MonkeyforaHead's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Johnny Rocketfingers 2]

Suffers from the dreaded "Sequel Syndrome".

Well, here it is at last, and the NG audience are creaming their pants over it left right and center. Not that I'd expect anything different. I, however, perhaps being a tad anal retentive, didn't enjoy it quite as much as the first.

I'm not going to say you didn't put enough effort into it. Hell no. This gets an A triple plus for effort. The problem is that this effort seems to have been put into some of the wrong areas.

When I play a game like this, I play it for a bit of logical thinking, kicks and giggles, screwing with the various dialogue options, and (in the case of Johnny Rocketfingers) fast-paced ludicrously improbable action/fight sequences.

Problem the first: action sequences. The opening scene is fine, and all the fight scenes following are admittedly very well done -- but they just don't GRAB you like, for example, the bit with the chaingun-wielding giant in JRF1. Try to top or at least live up to the action/improbability in that scene and I'll be satisfied.

Problem the second: dialogue options. What went wrong here? In JRF1, the dialogue options near the start branched everywhere. Go to sleep, whack the woman and get yourself killed, demand a blowjob, try to talk your way out of being shotgunned by the barkeep. Great stuff. In JRF2, I've yet to see the dialogue yield any not-on-rails results. (I admittedly didn't explore all the options with the shady dude; if he can actually find me a hooker, sure, that'd be an improvement.) None of the options right at the start (that I could find) yield anything but an instant death. Talking to the oriental shopkeeper yields nothing at all but a somewhat humorous moment when Johnny pretends to come on to him, and if he points the shotgun at your head you either die or put the items back. Boring.

Problem the third: illogical puzzles. This is why I had a hard time liking Sam & Max for the gameplay; it very quickly becomes a jumble of pixel-hunting (without a walkthrough I never would have found the gum) and trying to combine every item you have with every other item to see if you get anything new. Sneaking the 40 out of the store was clever. Assaulting the alligator was kinda pushing it. Getting rid of the pigeon made absolutely no sense whatsoever (but it was pretty damn funny).

Fourth and finally, a general exchange of humor for even more bad-assedness. Looking back, there were plenty of humorous moments in the game, but only mildly so. The solution to the pigeon puzzle got a decent laugh, but that was probably the only thing that did. JRF1 had me absolutely cracking up the first time I saw the girl in the ending (despite the slight clichedness of the joke), and when Johnny just put his head down on the bar table and fell asleep.

In summary, I did like it anyway. It's just not really what I was hoping for. Here's to a JRF3... IN THE AMAZING YEAR FIVE HUNDRED BILLION!!

vastcool responds:

you are absolutely right & i totaly agree with you (except for the "illogical puzzles"). I tried to do more of a 'serious' cinematic movie with this one, & also wanted to make it more of a classic style adventure game. I made it way more complicated, which led to much more headache & a lot less humor, funniness, randomness, coolness.

If there is ever a Johnny 3 it will follow the same style as the first game. I just wanted to do this new style, but now it's out of my system.

Thanks for your honest review

PS you CAN kill a pigeon with alkeseltzer. i used to hear about kids doing it

[Dad 'n Me]

Never have so few given so much for so many.

At first glance, I absolutely loved this. Very smooth, fluid graphics, an amusing intro, catchy (albeit eventually repetitive) music, and the bit of the tutorial where the instructions simply read "^_^" as the kid gets pounded made me laugh out loud. Combo system is pretty deep for a Flash game. All the kids dressed up as well-known NG members (among other people) was a nice touch too. Quite a lot of fun to play, but definitely has some issues.

1. Having no real point except stress relief is a nice way to assemble the game, but when about... 80% of the game is stress relief and the remaining 20% is frustration and pure agony, that just doesn't feel very balanced. Frankly the game should either have had nothing but kids who run away, or nothing but kids who fight back (and maybe a few who run away). Or maybe one mode for each (though I can't begin to imagine how much longer that would've taken). The combination does work, just not as well as it could.

2. Speaking of frustration... a couple bits in the game seem just downright unreasonable. If you don't happen to have a ball on hand when the ninja kid on the vehicle shows up, you're liable to get run over about 8 times or so before you finally manage to time your punch just right to blow the thing up. Also, even attempting to attack the ninja kids can be insanely frustrating due to how often they simply leap into the air and counter-attack with their homing jump-kick. Sometimes they seem more avoidable than others, which is weird.

And then there's Sunchips. Pardon my French, but that guy is really, really, REALLY fucking annoying. I've worked out the best attack pattern that seems possible, but even then I continually get my ass handed to me. Half the time my punches don't make contact (and they NEVER make contact unless I'm using the more powerful punch), and a quarter of the time I draw back my fist, only to have Sunchips with his inhuman reflexes knock my head in with an uppercut. If that were all that was involved, it wouldn't be so bad, but then when he shoots you with the gun while you're down... guys, what were you thinking?! It would be reasonably balanced if he shot you once. Maybe even twice. But the number of times he shoots before stopping and/or reloading is completely random. Once I died from a single slip-up, having been at full health, because he knocked me down and then shot me SIX TIMES in a row (or was it seven?) while I was unable to move. Not cool. Don't even get me started on his super-attack if he manages to land a hit on you at any point after having been made "angry". Having insanely hard bosses is all well and good, but this guy goes beyond insane. He's a freaking nightmare.

