Indie Reviews And Other Stuff

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Features I Love:
Addictive
Avatar Usage
Power-ups nice
Variety of Christmas Music
Snow Graphics
Simplicity
Split-Screen
Undesirables:
Avatar Movement Rigid
Lack of Cover

The Snow You Want to Eat
To me, it's surprising more people didn't do this.
Quite a fun minigame, I must say. Avatar Wave: Snowball Fight is the first in a series of Avatar games, and like many firsts in a series, it is smashing. Addictive and fun with friends, your Avatar is the star. In an unnamed village, you duke it out with the CPU, your friends, your enemies, and people on XBOX Live. Arcade mode takes a feeling of Super Smash Bro's Classic mode, going through one person, then two, etc. Versus mode allows you to take on the computer and other people around your house -split screen w00t!- in 1vs1, 2vs1, 2vs2, or 3vs1 (which is virtually impossible.) Power-ups are along the lines of better throwing power, gathering is faster, one snowball thrown turns into three in the air, etc. The health bar is a thermometer telling how your "body heat" is. You don't die, you just freeze when your heat is lost. To collect heat, get the coffee and pizza power-ups. The other food items just give points and bring up heat slower. The screensaver mode allows you to choose the camera angle of the village, the snow, the snow density, and what music is playing (my favorite is Techno Bells.) then enjoy. Secret mode is ervqwcvscvqw vqwefvsavqvw3v3qwvf, which I think is funny. The only complaints I have are the Avatar mechanics. The clothes go through each other at places, and the moving seems rigid (especially when he anatomically waves to the crowd). Also, you only have one map to duel on, which is just a snowfield split in two by a string of ornaments. So the enemy can hit you while you are collecting snow. Other than that, this is a


Concept: Snowball fight with our Avatars! Wow...... 8/10
Graphics: Avatars glitch a lot, but the snow and the village equals it out 8/10
Sound: Christimas classics play while you pelt Gamertag123 with a snowball 10/10
Playability: Easy controls and good visuals help this. 9/10
Entertainment: Honestly, who doesn't love pelting their friends with balls of snow? 10/10
Replay: Loses its luster if you play for 2 hours. A nice pick-up-and-play game 8/10
Overall: If you have 240 MS points lying around, here's a way to spend it. Very fun and addictive 8.83/10

*please note: i try to keep reviews non-bias and straight-foward. this is constructive criticism, so no crying.

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The video above is for Hotwave's new game. You can tell it is by them because of the sound effects. It looks fun, but it also looks like it lacks the content to be a full fledged game. More like a minigame to me. Honestly, the graphics look like the ones from a Kingdom of Keflings. It better not be 400 MS Points. Time will tell.

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I got to interview Hotwave Games, maker of Gamerbots. Yay.
...
Ok here it is.
1. What would you say is the best game Hotwave Has made?
2. Is it hard to be an independent developer? Does it pay well?
3. Do you see Hotwave Games going big places, or is it just for fun?
4. How did you meet your co-workers?
5. Are there future games you guys are going to work on? If so, what?

1. We love all the games we made. Gamerbots will be the best in graphics and game architecture, though we cannot put all our thoughts in it. It is the first game we made for such complexity and we have learned a lot from it.

2. The life of independent developer is full of sweets and bitters. We are free to manage our time and make a decision whenever we like. We have quit our day job and become indie developer for around 1 year, from last year’s Dream Build Play contest. We keep developing games for Xbox Live Indie Games and we don’t have pay until we got the first payment of Bowling X. We are still green as the system. Although the money we earned is less than those we got when we have a day job, the independent game development process give us a great sense of satisfaction, which is more important than money in our mind. We believe that the situation will be much better as we grow with the system.

3. Hotwave Games will keep experimenting different game ideas and genre. Currently we will keep developing Xbox Live Indie games.

4. We meet everyday in our SOHO! 2-person meeting is easy and we can meet anywhere and anytime we want.

5. We are working on a multiplayer game about snow. It is a small funny game for playing with friends. We will announce the details when it is in playtest. The release date is scheduled in December 2009.

My responses to it that they don't know about.
1. Cool. Gamerbots and Bowling X have similar interfaces.
2. Pretty hardcore. It reminds me of Bungie.
3. NO CHIZ!
4. Um...
5. I'LL be the judge of that.

