Etheral117's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pause Ahead]

Best flash game I've played in a looong while! The mechanics are very interesting, combined with a great soundtrack and addicting gameplay!

Speaking of the soundtrack, it's on Billtron209's page - he's listed in the Credits and Info box, now go give him some love too!

[Sword of August]

I'm guessing Kego wasn't paying attention when

THE GAME TOLD HIM THE ALTERNATE CONTROLS INCLUDED THE ARROW KEYS TO ACCOMMODATE THE Z-FIRING BUTTON IF THE WASD CONTROLS DIDN'T WORK OUT FOR YOU.

ANYWAY.

The controls DO work, and they ARE adequate. Now, I havn't gotten very far yet, but I am really enjoying this game, Engrish and all. Makes it feel even more like a translated early-age arcade game, which I found humorous. Not sure if I'm ready to give it a 10, but as I am I'm perfectly happy to give it a 9.

stellarNull responds:

lol thank you, the engrish wasnt on purpose though but now that you enjoyed it, it's a pleasure XD it was it's not our first language XD. anyway thank you for playing and reviewing ^^

[D-Day Defender]

Touching

I remember watching a program about D-Day, viewed from both sides. One part of it centered on a single German gunner, reciting the letter he had planned to write home that day as he held his ground against the Allied invasion. I can't help but remember this every time I play this game. He fought on, until the end, but I do not know what happened to him. I cannot help but remember, that just because they wore the swastika on their arms did not make them all evil. Many were just like the Allied troops, young boys drafted to fight a war they didn't really want, eagerly awaiting that next letter from home while trying not to forget to write themselves. Fighting on in the belief that the cause they were fighting for was good and just, for how could the common infantryman know what was really happening behind the charade?

I'm sitting here now, listening to the epilogue song, thinking back, picturing every war movie or CG television program about WWII, seeing scenes like the German gunner reciting his letter as he tried to hold off the tide of men, or an American in a burning tank-destroyer desperately holding off a German counter-attack with the mounted machine-gun until reinforcements can arrive, or a Russian in Stalingrad lamenting the loss of his friends after the day's fighting before lighting a cigarette, and I hear this song playing behind all of them.

This, in reality, is a very simple game, but the shear food for thought it presents once you have finally been beaten just causes a truly sad feeling. For some reason I can imagine an American officer breaking into the back of the bunker and pulling the young gunner out just before the explosion tears the bunker apart.

Here's to a happy Memorial Day, and say some prayers for me. My best friend got out of US Army basic training a month ago, and he is on his way back to duty right now. He's not being deployed oversees, but that doesn't mean I can't pray for both his safety and the safety of all of our soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen, deployed or not.

And with one final "Thank You" to Xeptic and friends for this game, I bid you goodnight.

[Echoes: Act 1]

A few suggestions

It definitely has a lot of potential, and was certainly fun to play, but there are a few things that need to be fixed. Badly.

-First, those damned tanks can throw you around, even with the shields up. Now, I know that cannon shells are technically a bit bigger than bullets, but still. Tanks are game-breakers, and I have an "ah HELL" moment every time one comes at me. Tone them back a bit... okay, A LOT, and then move on to
-Movement. I (kind of) understand why Dem moves so slow compared to the other humans, but the jumping thing has got to change. To dodge a single shot, I get sent flying out of the firefight, which makes me totally dependent on my shields if I actually plan to fight effectively. Which sucks because EVERYTHING relies on my battery to work effectively, and I can't keep the charge up for long before having to either live without it (which sucks because it's SO EASY TO DIE WITHOUT SHIELDS) or run back to the base to recharge (which also sucks because FIFTEEN SOLDIERS go down faster than I can leave the firefight all because of one guy in the back lobbing mortars at use, AND THEN THERE'S THE TANKS
-Speaking of the mortar-freaks, can you tone then down PLEASE? Every time I kill one (I'm mauled by his little friend because I can't move fast enough to get away, even while sprinting!!
- Survival Mode. Just Survival Mode. Why do I need to unlock ALL of the more useful weapons in SURVIVAL MODE?! That just forces me to suffer over and over until I can get a gun good enough to fend off tanks without having to call in artillery (and use up most of my battery power, that is assuming I even have enough left to call the strike in.) I enjoy the concept of survival modes in general, don't get me wrong. But when everything but the default weapons has to be bought using resources and energy from my BATTERY while under heavy fire and trying to both keep up my shields and heal myself and keep the base from being destroyed AND STAY ALIVE, it gets a little much. Why not instead opt for a much more user-friendly shop, like between the missions or something. Which brings me to the final point,
- DEM IS NOT THE ENERGIZER BUNNY. HE CANNOT SIMPLY KEEP GOING AND GOING AND GOING.The battery pack should be focused on keeping Dem alive, NOT ON POWERING EVERY DAMN THING ON THE FIELD. How come in the future a super-soldier needs to deplete half his battery pack to designate an artillery strike when any modern soldier can designate artillery with a LASER POINTER is beyond me.

All that said, The experience was still enjoyable. Somewhat. Because of the potential this game has, it nets a solid 8 out of ten. It doesn't get higher for the above reasons, but keeps the 8 because of those reasons being easy enough to tweak, with some exceptions I'm sure. I am not a programmer, though I did find one other bug. During the final boss-fight, I found to my dismay that my weapons had stopped functioning. There are the default set I'm talking about, I kept clicking frantically to make it work to no avail. About 30 percent of the time, nothing happened. Made very annoying when it took five attempts to finish the guy off. Could you look into that please?

