Alright! Today I shall review a game introduced to me by Ryan in computing lab. Ryan is an avid downloader of free standalone games and has flooded his computer in the lab with at least 10 different types of games and counting (shh.. keep secret from DKAO!). Well, what can I say? Good job Ryan. For providing us sources of entertainment when we're bored programming. Haha.
Out of the many games he downloaded. Two caught my interest - RayHound and Debrysis.
------------------------------------
Ray-Hound (by Hikware)
RayHound is basically a game where you move a small little ship-like thing around the map. Turrets will spawn and shoot you. To fight back, you either take control of the missiles shot at you (by clicking the left mouse button and holding on to it till you want to release the missiles) or you deflect them back (with a quick flick of your mouse to ram your ship into the missile). However, obviously you can only do these when the missiles are close to you. So basically there is no life bar or whatsoever. The game uses a timer system to keep track. Everytime you get hit, you lose 10seconds. The game is over when the time hits zero. Everytime you kill a turret or complete a round, extra time is added on. It's basically quite a easy game to play and all you need is your mouse. The graphics is also quite smooth and cool-looking. Heh. Though it may be frustrating at the start learning how to control/deflect enemy missiles, once you get the hang of it, its quite fun.. At least for a while, till you get bored.
Tips:
Since you only got 2 kinds of attack (Control or Deflect), let me explain how to make full use of it.
Controlling means left clicking the mouse and holding on the the button. When you initially left click the mouse, a circle will appear around your ship. Any missiles in that area will be controlled by you and turn blue, and they will circle/orbit around you till you let go of the button. This means you can either:
1) run around with many orbiting missiles and hope to hit something, or
2) time the orbiting missile to fire in a desired direction
Obviously 2) will be harder to do but will be more efficient. I found this out by coincidence, but if you stand ANYWHERE in the map and control any incoming missiles for 1~2seconds then let go, the missile will always fly back towards the direction it came from, hence killing the turret that fired it. It has to do with the orbiting motion. As all missiles are fired at the ship, if you control it while it passes near you, it will move forward till it hits the circumference of the circle of control before turning 180degrees backwards. That's when you let go of your button.
Deflecting would mean using "Boost" of your ship to ram into missiles either from the side or head-front, causing them to become your missiles and flying in whichever direction you ram them into. This is particularly useful if you want to immediately kill the turret without waiting for the missile to orbit and fire back. "Boost" can be adjusted by pressing ESC during gameplay. The higher the value, the faster you have to twitch your mouse to cause a deflection. The lower the easier, but you may end up boosting and overshooting your intended destination while moving around normally.
Whether you would prefer which style of attack is up to you. It all boils down to style and preference =)
Screenshots:
All the Red missiles will soon turn Blue. Muahahaha.
SozoS's Ratings:
Graphics: 7/10 [Simple yet elegant]
Sound Effects: 0/10 [No sound! LOL]
Gameplay: 6/10 [May be a little irritating at the start, but once you get the hang of it, should be fine]
Replayability: 4/10 [Gets boring after a while]
Overall Rating: 4.5/10
Related Websites:
Download Link:
http://files.filefront.com/RayHound+v080+20060814/;6352136;/fileinfo.html
------------------------------------
Debrysis (by OUEO)
Debrysis is a classic shooter-survival game. Basically you run around in 5 different maps (Saucer, Plate, Oppression, Column Hall, Accident). Saucer is simply a small circle without any obstacles, Plate is a larger version of Saucer, while the other 3 have obstacles around the map to make things more exciting. You control a car starting with 5 hp (boxes above your car). With every hp, you have a "shield block". This means you can effectively be hit 10 times before you die, which is good. Haha. Oh, by the way, when you hit certain scores, your car will "level up" and become bigger so it is easier to get hit. But don't worry, I didn't call it "level up" without a reason. Your hp goes back to full - 5 hp! The perfect solution needed to survive if you can't get your Medkit/Shield/Saw in time - provided you have luck that is. Haha.
Of course, what is a shooter game without power-ups? Let's see what we have:
Car aids:
- MedKit (gives 1 or 2 hp. Quite random. Only pops up when you're at 2hp or less)
- Shield (provides immunity for a while)
- Saw (coats your car with saw! take this opportunity to saw them your enemies)
"God" Acts (so called because if its devastating powers without the player shooting):
- Meteor (calls down a meteor to utterly kill anything in that area)
- Devastation (calls in rockets from the perimeters of the map to fly towards the center then fly back out. Explodes on any impact with the enemies on the way)
Neutrals:
- Jam (turns enemies smaller. Easier for you to dodge but harder for you to shoot them)
- Stop! (enters Matrix mode.. oooooh.. Slows down EVERYTHING but the motion of your car. Provides you chance to escape tight holes and perform tricks. However slows down your weapon attacks as well!)
- Power up (makes all your weapons stronger, turns devastation rockets into fire rockets!)
- Scores x2 (doesnt literally x2, just gives you more score when you kill with this activated, ie your car has a greenish aura)
Weapons:
- Machine gun (you start with this)
- Minigun (a much much MUCH faster version of machine gun. As Fawwaz says it "Omg Minigun is orgasmic!")
