Review #5: Oh Looky, Jack Sparrow!

Review by thunderboom on Saturday, April 19th 2014

Hey there my sploderian friends, how are you? It's been a long time since I reviewed, right? As we are asking questions, who made up the word 'Sploderian'? But most importantly, how could you not love the game I am reviewing today? Yes, that's right. Another game by Blackhole2. He is back and is ready to swallow us all into him/her. Do blackholes have genders? Grab a fanta and get read to read away because I have a lot to say. Nobody likes a rhymer...

Pre-thoughts

Oh wow, what can I say? I came across this game in an advertisement thread on the forums made by blackhole and I nearly blew up. I was so hyped for this game. Who wasn't? It's a game by blackhole. That's what I shall tell yee about first landlubers, a member called Blackhole. We may famously know him as the cool guy who's chill and nice but more of us know him as a immense game creator. I know his games famously for Sherlock Bones as I reviewed one. Unfortunately, the link provided had no sign of a thumbnail in sight. If we look at the thumbnail in this review, we can clearly see that it is a type of adventure game that is very attractive and gives that idea of a new concept and something fresh, so that obviously makes it sound even better. Just the name of the game gives me that feeling that it will be somewhat similar to Pirates Of The Caribbean. So we can easily both agree that we are hyped for this game, correct? Let's go then...

Game-play

The gameplay was unsurprisingly addictive yet enjoyable; I mean very enjoyable. You felt the real power and entertainment of seeing you win a battle and feel like you have the powers of God, even though it's not even close. I just loved the music, it made an interesting atmosphere that makes you also feel with pride just the way the real gameplay did. The lag could have been caused by your own impatient actions, if you just spam the playfield with cannon balls then obviously it's going to cause minor lag. Nevertheless, the amount of lag on one of the levels, due to multiple spawning objects almost constantly, was pretty annoying. The controls in the game were perfect, they were so close together which was perfect when you needed the game needed a lot of action from you. For the gameplay, overall, I'd say it was a very enjoyable experience for anyone who doesn't have a phobia of pirates.

Hazards/Traps

Just a simple sentence will do: I loved it. The placement was in such a position which was perfect as it caused you to experiment the angles of the cannon. The same also goes for the launcher. I feel that if there were no hazards or traps it would be, for one, probably easier and, for two, a lot less pressurising. Personally, the hazards made you feel like you was playing a game; possibly called 'Beat the hazard'. I'm not even kidding, you literally either had to fight fire with fire (if you know that term) or had to beat the hazards before your boat ended up like the titanic. I found no traps in the game but I didn't get round to completing it, my laggy computer is being a pain, so who knows what's still in those levels? People who have completed it of course. This section could be the heart of this game, lets carry on and see... I love how I say 'Just a simple sentence will do' and it turns out to be a long paragraph.

Puzzles

I feel quite disappointed that there were no solid forms of puzzles found in the game. If there was any they were very vague. In my opinion, I found controlling the missiles or whatever the biggest puzzle because I'm the worst game who ever lived :)

Difficulty

If you know me well, I like games that increase in difficulty and don't just stay the same throughout or start really hard. This game was just perfect. Because it started easier than the rest, it made you want to carry on with the game even at the hard levels, you knew that you'd come to far to quit. The games difficulty had a good range that kept you engaged in the game, it gave out that type of addictiveness. I see and liked how blackhole used the difficulty to keep you wanting for more, good job.

Scenery

The scenery in this game also kept you engaged. The colours were used in such way to show characteristics of the scene. For example: a red sail to represent that the ship was evil. The game proved that you didn't need to use graphics or textures for the background for two reasons. The first one is that you were too busy concentrating on the colourful yet fine looking visual scenery. I have always liked the way members use graphic and textures on frontline scenery as it adds more impact into a level to give you a realistic experience. I'm glad the scenery didn't let us down.

Creativity

Seems as though we are, already at the last section before the scores :(

I'm very shocked actually because I thought by now I'd find a game exactly like this on sploder. But it seems that blackhole didn't need to keep it simple as it wouldn't bring out the creativeness enough. He took it to the next level and mixed the battles up, they were never the same, there was always a big difference in the battles that you were not expecting at all. I also loved how the scenes were created and textures were used cleverly to expand your ideas further in your own games. The creativity was extraordinary and I saw no fault in any of his creativeness at any point. In all honesty, I don't think anyone else here could have been more creative.

Ratings

Final Score

That brings to a grand total of... 27/30! The best rated game that I've ever reviewed. But it was well deserved, don't you think?

Feature Worthy?

Of course! With all-round amazing quality presented all the time in this game, how could it not get featured?

Conclusion

This game deserves every little bit of attention it deserves. I also expect to see a few more reviews of this game but I am proud to say that I was the first to review it and, apart from blackhole, play the fully released version. If you are considering a sequel BH, go for it. The game is a fresh idea to sploder that should continue but it will have to be changed up. I will have to play more games from blackhole to see what else he's got waiting for me. While I do that, I'd like to say goodbye me bucko and you go play this game immediately or you walk the plank!

And Happy Easter to you all ;)