All that said, nicely done. I look forward to the sequel!

[Master of Fortresses]

Eh he he...

I broke it on day 44 of Endless mode.
too many AI for the operating system to handle. My GreenJackets have been pwning those Frenchies for, oh, ten minutes now, any nothing seems to be moving anymore. I hear a lot of gunfire, but not a whole lot happens on the screen. But I just clicked on the pause button and went back to the main menu, so it's not completely broken. Other than that, and a few of the things other people have complained about, it has very few things to improve. I do suggest adding a 'drag-&-drop' tool for moving units and selecting groups of units or a whole wall instead of just on bit at a time. Good game, though!!

[Thanks Tanks!]

My only real complaint

is that perhaps the tanks should look more like, well, TANKS. Other than that, and the steep difficulty rise after the first go through, it's pretty good. Definitely a good way to spend an hour or so.

[Modern Weapons Quiz 2]

A couple of things stand out, other than

the horrible first music track:

For your question concerning the AK-47, you used the picture of a Nazi German StG44 Sturmgewehr from WWII. The AK is a Russian Assault rifle that came around AFTER WWII. Also... your questions were kinda lame. Who would know that an M203 cost LESS than $1000? That, and if anyone actually wanted to make top scores they could just open another page with Wikipedia or something. OR just click randomly through the game on the first go through, get automatic access to all of the answers, open another window with the game on it, and copy all of the answers.

In other words, you need to:

Eins) delete the first music track
Zwei) Get a picture of an AK-47 instead of an StG44, and
Trei) Make it harder to cheat on.

That said...

Nice effort.

DitchyMitchyJ responds:

If we make MWQ3 (Modern Weapons Quiz 3) we'll make sure to include all of that, thanks for the friendly criticism. Seriously, comments like yours are much appreciated.

[Thing-Thing 4]

Simply excellent, but...

I hope you have more in the works, I would simply hate if this was really the end of "154". Perhaps you could have his "corpse" return to life while being sent to the bio-waste disposal chambers. I simply don't see how 154 can go through all of that to simply be rushed and overwhelmed to death. Or... perhaps you could have a later version of 154 have residual memories of this one's bid for freedom, and decide to finish things once and for all.... The choice is yours, but I really want the show to go on.

[Interactive Gun V.07]

Hmm...

Let me think...
eins (1) Obviously, more guns and attachments. M1911, Beretta M92, Glock 18c, M1903, M14, M16, Mini 14, AK-47, FN FAL, Sturmgewehr MP44 / StG44 , etc etc etc. Go crazy.
zwei (2) The M1 is NOT a 7.62 NATO rifle. 7.62X51 is the military equivalent of the .308 Winchester, NOT the 30-06. The 30-06 was originally a purpose-built military cartridge that first saw action in WWI, after the Second World War is when NATO was started and the namesake .556 NATO and 7.62 NATO were created for the armed forces of NATO members.
drei (3) Add the "ping" sound for the M1 ejecting the empty box mag automatically when all 8 rounds are spent.
vier (4) Try to animate a realistic recoil for the guns, and also try your hand and drawing them instead of using pictures. It will look more awesome, trust me.
fünf (5) The Glock is set to shave off the top round from the magazine while cocking it, and also auto-fires a round or two after reloading. Could you try to fix that please?

These are just a few suggestions, but what you already have is pretty good. It certainly has a lot of potential.

zlix12 responds:

Thanks for the info, I'll fix that up in the next installment

[MC 5.5 Scene Creator]

Hmmm... needs more.

1) NEEDS MORE PARTS.
2) NEEDS MORE ROOM TO USE SAID PARTS
3) NEEDS MORE VARIATIONS OF PARTS (outfits, weapons, faces, muzzle-flash etc.)
4) Also, your cars come in two pieces, which is a little awkward.
5) NEEDS MORE MUSIC OPTIONS

Try having a whole bunch of soldier variants, like Madness 19th century army uniforms, WWI, WWII, etc. Just because they look cool.
Also, I absolutely love the inclusion of the new 45. ACP Submachinegun.
Get more imaginative- Fantasy swords would be epic, along with maybe some ultra-high-tech weapons. That or Covenant Plasma Rifles. Or both.
Try to make it that the items that go onto the background FIRST stay BEHIND the items that go onto the background AFTER. I can't make them dual-wield because the left hand weapon (when facing right) overlaps the right-hand weapon. (And vice-versa.)

Basically, fix a few bugs and the UPSCALE EVERYTHING!
*more weapons
*more outfits
*GIANTS
*more effects
*more music options
*more background options
more space

Try to make it that there is so MUCH stuff that you could never possibly cram it all on screen, unless you use a panel system that you click on a box on the side of the screen, it slides onto the screen to reveal everything in it's category, click the box again to close it, and have a box for everything (weapons, effects, outfits, corpses, etc.)
That's all I can think of for now. ~117

XRoadKillX responds:

DUDE, this is a Madness Combat 5.5 Scene Creator all of that stuff IS NOT IN MADNESS COMBAT 5.5 learn to read.