Great Ball of Fire

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Great Ball of Fire is yet another of literally thousands of 2D retro pixel platformers infesting Steam and lowering the average quality of all video games everywhere. This shovelware platformer is a slightly unusual one in that you're endlessly jumping, and you need to sometimes jump on a trampoline to turn intop a "ball of fire" so you can kill critters. This twist doesn't add much, if anything, to the traditional, old, dead platformer experience. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result. There's no options to change the resolution for the game or customise the graphics settings. There's no way for gamers to ensure this is running at the native resolution of their displays... there's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. There's no way for gamers to try improve the low quality graphics. The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. The poor quality of this game is reflected in the general public reception. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the game only ever reached a peak player count of only 2 players. That's right, only 2. This is a pitiful enough number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam, the overwhelming lack of interest in the game is remarkable, but also to be expected. This complete and utter rejection of the game from gamers should be a keen information point for anyone considering buying shovelware like this. Gamers just didn't take this seriously, and for good reason. Great Ball of Fire is relatively cheap at $3 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend.

[i][u]Under the Hood[/u] i5-8600K Coffee Lake 6-Core 3.6 GHz || Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 (2 x16GB) || NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760[/i] [h2]~ Story ~[/h2] 📝 Great Ball of Fire is a simple story about a heroic blue ball (could be a balloon) winding down at the end of his day and trying to get some much needed sleep. Suddenly, our heroes home is assailed in the night by vicious birds (who I'm assuming are just chaotic evil and aimlessly spiteful, as birds are want to be) and our hero is thrust into action to defeat them, springing forth burning conviction. [h2]~ Graphics, Sound & UI ~[/h2] 🎶 The entire game aesthetic feels like a call back to classic platformers of the late 80s/early 90s with vibrant and detailed backgrounds alongside psuedo-chiptune style music, reminiscent of the music in the original Sonic titles on Sega Genesis. While graphic and sound quality are clean and polished, the game suffers from a lack of variety in either aspect. Each of the four worlds have their own theme which uses similar tilesets for each of the fifteen levels within. If the overall experience was faster in pace this may be less of an issue, but being a trial and error based puzzle game causes the player to constantly view the same series of tiles to the point where worlds and levels as a whole being to feel bland. The sound design suffers from an identical issue to a greater degree and even the lively and well crafted music begins to grate on the player after listening to a single track (per world) on repeat for the better part of an hour at best. [h2]~ Gameplay ~[/h2] 🎮 Humble in its concept and in its controls, Great Ball of Fire is an intuitive game and easy to pick up and put down. The entirety of the game is played using the 'A', 'S', and 'D' keys to maneuver the character throughout the levels. The character itself bounces off of nearly any surface it comes into contact with, with a handful of exceptions that make themselves quite clear early on, and the player must alter the character's trajectory mid-air. The character's perpetual motion instigates the majority of the challenge of the game, often throwing the player into situations they have little chance in correcting. This solidifies the game's core mechanic of trial and error to solve the puzzles that the player will run into. Each level has two simple goals to complete: destroy any enemies present and collect the key to unlock the door to leave the level. Enemies in the game will destroy the player character if touched and this is where the game's most important mechanic comes into play. Throughout each level the player will find bounce pads which when touched by the character will change the sprite into the Great Ball of Fire and propel them at an accelerated speed in the opposite direction. While on fire, the player can destroy the enemy birds. This mechanic is also used to traverse the map to reach higher places or across greater distances. The bounce pads take some fanangling with but the player soon learns that the character's trajectory alters the direction they are sprung e.i. if the player were to be traveling upward and touch a bounce pad facing to the left or right they will be launched at an upward angle in the opposite direction. This 'flaming' state is also used to break through destructible terrain. [h2]~ Moment to Remember ~[/h2]💢 Sadly, a glitch but luckily something I could not recreate so hopefully it was an extreme rarity: becoming a little frustrated with the game and dying at the same point, I began to use the level restart key whenever I knew I was about to die - just to irk out those few milliseconds between retrying. I hit the restart key at the same time that I died. The map reloaded but my character did not respawn. Naturally, I closed and reloaded the game and attempted to access my save. The map loaded but I still had no character. I was forced to delete the save and restart the game. [h2]~ In Conclusion ~[/h2]🎬 Great Ball of Fire has the looks and feel of a classic platformer game and can draw out a feeling of nostalgia from its soundtrack alone, however, its concept and execution are not captivating enough to draw myself back for repeat plays. The game is a one and done title with nothing to bring depth or variety to the gameplay. I would love to see more options and different challenges beyond navigating and timing. The game, visuals and sound, have charm but the gameplay is unfortunately lacking.

Esse jogo, é daqueles que você passa raiva, mas enquanto não completa a fase não quer parar de jogar... Existem varias fazes, que te desafiam, e algumas delas demorei um bom tempo para conseguir passar! Estou tentando finalizar o jogo, então não sei dizer se o jogo é longo, mas acho que sim! Então bora baixar ele aí, e se divertir! Ou quebrar o teclado ahahahahahah! This game is one of those that you pass anger, but while it does not complete the phase does not want to stop playing ... There are several stages that challenge you, and some of them took a long time to get through! I'm trying to finish the game, so I can not tell if the game is over, but I think so! So get him down there, and have some fun!

The game is fantastic, the idea is original, a good old style game i hope that the developer will do other games like that

Controller guide should put.

A nice little voxel game. Reminds me a lot of the original sonic I used to play on my cellphone as a kid. Sweet and challenging gameplay and awesome soundtrack! If it is on sale, pick it up. And if it's not, then.. Pick it up anyway. You will not regret!

Stars received: 3.4/10 _ Note: v.5 [0.0 to 1] = personal impressions [0.5] Controls & Training & Help [0.1] Menu & Settings [0.3] Sound & Music [0.5] Graphics [0.4] Game Design [0.2] Game Story [0.5] Game Content [0.6] Completion time (level/game)? [0.3] is it Enjoyable & Fun? [0] Could it hold a spot in Favorites? (& if the Game can be repeatedly played again) [0] BONUS point: Multi-Player related [0] BONUS point: Review for VR [N] - if Registration is required with providing PII Game description key-points: 2D Platformer, playing as a Ball hero Overview: game really feels good for kids, few details with nice pixeled designed. a bit of logic and agility, more focus on time consumption and hit and miss movements process is: jump // collect keys // bump targets with speedy-rage