The moustachioed man has returned once again to grace the asphalt with his crew of dinosaurs and princesses, so I feel it’s only natural that this week we dedicate some time towards the brave explorers of a severely under-rated genre – the multiplayer driving combat ‘em up.

Mario Kart is all about high speed multiplayer carnage, be it local or online. Everything is to play for, and the games provide a great ‘proving ground’ for friends and foes alike to compete for that first place position. You can expect great local and online multiplayer gameplay with plenty of power-ups and whacky courses in these unsung titles.

Krautscape – PC

What it is – Krautscape takes the manic action of a multiplayer driving game and gives it wings. Each track is procedurally generated, meaning no two races will be the same. What’s more, players can simply take a leap of faith off of the track and soar across huge distances in an effort to steal first place.

Why you might like it – There’s a great opportunity for some fantastic victory stealing to happen in Krautscape. The ability to soar across the game world means that even when you’re leagues ahead of the competition, you can never be too sure if someone isn’t about to sneak in ahead of you. Because of the way the track is generated, there are times where even the person in first place doesn’t know where they are going as the track is only generated when someone passed through each checkpoint gate.

You can buy Krautscape on Steam Early Access, and follow development on the official site.

Bears Can’t Drift – OUYA

What it is – Bears Can’t Drift is appropriately named for what lies within. You play as a bear strapped to a go-kart, seemingly hellbent on defeating all of the other bears to the finish line of a race through the woods. Featuring 2-4 player local split-screen multiplayer, Bears Can’t Drift offers some enjoyable competitive party racing on the OUYA.

Why you might like it – You mean other than that there are bears racing each other in go-karts? Okay, how about using giant bazookas to fire fish at each other? The track is littered with pick-ups and speed boosts, giving you that Mario Kart vibe from start to finish. It’s worth noting that the current iteration of the game only supports either solo play – for those who just hate everyone around them – or local split-screen multiplayer with the possibility of AI in future versions.

You can download Bears Can’t Drift for the OUYA here, and keep tabs on development via the developer’s Twitter account here.

Silas – PC

What it is – Silas combines the manic fervor of kart racing with a hearty dose of FPS shooting and destructive power-ups. The game supports both online and LAN multiplayer, and also includes a sizable amount of single player content.

Why you might like it – If you’re in the market for a game that requires precision at the drop of a hat, Silas is definitely up your alley. Most of your arsenal has to be manually aimed, and when you’re traveling at breakneck speed that isn’t always as easy as you’d think. Combine that with flying cars and level specific hazards that can wipe you out without a moment’s notice and the end result is a great entry to the ‘multiplayer kart racing whilst shooting your friends’ genre.

You can pick up Silas on Desura here.

Skydrift – PC, XBLA, PSN

What it is – Skydrift is what happens when you combine airborne dog fighting with the desire to be in first place. Soar across canyons, glaciers, and volcanoes as you shoot down your friends and strive to be the top gun.

Why you might like it – Okay so it isn’t a kart racer, but I’d argue that it shares more with Mario Kart than you’d think. There are a dozen manic pick-up weapons, speed boosting rings, whacky levels to race across and a number of different planes to choose from. If you were a fan of Diddy Kong Racing, this will probably appeal to you more, but I’d urge you not to dismiss it just because your vehicle doesn’t have any wheels.

You can pick up Skydrift on Steam, Xbox Live Arcade (Xbox 360), and Playstation Network (PS3)

Distance – PC

What it is – Distance is a self-proclaimed “experimental survival racing” game, which will see you dodging hazards and rival players as your progress through the vibrant neon cityscape laid out before you. Utilize a futuristic car to navigate across the dangerous terrain with the ability to boost your speed, jump across gaps, rotate your vehicle at will, and glide across chasms as you race towards the finish line.

Why you might like it – Probably the most removed from the original Mario Kart concept, Distance takes a more serious stance on the racing genre. The graphics alone are enough to make you want to drool, with cascading bright neon lights strewn across the world like it was taken straight out of a Tron film. That doesn’t mean this is a no-nonsense racer though, as there’s enough whacky antics for you to crash into, including buzz-saws that can split your car into pieces. If you’re after something less cartoon-like but with the same level of frantic mayhem, Distance is one for you.

