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Oozi Earth Adventure
Awesome Games Studio
brings us Oozi Earth Adventure, a platformer from the old school that
aims to tie together many tried-and-true game mechanics into one solid
game. The story is your typical fare for the genre – an alien delivery
boy crash lands on a strange new world and must find his missing gear
and ship to return home. Alright, so Oozi isn't the most original game
coming out this year. But what about the important part – is it any
fun?
In a word, yes. Oozi offers your standard story mode
in several flavors of difficulty, as well as a time-limited arcade mode
and a special challenge mode, featuring objective-based levels of
markedly higher difficulty. Our cheeky protagonist (is his name Oozi?
Honestly, I'm still not sure) starts off just a novice adventurer with
basic jumping skills, but as the game progresses more and more abilities
become unlocked, increasing the game's complexity. It's spread out
pretty well, with regular changes to the gameplay that keep things
interesting. Oozi is currently involved in Steam's Greenlight process,
which is a way of determining whether games will be made available on
the platform. If it does get through, the developer promises
achievements as well.
The graphics are nothing to sneeze at, either. The
world of Oozi is one of beautifully rendered 2D, and each new “world”
will give you plenty to appreciate. The controls, too are excellent. In
fact, this is probably one of the high points – platformers must have
tight controls, and Oozi gets the job done. While the controls aren't
configurable, preset mappings for a keyboard, mouse, or xbox controller
are offered. The music is nice as well, enhancing the mood without
becoming too repetitive. That alone is a nice bonus you don't usually
see in indie games.
Oozi Earth Adventure offers an addicting platformer
experience that hearkens back to the days when “scrolling parallax
backgrounds” were super hip and the entire summer's agenda was to set a
new high score. It's nice to be able to revisit that sort of experience
in high-definition 2D, and in my opinion, this is the kinda game that
everybody needs to play at least once in a while. Check it out at
http://awesomegamesstudio.com, and if you want to see this title on
steam, give it a vote on Steam Greenlight at
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92915519.
Gameplay – 8. Good classic mechanics, but nothing
new. There's a reason they're classic, though.
Graphics – 9. Beautiful 2D and sharp menus. I docked
a point for occasionally poor English.
Sound – 8. Moody music that fits the aesthetic.
Value – 9. What can I say? Oozi's worth the small
price tag.
Overall – 8.5 |
