First day thoughts

HGFB · Post by **HGFB** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:14 am 0

Right. I've had the game since last night. I've had time to sleep on it. Now it's time for feedback.

I got home from work and bought the full game straight away. Into the tutorial I go. Hmm. The power bar shrinks quicker than I thought it would. This is going to be tricky. Fun though and I exit the tutorial with about 3 million.

Into the game. I play a game, get (I think) 5 levels in and come out with 3.5 million. Grrr. OXM Dan beat me. Back in I go. A few games later I hit 9 million and take a break satisfied that Dan can't play games. I chat a bit on irc and play a bit. Slowly I get better and better. Every game I have I improve a bit more. Valley of the Bulls is an excellent level

Then I hit a wall at level 11 for a few games. 13 million though so I'm not doing too bad. Then all of a sudden something clicks and level 11 becomes a breeze. I think it's the first level where it's suicide to do long sweeping bull runs. I just stayed in my corner doing quick probing attacks and got my x9 multiplier. On I go score getting higher until I hit level 14. MINTER YOU CUNT. I end the game with 18 million and it's time for bed.

In bed all I can do is think about Space Giraffe. Think about tactics and what I can do to rinse the tutorial level to get that achievement. Then I fucking dream about bulling stuff. So I think that means I like it. Cheers Y&G. Top hole!

Yes I died a lot to things I couldn't see *at the time* but the key thing to note is once I started paying attention to the audio cues I realised I was dieing because I was noticing the bullet/flower heading upwards and then forgetting about it. My fault. Not the games.

Guru-Meditation · Post by **Guru-Meditation** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:27 am 0

*scratches head*

Fun game but, maybe I need to fiddle with my settings, but it looks a little washed out on the projector -_-

PaulCunningham · Post by **PaulCunningham** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 8:22 am 0

I've been following most of the SG threads on here so was pretty confident I knew what to do. 10 million on my first go which I thought was alright (beats OXMDan - yay). Got steadily WORSE the more I played it though but it was pretty late and I was a little tired (lots of random deaths and difficult to see bullets.

I'm looking forward to giving it another bash when I get a bit more time but how do I turn Neon off? - I looked for something obvious in game but couldn't see a menu. Do I need to disable it in the Dash or is it simply a case of turning the music off (it reacts to the music doesn't it)?[/i]

Anders · Post by **Anders** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 8:26 am 0

- I guess I haven't got the hang of the scoring just yet, because I keep getting low scores. I'm not sure what I'm missing, though. I've played the tutorial and know what to do, but the ratings keep telling me I'm "a bit rubbish", "meh", "bland", and "unambitious". I suppose I'll figure it out at some point.

- A "Jump OK!" indicator of some sort would be nice.

- A "Bulling OK!" indicator of some sort would also be nice.

- As for visibility, I hit a brick wall on level 14 where I lost all my lives very quickly and wasn't sure exactly why I died. I felt like I wasn't close enough to the grid, map or whatever it's called to make out all the details, and ended up hugging a corner, trying to make it through.

Buy hey, I really like it and am determined to improve. I'm very happy to see one of Jeff's games on a major console.

PVB · Post by **PVB** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 8:39 am 0

PaulCunningham wrote: I'm looking forward to giving it another bash when I get a bit more time but how do I turn Neon off? - I looked for something obvious in game but couldn't see a menu. Do I need to disable it in the Dash or is it simply a case of turning the music off (it reacts to the music doesn't it)?[/i]

You can't turn Neon off.

Put of the game strategy/difficulty is playing through the visuals.

PVB · Post by **PVB** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 8:44 am 0

Anders wrote:- I guess I haven't got the hang of the scoring just yet, because I keep getting low scores. I'm not sure what I'm missing, though. I've played the tutorial and know what to do, but the ratings keep telling me I'm "a bit rubbish", "meh", "bland", and "unambitious". I suppose I'll figure it out at some point.

- A "Jump OK!" indicator of some sort would be nice.

- A "Bulling OK!" indicator of some sort would also be nice.

Probably your BM (bonus/score multiplier) wasn't going up.

To get that up you need to Bull.

Jump OK: Collect powerups. Powerups = Jump. Look for pods on the end of the giraffe tail to check if you have any, or just grab one early in the level and remember you have it.

Bulling OK: Powerzone. If there's a Powerzone, Bulling is possible. Shooting enemies (including flower parts) increases the Powerzone, as does Bulling (a little).

