Game: Skywire 2
link: http://www.miniclip.com/games/skywire-2/en/

Objective of the game:
Take control of the cable car and get the passengers to their destination safely (ferry them from 1 point to another point)

What is it?
Player has to ferry the 3 little cute characters(represent 3 lives) safely to the destination point. The journey is full of animated obstacles which the player has to avoid them skillfully by controlling the cable car with ONLY 2 KEYS(UP AND DOWN). If the cable car touches the obstacles, then 1 life will be lost(1 character fell off the cable car). A maximun of 3 lives is given in each level.If the player loses all the 3 lives then it will be game over for the player. In this skywire 2, player can choose to play 1 player option or 2 player option whereby one can pit their fingers skills with their peers.

















Simple controls
UP and Down keys OR W and S keys.















Many many levels to complete.HEHEHEHE. Many obstacles to avoid wor.















Starting point : the 3 cute characters hopping in the cable and you are ready to GO!!!
















Calculation of scores player gain after each level.
















Cute animated animals obstacles READY to bump your characters OFF!!!






















Game over: when player loses all 3lives. Player has to restart the level.




What i like about this game?

Simple
Simple objective of the game makes the game play simple and direct. Just 2 keys is needed to control the cable car (UP and DOWN) -> makes the game easy to play and control.


Illustrations and animated
The illustrations are colorful and imaginative in this game, giving it a fantasy world feel to it.
Cutely animated assets are adding value to this game. The obstacles are animated in such a way that they are alive (they look like objects in a carnival to me)


Levels
Each level getting harder and harder to complete as the game proceeds. Player has to avoid the moving obstacles at the right timing. In this game, player has to practise hand and eye coordination.


Audio
A background music is placed in this game. The music is simple,soothing and cute (which is suitable for this game's look and feel). I like the music a lot personally.

One Button Bob

Website: http://www.ninjadoodle.com/one-button-bob/
Developer: Tom "Ninjadoodle" Vencel
Platform: Flash

As games become more complex in their graphics, controls and gameplay, indie game developers seem to go the other way, making games that are often minimalistic. Like VVVVVV, One Button Bob takes one gameplay mechanic and explores it in many ways. You control Bob through a series of trials with only your left mouse button.

The concept of a single button control is interesting. With the same button, you control how far you leap; you attack enemies with your boomerang; you pause in your tracks to evade falling spikes; you move forward with each click. The button's behavior changes with different types of stages and in learning to identify them, you'll know how to win them. While there are only 7 (I think) kinds of stages, they get progressively more difficult. For example in the early stage, you only have to leap over a narrow chasm. A later stage requires you to time your jumps and control how far you jump, as the platform you're standing on disappears in a few seconds.

The good news is when you die, you simple start over in the same stage. And the bad? It's a little unfair how some stages spring obstacles right in front of you as you're near the end. Despite that, it's a pretty easy game and anyone can finish it in a few minutes. The most challenging part of the game is the final boss stage where you change your direction with a mouse click. The trick is to anticipate the falling bombs and get close to the boss so you could deal some damage. Still, the levels are too short and lack some sort of a challenge to be satisfying and it's a pity because it seems that the single-click gameplay mechanic has not been explored to its full potential.

The pixel artwork is lovely and the gameplay is more innovative than many Flash games on the internet. So never mind its flaws, One Button Bob is still a great way of spending five minutes of your time.


-- Benjamin

Developer: iNiS

Platform: Nintendo DS

Release: 2005

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan is a rhythm game that is as quirky as its name sounds. The whole game revolves around the idea of playing as a male cheerleading squad and helping out  the troubled citizens all over the world.

The levels in game, presented in the form of scenarios encountered by the squad, mostly consist of very mundane issues that people faced in their everyday lives. What makes them interesting is the twist of plots that were added which transformed them into scenarios that are overly dramatic and out of this world. Each accompanied by a song, the scenarios are shown in the form of animated comics and work pretty much like music videos. Each level is split into 3 segments and depending on how well you scored, you are presented with either a good transition of plot to the next segment or a bad one. The transitions also act as an intermission, allowing the player to get a break from the fast moving pace of the game and enjoy the sequence of moving pictures. 

The objective of the levels is to simply survive through the song. A Genki meter is used to keep track of your performance in the level and will be constantly depleting throughout the song. In order to replenish the meter to keep the game playing, you are required to touch a series of markers in succession to chain up combos. The chain of combos will in turn keep up the momentum of the cheerleading squad. Once a marker is missed, the momentum will halt immediately and the Genki meter will be depleting at a faster rate until you chained up a combo again.

The control is simple. You simply need to touch the markers that appear on screen at the right timing with the stylus. There are 3 different kinds of marker in the game and depending on how precise you are with the timing, they will award you with different amount of points. The most common type of marker are denoted with numbers to cue the order in which they have to be touched and are presented in sets marked by different colours.  Another type of marker requires you to follow and glide your stylus along its path while the last type requires you to move your stylus in a circular motion around the screen rapidly.

The game paces pretty well. The levels are represented by citizens in need scattered throughout the game world map. You start with only one level and as the game progresses, a group of harder levels will be made available to the player. Except for the first and final level, the player gets to choose the order they play out the levels which prevents the game from being totally linear. There are four difficulties in this game. The easier two are made available straight from the box while the next two are only unlocked once you completed the game in the previous difficulty level.

