Space Giraffe: Second Impressions
292 wordsWednesday evening was set aside for Space Giraffe, although that was rudely interrupted when Debbie pleaded with me to let her watch Germany beat England at football again.
However, I think I got enough play under my belt to have formed opinions.
It continues to be very satisfying to look at, and I’m sure that without all those effects it would be less fun. I am finding myself replaying levels for improved score, and I am slowly improving. The game sets tough targets — I have only exceeded its idea of “good” on one occasion.
The game makes it explicit that scores are the name of the game. On each level, you’re told how respectable your score is, on a scale that includes “almost good”, “approaching respectable”, “bland” and “meh”. I’m hovering around the 8 million mark, at level ten (by comparisom, it’s alleged that the Official Xbox Magazine reviewer made through 31 levels, but only got 6.7 million out of them — missing the point, surely?). Not only that, but at the end of the game, you get to look at a graph of score against level, with lines for the game you just finished, for your best game at each level, and for what the game considers “good”.
The game never cheats. Everything is visible enough - if you die it’s your own fault. I die a lot.
I do think Minter overestimates the gaming prowess of most Xbox owners. The game’s idea of a good score is pretty tough to achieve. Many of the achievements appear unachievable to me, at least for now.
I’m enjoying it. I expect to enjoy it for many more hours to come. I’m enjoying it more than I ever enjoyed Tempest or Tempest 2000. It’s terrific value for 400 points.
August 23rd, 2007 at 15:03
I played with the demo, still had absolutely no idea what was going on. Might give it another go after I’ve beaten Worms into submission (the computer is amzingly accurate and I’m … well not so much)
August 23rd, 2007 at 16:16
Do the tutorial a few times - not just once.
Just to make it a bit clearer — you’re always firing, no need to do anything to make that happen. At first just shoot the baddies and don’t let them touch you.
Then start working out scoring strategies. Key to this is the Power Zone. This is indicated by a big label saying POWER ZONE in the tutorial, but people still seem to miss it. Basically, it’s the area between the rim and the big white line around the web. When you shoot things, the line moves away from you, making the zone bigger. When you’re not shooting things, it moves towards you. When it reaches you, you have no power zone.
As long as you have *some* power zone, you can barge baddies off the rim, causing satisfaction and score multipliers.