Distance is currently in beta and you can pre-purchase the game on the official site here.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Compromised by Super Soul certainly does not break any new ground in this territory, but fortunately it happens to be a pretty good, action-packed game that lasts a good four to five hours. So comparisons aside, the game delivers where it needs to.

For an indie game, there is a surprising amount of effort put into the story side of things, and full credit should be given to Super Soul for attempting something with a little more depth to it. While no means revolutionary (totalitarian leadership, viruses, war… the usual) it also helps break the flow between levels by giving short cut-scenes whilst unfolding more of the plot.

The controls are solid. The left stick moves the ship while the right stick shoots in whichever direction you push it. But the big issue is that you have bombs and missiles at your disposal using the top left and right triggers, but the missiles don’t fire in the direction of the right stick – which would be beneficial. Instead, they fire in the direction of the left stick, which is a pain as the best plan of attack is backtracking while firing behind, so to use the missiles means changing direction and then firing head on. This small detail almost ruins the game as using missiles simply isn’t worth it, as you will end up taking a hit anyway. This is also plays into the enemy’s AI, which from the get-go feels like they were programmed to follow you, from however far away. So the most sensible approach to attacking is the aforementioned backtracking method. While the standard enemies of the game are nothing more than cannon fodder, the boss battles are epic affairs, and the simplistic AI works well during the more intense moments of those fights.

The overall presentation is very well done and with the abundance of twin-stick shooters that drip with neon-glowing lights over the last five years or so, Compromised ironically stands out for going with the more traditional futuristic, war-torn setting. And the soundtrack is a sublime piece of work that would not sound of place on Half-Life – it is that good.

For what is an ambitious indie XBLA game, Compromised does a great job, and demonstrates just what can be achieved on this platform. It’s far from the best game of this genre, but hopefully Compromised can establish Super Soul is capable of bigger things.

Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

This game was reviewed using a copy provided by the developer for that purpose. 

P.S There are two free DLC packs in the works that will include “Survival” and “Hoard” modes.

© 2012 – 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

At first glance, Shuggy doesn’t really look like a vampire. So why, in this ridiculous premise, has our main character recently inherited a mansion haunted by ghosts, ghouls and other undead? Apparently in The Adventures of Shuggy, touching any undead or any other assortment of critter will get Shuggy killed. Why would a vampire be killed by anything other than sunlight or fire, or the stuff you see on TV shows? Most puzzle platformers don’t even have a storyline — let alone a ridiculous one — and I’m not here to analyse vampires, so let’s move on.

InThe Adventures of Shuggy, players are supposed to collect the gems that are spread throughout the level while avoiding the nasties I mentioned earlier. Gathering up all the gems unlocks new levels, and there are five different areas in the mansion each containing about 20-plus levels.

The Adventures of Shuggy incorporates numerous platforming mechanics, some new and some familiar, but ultimately still keeps things fresh. Mechanisms inspired by other games include the different gravity pulls of VVVVVV to the making use of past-selves of Braid. Players can rotate stages, get help from Shuggy’s buddies, or swing their way around using ropes. My favourite element has to be the whimsical little creatures called Shmus, which normally just aimlessly roll around making cute little noises. You have to guide them to cages containing gems, which only the Shmus can release for you to collect.

Despite the many different puzzle and platforming elements, the game never tries to mix and match them into a single level. This is a pity, and not enough of a challenge for hardcore gamers. While I appreciate that  Smudged Cat Games tries to keep things simple, there are some repeated stages where that only add on to the difficulty from similar levels. There’s a missed opportunity where the game could teach players how to progress by having the first few levels with only one puzzle, and subsequent ones with a multiple puzzles. While some might call this holding the players’ hand, I believe there’s also a certain kind of satisfaction in successfully recreating lessons acquired beforehand.

Having more than 100 levels seems like a lot. Even though most of them still feel crisp, I know I’d prefer playing 50 levels with two or three mechanisms in them rather than having 100 levels each with only one. It just feels like the quantity has been artificially inflated.

