Archive: 1 post

---

Survival challenges are right next to boss battles for the least frequent level type submitted to me, so it's always nice to run into one now and again. This time, I got the pleasure of running into Problematic Packaging by The_Killian, and while the level is definitely one of the more creative survival challenges I've played it's also easily the most frustrating. The idea here is sackboy is trapped in a cardboard box moving on a conveyor belt for storage purposes, when he runs into the scanning device along the way, an alarm of sorts trips and sends sackboy to a bottom level conveyor belt which will ultimately lead sackboy to his doom. Your objective is to remain on the conveyor belt as long as possible while still trapped in your cardboard box while a few turrets scattered around the level shoot paintballs at you. There appear to be two primary lose conditions for this stage. The first is the obvious falling off the ledge problem in which the two largest hazards are the slow but steady stream of objects that move on the conveyor belt with you and will eventually push you into the abyss if you don't climb over them and the fact that sackboy is stuck in a box making your ability to actually move incredibly difficult. The second way to lose is if you get shot with too many paintballs. The box has a paint switch trigger on it that will activate after about 10 or so shots and the activation of which causes the box to explode. In either case you will end up at the finish area with a final score and a mountain of boxes. Now then, the way to actually obtain points is simple, over the course of time point bubbles will be spawned on your person so over time you will slowly accumulate points for just surviving, which means you don't have to spend all your focus trying to get score bubbles while avoiding obstacles ferociously. Ultimately, this setup is quaint, simple, and very effective. I must say I was really taken with this concept and there were a lot to like when playing it. In this following paragraph, I'll talk about why I don't like it. Let's break this thing down bit by bit. I'm going to start with the control scheme, which is the basic LBP control scheme (you are still this guy --> ), but the limitation of a box has been thrown in for the sake of flavor and added difficulty. At a first glance, I found the box idea to be excellent and really make the stage's theme stand out strong. However, the actual execution of this idea didn't come off so hot for me after playing the level 2-3 times. What I found is that while the box is really cool in theory (and I must admit, the author did a fantastic job integrating it with the rest of the level), the limitations are far too variable. Jumping with the box is like some kind of voodoo madness, you never get the result you wanted. Sometimes you would jump, hit your head on the top of the box, and go nowhere. Other times, you get lucky and actually make the jump, but maybe land somewhere you didn't want. The whole setup is really 50-50, which ultimately means a serious lack of consistency. Now due to how the level is designed, you can't just take the box out, but I wonder if it would be possible to make the box a tad smaller, which in turn would increase the consistency of the player's maneuvering. Next are the losing conditions. I can understand getting pushed off the side and having objects that you need to climb over. Everything on that end works...sort of. It all makes perfect sense and I can definitely get behind the logic, but with the control scheme being what it is, making the climb proves to be difficult. It's not surprising to just get unlucky every time you try to jump over a box and just end up falling off. Now for the other losing condition: getting shot to death. The logic behind this one makes less sense to me, why are there gun turrets in a packaging factory? Are these guys packaging radioactive materials and occasionally the boxes mutate into horrible creatures? Well, I didn't have to jump over anything like that, though I did occasionally see a human skull. What the hell is this factory for again? Anyways, the logic of the gun turrets aside the challenge they implement is a good one. If the objective of the challenge was only to climb over stuff, the challenge would be a little too easy and the way the difficulty increases over time would've been very negative. By choosing to rely on this alternative challenge, the creator made a much more fun and interesting level, if maybe a little sillier. The only real issue I had with the turrets was that sometimes they would shoot at you, and due to the bad mobility you couldn't really escape the shots until you've taken about 6-7. So essentially you should assume that your 10 shot clock is really a 2-3 shot clock. Finally, the scoring. I know it doesn't seem like there's much to bicker about here on account of the setup sounding mostly perfect (automatically getting points over time), but there are actually some major issues with the execution. Yeah, points are supposed to pop on you over time, but every once in a while, you will gain about 5-7 in a row out of nowhere, thus adding crazy amounts to your score. While I'm not entirely upset with that, I am upset that the point fluctuations appear to be completely random. Essentially, by having this random scoring variable you've taken a level type that is supposed to be about 95% skill and 5% luck and turned it into being 40% skill and 60% luck. Basically, a person that survives longer might come out with fewer points than someone who died sooner on account of not getting the same lucky point spikes. Point spikes and bad control were definitely the two things that absolutely killed this level for me. The concept is good, the aesthetic is appropriate, the ideas were great, the mood was fine, but the actual gameplay came up way too short on a level type that thrives mostly on gameplay. Final Score: 5.0 / 10 It really just needs a little work to be better, but I can't see it getting better than a 7.0. Sorry. On a side note, Happy 2011 guys.

2011-01-01 18:32:00 Author: Shining Aquas Posts: 353

Posts: 1077139    Threads: 69970    Members: 9661    Archive-Date: 2019-01-19

Aus dem Archiv wurden alle persönlichen Daten wie Name, Anschrift, Email etc. - aber auch sämtliche Inhalte wie z.B. persönliche Nachrichten - entfernt.
Die Nutzung dieser Webseite erfolgt ohne Speicherung personenbezogener Daten. Es werden keinerlei Cookies, Logs, 3rd-Party-Plugins etc. verwendet.