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jp's Line Rider 2: Unbound (DS)

[January 24, 2021 03:46:21 PM]

I guess I shouldn't have been as excited about this as I was?

The game's quite surprising to me in a few ways though - first the production values are much higher than I expected for what I think is a budget title (even if it's a sequel). Didn't this sort of game come out of the wave of physics-based flash games that were making the rounds way back when?

So, this game features 3D animated (and rendered) cut-scenes featuring the game's characters and overall premise of the game (kids, rivalry, sledding, high speeds hijincks!) and there's also a full soundtrack! Even more, you can - while playing a level - hop into a jukebox and change the song you want to hear play.

I've been playing the story mode and this is where things have fallen apart for me. I've found the line creation interface somewhat clumsy and confusing and the level themselves seem tricky in that I just need to go off trial and error until I hopefully succeed. You're only allowed to draw within a certain green box (or boxes) and you have straight lines or curvy ones and three different types of lines (normal, boost, brake). And, I don't know, 6 levels in (so, into "act 2" - after the tutorial levels) I just found that the trial-and-error way I was playing was just frustrating and boring.

I get the feeling that the drawing is not as precise as I'd like it to be and the physics too stringent at the same time..or perhaps I simply haven't played enough to get a feel for the simulation such that I know if my plan will work or not?

Now that I think about it, the drawing/navigating adds a little too much friction to the process such that each failure is more of a loss than otherwise. I have to pan, zoom, delete, re-draw test. I'm guessing that if I could delete/re-draw that would work in terms of the rapid experimentation - but with the lower DS screen being abit too small - pan and zoom seems necesarry.

So, the whole experience kind of falls flat for me in that respect.