PaulCunningham · Post by **PaulCunningham** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 8:48 am 0

PVB wrote:
PaulCunningham wrote: I'm looking forward to giving it another bash when I get a bit more time but how do I turn Neon off? - I looked for something obvious in game but couldn't see a menu. Do I need to disable it in the Dash or is it simply a case of turning the music off (it reacts to the music doesn't it)?[/i]
You can't turn Neon off.

Put of the game strategy/difficulty is playing through the visuals.

You're kidding me right? I thought it reacted to the music? It really does make it very difficult (for me) to see what is going on and does actually make it quite painfull to play. I'll give it another whirl the weekend but a simple gfx slider would make all the difference.

chub · Post by **chub** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 8:50 am 0

Someone in another thread suggested playing some music then pausing it in order to tone down the background. But then you get no music of course, so I wouldn't recommend that myself.

PVB · Post by **PVB** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 8:51 am 0

PaulCunningham wrote:
PVB wrote:
PaulCunningham wrote: I'm looking forward to giving it another bash when I get a bit more time but how do I turn Neon off? - I looked for something obvious in game but couldn't see a menu. Do I need to disable it in the Dash or is it simply a case of turning the music off (it reacts to the music doesn't it)?[/i]
You can't turn Neon off.

Put of the game strategy/difficulty is playing through the visuals.
You're kidding me right? I thought it reacted to the music? It really does make it very difficult (for me) to see what is going on and does actually make it quite painfull to play. I'll give it another whirl the weekend but a simple gfx slider would make all the difference.

It does react to music, but still moo-ves on its own.

As I said previously, part of the strategy/difficulty of SG is playing through the visuals.

PaulCunningham · Post by **PaulCunningham** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 9:01 am 0

If I don't like the music I can change it.

If I don't like the controls I can change them.

If I don't like the background graphics I just need to hurt my eyes and head while I try and get used to them

Here's my gfx slider setting
Off -ME ----------------------------------------------------------------High

Love the scoring options though. Plenty of scope for tactics.

Bounty Bob · Post by **Bounty Bob** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 9:33 am 0

chub wrote:Someone in another thread suggested playing some music then pausing it in order to tone down the background. But then you get no music of course, so I wouldn't recommend that myself.

Yeah, that was me. I'd rather play with music too but if it's to the detriment of the game, then I'll pass. You still get visuals but they are more stable and toned down without music playing.

I love the game and the gameplay though, which is obviously the most important bit.

Block8 · Post by **Block8** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:39 am 0

Firstly, just wanted to say that up until now, I'd never played a Llamasoft game before.

I'd been reading Jeff's blog in Edge for the past few months, and had been looking forward to SG purely from that.

I downloaded SG yesterday after work, handed over my 400 points without hesitation. At first I jumped straight into the game without even checking the tutorial (despite numerous warnings from Jeff and others!), and I must say my initial thoughts were "WTF"!

So I jumped out of the game and into the tutorial. Soon it made semi-sense, and I decided to have another go. WOW. I was hooked. I loved it. It's one of those games that gives you SUCH satisfaction from playing -- and also much hair pulling when you die!

After many a restart, I think I ended up with around 10 million at level 9, which I was quite happy with.

It's just one of those games that you can't put down. There's always time for one more game before you finish!

I think my last game last night was about midnight, and I finished off by getting the "Great Green Arkleseizure" achievement. Great!

So yeah, I'm REALLY enjoying SG. I think it's brilliant. And already can't wait to get home from work to fire it up again.

Much thanks to Jeff and Giles for this superb title.

Cymru am byth!

DM2 · Post by **DM2** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:47 am 0

Perhaps there should be a new achivement added.

Beaten OXM Dan high score 0 points....

I'm sure you could all think of a great name and description for the achievment

I didn't get to play any SG last night, family eh who would have them

gilesgoat · Post by **gilesgoat** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 12:03 pm 0

Guru-Meditation wrote:*scratches head*

Fun game but, maybe I need to fiddle with my settings, but it looks a little washed out on the projector -_-

Are you using a VGA cable to connect the projector ?

Do you know there were VGA issues with the 360 NOT outputting the
correct levels settings causing a discrepancy between TVs and Monitors/Projectors ?

PVB · Post by **PVB** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 12:13 pm 0

gilesgoat wrote:
Guru-Meditation wrote:*scratches head*

Fun game but, maybe I need to fiddle with my settings, but it looks a little washed out on the projector -_-
Are you using a VGA cable to connect the projector ?

Do you know there were VGA issues with the 360 NOT outputting the
correct levels settings causing a discrepancy between TVs and Monitors/Projectors ?

Which was fixed in an update recently, AFAIK.