Author: Pedz

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Retro Monday: Kickle Cubicle

This game has come up several times on some peoples lists to get played, but until this week hasn’t managed to get the votes it’s needed to actually win.

It’s yet another game I haven’t played, which is now becoming a common theme.

Kickle Cubicle is a puzzle game, so put it simply you control a boy named Kickle , and you have to turn enemies into ice cubes and hit them into water which create ice paths to the Dream Bags which in turn finishes the level.

It all sounds pretty simple and the earlier levels are, but the do ramp up in difficulty and while I didn’t get to the end of the game to see the meatier puzzles I did get about half way through. I can safely say that it’s an interesting take on the puzzle genre. You can only turn certain enemies into blocks that can be used to create ice paths, others can be frozen, but defrost after a while, others can be frozen, then some smash and more. All the while each enemies you defeat respawns, so you have to constantly keep an eye out and what’s respawning and what’s already on the ice field. You also have bosses at the end of each set of puzzle stages, which is simple to beat, just avoid the attacks and hit the items back at them.

Visually the game is really nice, especially considering it is mainly ice. the sprites are really well done, are vibrant and cheerful. The Music in the game is catchy and again cheerful.

 

Overall the game is really good, and it was worth the wait to play, I can safely say that it’s one of the best puzzlers I have played.

Verdict: Highly Recommend

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Retro Monday – Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude!

Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude is another game I haven’t played before, in fact, I don’t think I’ve heard of it.

The game seems to centre around a guy called Greendog and he’s be cursed due to a magic amulet and he can’t go surfing anymore, that is unless he collects all the shards of some ancient artifact he and then he’ll be free from his curse.

The gameplay’s OK, the game feels somewhat clunky and a little sluggish, the enemies are a pain, especially things like fish which are difficult to hit with Greendogs attack, which is what I believe to be a Frisbee. There’s your standard platforming sections and then you get to some flying sections after each artifact peace is collected. These are reminiscent of the gyrocopter levels from Alex Kidd in Miracle World, albeit nowhere near as enjoyable and they auto-scroll and for me where a pain as I couldn’t get used to the controls, as I thought that you had to tap the B button to fly about, only later did I realise that you can just hold B and then use the D-Pad to control where you fly which makes the pretty boring flying sections a little more bearable.

Visually the game is decent, the backgrounds and sprites are fine for the most part, but Greendog himself doesn’t seem to have a face and it’s hard to tell if the big lump on his head is a hat or hair (It’s hair going by the box art.)

Overall the game is plain average and there;’s not much else I can pinpoint as pro’s and cons, I say if you feel like playing an average platformer to then show you just how good the better ones are then this is a game that would suit that desire.

Verdict: Neutral.

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Retro Monday: Konami Krazy Racers

I have never played this game before, sure I’ve played Mario Kart, but not Konami’s version of it.

I was happy to have played it though, it’s actually very good in it’s own right. It’s going to be instantly compared to Mario Kart, as they are both similar games and Mario Kart id the fore barer of the Party Karting Genre. Anyway, While it doesn’t have the variety of items, for example the items I came across where a boost, when hitting a blue bell, or from hitting the red bell I’d get a triple rocket, a red homing rocket, ice block, bomb and maybe 1 or 2 more things there was enough variety in the items to make it fun and not feel stale and repetitious. Another thing is that you may be less familiar with them over the Mario counterparts, but the gane has Dracula from Castlevania as a playable character it instantly derserves to get some recognition for that. Over all the game itself stands well against Mario Kart.
Visually it’s a great game with detailed sprites and backgrounds, musically it’s nice to listen to with music being taken from the games the courses and karters are taken from.

The actual gameplay is you standard party karter styled game where you pick a character and race through cups to get a podium finish, while this does change up the formula by having you take test to get a B license and A License, if generally doesn’t stray to far away from the standard formula. The gameplay is good and the karts all control well enough while feeling different enough to that other karting game, and I had no trouble with taking corners while slowing down, but it seems that this game is an easy to pick up hard to master kinda game as getting the drifting down is not easy.

Verdict: Recommend