He sure knows how to dig himself into a hole
| Platform | Presentation |
Controls |
Variety |
Audio |
Depth |
Value & Fun | OVERALL |
| Nintendo DS | 5.00 |
5.00 |
5.00 |
5.00 |
5.00 |
5.50 | 5.35 |
| Presentation |
5.00 |
|
It's a GBA game, basically. There seems to have been no effort to make this look better than was necessary to make it playable. A problem is that the screen scrolls once you're too close to the bottom screen -- it limits the visibility to plan ahead, and minimizes the use of the top screen.
|
| Controls |
5.00 |
|
The touch-screen controls are absolutely useless. There's no reason for them other than to justify this as a DS game. Even then it can be a bit troublesome to get your driller to do what you want. And repeatedly pounding on the A-button for everything gets bothersome.
|
| Variety |
5.00 |
|
Drill...drill...drill...That comprises the gameplay. There are some speed modes, items and different characters, but the items feel like cheating and the characters aren't all that different. However, eventually the items are a necessity as the game is brutally difficult without them.
|
| Audio |
5.00 |
|
Muffled voice-overs and forgettable sound-tracks comprise the sound. The robot, who would be the best choice for a character, has a terribly annoying drill sound, so every time you drill you hear a rusty clang. I'd rather choose another character than benefit of the extra crushing the robot can take.
|
| Depth |
5.00 |
|
Other than there being disappearing coloured blocks, there's little reason to consider this a puzzle-game. It's more along the lines of a boring actions game on a linear path. There isn't much strategy to anything besides recovering difficult to reach oxygen tanks, which is comparable to the simple puzzles found in most action games. This may appease those who don't like puzzle games, but for anyone looking for a mental challenge, look elsewhere.
|
| Value & Fun |
5.50 |
|
Beating the timed stages can keep your interest, and the single player is fun for a bit, but there's not a whole lot to go back to due to the repetitive gameplay. What's worse, you need two game-cards to play multi-player! For this simplistic game, you still need two game-cards.
|
| Overall |
5.35 |
|
Mr. Driller: Drill Spirits is a lazy effort for a GBA game, let alone the DS. Bland, repetitive and boring, it's deadweight on the DS.
|
Posted by Ellyoda Tue, 13 Dec 2005 00:00:00