Replayability in this game is very high. This is partly due to the fact that the whole game is made up of a bunch of levels consisting of only songs and scenarios. As every level can be played out very quickly, the chances of them getting replayed are higher. The ranking system in the game also encourages the player to replay the levels to get a better score and rewards them with a new rank. Gamers who want a challenge will also be tempted to unlock the two other difficulties. The multiplayer portion of the game allowing both competitive and cooperative play with a friend also increases the longevity of the game. One other motivation to replay the levels is the good soundtrack. You will be found replaying certain levels more than others simply because you like those particular songs.

The visuals in the game are fantastic. The scenarios in the game are all presented in high quality hand drawn manga style drawings. Figures in the game are also adequately modeled with good details and textures. The personality of each members of the cheerleading squad is brought out really well by the animations. Other visual cues such as the growing flames behind the characters to denote the momentum are crucial and eye catching. The soundtrack of the game is also fantastic although they are slightly low in quality and are undermined by the tiny speakers of the DS. This game is best played with a stereo system or a pair of headphones plugged into the DS.

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan is a fantastic game that all rhythm game fans must try. It is a very enjoyable experience and is a game that most gamers will most probably go back to once in a while.

Ratings: 9.5/10

Weiwen

Warbears
www.warbears.com

This game is a 2D puzzle game where the player controls a squad of crime-fighting bears, called the Warbears. Each warbear has its own unique ability and in order to win, the player has to use them in the right order.

The story starts off with the scene of the crime. The Warbears have just arrived at a house where hostages are held captive. The Warbears have to find a way into the house without alarming the crooks, kill them, and save the day.

Controls are simple. You control one Warbear at a time. This is strictly a game controlled with just the mouse. By clicking on the Warbear, the current actions pop up and the player has to select one. The Warbear will then perform that action, triggering some other event to happen. Players have 3 Warbears to control at the start of the game, while a fourth one will appear mid-game.

Gameplay is interesting and fun; sometimes, players have to find novel ways to solve the puzzles presented, in others, the solution to the problem is a logical one. For instance, a grenade that is thrown up the roof will get sucked into an air-vent if the fan is still switched on, causing the grenade to fall to the top floor and detonate, killing the hostages and losing the game. The solution? Switch off the fan, and the grenade no longer gets sucked into the air-vent.

Art style is cute and funny, with the Warbears looking fuzzy and all deserving of a hug. The enemies (also bears) look rather dim-witted and are of the same sprite. The Warbears, however, have their own individual sprite, each looking according to his role. For instance, The Warbear which is in charge of the technology (GPS unit, mainframe hacking) has the stereotypical glasses and is quite dorky looking, the one who engages in melee combat looks like a ninja, etc. The art is simple: the sprites are clean and neat-looking, but it works very well in this game. I wouldn't want to see how the entire game would be ruined if he had used some other art style.

What I like about this game is how the game designer incorporates other genres of games into this game. For instance, to hack into the building's computer mainframe, the user has to successfully memorise colour codes played in sequence, very much like that of the colour memory game Mr Simon. Toward the end of the game, when the Warbears have saved the hostages but the crime lord escaping, the Warbears engage in a hilarious race scene. The player has to press the motorcycle throttle and when the Warbears are in position and ready to fire their rifle at the enemy, a target will appear and the player has to shoot the bullseye of the target in order for the Warbear to hit the enemy.





What is frustrating for this game, however, is the lack of a 'back one action' button. When the player has done something wrong, he has to restart the entire level, going through the entire actions again. This is really bad especially when you're almost at the end of the game. It would have been better if the game auto saves after every action and the user has the option to go back one action if he does something wrong. This saves time prevents frustrating resets. The entire game took about 30 minutes to complete, but I probably spent almost an hour on this game considering the resets I have to endure.

However, this game is overall really interesting, I love it. In fact, I went to visit his website for the other warbear series and played it immediately after I finished this one. Gameplay remains the same with the other games, except that the Warbears are in a different situation.



Rating 8/10

Plot

Contra is a 1 or 2 player game that is basically a side scroll game. It revolves around the adventure of 2 military commandos named Bill and Lance , who are sent on a mission to neutralize a terrorist organization called Red Falcon that is secretly planning to take over the Earth. Details of the game's setting varies between supplementary materials: the Japanese versions establishes the game's setting to be a fictional Oceania archipelago of Galuga in the futuristic year of 2633, whereas the manual for the American NES version sets the game during the present in an unnamed South American island. The American storyline also changes the identity of "Red Falcon" from being the name of a terrorist organization to the name of an alien entity.

Gameplay

The main character is equipped with a rifle with an unlimited amount of ammunition. The player can also jump, move and fire in eight directions, as well as move or jump simultaneously while firing. A single hit from any enemy, bullet, or other hazard will instantly kill the player character, and also discard the current weapon from the player's disposal. There are a total of four weapons the player can retrieve from flying weapon capsules or pill-box sensors: a Machine Gun, a Laser Gun, a Fire Gun, and a Spread Gun. There also two additional supplemental power-ups: a Rapid Fire power-up which increases the player's firing speed, as well as a Barrier that will grant the player temporary invincibility for a few seconds. All the power-ups in the arcade version are represented by Eagle-shaped letter icons with the exception of the Machine Gun and Laser.

 

Thoughts

This is the very essence of nostalgia for me next to Mario. It relives those childhood days where I would play it in my cousin's house nearly everyday wanting to beat our best score and proceed to the very next level. It was a very nice experience whereby gaming brought us close together as cousins. 

Graphics

The graphics are very reminiscent of the good old days that makes u in awe of how good it looked back then. Of course incomparable to today's graphic nature, Contra's graphics was enough to make you sit in front of the tv for countless hours. 

Though they looked like crap, they sure did kick some ass! And i ll surely kick yours at this game. Try me.