The Cleaner: Review
Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 10:32 am
Introduction: This is a freeware one-man project, coded with the popular ”Game-maker”-engine under the pseduonym ”Bitpimp” (A know name on Yoyogames, which hosts this and several other Gamemaker-projects). It,s a platform-shooter which takes place in a galactic universe where technology exits alongside with magic. Your world is under attack by evil forces and as one of the ”cleaners” (A sort of elite-mage tasked with battling evil) you have to fly and blast your way through a myriad of both organic and mechanical foes with your magic repertoire and at the same time uppgrade your abilities. Yeah, the story is quite abstract and actually told almost entirely through cutscenes but i think this suited the game very well.
Gameplay: That,s right, unlike many other platformers, you can fly in this game, meaning you have complete freedom of movement. You can shoot in any direction you point the mouse at the same time as you steer with the cursorkeys. Brilliantly simplistic!
And shoot you get to do a lot, trust me on this! There will be many unique and deadly creatures and monsters out there intent on seeing your demise. At your disposal, you will have a total of 10 cool spells to choose from, that will drain mana when fired which will regenerate as time passes. Your spells can be uppgraded with essence points defeated enemies will leave behind. And here,s a twist, you can also downgrade your spells to free up points to raise other spells with. I really liked this little feature, it allows you ro experiment with spells and also adds a small strategic element. You also have four stats, mana, power, shield and speed, which must be uppgraded as well.
You also have a telekinesis-ability which allows you to grab and levitate around various objects which can be smacked into enemies. This ability will also be needed to solve many of the game,s small puzzles. There is also an added bonus of hunting for pieces of relics that, when completed, will give you special abilities. So much fun is cramed into this game i simply must give a top score!
Graphics: Very well-drawn and detailed. Animations are fluid and smooth with many nice visual effects, such as seeing the hero,s coat billow in the wind while you fly him around. Talk about cool!
Music: This game has one of the best soundtracks i have ever heard in a game! It,s rhytmic, and fastpaced, very suitable for a shooter and varies it,s tracks. The soundeffects are of equal quality, from the sound of the various spells being fired to the death-yells of the enemy-soldiers when you blast them away. Again, full score.
Difficulty and play-balance: This is a tough game, I would give it a difficulty rating of 4 out of 5. You have to battle many tough opponents and bosses and pull of some tricky manuvers. And since the game autosaves at various points you must be prepared to replay some levels many times. But most likely you will be having so much fun with this game that it won,t bother you at all when laser-beams fry you for the 15:th time.
Play-balance is also very good, the difficulty always raises slowly the longer you progress and the challenges are nicely varied, some levels focus more on exploration and finding the exit to the next level while in others you have to shoot a certain number of enemies to progress. Couldn,t have been better.
Overall: This is probably one of the best freeware action-games you will ever find, it could easily compete with commercial ones in terms of quality. Not only is it extremely fun and addicting, it,s also quite long and you can expect to spend at least a couple of weeks to finish this one. Try it, you won,t be disappointed.
Rating:
Download it here: http://www.yoyogames.com/games/show/26070
Gameplay: That,s right, unlike many other platformers, you can fly in this game, meaning you have complete freedom of movement. You can shoot in any direction you point the mouse at the same time as you steer with the cursorkeys. Brilliantly simplistic!
And shoot you get to do a lot, trust me on this! There will be many unique and deadly creatures and monsters out there intent on seeing your demise. At your disposal, you will have a total of 10 cool spells to choose from, that will drain mana when fired which will regenerate as time passes. Your spells can be uppgraded with essence points defeated enemies will leave behind. And here,s a twist, you can also downgrade your spells to free up points to raise other spells with. I really liked this little feature, it allows you ro experiment with spells and also adds a small strategic element. You also have four stats, mana, power, shield and speed, which must be uppgraded as well.
You also have a telekinesis-ability which allows you to grab and levitate around various objects which can be smacked into enemies. This ability will also be needed to solve many of the game,s small puzzles. There is also an added bonus of hunting for pieces of relics that, when completed, will give you special abilities. So much fun is cramed into this game i simply must give a top score!
Graphics: Very well-drawn and detailed. Animations are fluid and smooth with many nice visual effects, such as seeing the hero,s coat billow in the wind while you fly him around. Talk about cool!
Music: This game has one of the best soundtracks i have ever heard in a game! It,s rhytmic, and fastpaced, very suitable for a shooter and varies it,s tracks. The soundeffects are of equal quality, from the sound of the various spells being fired to the death-yells of the enemy-soldiers when you blast them away. Again, full score.
Difficulty and play-balance: This is a tough game, I would give it a difficulty rating of 4 out of 5. You have to battle many tough opponents and bosses and pull of some tricky manuvers. And since the game autosaves at various points you must be prepared to replay some levels many times. But most likely you will be having so much fun with this game that it won,t bother you at all when laser-beams fry you for the 15:th time.
Play-balance is also very good, the difficulty always raises slowly the longer you progress and the challenges are nicely varied, some levels focus more on exploration and finding the exit to the next level while in others you have to shoot a certain number of enemies to progress. Couldn,t have been better.
Overall: This is probably one of the best freeware action-games you will ever find, it could easily compete with commercial ones in terms of quality. Not only is it extremely fun and addicting, it,s also quite long and you can expect to spend at least a couple of weeks to finish this one. Try it, you won,t be disappointed.
Rating:
Download it here: http://www.yoyogames.com/games/show/26070