was not only tedious to play, but also tedious to look at. There was barely any background nor diversity within blocks. It took away from the over all addictiveness of the game. Its like taking a cigarette, and peeling off the stuff around it so it doesn't look quite as appealing. I think you might burn yourself too. In this game, I wish he would have done more with the game itself, instead of making the whole game the snake, he should have made that kinda of a side thing, and given the rest of the game some fun gameplay, or even a shred of action. He could have turned this into a great game, but alas, he stuck with this as his entire game.

Now for the few positives I found. While the game was really frustrating, I liked the idea of the game, riding the snake to get to the end. I haven't really seen it used much, so props to him I guess. The other good thing I found, was that I liked the design of the snake, it had some clever jumps, and turns that you had to make. It wasn't executed in the best way, but I guess it wasn't horrible. That sums up the positives for me I guess. Onto the ratings.

Puzzles/Traps - Not bad I guess...

Scenery - Haha, there was none

Lag - None

Layout - Eh, average I guess

Difficulty - Too hard for my liking due to lacking of certain things.

Overall - Meh

Final Thoughts

This game could be improved ten fold. It held many flaws, and I found them to be rather obvious. Maybe I just bleep at gaming, my Grandquest win says otherwise, but anyway, I heard that you, probe, were making a sequel. I recommend you give multiple lives, checkpoints. I also recommend you put multiple snakes together, so just incase you miss the bloody thing, you don't have to wait an hour to get back on. Overall, not a horrid game, but to be blunt, it wasn't very good. I hope you will take the points I have given you to make a better game. This has been a Grueling Review. Moola, out.