Category: Reviews

GAME REVIEW: Jetpack Joyride

written by David Steffen

Jetpack Joyride is an endless runner mobile app game published by Halfbrick in 2011. Download it for free from app stores like Google Play.

The game stars Barry, a struggling gramophone salesman who breaks into a high-security laboratory to steal an experimental jetpack prototype and makes his escape with it, dodging electrical traps and missiles along the way.

It’s an endless runner game where you collect gold coins and complete achievements to earn more coins that you can use to buy more gadgets, upgrade your jetpacks, and etc, buying things that will make it possible to go further the next time.

The controls are very simple. With the standard jetpack, if you touch the screen the jetpack turns on and pushes Barry toward the ceiling. If you lift your finger, Barry falls, So, you move up and down to dodge obstacles, and to collect coins and powerups. You can collect other specialty jetpacks which each have their own control scheme, like the crazy teleporter that moves along at the same height with the destination cursor scrolling up and down constantly and touching the screen will move you to the cursor. Each specialty jetpack has its own variation of the simple touch controls, which adds some variation and also allows you to take one extra hit before dying.

The game is heavy on in-game purchases and ads (which you can choose to view at certain points to get extra powerups, but you will see ads either way unless you pay), and although the game is a lot of fun, I found the level of ads and in-game purchase solicitations to be off-putting and enough to put the game down for good. It’s a fun infinite runner game, but I’d rather buy a game on Steam where I don’t have to get constantly solicited after the fact.

I played this game for the first time at the Game Changers exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

Visuals
Fun cartoony graphics, I particularly like the beehive jetpack.

Audio
They’re all right.

Challenge
Challenging to make it a long distance as you figure out the rules and unlock more powerups. Then again, there’s not much consequence to dying, you just start again, so it’s not very frustrating if you die.

Story
Very light on story.

Session Time
Even the longer rounds I played have probably been 10 minutes.

Playability
Simple, can be played with one finger.

Replayability
Certainly some replayability with the unlockable stuff. Many of the unlockables are just reskinning of the jetpack and etc . So unless you’re a hardcore completionist you’ll probably get bored of that before you run out. There are a limited number of achievements and at some point they start again with the simpler ones which also makes it get old.

Originality
I’ve played a ton of other endless runner games that were very similar, though I guess I haven’t compared the timelines of their development.

Playtime
There’s not really an objective, per se, so hard to say. If you wanted to unlock every unlockable, you could spend a very long time.

Overall
This is fun and addictive for a while and easy to play for just a few spare minutes. But for me it wore thin pretty quick between the constant in-game purchase solicitations and ads, and the achievements looping back to easier achievements.

GAME REVIEW: Elevator Action

written by David Steffen

Elevator Action is a 1983 spy action game by Taito published in arcade format. As each level begins the player character grapples to the top of a 30-story building and must make their way down to the ground floor through the building filled with gun-toting guards while collecting secret documents along the way.

The most novel part of the game, as the name suggests, is the elevators used to move from floor to floor which you and the guards can use to shift up or down floors. You do have an advantage over an individual guard: you also have a gun, and both you and the guards will die from a single bullet, and the guards don’t seem inclined to dodge by jumping and ducking as you can, and you can also kill the guards by jump-kicking.

As far as arcade games of the era go, this one is much easier to get pretty good at than most, so was probably an easy “gateway game” for arcade players. despite the relatively simple controls, you have quite a few options between shooting and dodging and jump-kicking and riding elevators to evade or attack the guards.

I played this for the first time at the Game Changers exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

Visuals
Typical for the era.

Audio
Typical for the era.

Challenge
Lower than most arcade games, much easier entry point.

Story
Not much story (typical of the era and format).

Session Time
Depends how good you are!

Playability
Simple, apart from it not being immediately obvious that you have to collect documents behind the red doors, and if you don’t open those doors reaching the ground floor just sends you back up.

Replayability
Not in the usual way I mean, but if you like this kind of game there’s certainly plenty of fun to be had.

Originality
It was a new twist at the time.

Playtime
I don’t know how long it would take to play all the way through.

Overall
This is a fun game and less frustrating than other games of its time. And there have been various recent-ish ports that you might be able to find.

GAME REVIEW: Missile Command

written by David Steffen

Missile Command is a franticly paced war game published as an arcade console by Atari in 1980. In each level of the game you have three bases that can fire missiles that need to defend themselves and their cities against incoming enemy missiles.

