This Review Has Been Stamped With Good Placement.

Review by stanleykitten on Thursday, December 8th 2011

Welcome to SKR, "Because we can".

Game: Vulcanism .

Maker: Rocketeer

Type: Action/Adventure

Prethoughts

For my third review, I am reviewing a game unseen by anybody before. It has a measly 27 views and 2 votes, and three comments. How did I find it then? Well, to be honest, I found it by closing my eyes on the members page and clicking people until I found something intriguing. And clicking people until I found something intriguing I did, and this was the fruit of my labor. The Thumbnail, as usual, was the first thing that caught my eye. It depicted exemplary decoration and the use of Cave-Ins, suggesting that there could be a few puzzles hidden in the game's walls. Needless to say, this is something rather different than I expected from this ordinary-looking member. Drooling out of the corners of my mouth, I began my review.

Gameplay

Design- So, let me start by saying this was a beautiful game. It had a clear get this to open that door to get this kinda feel to it, which was frustrating. But cool. The main elements of it where very coherent and made sense. The layout was fantastic and bold. It really did feel like you where in a volcano, surrounded by lava, red rocks surrounding you. The feel of it was amazing. It also had things you wouldn't expect to find in a game like this, like grass. These details made it unique. I've never really seen a game like it before, a game with an obvious feeling of what it's supposed to be, but then right when you thought you knew the whole design it throws in something different, adding asymmetry to it... And I liked it.

Decoration/Block Placement- As I mentioned in the design, the Decoration was spectacular. It had decorational lava, plants growing out of crags in the floor, a variety of inhabitants that want to kill you, a wide array of background tiles to give the game depth, and lava tubes. Throughout the whole game, you could really feel like you where in a volcano. It was great. The block placement was also impressive. There where impressive parts, like when the creator put weakblocks over a bouncer, making it difficult to remove them (because of all of the bouncing). There were also not so triumphant parts, and these parts kind of bleeped me off because they were very easy things to solve, like not making a wall of sand blocks go up all the way to the ceiling. Overall though, I was impressed by this category the most when first looking at the game.

Enemy Placement- Okay, Not much to say in this category because there were only about five enemies, So I'm just going to have to go into detail a bit. One part there were two turrets that would shoot you as you went through a corridor or jumped over them onto a ledge. This was stamped with Good placement. Another part a Mongol assaults you but you defeat it (using typhoon blast) while still being shot by a turret and with danger of being pushed into lava. This was stamped with okay placement. Yet another part a thug is placed on a narrow ledge and can push you into lava easily. This was stamped with bad placement. Another part a large mutant hides in a small box while you kill the defensless thing as it can do nothing to you. This was stamped with terrible placement. The final part you had to run towards a hail of bullets from two turrets to hit the switch between

them. This was stamped with okay placement.

Creativity- To be honest, the whole volcano theme isn't exactly rare. However, there where parts that made it different, like the assortment of enemies and the decoration. There also were not any revolutionary, new, or even rare puzzles/traps/ideas used in this game. It's really a good game but it isn't too creative. Luckily, the kewlness of this game more or less made up for it.

Puzzles/Traps- I would talk for a long time about the puzzles and traps if there were any. The only one was when you are trapped on two steamers while a green switch trapped you, but when you walk into it you can easily escape and the steamers do very little damage. There were absolutely no traps present, and that really damaged this games chances of getting featured.

Pros: Good Decoration, Great Gameplay Overall, Great Design, Wide Variety of Ideas.

Cons: Unoriginal Idea, Lack of Puzzles and Traps, Kind of Short, Only 50% Quality Enemy Placement.

Conclusion

Final Grading: 12/20

This was a good game, but it isn't quite feature-worthy. Perhaps if it had more puzzles or traps it could be feature worthy. Rocketeer, you make a mean plat... Work to develop this. Anyways, Hope you enjoyed my review.

-SKR