This is a fun game, to be sure. I was, however, completely taken aback at the difficulty of the final boss fight after level 30. Literally every wave and boss up to that point was mind-numbingly easy, perhaps intentionally so, and the final boss fight took me something like 6 attempts. I'm not complaining about the difficulty per se, just that it's a sheer wall instead of a curve.
If you're going to make a game revolve around a text-based interface, you might as well spend your time on improving the text-based interaface. This isn't the '80s.
I've played this game for a few weeks now, and I've been through about 5 save files. What do I mean, "been through"? I always seem to hit a brick wall around the 15th wave. The result is the same in casual mode, and every file has been using a different class. I hire mercenaries, I upgrade everyone's guns, and I invest money and AP carefully. Yet every time, I hit a brick wall around wave 15. No matter how many times I retry, I continue to lose, over, and over, and over. I don't seem to be committing any gross oversights, and yet the game isn't meant to end around wave 15. Assist me, here. What secret am I missing?
I suppose I'll pose the question. Why are the checkpoints so far apart? One shouldn't have to complete 5 or more stages just to save the game. This makes even normal mode impossibly difficult, particularly when bosses can take out both characters in a matter of a single move.
What I don't understand about this engine is why the developer, instead of simply making the average hole size larger, seemed to create a trap door-style floor directly around the holes. This doesn't make any sense. If you're able to fall through it, I'd rather you didn't tell me it was a floor.
First of all, allow me to say that I like the concept of this game. I find it an entertaining idea and I think that it could make for a wonderful game. This is not that game. The execution on this is is rather poor, and needed some serious reworking *before* it was released. The most prominent flaw, of course, is the line, itself. I can see the dev has attempted to employ the floor/ceiling concept as demonstrated in Line Rider, but he has failed miserably. Only when the line is flat does it "count" as a floor, and any deviation from that turns it into a ceiling, which the ball gladly flies right through into certain death. This is absolutely ridiculous. It's almost as if the line ceases to exist as soon as you change directions. Also, the hard badge for this game was obviously not closely looked-over before being instated, as playing this entire game three times over does not exactly constitute "enjoyable" or "worth 30 points at best".
I don't write reviews like this often, but I don't often come across games I hate this much. Pyro, at first glance, appears to be begging for a walkthrough, yet seems to be almost specifically designed to make it impossible to create one. Case in point, the entire "acing" process consists of moving one's cursor pixel by pixel in an attempt to find the preposterously improbable solution the developer has prepared. There's a fine line between "challenging" and "pointlessly difficult", and this game exemplifies the latter quite nicely.
This is quickly becoming one of my least favorite games on Kongregate, which is a shame, because the design is so nice. Don't hit me with the posted random source code: I've read it. The computer, however, seems to be stricken with a case of extraordinarily good luck. It seems to always get 1k point rolls early in the game, forcing you to play catchup. This wouldn't be so bad, but for every good roll you somehow manage to get, the computer matches it and then raises you some. Maybe I fall on the side of bad luck, but I've only had one round where I've obliterated the computer, but it has had plenty of rounds where it has sidestepped me to win. Also, why on earth do you count the other player's victory if they manage to surpass you once you've passed 10k? That doesn't make any sense. You earned 10k first and they earned it second. If they can catch up, you should go into some sort of sudden death mode, not "Whoops, as he went last, he knows exactly how many points he needs to beat you."
This game is even worse than Flash Flash Revolution. First of all, there's no key customization. The majority of people in the world are not left-handed, so it's pointless to make controls designed to only use the left hand. Second of all, even the hardest song on the hardest level is easy beyond belief, not above a Standard level song on StepMania. This game is not in the least worth playing.
This is, without a doubt, the best shooter I've played in a very long time. I don't just throw good reviews around, particularly not for non-original concepts. But this is an absolutely stunning shooter for several reasons. First and foremost, the difficulty curve is very good, if a tad easy overall. The power-ups are worth the money, and with limited slots and minimal resell value, they must be bought strategically. The controls are nice and simplistic, and firing is automatic, a definite plus. My only complaints would be that money is not constantly displayed, and that the "power" move cannot be stopped to conserver power when unneeded. Other than that, the dev has done a wonderful job.