The controls consist of a roller ball for movement and three separate firing buttons, each of which fires a missile from one of the bases. Some of the enemy missiles are simple predictable shots, others can split into multiple pieces that move in different directions, enemy planes can fly through the area. You have to keep your cities alive until the timer for the level runs out, without running out of your own missiles while missiles are raining down from multiple directions.

This game is frantically paced and while simple to understand is very difficult to master and no wonder it was so popular (and inspired by the dominant fear of the times during the Cold War).

While I had been familiar with the game from its reputation, I played this one for the first time at the Game Changers exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

Visuals
Probably good for the era, can certainly handle a large amount of moving objects

Audio
Typical for the era.

Challenge
Very high.

Story
Very basic story (typical of the format).

Session Time
Depends how good you are!

Playability
Simple to understand, hard to master–one fire button for each base plus a rollerball for moving the targeting reticle (at least in the original arcade version). There is just a lot going on all at once, hard to keep up.

Replayability
Not in the usual way I mean, but if you like this kind of game there’s certainly plenty of fun to be had.

Originality
Still recognizable as its own thing after almost 40 years.

Playtime
I don’t know how long it would take to play all the way through.

Overall
This is a solid and challenging game, though probably not one of the first I’d recommend for a casual gamer because it is probably one of the more difficult games in a difficult genre. I haven’t come across a convenient looking port on a modern-ish system, but you might be able to find one in an older system or an emulator.

VIDEO GAME REVIEW: Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle

written by David Steffen

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is a turn based combat game developed for the Nintendo Switch by Ubisoft, which is a mashup of Nintendo popular Mario Bros. franchise and Ubisoft’s Raving Rabbids franchise.

A new invention has just been completed, a visor that allows the wearer to fuse two other objects into one object. Everything is going smoothly until the Rabbids arrive in the labarotory in their Time Washing Machine and start wreaking havoc, grabbing the visor among other things and fusing random things together. The inventor is a big Mario fan, so there are lots of Mario decorations around the lab, and soon the rabbid wearing the visor has fused Mario characters like Peach and Luigi with Rabbids, and the Time Washing Machine takes them all to the Mushroom Kingdom where the Rabbids are running wild, fused with various elements and monsters of the Mushroom Kingdom. It’s up to Mario, Rabbid Peach, and Rabbid Luigi to save the kingdom.

The gameplay is turn-based, and everyone is equipped with ranged weapons unique to their character and much of the game is based around finding cover from enemy fire while trying to get around the enemy cover to fire on them. You can also move every turn to change cover spots and to tackle an enemy as you go. For most rounds, the last team standing wins (different rules may apply in individual cases). To move from area to area to try to work toward saving the kingdom, they have to fight through hordes of Rabbids fused with monsters along the way.

Maybe it’s because I’m not at all familiar with the Rabbids, but I didn’t find the premise compelling. Who are the Rabbids, why do I care? But the major issue for me was that the difficulty curve was badly designed. The first battles I found too easy; I didn’t have to try very hard, just had to persevere, follow basic rules about finding cover, try to stick to the higher ground whenever possible. For several hours of gameplay this was enough, I was able to advance and didn’t die, and not only was this part not particularly challenging, it was repetitive and dull. This continued until I reached the first mini-boss battle with a more formidable foe, at which point I got soundly beaten by the mini-boss and the hordes of Rabbid minions. The earlier battles hadn’t prepared me for whatever strategies were needed to beat that tougher foe, and I was bored enough of the earlier challenges I didn’t want to go back and try to level-grind if that’s what was needed to stand a chance. I didn’t care enough about making it further in the game to really devote myself to trying over and over again to try to beat this boss, and much of that apathy was the difficulty curve of the game, which ran low low low low high without transitioning from one to the other smoothly.

Visuals
A mixture of standard 3-D Mario design with weird Rabbid looks.

Audio
Nothing remarkable.

Challenge
Very uneven challenge curve, starts out so easy that it’s boring, then ramps steeply up very suddenly.

Story
The story does not make a ton of sense, and seems to be a lot of work to justify a game mashup.

Session Time
The nice thing about the switch is you can put it to sleep at will no matter what part of the game it’s in.

Playability
Easy enough that the early battles are pretty easy to pick up. But could use some more difficulty ramp-up to prep for tougher battles.

Replayability
Even playing through the first time got boring very quickly.

Originality
While game mashups bring their own kind of originality, the gameplay itself is nothing particular original

Playtime
Unknown, didn’t get all the way through, I played for a few hours so far.

