Meganoid

Believe it or not, this review is toned down and more positive than my original draft! I really wanted to love Meganoid; I just can't. Here's why! [h1]Expectations[/h1] I bought Meganoid on a whim after watching the trailer and thinking : Oh cool, hacking turrets and traps in a rogue-like platformer? I'm in! I imagined a game similar to Spelunky but with a hacking twist and a sci-fi flavor. [h1]Hacking[/h1] "Hacking" involves spending a green keycard to "hack" a random system in-between levels. Cashing in a collectible for random effects is not hacking. I was expecting a level of interactivity on par with Zillion (a game that is 30 years old!), maybe a shade of Gunpoint...nope! Hacking here is just a label, like in the first Watchdogs. [h1]Controls[/h1] The controls are serviceable enough yet unintuitive. Your character can hang onto ledges in all situations....except when there is a full wall beneath the ledge and a keycard-operated machine next to the wall. Bombing the wall will change something in the game which re-enables the character to latch onto the ledge. It might sound trivial but this exact situation showed up in 90% of my playthroughs, which lead us to... [h1]Procedural Generation[/h1] Procedural generation is one of those things that is hard to get right. While it mostly works here, it creates uninteresting and instantly-predictable levels, sometimes putting every possible thing in a single level. A bit of refinement in this area would help make the game interesting. The Meganoid is supposed to be a spaceship yet the levels fail to convey that fact; You might as well be in a mine, space station, factory, etc. [h1]Audio[/h1] The sounds are neither cohesive nor memorable; the lack of music might be excuseable if the ambient sounds would flesh out the world but again, this important aspect fails to convey the atmosphere one might expect from a gigantic spaceship. [h1]Graphics[/h1] The pixel art has no identity, none of it memorable, most of it messy and hard to read. Of special mention is the underwater waving effect, which runs at a ridiculously high frequency and feels more like a tech demo instead of conveying the sense of being underwater. Game Boy Advance games (Metroid Fusion, for instance) manage to pull it off much more effectively; it's all about attention to detail and cohesiveness. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] Even though I was facing disappointment at every turn, I kept giving chances to the game...until I eventually gave up. The game constantly reminds me of better games, making Meganoid feel derivative at best. The game is simply not engaging and it feels unfinished.

Very ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Spelunky clone with invasive pop ups. "Oooh, sorry for the pop up but gimme your email address so I can spam you". What's this, 1998? This title quite honestly feels like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ flash game made in early 2010s. I'd definitely ask for a refund if I was eligible for one.

I know that I'm suppose to leave a really long informative review here but after seeing that there are hardly any reviews and the game lacks an average review score, I felt I had to leave something because I love this game, While OrangePixel is well know and respected in the mobile gaming world, I think that his games go underapreciated in the PC realm. So there a positive review because Meganoid deserves it!

Frustrating and poorly conceived ... A Spelunky it is not ...

"Meganoid" is fun and addictive, but can be frustrating. It has only one character class with no difficulty setting. There's a problem jumping with open spaces directly. But if you're a fan of Spelunky and looking for a new challenge, then look no further.

A reskin of their other games at this rate, not even tweaked right.

Looks like this is trying to be a sci-fi Spelunky-inspired game, but it just doesn't work.

Excellent platformer, great atmosphere - although it's fairly difficult! Graphics are good, although perhaps not if you're aren't a fan of the retro style. I am, though. The music is very catchy - but you have to find a specific item to activate it.

Another OrangePixel game, like all of them, that would've been great however ruins itself the same way their others did which is the Atari 2600-like game play; no progression system and no one ever really gets very far unless they're Billy Mitchell

Love Orange Pixel games. Meganoid Game is fun, simple and rogue-likeishly hard. please dev fix xbox 360 controller support on iMac doesn´t work at all.