Review: Night Of 10,000 Bullets

[Uncommon]

I have a confession to make. As a person who reviews games and sometimes makes games, this is a pretty significant confession, the kind that'll put my credibility at stake, but I can't even begin to start talking about this game without certain facts becoming clear. See, I'm not very good at playing games. It's just a skill I've never had. It's probably the same lack of hand-eye coordination that's kept me from learning any musical instruments. I'm the guy the most Easy difficulties were made for.

I'm telling you this because, though I'm reviewing this game, I definitely have not beaten it. I get killed on the third level every time. That third guy just always slips past just before I can kill him. This is really a shame because I can clear the first two levels just fine, and there's apparently only two levels after that I just haven't gotten to. I blame laptop mice. I could probably make this happen on a real mouse.

Either way, let's approach this game the way I approach most games I'm bad at. Let's talk about this game as an idea. The graphics, the humor, the way it plays, these are foregone conclusions. Kenneth Zheng has come a long way since <a href="http://www.castleparadox.com/review-dis ... review=195" target="blank"><i>Exposing The Unknown</i></a>, as well he most should after doing a thing like this for four years.

But it's the idea of this game that makes it special. This is a mouse-controlled shooter. OHR has had mouse support for over three years now, and the only games I can think of that have actually used it are </i>Ziggurats For Red Turtle</i> and <i>Missing</i>, so seeing new things done with the engine, and done rather smoothly are always exciting. The fact that the game is reminiscent of RMSephy's old throw-a-contest-game-together-in-no-time-at-all-with-pretty-much-conceptual-gameplay is just an added bonus, and a little crazy considering the only difference in the two creators' last names is a vowel.

I've always been fond of concept games, the kind that don't take themselves too seriously and recognize the OHR as more of a stepping stone or hobby than an opportunity to make that damn generic RPG epic that everybody's always wanted to make at some point in their lives, so I will definitely welcome the opportunity to kill a few minutes shooting at some pumpkins while some techno stuff oontses on in the background.

There are things to address, of course. No game is perfect, especially one made in such a small amount of time. The curve shots are an interesting idea; I've never managed one, laptop mice are horrible for precision work, but I like the idea. The fact that they were a bug that became a feature gives some interesting backstory to the gameplay, but makes one wonder if they couldn't be done without, if Zheng could flex his plotscripting muscle and make a shooter engine that worked without it. I can't tell you why the dripping blood coming from the letters on the death screen extends beyond the letters themselves. And there's the ubiquitous complaint about going through the intro every time you get a game over, which at least was fun the first time you saw it. The game doesn't demand enough out of you to make any of these things huge impediments to enjoying it, they're just little annoyances that probably would've been avoided if he'd passed the file on to one or two other people before releasing it. I'm not even going to complain about the difficulty. I figure that's my fault.

So if I haven't completely ruined my credibility in your eyes, go give this game a try. It's more likely to give you back more enjoyment than it takes from your time, patience, or whatever. It's a pretty cool little thing, have fun with it.

note: While getting screenshots for this review, I accidentally beat the game by some total fluke where the pumpkins sometimes bounce off the bottom of the screen instead of dealing you damage. The boss' attacks do the same thing. A little gamebreaking, but I'll take it. I also accidentally made a bunch of curve shots. They're fun, but I'd imagine they're almost impoosible to pull off intentionally.