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Features I Love:
Funny Music
Loads of Power-ups
Z0MB1ES!!!1

Undesirables:
Headache-Inducing Visuals

Geometry Wars... Sorta
I saw this game on the dashboard and was wondering what it was all about. The ratings were not that good. Honestly, though, the title is what seduced me. I mean, come on! I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 It's awesome! I downloaded the trial and was surprised at what I saw. I expected a normal zombie survival game, which would have not been worth a review. But after a few seconds of playing, the music kicked in. What followed was a series of lights and funny lyrics which made the experience enjoyable. The 4 player is nice, and controls are simple. The graphics are in no way Crysis-like, but they have a Castle Crashers, made-this-in-twenty-minutes-and-spent-two-hours-perfecting-it sort of feel. The laser light show almost made my character die, because it made me not see clearly. And I almost threw up. But without that, this game would be bleak. To sum it up, I almost cussed when the trial ended.
Concept: INTERACTIVEZOMBIEMUSICVIDEOzOMG!!! 9/10
Graphics: Honestly, it looks like da Vinci stuck a paintbrush in his mouth and doodled. Beautiful, in a crappy way 7/10
Sound: Guns sound great, music is funny. 10/10
Playability: Not a strong asset. The visuals made it difficult to see at times, but this is a feature, I guess. 7/10
Entertainment: Yes 10/10
Replay: 10/10
Overall: 2 options, get a life or buy this game. It will take up yours. 8.83/10
*please note: i try to keep my reviews as non-bias as possible. this is constructive criticism, so no crying.


*POST UPDATE*
As of now, November 28th, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 is the top-rated and 5th best selling Indie game. I am very pleased such a treasure is preserved as a highly recommended game.

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*note: this is for the updated version
Features I love:
New helmets
Multiplayer better
Co-Op
A.I. fixed
Melee
Shotguns
First-Person
New Limbs
Single Player more challenging
No more buying bullets

Undesirables:
Only 3 co-op missions
Defeats required to unlock helmets (mainly because few people play online deathmatch, but this isn't a major issue)
Respawn Points quite Linear
Shotgun fells too widespread

GIFT CODES, YOU SAY?
When I saw the Update Required screen, I was very surprised. No resources online told me of this. The Co-Op missions are a blast, but only 3 missions are available. This isn't a big issue, however, because these missions are fun to play again and again. The regular solo missions also surprised me. No more was my easy money, which I am relieved. It was boring winning all the time. New limbs and Helmets also join the party. And finally: NO MORE BUYING BULLETS! The first person mode surprised me. It was a lot better than I expected, besides the lag between firing and the gun actually moving. Shotguns are now one of my favorite weapons. I have beaten many a mission with my wit, speed, and my trusty lancer. Speaking of speed and wit, the sensitivity adjustment is a major improvement. Also, I like how you can run fast normally and faster with melee. The A.I. is a resounding YES! When I was playing mission 20, I could have sworn I have heard footsteps behind me. I turned around and saw 3 bots with Octopuses firing away! HOLY $#!%!!! In deathmatch, however, I was a little disappointed in one part of me and relieved in another. They went away with the points system that allowed 3 kills a game, and went for a timed game. This helped. Respawn points, however, are a disappointment. Your team respawns at the same place every time. My friends and I play by the honor system, so this is only a fear. But there are always jack@$$e$ online. Also, the shotgun feels too inaccurate.
And whats with gift codes? How do you use them? You go to Hotwave Game's website and check often. The gift codes they put up will unlock melee weapons.

Concept: Make Bot. Kill other bots. Repeat. 10/10
Graphics: It lags at places, but overall, they are very stylized. 8/10
Sound: The guns sound great, but the music is still, in my opinion, suckish. 6/10
Playability: A.I. makes for a challenge, Co-Op makes for a war, and deathmatch makes for a "WTF! I SHOT HIM!" 9/10
Entertainment: It's surprising there aren't more games like this out there. The battles are fun, the customization is fun, and the random name generator is funny (I killed George Lopez once lololololol!) 9/10
Replay: High 9/10
Overall: One of the best Indie Games out there. 8.5/10

*please note: i try to keep my reviews non-bias and uplifting. this is constructive criticism, so no crying.

*POST UPDATE*
As of now, November 28th, Gamerbots is the 96th most sold game out of 616. Ratings aren't as hot, though (3 1/4 stars)
I still like it, though.

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Hello. This is my review website. I will review different Indie games and other types of stuff. My first review, Gamerbots, is above. Or below. I don't know.