Overall
Maybe a fan of the Rabbids would be more into the game than I was, but I found the challenge progression of the game very uneven, not challenging enough at the beginning and then suddenly very challenging. I’m sure someone will find the game fun, but it’s not for me.  You can find it for $60 at major retailers

GAME REVIEW: Robotron 2084

written by David Steffen

Robotron 2084 was developed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar of Vid Kidz  and released in 1982. A multi-directional shooter survival game, where the object is to survive in a fight against endless waves of killer robots while rescuing human survivors along the way.

The game uses a dual-joystick movement and shooting scheme that made it easy to share controls with a friend, and featured some major hardware innovations for the time that allowed large numbers of enemies to be animated on the screen at the same time making for exciting fast-paced action. At any given time you are being swarmed by robots for multiple directions and you have to move in any direction to avoid them while firing in any direction as well–the direction of firing is independent of direction of movement, so you can fire in the direction you’re moving, or fire backward, or fire to the side. (This scheme was used for later games like Super Smash TV if it seems familiar).

This game’s dual-joystick independent control also makes it suitable for two players cooperative play–one player per joystick. I played it with kid, for which most 80’s arcade games are way too hard, and together we were better than I was by myself, with me controlling the movement (and really just concentrating on dodging) and them controlling the shooting from the moving.

I played this game for the first time at the Game Changers exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

Visuals
Not the most detailed, but where this one really shines (for its era) is the number of animated things on the screen at a time!

Audio
Typical for the era.

Challenge
High.

Story
Simple (not unusual for that era).

Session Time
Depends how good you are!

Playability
Simple controlers, with basic direction joystick and directional shooting, but hard to master, it’s hard to do both at once and the challenge ramps up quickly.

Replayability
Not in the usual way I mean, but if you like this kind of game there’s certainly plenty of fun to be had.

Originality
It was a major innovation at the time that has inspired other games since then.

Playtime
I don’t know how long it would take to play all the way through.

Overall
A lot of fun, especially if you get a chance to play it on the arcade console, especially with a friend. I haven’t found a really convenient source to play this game, but it’s had some console ports to SNES among others you might be able to find.

GAME REVIEW: Xevious

written by David Steffen

Xevious is a 1983 vertical-scrolling top-down shooter arcade game published by Namco.

In the game you have two weapons: a laser that fires straight forward that can destroy air targets, and a bomb that fires forward suitable only for land-based targets. As you travel through the level, other flying ships are firing back, as well as ground-based turrets and tanks, reflective obstacles that can only be avoided, as well as boss fights.

I played this game for the first time at the Game Changers exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

Visuals
Quite good for the era! Much more detailed than some of its contemporaries.

Audio
Typical for the era.

Challenge
High.

Story
Not much story (typical of the era and format).

Session Time
Depends how good you are!

Playability
Simple, apart from it not being immediately obvious that ground forces CAN be destroyed (lasers fire over the top of them and it takes a little trial and error to figure out the bombs). Joystick for movement, and two fire buttons.

Replayability
Not in the usual way I mean, but if you like this kind of game there’s certainly plenty of fun to be had.

Originality
It was a groundbreaking design of this type of its time, so any perceived lack of originality may be because you’ve played other games inspired by it..

Playtime
I don’t know how long it would take to play all the way through.

Overall
This is a fun shooter arcade game if you like classic shooter games this is a solid one from the era. If you want to play it now you can find it on some recent-ish game systems, such as Game Boy Advance on Amazon for $12.

MOVIE REVIEW: Descendants 3

written by David Steffen

Descendants 3 is the third in a series of musical action Disney Channel original movies, and was published on The Disney Channel in August 2019. The kingdom of Auradon is perfect, and populated entirely by Disney movie heroes and their kids (who are somehow all within a few years of each other in age, despite the Disney movies being set in significantly different technological time periods and regions). All of the Disney movie villains and their kids are exiled to the gloomy Isle accessible to only a few, except the few VKs (villain kids) who were allowed out of the island to integrate with Auradon society a few years ago.

Mal (Dove Cameron), daughter of Maleficent, is the most famous of those, since she is dating King Ben (Mitchell Hope), son of Beauty and the Beast. Her VK friends who were released before are Evie (Sofia Carson), daughter of Evil Queen from Snow White (and they never thought of a better name for that character), Carlos (Cameron Boyce, who passed away before the movie was released), the son of Cruella de Ville, and Jay (Booboo Stewart), son of Jafar.