What a wonderfully straightforward game. The challenges aren't based on skill or reaction time, but rather if you're patient enough to fail enough times to figure out what you're supposed to shoot because the missions are so ambiguous. Obviously the *last* thing you want to do in *any* mission is kill someone. You only got a sniper rifle to make bullets careen off scenery and be otherwise nonviolent. Give me a break.
The interface is poor at best. It's been thrown around that this is an original concept, but this game doesn't even have that going for it, as a shooter of this caliber and style has been out for a couple years now. Needless to say, I'm largely unimpressed and suggest the developer put his creativity to use on a different project.
The only reason killing all 52 enemies is so hard is because the rag doll physics make it impossible for you to actually aim the gun without staying completely still. If there were some sort of targeting system with the cursor rather than making us hold down space for a function that we would never need to stop doing at any point, there might actually be a learning curve. Your only objective is to dodge bullets, a difficult task for a character that you are unable to control properly. You can't aim, you have infinite ammo, and hearts fall that you often can't get, not because you're busy aiming, but because you're busy dodging more bullets. And that brings me to another point: it is extremely difficult to pick up life that you have *earned*. Rather than allowing hearts to rest on the floor of the field for a few moments, they fall at a moderate pace which is impossible to keep up with, and now you have to desperately attempt to swing back around and grab it before it disappears.
After playing this game through to the finish, I've found that it is not impossibly difficult. It is obviously rather annoying, mostly with respect to how the hit test is *extremely* accurate, a feature that turns out to be pretty bad for the player, as brushing up against a single pixel of a corner of a block counts as hitting it, often resulting in death. I also suspect the physics for the unlockable characters are different, but as this is not explained, they can be no more than novelties rather than legitimate strategical choices. Also, honestly, the hot coffee ending wasn't anything special anyway. You're not missing much by having it censored.
I've never been a huge fan of stat-building RPGs, for some of the very same applauded features of this game. Each consecutive level is just you playing more of the exact same enemy for longer and longer periods of time, more and more times. The replay value is slim to none, which is a big deal, because everything you do in this game is replaying. And they want me to *replay* the entire game three times? How many times can you perform the same actions over and over and call it a rewarding and interesting game?
The statement that this game is entirely based on luck is not entirely correct, but it's rather close. Very few of the objectives require any skill at all, and any skill, even from those, doesn't exist after the first chain reaction. This game is *nearly* entirely based on luck.
Also, you've got a bit of a timer problem in endless mode. A new atom appears every 1 second, instead of every two. This glitch makes it nearly impossible to play, along with the fact that you only start with like four atoms.
There is a grave issue with the difficulty ramp between level 19 and level 20. Namely, level 20 seems to be impossible. I've attempted it over ten times now, and no amount of strategy seems to be able to overcome the brick wall at is the final level. Am I missing something?
I am pleased to note how superior this sequel is to the original. This game is well designed, has a nice remix of Headlock by Imogen Heap (I'd enjoy being able to download that, by the way), and has intuitive gameplay. However, the difficulty curve is an issue, and there is no indication of when the game itself ends, nor when each individual wave ends. Also, I'd recommend a friendly "resuming from pause" interface. As it stands, a pause throws you directly into danger half the time.
Sure, this game resembles programming, but no real environment would limit you so fiercely in space. It's quite annoying to be under such strict constraints.
 "The Peacekeeper")
 "A small talk at the back of beyond")
 "Elona Shooter")
 "Epic Battle Fantasy 2")
 "Run")
 "Scriball")
 "Pyro")
 "Zilch")
 "Guitar Geek")
 "Frantic")
 "Panda - Tactical Sniper")
 "Distopix")
 "Ragdoll Invaders")
 "Meat Boy")
 "Talesworth Arena: Death Watch")
 "Atomik Kaos")
 "colourPod 2: dimensionPod")
 "Z-Rox")
 "light-Bot")