Halfbrick Blast Off

I’ll confess to you now, dear readers. I’m not very good with press releases. I wade through so many of them a day that they all sort of merge into one huge mush. It’s a sorry state of affairs when you find yourself longing for another one from Denki (actually, I think the one I’ve linked to there rates as one of the best press releases ever), just to make you smile.

As you can well imagine, trawling press releases is a tedious, tedious job. I’m sure that sending them out isn’t exactly the height of enjoyment either most of the time. Relay information, try not to get lost in a sea of effluence and hope that there isn’t something incredibly major breaking on sites that day.

We don’t get many press releases to xnPlay Towers. It’s one of the things I’m generally thankful for as a rule. For a start, from experience, I’ve found that as an indie it’s far easier to y’know, talk to people rather than send them a generic piece of text. One of the great strengths we have against behemoth organisations is that we can be people. People, generally, like people more than a generic block of text. Indeed, a wise man once put such a thought to paper and lo, it was good. So I tend to do a bit of a double take when one lands in our mailbox.

Last week, one such press release landed. From Halfbrick Games. “Halfbrick?” I muttered to myself. “Don’t they do, like, proper games and things?” and yes, indeedy, they do. I’ll admit for a moment I held my breath fearing the worst. Was it a studio about to wade in wholesale and throw its weight around a community games project? Please, say it’s not, thought I.

I needn’t have feared. I knew things were on the right track when reading through the press release one line of text stuck out like a sore thumb.

“No one is happier than project lead Matthew Knights, who is the brain behind the game. ” I just hope people enjoy it,” he commented after the game went live.”

Hang on, that’s decidedly human. That doesn’t normally happen. Isn’t it around this point project lead Matthew Knights is meant to be telling me it’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever set eyes upon? Not “I just hope people enjoy it”. Amazing.

Once I’d picked myself up from the floor, I delved a bit deeper and discovered that it’s a studio letting their devs have a bit of a tinker, throw it out on the CC games y’know, just like us proles would and see if it floats. Which, in my not so humble opinion, is a fantastic use of the service. Well, it is providing the games aren’t utter rubbish, obviously. No-one wants utter rubbish be it from studios or from bedroom coders.

Matthew Knights, I’m happy to tell you this. I enjoyed Halfbrick Blast Off. I enjoyed Halfbrick Blast Off a fair bit in fact. Sure, it wasn’t without niggles – or more precisely one single niggle, but we’ll come to that in a bit.

It’s a simple game. You have a little rocket sitting atop a planet. You have some astronauts floating around the planets and you’ve got a gate. You can already see where this is leading I bet. Yup, launch your rocket into the air, do a little drive around, collect the astronauts and get into the gate. Easy. Well, actually, not that easy as in the true spirit of arcade games you’ve got some rather obstructive hazards. Mainly in the shape of large planets with gravitational pulls. You’re a small ship. That’s a big planet. No-one wants to hit a big planet in a small ship at high velocity. It hurts. Man, trying to do it is fun though.

Having overdosed on semi-serious games of late (and nurturing a serious L4D obsession that’s by the by) it’s nice to be able to get back to something that allows you to turn your brain off, isn’t trying to make you think your way out of a paper bag or desperately trying to impart a deeper meaning. Halfbrick Blast Off basically came along at just the right time this morning to leave me with a nice satisfied grin. It’s not even trying to be the second coming of gaming or as the aforementioned quote from the press release so blatantly reveals “an amazing incredible game to blow your mind with 500 levels and a free giant monkey”. It just does what it does and I found it does it all rather nicely indeed.

Ahh, that niggle though. The trial experience is quite pleasant indeed, with only minor interruptions to throw some pretty harmless adverts in your direction (not present in the full version, fact fans), even the sell up is done well. The niggle, my friends, is more of one of time. The time it takes to shift between levels is a bit on the slow side. For a game where the levels are obscenely short (as well they should be) having to hang on the scoring screen inbetween stages for a few moments seriously breaks the flow. To the games credit, I wanted to batter the A button into submission and start up the next stage quickly. It’s just a shame that it never allowed me to do that.

A minor, minor niggle I’m sure you’ll agree. Halfbrick Blast Off is an enjoyable little game. 48 stages (if I recall correctly, I’m currently exiled from the Xbox and forgot to write that bit down like a fool) in the full version and each one with a fair bit of replayability to get the gold stars. I should mention before I go that the music is rather nice too.

Matthew Knights, well done.