i was gone for a while not due to any like good reason i was gifted civ 5 and all dlc by a very generous
gytyyhgfffff and played that with a few dudes for like 50 hours in one week until everyone got bored due to losing to me because im the best. now im back baby partly due to guilt of being actually gifted things and then not reviewing them im sorry. heres out there somewhere. also ill play civ with people if you want.
out there somewhere
out there somewhere is a platformer puzzle game with a background horizontal sidescrolling shootemup thing that doesnt really matter but has to be mentioned due to being the ultimate goal of the game or something but its pretty trivial. like look at the screenshot and tell me what part of that screams anything shootemup. shootemup is a pretty dumb genre name to type out by the way it feels so wrong on keyboard. the game plays sort of like portal in that you have to solve a bunch of puzzles with a gun thing that teleports you to wherever the bullet lands and carries momentum and stuff. its really an alright game except its basically a flash game i could find on kongregate in 5 minutes and play for free instead of paying $2 full price on steam for an hour of gameplay. i feel like i should add some sort of indicator not to buy it unless its on sale but i guess you can return it for full price if you really want to. i should test if i can return gifted products for free cash.
as stated the way you progress through land of conspicuously placed walls and puzzles is via a teleport gun after you get your ship wrecked like a dumbass and land in some backwater jungle. so you go around collecting macguffin tubes that repair and power your ship so you can get back to the space shooter thing previously mentioned to kill the bad guy while also not dying of jungle things and traps placed by an eggman looking fellow who apparently is the evil ruler of this plot of jungle/planet. this is like genesis sonic eggman so he doesnt have any personality beyond being fat and riding a circular floating robot thing for the games only boss battle. anyway yeah you go forget around progressing and the game does progression by continuously adding new puzzle things that you have to avoid or kill instead of doing metroidvania powerups barring one time where you get a traditional bullet shooting gun. the puzzle progressions are pretty good and it introduces enough puzzle elements in its one hour run time to keep things constantly fresh although at the cost of not really exploring any of them. the game is pretty easy as checkpoints near any dangerous string of puzzles and instant respawning combine with the pretty basic puzzles means i pretty easily flowed through the game. dont get me wrong though flowing through the game isnt bad its just like only mildly interesting. like the game functions like a flash game in that the bare requirements for enjoyment tip precariously over the pit of boredom but never quite fall into it. none of the introduced puzzle elements are shown to be deep or require any sort of critical thinking further than stuff if i shoot enough telebullets at it ill get it eventually. the game just sort of happens. nothing is frustrating or interesting. if i was a richardhead id say it is an intentional statement and say the game is a masterpiece.
as for the vertical sidescrolly shootyuppy thingy that i feel like i have to mention because that is what you are working to get back to its passable. like for a central element of the game it just flows like the rest of it. it just sort of happens and then its done and the combined segments are around 4 mins total of the hour of this game so whatever man. its the end goal but i dont think i really cared since it carries the difficulty over from the puzzles. im really only mentioning it because its the beginning and ending of the story like no one cares. not even the devs care because he knows no one cares. this would be a boring minigame in other better games. do people even do minigames anymore. i mean like other than warioware esque titles i know about those. this is really only its own paragraph because the other one was getting huge and i was having a formatting crCIA.
the story and writing is similarly straightforward and vaguely compelling except its the story and writing in a game that uses it solely so you have some context for whats happening. no one really cares and the game acknowledges this by making it mostly humor although the jokes are like the rest of the game in that they exist. the story is you are space cop and have to stop anyone who violates the law and so you go out and do and get shot out of space because you suck sending you onto a planet which begins your journey. thats about as deep as it gets people. its not like any of this impacts the game in a significant way.
theres two sort of areas for the graphics and those are cutscene graphics and ingame graphics. ingame graphics are what you see in the picture im showing here and its pretty generic pixel art that isnt spectacular but isnt stuff just like the rest of the game again wow what a surprise. cutscene graphics are anime as forget and are alright but get less screen time than the spaceship minigame thing. like i dont even care. its graphics as long as it isnt super stuff or super good does anything matter. i mean obviously graphics matter they give the context needed but like okay. these exist.
music is generic chiptune. its all standard and not memoerable just like the rest of the game ddddddddurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
rrr there it is again folks. its not bad its not good it just exists like i dont even care anymore. same with sound effects like god damn. nothing is memorable. this entire game is basically a flash game that you pay for.
like the only reason i actually care about this game is that its $2 which is pretty ridiculous because free games have been better and it is actually an hour. like the game ends so abruptly that i thought there was some sort of additional ending or some stuff but there wasnt you seriously are just like done. like why. its not even bad but it isnt $2 quality. i dont understand. short review because short game that lacks depth.
essential games
bad tier
yume nikki
unessential games
good tier
profit motive
decent tier
chrono trigger
station 37
skelemania
the witch's house
out there somewhere warhammer 40k dark nexus arena
sluggish morss
space funeral
planetside 2
mimicry man
mediocre tier
ib
space funeral: the legend of earth birth
hylics
mogeko castle
extremely unessential games
boring tier
presentable liberty
imscared (a pixelated nightmare?)
spookys house of jump scares
lieat
ananke
super columbine massacre rpg
crypt worlds
ao oni
suits: a business rpg
inflation quest
stellar 2d
actually uses boredom as a game mechanic tier
middens
furry tier
major/minor
space funeral 4
hell
worse than Riddler tier
the gray garden
off tier
off
worse than off tier
wadanohara and the great blue sea