Game Review 3

I never realized how many new games were released on a daily basis. Obviously there are the “big” games for XBOX, PS3, Wii, and etc. kind of games; but there are dozens of new flash games released each day. There is such a huge demand for these games and gamers look forward to playing these on a daily basis. After looking around and doing some research for new games this week I have found there is quite a wide range of flash games. There are many based on the “big” games; only more condensed, with less detailed graphics. There are some games that take a few minutes to play and others that you can sit in front of the computer and play all day. Then there are games that are brand new, but based off versions of older games.
This week I reviewed the flash game called, Ocean Bubble. This game was nothing fancy but still quite challenging and a bit frustrating at times. What made this game fun was that it reminded me of playing Tetris. I used to LOVE playing that game on the computer! The idea and goals of this game was the same; with a few minor changes.
The game began with a blank fish tank. Once you began, 3 bubbles stuck together in the same triangle shape came down from the top of the tank every time. However, you didn’t know what colors were coming. The point of this game was to get 4 bubbles in a row to earn points, and once you made a connection of at least 4 bubbles it popped them and created more room for you to make more connections. On one side you are given a countdown of points you need to earn, as you pop bubbles and earn points the countdown obviously goes down. You know you will be moving to the next level as you get closer to 0. At the beginning of each level you move up the countdown gets bigger and bigger.
Another trait that changes as you get higher in the levels are the amount of different bubbles you are given. In level 1 you have 4 colors and by the time you finish all the levels you have 6 different colored bubbles. However, I never finished the final level because I couldn’t seem to pass level 6. The other part that made this game get more difficult was that as the game continued through the levels you began with more and more rows at the bottom of the tank. This seems like a factor that wouldn’t highly change the difficulty level of the game. However, it’s quite the opposites. By the time I got to level 6 there were 5 rows of bubbles already there at the bottom of the tank, making it nearly impossible to make it past this level. I played this game for almost 2 hours and became so frustrated trying to beat it.
Part of what bothered me about this game was the fast that you couldn’t begin again from the level you couldn’t beat. Every time I lost in level 6 I had to start back at level 1. I know this is the point of the game but being as though it was not a real intense game you’d think they’d have given you a few lives. Part of why I found this so annoying was because it took so long to get past all those levels to just lose, I’d have like to have been able to practice it a bit.
A really annoying part of this game was the fact that timing wise this game was quite delayed. To move the groups of bubbles down the screen you used the arrows to change positions, move it faster and from right to left. When you moved the arrows it took a while for the bubbles on the screen to move. Because you only had a small amount of time to move the groupings around it was difficult to always tell where it was going to land because of the delay. In some of these cases, I’d miss making a connection because it’d ending up flipping at the last minute.
Overall, I’d say this game was a pretty good one. I had a lot of fun playing it and it kept my attention for a couple hours and probably would have continued but I realized I needed to write my paper. I don’t think it’s anything I would buy, even it was offered in a longer version, but I’d say try it, as it’s just a fun simple game that keeps you busy and challenges your mind.