New visit to Paragon
Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2009 11:32 am
Nil Satis and I had another jaunt up to Games Warehouse HQ yesterday to have a look at some of their new product. Some details and thoughts on the games we saw are as follows:
A general theme on the new product is that GWHL seem to be going for the "next game bonus" idea in a big way - the idea being that the game hooks you in by offering you some sort of goodie next time round. Have to say I like this idea, and think it will probably become the norm - it's a good way to get Joe Public (or for that matter a high-level player) to have another go.
BATTLESHIPS - this is one of seemingly two or three versions of the old classic which are coming out at the moment (I played a different version on an Ind:e the other week). I'd have to say I didn't particularly warm to the GWHL variant. Graphically it has a rather grey, austere look redolent of a submarine or military vessel. The maingame is the standard Battleships set up - the grid is 10x10, and although there are no 1x1 ships, it still looks like it would take a while to clear (and did on the occasion I managed it). There's some nice little touches on the bonuses here which will amuse those who like fripperies. The big problem for me is the endgame, which essentially involves selecting squares in another 10x10 grid which either contain a low (e.g. 10p-40p) prize increment, a "bank prizes already won" token, or a "game over" taken which ends the game and loses all unbanked prizes. The player also has an option to exit the game at any point and collect whatever he's banked and won up to that point. The trouble is it takes an age to build up the sort of prize a decent player would think worth collecting (e.g., say, £4 or £5), by which time you'll have been gameovered. I suspect prizes of £2 or so will be the norm on this, so I see this as very much appealing to Joe Public rather than keener players. This uses a "next game bonus".
BY ANY MEANS - ggdr has described this fully at viewtopic.php?t=14232 so I won't reiterate the game idea. Putting aside the total bizarreness of a game based on such a low-profile show, this game does have a lovely look to it and I concur that Istenem's pans may be in danger. I'm not sure I'd go as far to say it's "rubbish" (I think on three goes on it I did manage to win a prize of £3 or something), but my fear is that it is very controlled in the manner of some recent GWHL titles such as Doctor Who (although see below) or MOTD, i.e. it will suddenly switch from nice questions to brutal ones at one point in the game. There is also the point that the miles concept ggdr describes offers another opportunity for the game to clam up - we feared a Zeno's paradox sort of situation where each time the game gives you half as many miles as you need to complete the round.
I think both the above titles are at some test sites at the moment, and should be coming out over the next couple of months more widely.
BLOCKBUSTER - this is a non-trivia Breakout clone. The player moves the paddle across the screen by using the touch screen, so it builds on from that path-tracing game which was used last time - both are clearly an attempt to widen the use of touch screen technology. I'm pretty hopeless at this sort of thing, so hardly played it, but I can imagine this could be popular if they've avoided the temptation to introduce blatant elements of unfairness to penalise good players (which I understand was a problem on the path-tracing game). Cash prizes of up to £10 I think.
MATCH OF THE DAY 2 - this is actually very different from MOTD 1 although shares exactly the same branding, graphics and music. It's not a quiz game at all, but is instead a football-themed version of something like Pints Make Prizes. I didn't play it much but can imagine playing it a bit when it comes out. I would imagine that this will very strongly appeal to the many fans of missing letter games on this forum. I think this might not be out until a while after, say, By Any Means and Battleships - I suspect it was still only at internal testing stage. Anyway, after the departure of Football Crazy and ItBox Soccer from the market, good to see a football-themed missing letter game return. This isn't intended to replace MOTD1, but will instead be in addition to it. I've not really got into MOTD 1, but understand it is doing well with punters and here to stay.
DOCTOR WHO: REVENGE OF THE DALEKS - this is meant to be a revamp of Doctor Who with some of the elements that make Doctor Who such an annoying game improved a bit. One of my criticisms of Doctor Who has always been the uneven gradation of questions - easy stuff for a round or two, then a sudden switch to brutality, and I am told that ROTD might improve things on that front. Too early to tell from my couple of plays, but it did look a bit better in that respect. Another change is that one always has to answer X questions to gain X moves now - not sure why they've changed that but it means that it doesn't really matter what subject you choose, which has got to be welcome. And there's also been a "next game bonus" added to this as well - one of the ones I got was quite generous and enabled me to win £4 the next go. All in all I thought this did look much more tempting, and look forward to seeing whether that's really the case when it's out.
As to what will be disappearing, three games were named - Track and Field will be going after just one issue. I think the general feeling is that it just hasn't worked - games take too long, punters have found it almost impossible to reach the prize level, and have found the endgame far too tough when they have. Personally, I'll miss it, although there's no denying the bug on the penultimate level of the endgame is a shoddy affair. I think there's a good game hiding somewhere in T&F, but am not sure there's any plans to revitalise it. Frogger is also going, more because of lapse of time I think. Can't remember what the third game going is, but it wasn't anything I would shed a tear for.
