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Adventures of Pip – Full Playthrough
Just finished beating Adventures of Pip, by Tic Toc Games. The full release will be available in May for Xbox One, PS4, 360, PC, Mac and Wii U, but it got an early release on Steam. I’m not sure how completely done the game is though. At least I’m hoping what was released on Steam isn’t the finished product. It seems almost fully polished. It’s a solid platformer with excellent controls and all gameplay elements are there and I didn’t encounter any bugs, but it’s lacking some music. Worlds 2 and 3 use the same tracks and every stage in each world uses the same music throughout. Boss music is also sadly absent. There just wasn’t enough variety. Jake Kaufman is responsible for the soundtrack and I’ve never been disappointed by his work, so I’m hoping it all just hasn’t been added in yet.
Honestly, I’ve never been a big fan of pure platforming games. I’ll play them, but they tend to get too aggravating too fast or I simply lose interest because there’s generally no substance. Adventures of Pip provided just the right amount of difficulty (for me anyway) and had a few challenges but nothing that got too rage-quit inducing. For the less casual platform gamer, I can see this game getting picked up and blown through in a single sitting.
Overall I enjoyed the game, which for the designer of a platformer, is quite a challenge to get me to say. Below is the full playthrough done on Twitch, laid out stage by stage. We had some technical difficulties throughout. Audio levels especially in the first video. It’s mostly the commentary (which is asinine anyway) that has problems. Game audio is pretty much fine.
Metroid Cubed
No it has nothing to do with a Metroid themed Rubik’s Cube, though that would be cool too. This is about a game that’s been around for awhile that’s definitely worth a mention and shouldn’t be passed up. Metroid Cubed is a modded version of the original NES Metroid game. The creator, whose name is inconveniently never mentioned, took the 1986 classic and painstakingly took all the pixels and turned them into voxels. Basically a voxel is a 3d pixel and using his own voxel sculpting tool, he reformatted the game into a volumetric 3d environment. He explains it in greater detail on his own site. I’m impressed to say the least and I always appreciate to see someone’s work of passion come out so well.
Aside from the obvious graphical overhaul, there are a few slight changes. The first being a tweaking of the music. For the most part, the sound effects remain faithful to the original, but the soundtrack has been given a slight “earlift” (It can’t be a facelift. I mean, you can’t see sounds… Shut up, I made up the term and I can use it if I want). It’s been remixed in such a way that the music itself sounds like it has more volume; as if it too was given a 3rd dimension, not volume as in louder. The other change, a bit more major, is that the difficulty of the game has been radically altered. That is if you want to cheat. All the upgrades are available to you right from the onset. It’s optional if you want to turn them on or not, but seriously, who has the time or patience to go through all of Metroid again? You still have to find extra energy tanks, though you do start with two automatically.
Be sure to visit the site for Metroid Cubed.You can play the game there straight from the website or you can download it, both choices free. Most importantly be sure to share this link with others. Too many artists go unappreciated throughout their lives. That’s what supporting indie gaming is all about, making sure they don’t go unappreciated. But then again, Square Enix is very appreciated and look what happened to them. Maybe we should appreciate less…or knock off a few Final Fantasy fan boys… but I digress.
ANYWAY, http://pages.infinit.net/voxel/ incase you missed the link above.
Thanks for reading!
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