What is this game about? Like, from reading the back of the box it didn't make any sense to me. It's not Bingo, but it's sort of like bingo?
Ok, now I have a better idea - having played the first two complete areas of the quest part of slingo quest. I mean, it's all variations on the same game, which is a sort of variation of bingo - and the game is almost entirely luck-driven. Skill-wise it helps if your pattern recognition paired with reflexes are "good" (fast) and that's about it, really.
The point of the game is to complete the entire board in X number of turns (spins in the game's lingo). The board is 5x5 and each column has a random assortment of numbers in a range. So, the higher numbers are in the right-most column and the lowest ones in the left-most (I'm not sure what the range is entirely, I'd wildly guess the numbers go from 1-100 with the first column covering 1-20, the next 21-30, or something like that, actually from looking at a screenshot on the back of the box I can see that's not right, but imagine something like that). At the bottom of each column is a number that "spins" (all the numbers spin) and the idea is to match what appears on the bottom with a number in your slingo card. There's no skill here other than tapping the number on the card (up to five numbers if you're really lucky!) when it matches one on the spinner at the bottom.
And, that's it. Mostly. There are sometimes wild cards on the spinner. Or special powers - but everything pretty much triggers automatically and you don't really have much choice. I mean, even when you get a wild card, the choice is obvious - go with whatever gives you the highest score.
So, what's the point?
Well, as I played I noticed that it is still fun - like playing slots can be fun, no? No agency, but definitely expectation and anticipation and that kind of stuff. The strangest feature in the game for me is that at the end of the island (the themed areas in the game) you have to "fight a boss" - basically get a higher score than an AI opponent while playing on a shared board. Again, no real agency - but I did find myself hoping my opponent would not get the numbers I wanted to get and so on.
I'll admit that I was very, very, positively surprised when I first started playing this. The camera was set (default?) to "first person" view (camera on hood of car, not 3rd person) and the game runs REALLY fast, the controls are really responsive, and the sense of speed was quite remarkable. I felt like I was driving fast and this seemed quite out of place on the DS! (weirdly, this would have felt fine on the PSP, which is generationally similar? huh. I'm thinking the PSP versions of Wipeout). Perhaps I've just been playing too many "bad" games with driving in them so far?
So, things got strange when I realized I could change the camera view - in this case to 3rd person, and then the driving felt really slow and sluggish! I don't know if this is a rendering thing (harder to render 3rd person?) or just a perceptual/experiential issue? It feels fast and responsive but it actually responds the same? I wonder....
So, I played a few races and was having fun when I realized that the AI is kind of wonky, and the collisions also (the game is pretty forgiving when you go up against the wall). But, what really bugged me was when a car coming up behind me, crashed into me and then "collisioned" through my car to jump ahead. That felt too unfair! (especially because I was now racing on a slightly higher license class or whatever it's called - so it was not easy and I was fighting tooth and nail just to stay in the race)
I wonder how well the game was received critically when it came out - it feels technically super polished in some areas, and weak in others?
I think my favorite part - and this is just eye candy - is that when cars in front of you move horizontally (like changing lanes quickly) their taillights streak across the screen in a way that is totally unnecessary, but totally cool as well. Reminds me of the effects on the motorcycles in Akira.
I forgot to mention that the game has lots of cut-scenes and I was really surprised to see that they feature the original (or at least look original) comic book turtles - so, black and white, they look mean and tough. These are not the smiley pizza-hawking turtles of the first tv show. They ones in the cut-scenes are also NOT the ones from the game's cover. So, there's like a strange mix of turtle visuals?
First, it seems obvious to me that they're trying really hard to evoke the original 4P arcade cabinet experience. And the game is sort of that. It's got the "right" things - though it only supports 2 player co-op - in terms of button mashing and pickups and the usual brawler fare. What is different (and makes the experience worse for me) is that the camera is a different perspective (feels more isometric 3D in the traditional sense, rather than side-scroller) AND the camera is really up close, so you don't have that great of a view of the playing area so everything feels a bit cramped, especially in those parts where you have to move forward (to the next area).
The game's structure is also strange - I mean, it's like the arcade where you sort of have to complete the game in a single run (through a bunch of different areas), but this is on a handheld, and it felt weird that I couldn't (afaik) just save and resume later - I basically had to quit, got a score for as far as I got, and that was it. (I quit mostly because it was getting a bit repetitive to fight essentially the same enemies in different areas, so - I got bored with the lack of variety).
It also didn't help that there's a scoring/rating system that I did not understand at all. I was getting mediocre scores, but I don't know why - or what I was not doing as good as possible. It's possible there are special moves I could do but didn't because I had no idea? (don't have the manual for the game)
I did like the team-up moves, you can trigger these standing next to another turtle - but they didn't always trigger at the right moment, so while it's fun when I got them to work, I would not count on them to be a part of a strategy. At least for me.
I do wonder if the turtles, they each have different stats, are actually that different to play? I tried 3 of them and couldn't really say. But again, maybe that's just me.