Graphically, The Adventures of Shuggy looks like a typical Adobe Flash game, but with an added touch of cartoon vibrancy. Some of the special visual effects seem to slow the game down and you could do without them without  making much of a difference. The idle animation of Shuggy inviting players to interact adds a little charm, but overall I’d like to see Shuggy looking more like a vampire. At the moment, Shuggy looks kind of more like a dirty blue-buggy-eyed purple plastic bag with fangs.

The controls of the game are simple enough. Players use WASD for movement, the space bar for jump, and Enter for the action button. Before every level, there are one or two pop-ups that tell you what the action button is for. Tips and other information are also displayed within the interface. Controls can be a little trippy as movement along stairs feels more like you’re sliding up and down. It can also be hard to control the distance of your jump which can be crucial in a platformer.

The PC version of the game has a few modes not present in the XBLA version. The local co-op mode still remains and provides 36 extra cooperative stages. The simple controls and one dimensional levels are a good and a bad thing. Maybe it’s just me, but after playing Braid I now expect every puzzle platformer to be mind-bendingly difficult. I suspect more hardcore gamers will agree with me, while more casual players will be more appreciative of the simplistic and elegant puzzles of The Adventures of Shuggy.

Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

This game was reviewed using a copy provided by the developer for that purpose

© 2012 – 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Now I know how school teachers feel. Not because teachers routinely set up chaingun turrets to contain the influx of shambling students (though I’m pretty sure it crossed my metalwork teacher’s mind from time to time) but because it’s very frustrating to watch someone, or something, with real ability fall on its face because it’s too lazy to try.

Zombie Crossing (formally uncapitalised as zombie crossing – not a good start with a pedant like me) is a tower defence game that benefits from some nice ideas but also suffers badly from some awful design choices and an evident lack of any sort of playtesting.

There are far too many zombie-based games on Xbox Live’s indie channel, but this one actually makes good use of the theme. A zombie apocalypse is a logical basis for a tower defence game, involving as it does hordes of mindless enemies advancing stoically against a beleagued defensive line. The presentation is pretty good, particularly for an Xbox indie. It’s not uncommon for games on this service to look like they were drawn in Microsoft Paint, but this one, while not XBLA standard, has real game-like visuals with character models and convincing environments, plus a couple of nice touches like the blood trail that denotes the horde’s route in the first couple of levels.

Upon first playing Zombie Crossing, my impression of it wasn’t great. Its control scheme is an immediate problem. On top of the awkwardness of navigating the in-game menus using the triggers and D-pad, the left stick control is too responsive for the small size of the spots where you can place turrets, meaning that you often twitch back and forth for several seconds trying to get the cursor in the right place. This is inconvenient enough even pre-attack, but reaches a new infuriating low when you’re trying to add new defences in the middle of battle. The issue finally passes through rock bottom and splashes into the sewer when you try to upgrade a turret; the ‘upgrade’ button is so narrow that its almost impossible to hit. I have yet to successfully upgrade even one turret thanks to this miserable design oversight. Having someone playtest the game for more than five minutes would have revealed this problem, but I assume that never happened.

The turrets also don’t face the way you tell them to. You can rotate each one to aim in a particular direction, but more often than not they will ignore your instruction. It doesn’t sound like a serious problem, but turrets take so long to rotate and open fire that you can end up with legions of them never opening fire because they can’t rotate in time.

This lack of playtesting is evident throughout Zombie Crossing, and the problems I’ve detailed above turn out to be the least of them.

The idea behind Zombie Crossing is a pretty good one. You aren’t just defending against a certain number of waves; you’re trying to amass enough money to purchase a nuclear strike, which will bring a final end to that level and move you on to a new map where you start the process over. Advancing from level to level unlocks extra options in the research menu, enabling you to buy barricades, slowing effects and the like.

As I persisted with Zombie Crossing I began to forgive it for its flawed controls. The research side of things is barely explained, but I soon worked out how it works. The objective is also not explained – the game tells you that you should try to buy a nuke, but makes it sound like a friendly suggestion rather than the aim of the whole game. It took me probably 30-40 minutes to realize that nuclear bombardment is how you progress to the next level. I’d been starting to think the game had only one level! This is a problem, but not a crippling one. Besides, maybe I’m just dense.

