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Game of the Month: Numpty and the Alien Invaders
 Numpty and the Alien Invaders |
January 2012 Public Domain Game Reviews
Reviews by Christian Clarke
Nu
Similar to the Adventures of Norris this game is frustrating in that you can see a good game struggling to come out. The game is very professionally put together with good graphics and smooth scrolling. The problem with this game is that the difficulty level is ridiculously high from the first level.
The reason why the game is extremely difficult is due to two reasons. Firstly there are two ways your ship can die. You will die if you are shot by the enemy ships as you would expect but also you will die if you hit the background images of the large spaceship. This makes the game difficult because it reduces the amount of space you have to manoeuvre your ship in. Another frustration is the length of time of invincibility your ship has when you start again after a death. The length of time is very short and you will often die again as you fail to move quickly enough from the restart to prevent your ship from crashing into the background large ship which is extremely annoying. Overall, if you are a shoot em up expert you may enjoy this. If you are an average shoot em up gamer you may become frustrated by the difficulty level. It is a shame there is not an option to increase the number of lives or a more gentle difficulty curve. If there was a delay in the introduction of the enemies arriving from the bottom of the screen and a larger safe area to fly in at the start of the game then this game would have been a good shoot em up. The game can be downloaded from our new download page for game titles starting with N . Amigapd would like to thank s2325 for the youtube video. *** Review by Christian Clarke |
Adventures of Norris
This was one of the first shareware games I ever bought back in the 1990's and I still remember how disappointed I was by this game. The reason for my disappointment is that with a bit of extra work this game could have been quite good.
Starting with the positives, the graphics for the game are very good for a shareware game and if you were to see screen shots you could easily be fooled that this was budget release game. The first impressions created by the game upon booting it up would also maintain this impression with good atmospheric music. As soon as you start to play the game however you very quickly become disillusioned with the game. The reason for this is the poor player control when performing simple tasks such as climbing ropes prove extremely difficult. The other big problem with the game is the level design. The game is basically a memory test and you will have no option but to die countless times as you move into new areas for the first time. A simple option to look beyond the current screen as found in games like James Pond 2 would have solved this problem. Overall this game is so close to being a good Public Domain platformer and it is frustrating that a bit more time was not spent before it was released. More thorough play testing to remove the unfair death traps between screens would have helped make this a good platform game. Unfortunately instead, we are left with a frustrating platform game which you are unlikely to return to. The game can be downloaded from our new download page for game titles starting with N . ** Review by Christian Clarke |
Numpty and the Alien Invaders - GAME OF THE MONTH
This month has proved very difficult to find a game to receive the title of Game of the Month. Both Nu and the Adventures of Norris both flattered to deceive and ended up being quite a frustrating experience. This game was the last game I loaded up from my list of disk images beginning with N and I must confess that my expectations were quite low and I was expecting some sort of space invader clone. I was therefore very suprised to be greeted by a Jet Set Willy clone and quite a good one at that too.
Ok the graphics are not in the same league as the Adventures of Norris and yet for some reason this doesn't seem to matter. Perhaps it is because the simplistic graphics nicely complement the gameplay and successfully recreate that 8 bit feel of the Jet Set Willy game.
The gameplay is similar to the Adventures of Norris in that you have to move around screens collecting items whilst avoiding baddies and there is poor level design where you die repeatively when you first access new areas. Yet again for some reason this does not seem to be such a big issue for this game as it is for the adventures of Norris. The reason for this I guess is that Numpty and the Alien Invaders is not pretending to be anything other than a Jet Set Willy clone and it successfully replicates the 8 bit game, faults included. The Adventures of Norris however appears to be trying to compete with the commerical platforms such as the Adams Family and fails to match the standard of game play for those more modern 16 bit games.
Overall, quite a disappointing month and unfortunately there did not seem to be a forgotten gem lurking in the disk images beginning with the letter N. There were some interesting snake clone games which on reflection perhaps I should have included but appart from Nibbler SX these games were quite forgetable. If you have fond memories of the classic 8 bit platformers such as Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner you should enjoy this game.
The game can be downloaded from our new download page for game titles starting with N .
Ok the graphics are not in the same league as the Adventures of Norris and yet for some reason this doesn't seem to matter. Perhaps it is because the simplistic graphics nicely complement the gameplay and successfully recreate that 8 bit feel of the Jet Set Willy game.
The gameplay is similar to the Adventures of Norris in that you have to move around screens collecting items whilst avoiding baddies and there is poor level design where you die repeatively when you first access new areas. Yet again for some reason this does not seem to be such a big issue for this game as it is for the adventures of Norris. The reason for this I guess is that Numpty and the Alien Invaders is not pretending to be anything other than a Jet Set Willy clone and it successfully replicates the 8 bit game, faults included. The Adventures of Norris however appears to be trying to compete with the commerical platforms such as the Adams Family and fails to match the standard of game play for those more modern 16 bit games.
Overall, quite a disappointing month and unfortunately there did not seem to be a forgotten gem lurking in the disk images beginning with the letter N. There were some interesting snake clone games which on reflection perhaps I should have included but appart from Nibbler SX these games were quite forgetable. If you have fond memories of the classic 8 bit platformers such as Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner you should enjoy this game.
The game can be downloaded from our new download page for game titles starting with N .
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