LogFAQs > #978505994

Game #31 Complete! Hyper Meteor

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "You'll never want to play Asteroids again!"

Final Thoughts:
This one was definitely better than I expected going in. I know there are some people who love these, but I just can't get into arcade style point chasers for too long. I'm surprised this game hooked me as long as it did, honestly. Four hours doesn't seem like much but usually I play these sorts of games for like thirty minutes before getting bored. I still think in terms of pure point chasers, Flipper Lifter is the best idea of the Playdate games I've played so far but this one has the benefit of 1) having an online leaderboard and 2) not being broken.

It is actually kind of crazy to me I'm 31 games in now and its taken me this long to get to a point chaser that has a leaderboard, isn't broken, and is at least mildly fun. This is just base level competence, and I'm happy with it. This is a totally competent point chaser! I was beginning to think I wouldn't be able to find one. I like the way the ship controls, I think pivoting from shooting to just pure flying is clever, and I like the sort of frantic energy you get when you're trying to top your old scores. The way stuff chains is clever here, because you really need to stay on top of what you're destroying when to make sure that timer doesn't run out and your chain resets to zero. Rather than playing things safe, it forces you to keep moving and it adds this extra level of strategy which is nice. You actually don't want to go around and destroy everything as fast as you can. Leave some of the weak stuff floating around in case you really need a kill quickly.

But, again, there is a ceiling for me for point chasers and this one hit it roughly four hours in. You have this fun period when you're getting used to the controls, then figuring out the nuances, then getting better, then better, then you finally hit the goal you were going for and there's this profound sense of "wait do I really want to give this another run?" Like, it was good enough to get me interested but not good enough to keep me interested, and I definitely reached a point where I was like "eh, that's enough". You do all this work climbing the mountain, getting pretty high up, and then you get kicked back down to the base of things are you're just sort of looking up like "hey maybe one mountain climb is enough".

I get it is part and parcel to games like this, but it was really hard to motivate myself through that early game once I was able to consistently make level 10 (which is the final level of difficulty you get to). I have to do this again? I know I'm just whining about how games like this work at this point, and that's fine. I'm sure there are plenty of people that would see that complaint and think that's dumb. Certain people can sink hours upon hours of their lives into stuff like Pac-Man or Galaga, but it just isn't my style of game. Feel free to boost this up an extra couple of spots if you like this sort of thing because I do think it is fairly well put together all things considered. I just did not have any motivation to keep playing after a certain point. I like the simplicity here in terms of being able to immediately jump in and play, but I also feel like it could've used a bit more. A bit more "what" I'm not entirely sure, but I feel like a little something extra, somehow, would've kept my interest and elevated this from "pretty good" to legitimately "great".

That being said I don't regret playing this. I probably wouldn't have played it at all, honestly, if it wasn't entirely free and if it was just a catalogue game it would've been one of the last ones I played (if I stick to this project, that is) just because I know by looking at it that it isn't the kind of game I usually go for. But the controls are fun and it is well made and has a pretty solid core idea here. I've played a lot worse, and this is one of the games I was most pleasantly surprised by so far even if I don't think it is truly great.

Should You Play It? Sure! It's free. You can actually check this one out on the Switch if you really want to as I said before. I'm not sure it is the kind of game I'd want to actually pay for but again this style is usually a miss for me. I enjoyed it though.

Final Score: Going with a 6. Firmly "pretty good" even if I got to the point I just did not want to give it another go.

Games Completed: 31/142

Game Rankings:
31) HANA Spacetime Fantasy
30) Boogie Loops
29) Hidey Spot
28) Bub-O Collect
27) The Lushes Land
26) Nightingale
25) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
24) Recommendation Dog!!
23) Whitewater Wipeout
22) The Botanist
21) Snak
20) DYG
19) Lost Your Marbles
18) Grand Tour Legends
17) Demon Quest '85
16) The Fall of Elena Temple
15) Flipper Lifter
14) Questy Chess
13) Slitherlink PD
12) The Keyper
11) SKEW
10) Echoic Memory
9) Executive Golf DX
8) Omaze
7) Sasquatchers
6) Hyper Meteor
5) Castle Tintagel
4) Casual Birder
3) Zipper
2) Pick Pack Pup
1) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure