Important Note! (2/3/10)
Thanks to my (untimely?) elimination from the Indie Review Tourney, I now have the chance both to get feedback on my submission and to see how far I've developed as a writer/critic. You see, the reason I decided to review PixelJunk: Monsters for the competition and not the more recent PixelJunk: Shooter (or something else entirely) was because I was keen to rewrite what, in retrospect, was a quite awful review.
I first wrote the review back in July of 2008, and it was one of my earliest posts on the forums. It went completely unnoticed. Nobody commented and I received no feedback. But perhaps in the nearly 20 months since, a few people might now have something to say. At the very least, I hope you all agree that the rewrite is better than original.
Fun Fact: My original intention was only to edit the review. Instead, I ended up starting from scratch and rewriting it altogether. Also, nothing has been changed in the first review.
Thanks to my (untimely?) elimination from the Indie Review Tourney, I now have the chance both to get feedback on my submission and to see how far I've developed as a writer/critic. You see, the reason I decided to review PixelJunk: Monsters for the competition and not the more recent PixelJunk: Shooter (or something else entirely) was because I was keen to rewrite what, in retrospect, was a quite awful review.
I first wrote the review back in July of 2008, and it was one of my earliest posts on the forums. It went completely unnoticed. Nobody commented and I received no feedback. But perhaps in the nearly 20 months since, a few people might now have something to say. At the very least, I hope you all agree that the rewrite is better than original.
Note: This is my second review here, and I hope you enjoy it.
PixelJunk: Monsters
I usually like to subtly ease my way into a review, story, or criticism, but I?ve recently discovered that it?s more difficult to be devious regarding things that are so simple. You can attack something complicated or abstract like Bioshock (which reminds me that I should probably read 'Atlas Shrugged' before I play the stupid thing) through any number of sneaky maneuvers, but if you take that approach with something like say, Tic-Tac-Toe, you seem like an idiot. Basically, I?m not going to talk at length about PixelJunk: Monsters because it would be a colossal waste of time and effort, not to mention somewhat schizophrenic.
PixelJunk: Monsters is a game available on the PSN (PlayStation Network) for a pittance of $5. It?s a sort of RTS RPG PCP mess of acronyms that is impossibly addictive. You play as some sort of biped turtle shell backed shaman critter tasked with saving your village from an onslaught of monsters that strategize the same way Zapp Brannigan might if he weren?t a cartoon character (with a velour uniform). Your task is achieved by the careful placement of a variety of attack towers that decimate the waves of attack before they reach the village, in what is vaguely reminiscent of Defend Your Castle. Actually, let?s not beat around the bush, it?s exactly like Defend Your Castle [http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/castle]. A deeper, stylized, and visually crisper Defend Your Castle, but it?s still more or less the same game.
The game is almost simple enough that it would belong in the same genre of free online games like Peggle or Bejeweled. The only thing that really sets it apart is the highly defined art design that makes it a pleasure to behold on an LCD TV. The developers designed these types of games with a crisp aesthetic in mind, I guess. PixelJunk: Eden takes simple gameplay and sharp visuals to a game about a sea monkey that jumps around a garden, so there?s obviously a permeating idea linking the titles.
The action gets way more chaotic.
Despite the almost pretentious prettiness of the game, PixelJunk: Monsters is somewhat unbalanced. I don?t mean the difficulty curve, even though its idea of transitioning from the last easy stage to the first medium stage is strolling up a gentle slope to a rock-climbing wall, but the effectiveness of the towers. You can get through the entire game using five main towers, three of which are always available, and in fact you could probably get by using only the first three if you have a bit of a masochistic streak. Some towers are neat, like the ice tower or the hive tower, but only in theory. The hive tower would?ve worked well if the bees were stronger and didn?t die after their attack (just like in real life, I suppose), while the ice tower makes promises of slowing down enemies. I assumed the freezing effect would be for a good amount of time since it was unspecified, but it turns out it?s only a split seconds before the afflicted monster resumes it?s murderous pace. The only towers that are worth trading in precious blue gems for are the fire and mortar towers, and even then it might not seem worth it. The fire tower, while admittedly very effective, is crippled by a prolonged attack that never adjusts or corrects itself to where it can do the most damage, and the mortar tower is slower than a snail running a race on a very tiny treadmill.
I suppose my major gripe with every tower is that it?s just plain unintuitive. If an errant monster slips through the cracks and is about to take out a villager, the towers never seem to respond to the more immediate threat. This is infuriating when you?re trying to get a perfect run (which you need to do in order to advance in some areas) and one monster ruins it all and forces you to start again. The towers are programmed to aim where they would do the most damage, which normally makes sense. But when five cannons fire at the same cluster of monsters where just one cannon could?ve easily done the job, it?s an infuriating waste when only you seem to have the foresight to consider the approaching stream a few trees away. A little intuition or a little sense of teamwork between the towers would certainly ease the frustration, even if some of the skill involved is taken way.
Oddly enough, the unintuitive AI seems to be deliberate since PixelJunk: Monsters is at its heart a strategy game. Every unintelligent feature of the game design is nullified when you consider that every frustration imposed on you also cripples the game you?re trying to outsmart. Just as you have towers that operate under strict rules of range and strength and priority, so do the enemies follow the exact same path, wave after wave, never deviating. The absence of any random fluke occurrences would appear to denigrate any replay value or spontaneity, but a great deal of triumph and satisfaction is to be had when you execute a level perfectly after hours toiled over trial and error, adjusting your plan and adapting like a real strategist or tactician might - admittedly, they don't have the luxury of a retry button, but it's the same feeling none the less.
"In the game of chess you can never let your opponent see you pieces" - Zapp Brannigan
PixelJunk: Monsters is a challenging and addictive game that I happen to adore because I?m the type of boring person that enjoys things like Chess and Connect Four. The impatient (and by ?impatient? I mean ?trigger happy?) might not appreciate or tolerate the rare joys it offers, but it?s a fun little thing to play when I?m sick of ogling the breast physics in Soul Calibur IV, or I?ve run out of weed to make Everyday Shooter fun.
PixelJunk: Monsters
I usually like to subtly ease my way into a review, story, or criticism, but I?ve recently discovered that it?s more difficult to be devious regarding things that are so simple. You can attack something complicated or abstract like Bioshock (which reminds me that I should probably read 'Atlas Shrugged' before I play the stupid thing) through any number of sneaky maneuvers, but if you take that approach with something like say, Tic-Tac-Toe, you seem like an idiot. Basically, I?m not going to talk at length about PixelJunk: Monsters because it would be a colossal waste of time and effort, not to mention somewhat schizophrenic.
PixelJunk: Monsters is a game available on the PSN (PlayStation Network) for a pittance of $5. It?s a sort of RTS RPG PCP mess of acronyms that is impossibly addictive. You play as some sort of biped turtle shell backed shaman critter tasked with saving your village from an onslaught of monsters that strategize the same way Zapp Brannigan might if he weren?t a cartoon character (with a velour uniform). Your task is achieved by the careful placement of a variety of attack towers that decimate the waves of attack before they reach the village, in what is vaguely reminiscent of Defend Your Castle. Actually, let?s not beat around the bush, it?s exactly like Defend Your Castle [http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/castle]. A deeper, stylized, and visually crisper Defend Your Castle, but it?s still more or less the same game.
The game is almost simple enough that it would belong in the same genre of free online games like Peggle or Bejeweled. The only thing that really sets it apart is the highly defined art design that makes it a pleasure to behold on an LCD TV. The developers designed these types of games with a crisp aesthetic in mind, I guess. PixelJunk: Eden takes simple gameplay and sharp visuals to a game about a sea monkey that jumps around a garden, so there?s obviously a permeating idea linking the titles.
The action gets way more chaotic.
Despite the almost pretentious prettiness of the game, PixelJunk: Monsters is somewhat unbalanced. I don?t mean the difficulty curve, even though its idea of transitioning from the last easy stage to the first medium stage is strolling up a gentle slope to a rock-climbing wall, but the effectiveness of the towers. You can get through the entire game using five main towers, three of which are always available, and in fact you could probably get by using only the first three if you have a bit of a masochistic streak. Some towers are neat, like the ice tower or the hive tower, but only in theory. The hive tower would?ve worked well if the bees were stronger and didn?t die after their attack (just like in real life, I suppose), while the ice tower makes promises of slowing down enemies. I assumed the freezing effect would be for a good amount of time since it was unspecified, but it turns out it?s only a split seconds before the afflicted monster resumes it?s murderous pace. The only towers that are worth trading in precious blue gems for are the fire and mortar towers, and even then it might not seem worth it. The fire tower, while admittedly very effective, is crippled by a prolonged attack that never adjusts or corrects itself to where it can do the most damage, and the mortar tower is slower than a snail running a race on a very tiny treadmill.
I suppose my major gripe with every tower is that it?s just plain unintuitive. If an errant monster slips through the cracks and is about to take out a villager, the towers never seem to respond to the more immediate threat. This is infuriating when you?re trying to get a perfect run (which you need to do in order to advance in some areas) and one monster ruins it all and forces you to start again. The towers are programmed to aim where they would do the most damage, which normally makes sense. But when five cannons fire at the same cluster of monsters where just one cannon could?ve easily done the job, it?s an infuriating waste when only you seem to have the foresight to consider the approaching stream a few trees away. A little intuition or a little sense of teamwork between the towers would certainly ease the frustration, even if some of the skill involved is taken way.
Oddly enough, the unintuitive AI seems to be deliberate since PixelJunk: Monsters is at its heart a strategy game. Every unintelligent feature of the game design is nullified when you consider that every frustration imposed on you also cripples the game you?re trying to outsmart. Just as you have towers that operate under strict rules of range and strength and priority, so do the enemies follow the exact same path, wave after wave, never deviating. The absence of any random fluke occurrences would appear to denigrate any replay value or spontaneity, but a great deal of triumph and satisfaction is to be had when you execute a level perfectly after hours toiled over trial and error, adjusting your plan and adapting like a real strategist or tactician might - admittedly, they don't have the luxury of a retry button, but it's the same feeling none the less.
"In the game of chess you can never let your opponent see you pieces" - Zapp Brannigan
PixelJunk: Monsters is a challenging and addictive game that I happen to adore because I?m the type of boring person that enjoys things like Chess and Connect Four. The impatient (and by ?impatient? I mean ?trigger happy?) might not appreciate or tolerate the rare joys it offers, but it?s a fun little thing to play when I?m sick of ogling the breast physics in Soul Calibur IV, or I?ve run out of weed to make Everyday Shooter fun.
PixelJunk: Monsters
I was once a cynical person who looked at downloadable games from the PlayStation Store and the like as tantamount to browser games; cheap trinkets only useful for frittering away empty time. And while I can?t in good conscience say that I?ve been cured of this perspective, I have come to realize, however, that this isn?t entirely the case. PixelJunk, for example, is a series of downloadable PlayStation 3 games created by small teams of developers from Japanese based Q-Games. Their catalogue is four games strong in just two and a half years, and more remarkable than that is how varied their catalogue is. They?ve already got a racer, shooter, platformer, and tower defender under their belt, and I can confidently say that the two lattermost games are exceptional. I will be reviewing their tower defender, PixelJunk Monsters, today.
http://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac66/Maet32/monsters_relax_HD.jpg
Tower defence is arguably the simplest statement of real time strategy gameplay. Every game in this genre features a base, a selection of towers for the defence of said base, and an assortment of persistent foes from which said base must be defended. And while the gameplay of PixelJunk Monsters doesn?t deviate terribly far from the well established conventions of the tower defence genre, it nonetheless endeavours to throw a few novel spins on a largely stale idea. Yes, there are towers, and yes, the primary function of those towers is to defend, but there?s a bit more to it than that. The combination of the fully predictable levels and the paper-scissors-rock gameplay manages to create a surprisingly appealing and addictive experience. Each level in Monsters consists of either 10 or 20 waves of baddies (depending on the difficulty setting) and each wave is comprised of a single sort of monster that staunchly marches the exact same path in the exact same formation. One might think that such banality would detract from the spontaneity and excitement of the assaults, but this simply isn?t the case. Seeing swarms of enemies getting decimated by mortars and flamethrowers never gets old, and the panic instilled in the player when the odd monster slips through the cracks and threatens victory is often very real, if occasionally a tad cheap.
Complimenting the very formulaic and very predictable AI is a generally well balanced array of towers, each possessing their own strengths and weaknesses against certain enemy types. The player has 500 gold coins at the start of each level with which to build their initial defences of four or five towers. By default, three towers are available at the beginning of each stage: the arrow tower, which is the standard all-rounder, along with the anti-air gun and cannon tower, which are effective against flying and ground critters respectively. Six other towers, including a laser, tesla, and hive tower, can be unlocked over the course of each level at the expense of blue gems, a rare item collected from fallen foes. Gold coins are also dropped constantly and need to be snatched up so as to increase the defensive lines warding off swathes of baddies.
One of the more interesting features of Monsters is how the player is actually required to run around the battlefield to collect items and build towers in real time. Most of the tower defence games I?m familiar with (Defend Your Castle, Lock?s Quest, etc.) give the player a window of down time between waves of action so that they have a chance to collect and organize themselves. However with Monsters, there is no down time. Everything the player needs to do must be accomplished with the seemingly endless stream of enemies stepping towards your base at a murderous stride. There is no intermission or break that lets you regroup, seize plunder, and tweak your defences. For this reason, there?s a particular fervour that arises when you?re zipping through battle lines picking up coins, building new towers, and powering up existing ones. It?s doubly peculiar considering how it?s some rather rigid and methodical core mechanics that are eliciting genuine intensity.
http://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac66/Maet32/pjm13ob5.jpg
Visually, Monsters is simple and crisp. There are no ground breaking visuals to be had here. Instead, there?s a very charming and sensible art style, presented in full 1080p HD. The core colour palette makes use of soft and subdued earth tones with the only vibrancy in game coming from the occasional sparkling blue gem and the effects from the stronger towers. Even the character models are dressed in soothing and agreeable bands of colour. Browns and greens dominate, evoking an idyllic sense of nature. In fact the overall aesthetic is so pleasing and refined that almost any in game screenshot feels like it could be framed and mounted.
The music functions on a similar level of tranquility as the graphics, largely consisting of airy and peaceful synthesized sound loops. It?s quite repetitive, especially considering how many times a short track can cycle through a lengthy level, but it?s never obtrusive, which is what matters most. The sound bytes, on the other hand, can occasionally be a bit discordant. Each type of enemy sounds alike, as does each type of tower. When dozens of identical enemies are being attacked by dozens of identical towers, the ensuing dense torrent of noise does occasionally become a tad grating.
Yet despite some minor audio quibbles and gameplay that, for as hectic as it can sometimes be, is nonetheless entirely stiff and routine, PixelJunk Monsters is an excellent title. Tower defence games have seen a bit of a resurgence in recent years owing in no small part to the likes of the PlayStation Store and WiiWare, and Monsters seems to stand at the forefront of this particular renaissance. Its well balanced gameplay and breezy aesthetic makes it an easy buy, either for a $5 pittance on the PlayStation Store or for the $20 PSP Deluxe edition.
I was once a cynical person who looked at downloadable games from the PlayStation Store and the like as tantamount to browser games; cheap trinkets only useful for frittering away empty time. And while I can?t in good conscience say that I?ve been cured of this perspective, I have come to realize, however, that this isn?t entirely the case. PixelJunk, for example, is a series of downloadable PlayStation 3 games created by small teams of developers from Japanese based Q-Games. Their catalogue is four games strong in just two and a half years, and more remarkable than that is how varied their catalogue is. They?ve already got a racer, shooter, platformer, and tower defender under their belt, and I can confidently say that the two lattermost games are exceptional. I will be reviewing their tower defender, PixelJunk Monsters, today.
http://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac66/Maet32/monsters_relax_HD.jpg
Tower defence is arguably the simplest statement of real time strategy gameplay. Every game in this genre features a base, a selection of towers for the defence of said base, and an assortment of persistent foes from which said base must be defended. And while the gameplay of PixelJunk Monsters doesn?t deviate terribly far from the well established conventions of the tower defence genre, it nonetheless endeavours to throw a few novel spins on a largely stale idea. Yes, there are towers, and yes, the primary function of those towers is to defend, but there?s a bit more to it than that. The combination of the fully predictable levels and the paper-scissors-rock gameplay manages to create a surprisingly appealing and addictive experience. Each level in Monsters consists of either 10 or 20 waves of baddies (depending on the difficulty setting) and each wave is comprised of a single sort of monster that staunchly marches the exact same path in the exact same formation. One might think that such banality would detract from the spontaneity and excitement of the assaults, but this simply isn?t the case. Seeing swarms of enemies getting decimated by mortars and flamethrowers never gets old, and the panic instilled in the player when the odd monster slips through the cracks and threatens victory is often very real, if occasionally a tad cheap.
Complimenting the very formulaic and very predictable AI is a generally well balanced array of towers, each possessing their own strengths and weaknesses against certain enemy types. The player has 500 gold coins at the start of each level with which to build their initial defences of four or five towers. By default, three towers are available at the beginning of each stage: the arrow tower, which is the standard all-rounder, along with the anti-air gun and cannon tower, which are effective against flying and ground critters respectively. Six other towers, including a laser, tesla, and hive tower, can be unlocked over the course of each level at the expense of blue gems, a rare item collected from fallen foes. Gold coins are also dropped constantly and need to be snatched up so as to increase the defensive lines warding off swathes of baddies.
One of the more interesting features of Monsters is how the player is actually required to run around the battlefield to collect items and build towers in real time. Most of the tower defence games I?m familiar with (Defend Your Castle, Lock?s Quest, etc.) give the player a window of down time between waves of action so that they have a chance to collect and organize themselves. However with Monsters, there is no down time. Everything the player needs to do must be accomplished with the seemingly endless stream of enemies stepping towards your base at a murderous stride. There is no intermission or break that lets you regroup, seize plunder, and tweak your defences. For this reason, there?s a particular fervour that arises when you?re zipping through battle lines picking up coins, building new towers, and powering up existing ones. It?s doubly peculiar considering how it?s some rather rigid and methodical core mechanics that are eliciting genuine intensity.
http://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac66/Maet32/pjm13ob5.jpg
Visually, Monsters is simple and crisp. There are no ground breaking visuals to be had here. Instead, there?s a very charming and sensible art style, presented in full 1080p HD. The core colour palette makes use of soft and subdued earth tones with the only vibrancy in game coming from the occasional sparkling blue gem and the effects from the stronger towers. Even the character models are dressed in soothing and agreeable bands of colour. Browns and greens dominate, evoking an idyllic sense of nature. In fact the overall aesthetic is so pleasing and refined that almost any in game screenshot feels like it could be framed and mounted.
The music functions on a similar level of tranquility as the graphics, largely consisting of airy and peaceful synthesized sound loops. It?s quite repetitive, especially considering how many times a short track can cycle through a lengthy level, but it?s never obtrusive, which is what matters most. The sound bytes, on the other hand, can occasionally be a bit discordant. Each type of enemy sounds alike, as does each type of tower. When dozens of identical enemies are being attacked by dozens of identical towers, the ensuing dense torrent of noise does occasionally become a tad grating.
Yet despite some minor audio quibbles and gameplay that, for as hectic as it can sometimes be, is nonetheless entirely stiff and routine, PixelJunk Monsters is an excellent title. Tower defence games have seen a bit of a resurgence in recent years owing in no small part to the likes of the PlayStation Store and WiiWare, and Monsters seems to stand at the forefront of this particular renaissance. Its well balanced gameplay and breezy aesthetic makes it an easy buy, either for a $5 pittance on the PlayStation Store or for the $20 PSP Deluxe edition.
Fun Fact: My original intention was only to edit the review. Instead, I ended up starting from scratch and rewriting it altogether. Also, nothing has been changed in the first review.