A general theme on the new product is that GWHL seem to be going for the "next game bonus" idea in a big way - the idea being that the game hooks you in by offering you some sort of goodie next time round. Have to say I like this idea, and think it will probably become the norm - it's a good way to get Joe Public (or for that matter a high-level player) to have another go.
BATTLESHIPS - this is one of seemingly two or three versions of the old classic which are coming out at the moment (I played a different version on an Ind:e the other week). I'd have to say I didn't particularly warm to the GWHL variant. Graphically it has a rather grey, austere look redolent of a submarine or military vessel. The maingame is the standard Battleships set up - the grid is 10x10, and although there are no 1x1 ships, it still looks like it would take a while to clear (and did on the occasion I managed it). There's some nice little touches on the bonuses here which will amuse those who like fripperies. The big problem for me is the endgame, which essentially involves selecting squares in another 10x10 grid which either contain a low (e.g. 10p-40p) prize increment, a "bank prizes already won" token, or a "game over" taken which ends the game and loses all unbanked prizes. The player also has an option to exit the game at any point and collect whatever he's banked and won up to that point. The trouble is it takes an age to build up the sort of prize a decent player would think worth collecting (e.g., say, £4 or £5), by which time you'll have been gameovered. I suspect prizes of £2 or so will be the norm on this, so I see this as very much appealing to Joe Public rather than keener players. This uses a "next game bonus".
BY ANY MEANS - ggdr has described this fully at viewtopic.php?t=14232 so I won't reiterate the game idea. Putting aside the total bizarreness of a game based on such a low-profile show, this game does have a lovely look to it and I concur that Istenem's pans may be in danger. I'm not sure I'd go as far to say it's "rubbish" (I think on three goes on it I did manage to win a prize of £3 or something), but my fear is that it is very controlled in the manner of some recent GWHL titles such as Doctor Who (although see below) or MOTD, i.e. it will suddenly switch from nice questions to brutal ones at one point in the game. There is also the point that the miles concept ggdr describes offers another opportunity for the game to clam up - we feared a Zeno's paradox sort of situation where each time the game gives you half as many miles as you need to complete the round.
I think both the above titles are at some test sites at the moment, and should be coming out over the next couple of months more widely.
BLOCKBUSTER - this is a non-trivia Breakout clone. The player moves the paddle across the screen by using the touch screen, so it builds on from that path-tracing game which was used last time - both are clearly an attempt to widen the use of touch screen technology. I'm pretty hopeless at this sort of thing, so hardly played it, but I can imagine this could be popular if they've avoided the temptation to introduce blatant elements of unfairness to penalise good players (which I understand was a problem on the path-tracing game). Cash prizes of up to £10 I think.
MATCH OF THE DAY 2 - this is actually very different from MOTD 1 although shares exactly the same branding, graphics and music. It's not a quiz game at all, but is instead a football-themed version of something like Pints Make Prizes. I didn't play it much but can imagine playing it a bit when it comes out. I would imagine that this will very strongly appeal to the many fans of missing letter games on this forum. I think this might not be out until a while after, say, By Any Means and Battleships - I suspect it was still only at internal testing stage. Anyway, after the departure of Football Crazy and ItBox Soccer from the market, good to see a football-themed missing letter game return. This isn't intended to replace MOTD1, but will instead be in addition to it. I've not really got into MOTD 1, but understand it is doing well with punters and here to stay.
DOCTOR WHO: REVENGE OF THE DALEKS - this is meant to be a revamp of Doctor Who with some of the elements that make Doctor Who such an annoying game improved a bit. One of my criticisms of Doctor Who has always been the uneven gradation of questions - easy stuff for a round or two, then a sudden switch to brutality, and I am told that ROTD might improve things on that front. Too early to tell from my couple of plays, but it did look a bit better in that respect. Another change is that one always has to answer X questions to gain X moves now - not sure why they've changed that but it means that it doesn't really matter what subject you choose, which has got to be welcome. And there's also been a "next game bonus" added to this as well - one of the ones I got was quite generous and enabled me to win £4 the next go. All in all I thought this did look much more tempting, and look forward to seeing whether that's really the case when it's out.
As to what will be disappearing, three games were named - Track and Field will be going after just one issue. I think the general feeling is that it just hasn't worked - games take too long, punters have found it almost impossible to reach the prize level, and have found the endgame far too tough when they have. Personally, I'll miss it, although there's no denying the bug on the penultimate level of the endgame is a shoddy affair. I think there's a good game hiding somewhere in T&F, but am not sure there's any plans to revitalise it. Frogger is also going, more because of lapse of time I think. Can't remember what the third game going is, but it wasn't anything I would shed a tear for.
