Game Reviews 42 RPGs 55 Arcade 34 Puzzle 18 Platform 10 Strategy Sections QB News Site Archives Game Guides Our Projects Entertainment Awards QB Links Interact QB Chatroom Mailing List Submissions Link to Us Job Openings (7/8/2002) Editor Vance Velez is pleading for someone to top the greatest QB platform game that isn't so great.
That leaves the Top Strategy games list and the Top Platform games list to soar to the same level as it's older siblings. The Strategy games list is one I'm not too concerned about, considering the fact that neither Arrakis or the recently released Kingdoms 2 haven't been reviewed yet. Both show promise. Nope, this editorial is about the Top Platform games list, and the game that (with a lot of luck) reigns as it's champion, our very own Raven: The Yoyo Commando. Ever since our first major game was released, we've been waiting for that fateful day when some QB coding group will make the great QB platform game that would dethrone our own. But after two years of waiting, several very good QB games fall just short of beating down Raven, often because every other platform game is missing a small but very critical element. FoX, the game from Terminator_Z and White Shadow, was an impressive catch but it didn't have enough original graphics or sound to enter it's own league. Around the World, the platform game from TMB Productions, had the originality but was just a little too buggy to make it. Spinball is a very entertaining platformer, but there aren't enough enemies. Promzone would have been more than enough to top Raven if it was more than a one-level game, and Sonic Xtreme (which won the QB Gaming Gold Award for best QB platform game) would easily topple Raven if the game changed from a Sonic-construction project to a full-fledged Sonic clone. The truth is, Raven: The Yoyo Commando is a not a great game. Raven suffers from numerous flaws, including tile-by-tile jumping and walking, over-tileish graphics sets, and a high challenge level that isn't completely compensated by it's gameplay. What Raven does manage to do is provide all the ingredients required of a good QB platform game, even if only in minute amounts. Raven features game bosses, different game elements, multiple levels, special items, several enemies, different weapons, original graphics and music, and game mechanics that at least make an effort to be different from it's inspiration. Picked apart, any one of these elements featured in Raven is done better by some other QB platform game reviewed by V Planet. But as is, we still haven't reviewed any other QB platform game that tries to deliver the entire package. Of course, there are a few QB platform games in our mail that we haven't reviewed yet. Na than Ash antti's Jill the Goddess and TMB's The Little Pixy 2 are among a few of the QB platform games we still have pending for review. But in an age where all the other genres are really starting to shine, Raven should not be representative of what the QB community is capable of when it comes to platformers. What we need is a QB platformer that transcends beyond the Mario/Sonic/Donkey Kong clone, and becomes an entity of it's own. Think about it: if a game could have the graphics quality and originality of PromZone, the length and depth of FoX, the enemy engine of Around the World, and the pace of Sonic XTreme, that wouldn't only have the potential to top this Platform game list. That game's character, whoever he, she, or it is, could become the Mario of QBasic. Bottom line: Raven's a good game, not a great game, and right now that's all you need to have the best QB platformer ever made. Vance Velez Editor, V Planet! QuickBasic Magazine |
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After
nearly three years of reviewing QB games, I'm happy to see that many of
V Planet's Top lists have games in the higher twenties and low thirties
at the very top of the list. The QBRPG list is fortunate enough to have
two great thirty-one RPGs in Ped Xing's Quest and The Dark Phear,
followed closely by Kids of Karendow. The Top Arcade list has it's
winner in Super Sumo Wrestling, while the Top Puzzle game list is
home to Wetspot 2 and the Super Stack line of games.