Mal and her friends visit the Isle in an official capacity to pick a few more VKs to integrate into Auradon society. As they’re leaving, the powerful villain Hades (Cheyenne Jackson), attacks Mal with his magical ember, and appears to almost succeed, starting a new panic among the citizens of Auradon who are afraid that they will never be safe, and Mal proposes closing the Isle forever.

Meanwhile, back in Auradon, Audrey (Sarah Jeffery), daughter of Aurora, after years of always feeling second best to Mal, takes this opportunity with so many of the rulers being out of Aurodon to visit the Isle, and steals several magical items from the museum where they’re stored and starts to make her own power play.

The music in this movie was the best of the three yet, and was more varied in style–the other movies went for a kind of uniform pop aesthetic with a bit of a punk flavor (an approximation of it, I should say, it is still the Disney Channel), this one mixed in some different styles like 80s rock ballads.

I found the plot harder to get into than the other ones, because there wasn’t a clear villain. You find out quite early on that Hades is Mal’s dad and it becomes pretty clear that he wasn’t actually trying to kill her when they faced off at the boundary of the Isle. And the conflict about sealing the Isle is so artificial I found it hard to relate to–as Hades points out, he’s not even a regular villain, he is literally the god of the Underworld, they should just let him out and do his Underworlding. And never in all of this do they consider just… finding a way to provide the Isle with more resources to live on. Auradon is the land of plenty, but the villains and their kids are literally starving within their enclosure, and though there are those sympathetic to the VKs, everyone in general blames the villains and their kids when they really seem to just be surviving as best they can in general.

And especially given that Mal was a VK, and knew what it was like to live there, it was very hard to relate to her in this movie, when she decides to close the barrier for good, especially given that it’s her Dad, which she doesn’t really think was trying to kill her, gets in a skirmish with her. It appears that her whole stance on this was set up entirely so that she can have a change of heart to give the story a moral, but at this point, and given her history, the moral is sort of a “duh” moment that she had already reached two movies ago and only reverted for plot purposes.

So, I wouldn’t expect big things from the plot, especially in terms of Mal’s character. The soundtrack is probably the best of the three. And I think this is Cameron Boyce’s last movie if you want to remember him fondly, he passed away at an unusually young age.

TV REVIEW: Pushing Daisies Season 2

written by David Steffen

Pushing Daisies was a fantastical and whimsical murder mystery romance show that aired for 2 (both very short, the first one cut short by the writer’s strike) seasons between 2007 and 2009.

Ned (Lee Pace) is a piemaker, who lives a mostly quiet life, but who has a secret ability to reanimate the dead with a touch. If he touches any dead thing (plants, animals, humans, included), then it will come alive again no matter what condition it’s in. If he touches them again, they will be dead forever with no way to raise them again. If he leaves something alive for more than one minute, then some other alive thing in the near vicinity will die, something of a similar level of order of complexity (i.e. a small animal for a small animal, or a human for a human).

Ned didn’t know about this ability until his mother suddenly died when he was a child and he brought her back with a touch, and dead again when she touched him again. And he learned the other part of the rule that same day because his mother stayed alive again long enough to pay the consequence and the father of his best friend and neighbor Charlotte Charles (aka Chuck) (Anna Friel) died as a result, and she moved away to love with her aunts.

Ned has been working on the side to help private detective Emerson Cod (Chi McBride) solve murder cases. Ned’s abilities are very convenient for such a venture, because he can raise the murder victim and ask them some very quick questions before making them dead again, before there are consequences. But one such case (at the beginning of the series) is murdered tourist Charlotte Charles, and Ned doesn’t have the heart to lose her again, so he keeps her alive. They develop a romance, albeit an untraditional one since they can’t touch again on penalty of her death. She feels that she can’t tell her aunts Vivian and Lily (Ellen Greene and Swoosie Kurtz) that she’s alive. Ned feels he must keep his own secret from everyone except Emerson and Chuck, including his only employee, Olive (Kristin Chenoweth).

Despite the extremely dark premise, the show as a whole is relatively lighthearted in tone with odd and whimsical set and costume designs and clever dialog, and much of the show being centered around the awkward romance, and around the banter between Cod and the others. The premise is contrived, but if you overlook that and just look at how it’s used to structure the show, it’s a fun mystery to watch.

