Game Review: Attempt 2
Game: St. Pattack
St. Pattack is a side scrolling beat 'em up with a Irish air about it. You play as St. Pattack, attempting to free Ireland from the menace of snakes, druids, and evil leprechauns by beating all of said enemies with your staff. This is not a game where you can expect to be sitting at your computer for hours trying to beat it. It's simple, but still a lot of fun.
The graphics are very good on St. Pattack. Everything looks very smooth, and the game flows well. Again, don't expect anything fancy like shadowing or 3D effects. There's a lot of color to keep it interesting as well.
The sound comes out great as well. There's Irish-sounding music in the background, it's probably supposed to be a flute or pipes. Every character has their own voice: St. Pattack yelling at his enemies, snakes hissing, bosses taunting, and a lot of leprechauns spouting nonsense. The sound effects are one of my favorite parts of the game because they make a violent, bloody (to a point) game sound very comical. I like that it looks and sounds very in depth without being too complicated.
The gameplay is very simple. You can move around, drop off of platforms, and shield yourself with the arrow keys. There's one attack button (swing your staff) and a special attack, which I won't spoil now. There's a lot of room to run around, platforms to jump on. The way the game "advances" is that certain enemies drop coins. You must collect a certain number of coins to advance to the next level. In addition to coins, some enemies drop potatoes, which replenish your health, or beers, which add to your special attacks. Every level also has sheep that can be killed for stew, which also adds to your health. The game also has two bosses. Both require a special strategy to defeat them. I won't spoil those for you either. What I like about the gameplay is that it remains simple and easy to master, while the game itself is still challenging.
Another thing I enjoy about this game is the way the two skill levels work. There's easy and hard. Easy is really not difficult at all, but I used it to learn the strategy of beating the bosses, before moving on to the seriously difficult hard level.
Improvement-wise, I'm not sure how much improving can be done to this game. Not because it's the best game ever, but because there's just not much that can be done to it. The only two things I could think of are to add combo attacks, controlled by the player, to the game. Although I like the current simplicity, adding player-controlled combos just gives you more control, and adds to the fun rating. The other addition is just to add more levels; it's too short. I really enjoyed this game, and it didn't get boring for me at all. I just want it to last longer.
Overall, I give St. Pattack a 9/10. The one point that's left could be attained by adding the two above improvements, especially adding more levels.