The first and cheapest upgrade you can buy is the sniper rifle, which gives you a first-person view from a rooftop, from which vantage you can pop high velocity rounds into the shuffling undead. A nice touch, I thought. Sniping one zombie at a time seemed like it probably wouldn’t be much use in the grand scheme, but it would give me something to occupy myself with while the turrets were doing the serious clean-up.

In the event, that’s not quite how it worked out. This is where the problems begin in earnest.

The sniper rifle is traditionally a precise instrument that fires single bullets into carefully chosen targets. Zombie Crossing‘s sniper rifle is more like a rocket launcher. As long as your bullet hits a zombie, there will be an explosion that rips apart any others standing nearby. Plus it’s a one hit kill across its whole area of effect. The game soon ceases to be a tower defence at all, and instead becomes a case of just bombing crowds of zombies with your ‘sniper’ rifle as they bottleneck at their spawn point, and positioning a couple of towers close by to mop up the handful that get through. Even the larger, tougher boss zombie that appears at the end of each wave keels over much more quickly by thumping a few sniper shots into it than by shredding it with a dozen turrets. So the control problems become irrelevant, as do the upgrades, most of the research and the towers themselves. You start the game with a few hundred dollars; the sniper rifle costs you $100 to buy, and $1 to activate.

This problem becomes less pronounced as you gain extra turret types a few levels in, and the tower-based strategy becomes actually practical. But for the first few levels (which could be either a brief period or quite a long time, depending on how you choose to spend your resources) Zombie Crossing is barely even a game. It’s more ‘click on a few points in one area’. You know what else does that? Your desktop. Desktops aren’t known for being the height of entertainment.

That’s not all. The sniper rifle issue is idiocy of design, but perhaps not the most glaring example of zero playtesting. When you unlock the barbed wire barricade on level 2, you must never use it. It crashes the game. Not once, not twice, but 100% every single time I use it, without fail. You can, with some difficulty, play the rest of the game without using the barricade – it isn’t completely essential – but that isn’t the point. The point is the game is fundamentally broken, and clearly even the developers themselves never actually played it or they would have noticed this.

Again, a total and sickening lack of playtesting before release. Or if it was playtested, it by someone who was out of the room at the time. Maybe in another town entirely.

There are some other problems that could easily have been picked up on too, but they’re small potatoes compared to the game-crushingly huge ones. I’ll give one prominent example though.

If you pause while sniping, the crosshairs disappear and you get just a pointer instead. And you will do this a lot thanks to the need for coins. Zombies often drop gold coins that you can only pick up by pressing the Back button, yet that same button also brings up the pause menu. Every time you try to collect currency the game pauses, which would be bad enough by itself but also immediately draws attention to the vanishing crosshairs. How did anyone think this was a good idea, and why did no one who playtested it say “hey guys, this is really really annoying”? Oh wait, I can guess…

It’s moronic to a degree that left me breathless with horror and despair. In any other game, this oversight alone would be enough to turn a recommendation into a warning. Here, it’s not even the worst offender.

It’s a terrible shame. The game looks and sounds good, its atmosphere works, the research idea could have been fun, and it seems to be a decent length (though the levels start repeating after an hour or so). The sniper feature is a nice addition in principle, and even with some flaws the game could have been worth a recommendation. I really tried to enjoy it, and at the times when the menagerie of glitches, bugs and design ineptitude weren’t leaping out to punch my enjoyment in the face, it was pretty fun. I don’t want to emphatically tell you not to buy it. If you’re forewarned, you might have fun with it.

But at the same time, I can’t recommend it, particularly as the Xbox indie scene doesn’t lack good tower defence games. As a retail product, this is unsuitable to be on sale. It’s a first draft. I read, check and edit my reviews repeatedly before they reach the public eye, but Zombie Crossing doesn’t extend the same courtesy. I even tried to contact the developers to give them a chance to patch it before I stuck the boot in, but I couldn’t find any contact details or even a Facebook page. Always be reachable, developers.

Zombie Crossing could have done well for itself if it had been released in a finished and tested state, but as teachers often say, “must try harder”. Or as my metalwork teacher always said, “I am a violent man!” After a missed opportunity like this, he should be.

Overall Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

© 2012 – 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.