The second season, you could tell that the writers were working under threat of cancellation because the arcs are kindof muddied, longer arcs building and then suddenly resolving without much fanfare, and then shorter arcs without much sign of new larger arcs until the end when there’s a hasty wrapup. All in all, I think they did a pretty good job wrapping everything up with how this sort of thing all goes. The whole two seasons is only about the length of a normal season of a show, so it’s not a huge time commitment, but it is a lot of fun to watch.

TABLETOP GAME REVIEW: Sushi Go! Party

written by David Steffen

Sushi Go Party! is a 2016 expansion of the fun and fast-paced strategy point-scoring game Sushi Go! (previously reviewed here). The basic gameplay of the game is the same: each player starts with a hand of cards, plays a card facedown and then flips it over, and passes their hand to the person next to them and rotates. Points are scored at the end of each round except the desserts which are saved until the end for scoring.

Sushi Go Party! takes the solid concept and execution of the original game and simply expands it with more kinds of cards. You still only have the same number of types of cards per game, but you can choose a different set for each game–you choose one roll, three appetizers, two specials, and a dessert (and the reliable-scoring nigiri are always included).

The original game had types that you would get points by collecting more of, collect 3 sashimi for 10 points, 2 tempura for 5 points, more dumplings for more points apiece. But Sushi Go! Party has tofu, for which you get 2 poitns for 1 tofu, 6 points for 2 tofu, but 0 points for 3 or more tofu. Or eel, for which 1 is -3 points, but 2 is worth 7. The specials in particular have more weird varieties, like the menu which lets you look at the next 4 cards in the deck and pick your favorite, or the special order which can mimic any other card you’ve already laid down.

The original Sushi Go! is a great strategy game that keeps itself interesting with the strategy, and Sushi Go Party! just multiplies that. You can change the game significantly by swapping in some different cards, and so there’s even more potential for replay. Great game for all ages.

Audience
All ages who are old enough to be ready for this type of strategy. My 5 year old plays it very well and loves every minute.

Challenge
Can be quite challenging, and can be made more or less challenging by swapping in different card sets to make you think of new strategies for different combinations.

Session Time
You can play a full game in maybe 10-15 minutes, so reasonably quick, if not as quick as some other games.

Replayability
Lots of replayability, your strategies might or might not be rigid, but the variations of the card combinations and the other player’s strategies serve to keep it fresh, and once you’ve figured out a good strategy for a particular set of cards, try a different set.

Originality
Even considering the original Sushi Go! the new sets of cards are a huge expansion of variety and originality.

Overall
A very fun and fast-paced strategy scoring game where chance plays a big enough factor that the best strategist isn’t going to just walk away with a win easily. Suitable for people of all ages, and is a lot of fun. Highly recommended. Only downside compared to the original Sushi Go! is that the other one is a little more compact and easy to set up, because you don’t have to separate out all the cards like you do with this one–so if you’re going to bring it to work to play with friends at lunch or something the original has the advantage of being easy to move and set up.



MOVIE REVIEW: The Secret Life of Pets 2

written by David Steffen

The Secret Life of Pets 2 is a 2019 computer-animated children’s comedy by Universal Pictures and Illumination, the sequel to the first movie from 2016 (which was reviewed here). As with the prior film, the cast of the film are pets living in a New York City apartment building, who venture out into the city to have adventures, unbeknownst to their owners.

This one is about… well, honestly that’s hard to pin down in a quick synopsis, because the cast of characters are plit from each other and having separate adventures for most of the movie. Max (Patton Oswalt, rather than the original actor Louis CK) and his newer dog family member Duke (Eric Stonestreet) are now used to each other, but their life is thrown into turmoil when their owner Katy (Ellie Kemper) gets married and has a baby, Liam (Henry Lynch). Max and Duke are apprehensive about the new member of the family at first, but as the child grows Max in particular grows a very close bond with him . When they take a family trip to relatives in the country, Max has his hands full trying to keep the kid safe in a new environment. Meanwhile, Gidget (Jenny Slate) back at home has been tasked with protecting Max’s favorite toy, and soon has to face a cat lady’s mob of semi-feral cats. And a new cast member, a Shih Tzu named Daisy (Tiffany Haddish) enlists the help of the rabbit Snowball (Kevin Hart), in helping rescue a captive tiger from a traveling circus.

As the synopsis might suggest, this movie is very scattered, which makes it hard to have a coherent read on the thing as a whole, and as a whole it was hard to really care about the stakes. And, the writing is not as good as the first one–the first one’s plot was not particularly good either, but there was better lines that were probably from standup comic. Overall it was pretty forgettable, there are much better kids movies