As stupid as many of us felt when we first strapped on Guitar Hero’s little-people-sized plastic guitars with big, color-coded buttons, it enabled us to start rocking out like lunatics. And nobody’s come up with a console rhythm action game since that didn’t use a plastic guitar and was still worth a damn. That’s not going to change with PopStar Guitar.
File this one under ‘needless’. It’s another WiiWare puzzler that, rather than ripping off one of the classics, chooses to bravely strike out on its own path. Potpourri, we commend thee. Unfortunately, we also scorn thee and would dearly love to kick thy face off and get our points back.
Have you ever seen the episode of The Simpsons in which the old folks’ home screens a special censored version of Gone with the Wind? “Frankly my dear, I love you,” says a dubbed Rhett Butler. Protothea is exactly the same thing: Geometry Wars re-edited to be of absolutely no threat to anyone.
It’s extremely difficult to craft a game that hits the “fun for everyone” mark without it also becoming a dumbed-down mess. Nintendo’s remarkably good at this though, from Mario to Wii Sports, as well as the original Punch-Out!! for NES. Even 20 years after its release, the first game remains a strong connection among gamers and non-gamers thanks to its pick-up-and-play appeal and freakish, goofy ass boxers
Perhaps more than any other genre, puzzle games can be made or broken by seemingly superficial details in presentation. Little things, like the satisfying shatter of gems in Puzzle Fighter or the painful-sounding zap of matching skulls in Puzzle Quest, can really take a puzzle game from pretty good to fiendishly addicting. Recently, Peggle is an extreme example of this; what makes Peggle fun is literally everything except the actual gameplay
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