3. Minor bugs. Guy on vehicle grabbing hold of the basketball, whirling jump-punch somehow magically making contact with all enemies in a certain radius, causing ultimate cheap destruction (stayed for one game and then went away; and that was the only time I was actually able to beat Sunchips)... and the uppercut (A+S) doesn't seem to work, like, 92% of the time. Oh yes, and the music that plays for Sunchips' battle only plays once, and then stops. It never loops. Might want to look into that before releasing the standalone if you can be bothered.

Gripes aside, still quite entertaining, and it's earned my 5.

[The Sigworminator 6000]

Hadn't noticed this was on here.

Always fun to fiddle with to see what kind of diseased creations you can make. :p

[old wink game thing]

Very nice, pity about the memory leak.

I love what I can get to in the game, but that isn't very much. I always start off IN the ground, right off the bat (though I can escape with some general fiddling around). Then, after the first 45-degree incline, I start jumping 3 times higher than normal, and very quickly wind up getting stuck underground permanently. I've closed and relaunched the game about 6 times in both IE and FF, but nothing seems to help.

Aside from that, very nice control and animation and sounds and everything. If you really expanded the game (and, of course, fixed the memory leak), I'd pay money for it!

[Interactive Buddy v.1.01]

Amazing.

This has got to be some of the most impressive use of Flash I have ever seen. Glad to hear you're planning on adding ways of actually making the buddy happy. He deserves at least that much. ;p

If there was ONE thing I would add to this game, it'd be support to be played offline. I don't care if it has to be set up with multiple files in subfolders (ala Madness Interactive), just PLEASE DO IT. It's by far the most amusing little time-waster I've ever seen, but needing to go to a specific link in IE each time I want to play it does wear on my nerves, even with a cable modem.

[the classroom 2]

Very nice, BUT...

It's true. With the new teacher, on day 8 (MRSBACKWARDS), there is simply NO WAY to complete the level. I took the quickest route to my friend (cutting in front of the class, as I can't go around behind), hid right behind my friend's shoulder as I cheated so that the teacher didn't catch me, and even pulling off my moves with superhuman perfectitude, the teacher is already making his way to watch over my desk by the time I'm done cheating. There is something wrong with that level, and it needs to be fixed. Post haste.

[Megaman vs Ghosts&Goblins]

Loved Megaman vs Metroid, love this. BUT...

The game is superb, but I can't finish it! After dropping down to the cavernous level, getting past the ball-spitting teepees, and then the jumping skeletons, I climb the ladder to go up to the next screen, and as soon as I get to the next screen, I'm forced down to the previous screen... and back up. and back down. And it never ends. I've tried twice and it still happens... am I the only one having this problem?

[ultimate flash sonic]

HOLY CRAP AND A HALF!

Wow, this isn't called Ultimate for nothing! Given the filesize, that's a huge amount of gameplay packed into one little Flash game!

Just a few suggestions, though -- namely, the biggest problem I had was with getting hit by an enemy. When you land from being hit, you don't have that "temporary invincibility" thing, so it's EXTREMELY easy to be hit again and die before you even regain control. Secondly, the ring-collecting sound effect is totally crapped out. Try to find a better-quality one. Third, the physics feel a little moon-walkish, and the game seems to run at about half the speed it should overall... but I guess there's nothing to be done about that.

Overall, excellent job. I'm just being a bit anal-retentive about things. ;)

[Nightmare]

Pretty good!

First and foremost, your job on the graphics is quite commendable. Very well done. The controls are a bit awkward (especially the 0 key), but they suffice. If I have one major gripe about this game, it's the fact that you have to watch that dang long opening sequence each time you start up the game -- you should add a "Skip" button.

Other than that, excellent. Deserves a few NG awards, I'd say. :)

[Uss Enterprise: A Cadet's]

WORST. Star Trek game. ever.

Alright, I don't mean to sound abusive. as I can see a lot of people seem to like this game. Well, let me be specific about what I thought of it.

To begin with, the graphics were okay. For Flash graphics, they're actually very good representations of the crew, the controls, the ship... and just about everything. Good graphics.

As for the sound... well, I dunno. Frankly I didn't dare turn the sound on.

Now we get to the worst of it. The game itself. I usually like these "choose-your-response" games; it's nice to see the other character's different reactions. Only in this case, no matter what you choose, it won't get you a different ending. You make your way through the game and either get holed up in the brig, have your head ripped off and thrown into space, or make it to the end and see the credits roll. Big whoop. There aren't even any alternate endings! If you actually MAKE it to the end, Riker is "severely disfigured," and Deanna is pretty much ready to make out with you. Very unimaginative.

Then, there were the scenes that I'm not even going to mention... let's just say that portraying Data and Jordy as homosexuals has no appeal to the Trekkie crowd.

All in all, the game needs more. More plot twists, more alternate paths, more alternate endings. As it is, I frankly think it deserves no higher than a 2.