Tuesday, March 25, 2014

What is This: Shatter

After confronting some unfortunately-named in-game powers, Jorge and Scott discuss evolutionary path of classic arcade games.

2 comments:

  1. Yet another game I enjoyed for a few hours, despised by Jorge! Uncanny.

    One thing you must keep in mind about Shatter is that it is a score attack game; I played it (and enjoyed it) until I beat all my close Steam friends on the Story levels and called it done. What makes it approachable as a score attack game is that you can adjust your difficulty through two mechanisms; first, by releasing more balls, you have a more difficult time not losing lives for the chance to get a higher score.

    Second, you can keep the ball far away from your paddle and into blocks pretty easily by blowing, but doing so means that you're also blowing away the shards; sucking lets you collect shards at the risk of making your ball come at you much more quickly, not to mention the truant blocks that can knock out your paddle. Being able to adjust your difficulty on-the-fly lets you play casually if you have fond memories of Breakout and want to stoke your nostalgia, or on the edge of a knife to try to set a new high score for yourself.

    I remember Shatter mostly as a mediocre game with an amazing soundtrack. It was worth picking up in the Humble Bundle just for the standalone soundtrack. Another game that holds the same spot in my mind is Dustforce which, unfortunately for Jorge, sits unplayed in Scott's account and is due for its own "What is this?". I'd say more, but I don't want to spoil it for you!

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  2. I'm just glad that our videos are revealing Jorge as the curmudgeon he truly is. The push/pull mechanic is pretty interesting.

    Dustforce, you say? Sounds like a great video... :)

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