dinamalar tamil news paper: Legand of the Lost Colony ? Review

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Legand of the Lost Colony ? Review - Bits 'n' Bytes Gaming

Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony ??Review

Posted by Armand K. on June 12, 2011 ? 1 Comment?

Blowing Up Thousands of Bad Guys Never Looked so Pretty

The last time I really enjoyed a shoot ?em up game (shmup) was when I played Raptor: Call of Shadows on a 3.5 inch floppy disk. It was a fun game, but a genre that worked well in an arcade cabinet never felt right on my PC. So aside for a brief foray into the mad world of Ikaruga, Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony is my first proper play through of a shmup in a long while. Nevertheless it was such an enjoyable experience that I?m left wanting for more.

Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony takes place in an alternative history where the British are colonizing Mars in the 17^th century as opposed to the Americas, and colonials are flying steampunk personal jets to fight a joint invasion from the Martians and the Spaniards. This seemingly far-fetched setup works surprisingly well when featured in beautiful pixel art of the highest caliber. The environments, the enemies, the troops fighting in the background, every single graphical element of this game is absolutely stunning, to such degree that even those who don?t care for pixel art are sure to be pleased with how Jamestown looks. Every inch of the screen suggest lovingly handcrafted and passionate art, and soaring through it all was a joy.

As great as the visuals were however, they were somehow dwarfed by the soundtrack. Chilean musician Francisco Cerda puts together powerful and dramatic songs that make every battle feel like an epic struggle of magnificent proportions. From elements of cowboy westerns to climactic operatic boss battles, every minute of the music was enjoyable, and despite many repeated attempts at some of the harder game levels, it never became tiring. In fact, if developers Final Form released a soundtrack, I?d probably pick it up.

But How Does it Play?

Jamestown is intended to be played by up to four people on one screen, akin to the olden days of arcade shooters. I didn?t have three other gamers to play with, so instead I enjoyed the game as a single player experience. The game lets you choose between mouse, keyboard or game controller, and though I tried them all, I found the Xbox controller to feel most intuitive.

Much like the careful attention to detail provided the game?s graphics, it soon becomes clear that every part of this game has been carefully designed, tested and fine-tuned until achieving perfection. The controls feel tight and responsive, and you only really use two modes of attack combined with a shield mechanic powered by coin drops from defeated enemies. When using the shield, you get twice as many points and do more damage with your weapons, creating an incentive to chain shields as much as possible to try to get higher scores and take out your enemies with a bit more ease. With different attack styles and weapons for each of the four characters, you have plenty of ways to complete a level.

Despite screens covered in multicolored bullet storms, I almost never felt entirely overwhelmed, and all but the final level were beatable at the mid-level difficulties after only a couple tries. The game has a relatively gentle difficulty curve, allowing you to start playing on the very easy ?normal? setting, then slowly raising the stakes by making you play the harder difficulty levels in order to advance the story.

Jamestown is a pretty short game, with only five levels, but the various difficulties and the chance to replay them with friends makes up for it considering the games very low price. Five story levels aside, you can also unlock a variety of challenge modes which I have yet to fully play through. Hey, they?re challenging! There is also the unlockable story mode called ?farce? which lets you replay the game with the original story replaced by a whimsical children?s book version that pokes fun at the far more serious tone of the vanilla mode. After all, when you are battling someone called ?The Conquistador,? you can only take it so seriously, epic music and great writing not withstanding.

If you like shoot ?em ups, then check this game out. If you like well crafted games or consider yourself a gaming connoisseur pick this up. If you haven?t played a shmup in a long time like me, and are looking for a nice game to get you started, buy Jamestown. Or if you?re looking for a fun co-op game to play on your PC when you have a couple friends over? well, you get the picture. Even when you?re losing, Jamestown will make you feel like a badass. It?s well worth the low price!