Random Game Review #2: Pel

Pel

Pel is your new favorite game that you've never played. It's fun! It's original! It's NEAT! And, I quote, "The sounds will make you want to kill yourself!" Let's just hope you press mute first.

But really, Pel is, in my humble opinion, a really great game. I stumbled upon it (as is probably the case for most everything I post) about a week and a half ago, and was hooked after my first game. 

Pel is simple in every sense of the word, and that's a good thing. The graphics are minimalistic, with only a grey paddle and some colored squares moving around atop a black background. The sounds are repetitive, but (contrary to what my roommate might tell you) I think they nicely complement the sparse visuals.

The gameplay of Pel is equally straightfoward. You control a single paddle on the bottom of the screen, which you can move to one of three spots: left, middle, or right. Your single goal is to keep all of the bouncing pellets bouncing for as long as possible. As you do, you rack up combos and points as an incentive to keep going. Also, although at first the game is laughably easy, don't be fooled; before long, you'll be frantically mashing the left and right arrows until your fingers bleed. Add in a healthy dose of random power ups, and you've got yourself one addicting little game.

If you've never played this game (and I would be very surprised if you had), do yourself a favor and give it a shot. Just make sure you have some time to waste.

Pel gets 4 bouncing squares out of 5.

Forever Uno

My life:

 

MissingNo

Attention all nerds, geeks, and all other Pokemon fans! I just came across a description of how and why the MissingNo glitch occurs in the original Pokemon games. If you don't know what MissingNo is, you probably won't appreciate the details anyway. Still, I think it's pretty cool stuff. Check it out.

Random Game Review #1: Winterbells

Winterbells

Hello, and welcome to the first of my award-winning series of game reviews. Up this time is a little game I found called Winterbells. 

Winterbells plays something like Doodle Jump, but with fewer doodles and platforms and more rabbits bouncing on floating bells in the sky. Also, instead of controlling "The Doodler" (trust me, I looked it up on Wikipedia), you control a cute little white rabbit. You start the game on the ground, and click to jump up to the first falling bell. From there, the rabbit follows the mouse as you try to bounce higher and higher, accumulating points until you fall back to the Earth.

Although simple,  this game is strangely very satisfying. The game is very polished; the graphics and animation are nice and clean, without trying to be too fancy. The audio is also fairly minimalistic, but it works; the background string music is relaxing and fits the style well, and the "ding" when you hit a bell is thankfully not annoying.

In concept, this game is nothing too original. However, in my opinion, the combination of simplistic visuals, sounds, and controls result in a fun, satisfying experience, and create a calming atmosphere that doesn't try to force itself on you. If you're looking for a good way to waste 15 minutes, look no further.

Winterbells gets 4 jumping rabbits out of 5.

Slowpoke!

So that's what those hieroglyphics meant.

All dogs go to heaven?

The real question is, who won the debate?

 

At first I was like...

Lol again.

 

The Land Before Time

Lol.

 

Pokemon Black

Greetings everyone. I just stumbled onto this rather creepy hack of the original Pokemon games (Red and Blue). I've actually read about it before, but this article is better. I think it's really worth a read if you played Pokemon back in the day like I did, and/or are even mildly interested in mods and hacks. Creepy? Very. Fascinating? Absolutely.

Guilty?

I'm having a thought here. Long story short, can guilty be a noun? For example, the sentence "Oh god! He's killing all the innocents!" makes sense, because "innocent" can be used as either an adjective or a noun, as in someone who is innocent. Does the sentence "That son of a bee sting! He's setting all the guilties free!" make sense? I feel like it should.

Memories

So I lied about that last post (the one about Flash Portal) being my last of the night. I was just sitting in my room reading Catch-22 when I suddenly got this flash of memories from when I was in kindergarten and elementary school. I know that sounds pretty weird (and maybe a little bit stupid), but it was actually a pretty powerful minute or two. The weird thing was that the memories seem more like dreams now than anything else. I can distinctly remember playing at recess and climbing on logs and a lot of other things, but it's as if I'm viewing these mental images through a lens. More than that, I realized that I haven't thought about those things for a very long time. It's as if I'm remembering old dreams seen by another person. It was strange to look down at myself and realize that me, sitting here in my room, as I am now, is the same person as that little kid. Man. Makes you appreciate how narrow your view on yourself can be sometimes. Thanks for making this far. I know there are a lot of words and no pictures. Just something to think about I suppose.

Flash Portal

One more thing that I almost forgot. Last night I stumbled across a Flash version of Portal, and it's actually pretty sweet. Anyone who is a Portal fan (and let's be honest, you should all be Portal fans) will appreciate this. For the rest of you, give it a shot. You might even have fun.

Go Pack Go!

If you didn't know, the Green Bay Packers just won the super bowl. The following summarizes my feelings on this:

Most Realistic CG Image Ever

Wow. I'm impressed. That's right, this girl isn't real. Not that you could tell the difference if you didn't know.

Perfect Pitch

This one goes to all of my fellow musicians out there. Ever wished you had perfect pitch? What's that you say? You already have it? Then I hate you. For the rest of us, I stumbled upon this awesome game that lets you train your ear. God... no more theory, and I'm still working on aural skills. What have I become?

WoW owns your soul

Remember this the next time you think about playing WoW again.