Play As You Go Review

Play As You Go, Play As You Go Review, Xbox LIVE, Xbox, X360, Xbox 360, Indie, Game, Review, Reviews,

I don’t really ‘get’ a lot of the indie games I come across. I am assuming that many of them are tech demos, or practice pieces that have somehow managed to find their way to market. I think what Microsoft are doing in giving indie gamers and developers a forum is admirable, and very clever, but you can’t really hide that fact that there is a helluva lot of crap on there.

And, sadly, Play As You Go is one such bit of crap. It’s a small collection (only three as far as I can tell) of retro games that adds nothing to the originals, and will, at most, give you a confused chuckle for a couple of minutes. I would like to think that this was made by a schoolkid as his or her GCSE project, as anything else would simply be an embarrassment.

Play As You Go, Play As You Go Review, Xbox LIVE, Xbox, X360, Xbox 360, Indie, Game, Review, Reviews,

The first game is a Galaga rip off. I was never a huge fan of Galaga, but this offers even less than the original. I just can’t see why anyone but a stoner or a simpleton would want to play it. It’s basic in the extreme, and only gets a tad less basic with each passing hour.

Then there’s a colour matching mini-game that just sees you hitting the right buttons in the right sequence. Who wants to play a game that is simply a never-ending QTE? I guess there may be some therapeutic value in it, but short of lowering my estimation of your intelligence, there’s just no way I can say that it’s anything but utter pony.

Play As You Go, Play As You Go Review, Xbox LIVE, Xbox, X360, Xbox 360, Indie, Game, Review, Reviews,

Lastly, and probably the best of the bunch, is a Breakout rip off called H1N1 a.k.a Swine Flu. Rather than a paddle, you control a needle that bounces some weird stuff up the screen to kill the H1N1 virus. Now, I have to say that this did make me giggle. I’ve never seen such an incongruous mix of concepts before, and I suppose that deserves some kind of accolade. Sadly, however, this sticks with the formula and adds nothing new.

Had this been a collection of 100 titles of similar quality, you could probably rate it as a nice trawl through your gaming memory banks. It’s not. It’s three games and they’re all rubbish. Like I said, if this is someone’s first attempt at making a game, I applaud them. They at least have some idea of the history of videogames. Something tells me it’s not though.

Bonus Stage Rating - Poor 3/10

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Microsoft Xbox 360 code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

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Comments (3)

  1. Avatar Liam Pritchard November 22, 2011
  2. Avatar James December 2, 2011
  3. Avatar James December 2, 2011