- Shotgun (shoots 3 machine gun bullets but slower rate of fire)
- Plasma gun (shoots one glob of green thing. Shoots through initial target and hit anything behind it.. but its damage is especially weak.. But highly recommended in maps with many obstacles since its the only kind of attack that can shoot through obstacles, hitting enemies behind)
- Plasma rifle (shoots 3 globs but slower rate of fire, a shotgun version for plasma gun)
- Flamethrower (Short range, burns anything in its range though)
- Igniter (Stronger version of Flamethrower, much longer range as well)
- Rocket Launcher (I find this weapon very tactical. you have to time your attacks as the rate of fire is a joke. yet the explosive firepower of this is no joke.)
- Berserk Rockets (Shoots out 6 rockets from your car, direction is fixed and uncontrollable unless you turn the car. Very strong yet risky as enemies may hit you by moving through the paths without the rockets. Also explosions from the rockets make it harder for you to control movement of the car)
- Sniper Rifle (Instant kills anything in a straight line. Perfect for kill a long chain of enemies if their heads are facing you. However, rather slow rate of fire, same as Rocket Launcher)
- Neonation (A super improved version of Plasma Gun. Shoots through initial targets to hit the ones behind as well. But this time with added lots of added damage.)
- ??? (Perhaps there are stronger weapons which have yet to be unlocked.. Hm)
Enemies
The enemies in the game looks like bacteria or germs.. Heh. They're basically cells/snakes of different colours, each with their own characteristics. They will all aim to hit your car to kill you.
Red with black core: Moves at a decent speed, easy to kill. Continues to follow you even if you hit it.
Green: Moves fast, homes you. Turns away whenever it gets hit on its head ONCE.
Blue: Moves like a joker. Slow like mad. But relatively more hp, hence perfect for trapping you since its usually long and slow-moving
Red with white stripes: Moves at an extremely fast speed and ricochet off walls. Usually comes in large groups. Dies off after moving for a while.
Yellow with black core: By far the hardest to kill. Highest amount of hp and movement is comparable to Green enemies. Yet they continue to come after you even if you shoot their head. Only way to kill it efficiently is to aim a sniper rifle at its head and shoot through its body in a straight line.
Edit: I just tested Neonation. Its quite effective for killing the yellow enemy as well. Especially the stage where many of them appear. By that time it'll be hard to aim for the head using Sniper Rifle and it would be much easier to just run around and survive while spraying Neonation to hit through everything.
Tactics
Obviously you should strive to pick up as much Car Aids/"God" Acts/Neutrals to aid you. Also, pick up only weapons you like or prefer as whatever new weapons you pick up will overwrite the previous ones. Personally I would recommend Minigun/Igniter for early levels on maps without obstacles (Saucer and Plate), while Plasma Gun/Rifle on maps with obstacles. Later on, its up to playing style to pick either Rocket Launcher, Berserk Rockets,Sniper Rifle or Neonation.
Rocket Launcher players will tend to run around a lot and time their rockets to do maximum damage.
Players that don't like to shoot but want to focus on driving would turn to Berserk Rocket as it frees up their shooting concentration for better dodging.
Sniper Rifle users on the other hand, always drive up to strategic locations and finding ways to make the enemies travel in a straight line towards the car, then fire a shot at it, instantly killing it. Their favourite powerup would be "Stop!" as it gives them all the liberty to maneuver to desired locations and pick off the enemies before they can move. Hehe.
Neonation users bank on the fact that it shoots through all targets. Hence in a situation where the map is completely filled with enemies. Every shot will hit several enemies at the same time, causing massive overall damage output.
Other tactics would include splitting the job between 2 people. 1 shoot and 1 drive. Just like classic action movies eh? ("___, you shoot and I'll drive!"). Marginally improves the score and greatly improves the element of fun in playing this game. Ryan and me first proved that it works well when we broke the high score for playing solo by more than twice as much =D (But the person got pissed and spammed the game till he got higher -.-)
Screenshots:
The igniter engulfing the enemies while the devastation missiles fly by in "Stop!" slow motion mode.
A Meteor hitting the whole bunch of enemies, instantly annihilating them. Ouch for them. Hehe.
SozoS's Ratings:
Graphics: 8/10 [Smooth graphics, nice looking as well]
Sound Effects: 5/10 [Nothing spectacular]
Gameplay: 9/10 [The blood-pumping action will never fail to occur once you press start]
Replayability: 7/10 [Excellent replayability. Even on one map, the game will always be different every round. Let alone having 5 maps. Having friends competing with you for high scores or having a companion to play it with you makes it much less boring as well =)]
Overall Rating: 7.5/10
Related Websites:
Download link: http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2008/05/
------------------------------------
Wooo. Finally done. Time check: 2hrs. WTF?! Omg. I must have spent too much time trying to take manual screenshots for Debrysis.. zzz
1 comment:
Wow, thanks for so pleasure Debrysis review) Great screenshoots, can I take them for site?
Post a Comment