Bad Rats Review

Bad Rats

Sewer Review

            Bad Rats is a puzzle game that released on steam; it has no story, and is not a game I would usually review.  In this case though, I was gifted the game and asked to review it.  I couldn't just say no - so here it is.

            This game is about a bunch of rats trying to kill a cat as the player helps guide the rats through the puzzle.  It seems as though the rats have a mind of their own, as they will often not do what the game told me they would do.  For example, one of the rats' job is to just move forward, although this is usually a problem as the smallest speck of dust will literally obliterate the rat.

            The first thing that I noticed about this game is that it is unpolished.  Bad Rats is not very well optimized and runs very poorly.  This is usually a problem for large scale games as they have a lot to load.  In Bad Rats, however, the screen is stationary and there are only five to ten objects on screen at any given time.  The writing must have gone unedited because throughout the game I noticed grammatical and spelling errors.  These oversights did not have a huge effect on the game, but these things build up.

            The tutorial was god-awful.  First of all, the voice over was horribly done and I could barely hear what he was saying (although I was able to read it).  I was walked through the first level and then left on my own to figure things out for myself.  Sometimes this can work - but in this case - I had no idea what was going on, even while playing the tutorial!

            In a game there are rules.  No matter what happens in a game these rules are what the player can always rely on.  Take for example the Dark Souls series, in which the player learns every single rule in the game during the tutorial, and then is left to fend for themselves. Throughout the entire game the rules are never broken.  In Bad Rats this is not the case.  The tutorial tries to lay out the rules, but they don’t always work.  For example, I set up a puzzle and just kept restarting the exact same setup until eventually the physics decided to work in my favor.  The player is given several objects to use to complete the level but most of those objects are ultimately useless because of the possibility of the game's physics breaking.

            Bad Rats is clearly unfinished as it doesn’t even have a roof to keep things from getting out of the puzzle.  In one case I lost the ball that is mandatory for killing the cat because it launched straight up and never came back down.  Not only this, but the graphics are insulting.  Graphics do not make a game, but as technology advances there become expectations.  A game that is released in 2014 should not look like a game that was released in 2010.  Bad Rats’ graphics just showcase how little time was put into this game.

            At times I feel like Bad Rats is trying to be funny, like the entire game is a joke.  It does have elements that could be funny if executed properly, but they aren’t.  A lot of the time they just become downright offensive to the player. There is such a thing as dark humour, and if executed properly is actually something I really enjoy.  Bad Rats, however, has absolutely no execution and actually just made me feel tired.

I’m ashamed to admit that this is the first game that I had to give up on.  With the physics being so unreliable, I could not justify sitting and playing it for any longer.  It would be more understandable if Bad Rats had been released for free.  Bad Rats wasn’t free though, and for that reason I feel like the developer was just trying to make a quick buck by pumping out a game as quick as possible.

1/10

Hey guys, sorry for the late review, and that there is no picture this time. School is fast approaching and with that my time is limited. I'm still going to try and keep to schedule, and keep drawing images, but i can't promise anything.

They may get shorter, although with a bunch of new releases coming up, i hope to get them all!
Yes, i will be reviewing Destiny. It should come out a week or two prior to the release!

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Valiant Hearts: The Great War

Valiant Hearts: The Great War

A Valiant Review

Disclaimer: I played this game on PC and other playthroughs may yield different results.

Valiant Hearts: The Great War follows four soldiers and a dog as they battle their way through the First World War. The stories of the four characters are intertwined and very frequently they find fate keeps bringing them back together. It starts with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and touches subjects like soldiers being drafted, and the invention of the tank, as well as the turning points of the war with battles such as Vimy Ridge.

The amount of respect that Ubisoft Montpellier shows for the people that actually fought in the war is honourable. There are so many historical facts in the game, not only through gameplay but also from a historical tab page in the menu. In this menu are short paragraphs about the battles you play, as well as other things such as soldiers moral during the battle and so on.

The art style of this game was very well chosen. It has a charming comic book aesthetic which is bleak yet comforting. The colour palette is very dull, with drained blues, greens, and browns yet very vibrant bright reds.

This game has a story that is very compelling. The characters are constantly being dealt a bad hand, yet keep managing to come out on top. The main theme of the story is finding hope where there is no hope to find. This comes through very well. Some moments can be dark, some happy and others gruesome but there is always that glimmer of hope, that spot of red in an otherwise dull and bleak background. A lot of this story is driven with very fitting music, whether it is a depressing song in a serious moment or an uplifting song during a fun moment. It all helps drive the emotions that the developers want from the player.

Although the story is very well written, and well executed I find that they pull a lot of punches. The story is about finding hope where there is none to find, but I felt that some of these moments could have felt a little more hopeless, or a little more realistic. For this game being set in one of the most horrific wars in humanity there weren’t many sections where I felt that the permanent death of my character was a serious possibility.

This is a puzzle game that feels like an action-adventure game. The fact that the developers managed to succeed in doing such a feat is amazing to say the least. Not only that, but they don’t get stuck in the trope of holding the players hand. The game demands that the players know their surroundings and doesn’t assume that the player is an idiot. Although they did add a hint feature so if you couldn’t understand a puzzle then you could get some help. Sometimes this is mandatory as some of the puzzles can be very cryptic (although I could just be an idiot). Though the difficulty is high on the puzzles, completing them without a hint feels extremely rewarding in its own right.

            Not everything is a puzzle though, and some moments are very streamline. These moments can be some of the best because the music is recognizable and uplifting while the gameplay is quite humorous as well. These parts, although a rarity, always managed to put a smile on my face and even make me laugh. Even some of the more depressing sections could be fun, like playing the battle of Vimy Ridge. For me as a Canadian that made me extremely happy to be a part of.

            At times the game can be extremely tense, and make me feel like I need to be faster because something is at risk. These moments, however, are usually ruined by taking the wrong turn and finding a dead end, or even from an overly difficult puzzle. This becomes increasingly apparent as the game begins to climax. There were also visual and technical glitches, although the technical ones are very rare, and the visual glitches never really ruined any moments for me.

            War affects so many people, both on the front line, and back at the homestead. This game really makes you appreciate what soldiers went through during not only the First World War, but every war before and after. Soldiers live a very different life from the average person. They all put their lives on the line for something bigger than them, bigger than everyone. They fight to give others a chance, to give us the freedom and liberty to make our own choices. It shows the struggle that these human beings endure to give us a better life. These people may be forsaken, but they will never be forgotten and games like Valiant Hearts: The Great War give them the respect they deserve while also sending a meaningful message to those that play it. That message is that there will always be hope, no matter how hopeless a situation is, there is always hope that things will get better.

8.3/10

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