Foreword: Flash Game Review isa new thing I'm going to start doing. Basically, I will find popular, free-to-play Internet flash games made by aspiring game designers and tell you whether they're worth your time by using a five point grading scale with 1 point increments. The reason for the five points as opposed to using the standard review scoring of .5 increments out of 10 is because these games are generally too small for me to be critical enough to use the standard Gamespot scoring method. This is my first flash game review and I hope this will remain an on-going blog column I do.
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Game Title: Avalanche
Developer: Beast Games
Host Site: TheGameHomepage.com
Available at: TheGameHomepage.com
In Avalanche, you play as a little Marshmallow... or maybe he's a towel... or possibly a mint... Well, whatever you are, you are in the middle of an avalanche. Giant square nuts are falling from the sky and you must not be hit by them, or else you die (no surprise there). Wait, it gets more complicated. As these nuts fall down, this eerie-looking red water is rising up below you. If you fall in the water, it's game over. So, your goal is to climb as high as you can without dieing. It's a simple concept, but getting the higher scores is quite a challenge.
So, the controls are as follows. The arrow keys control your character. Up is jump and left and right move your 'shmallow in the corresponding direction. You can also wall jump by pushing your character up against the side of a block/nut and then pressing both the up key and the key in the direction you want to jump in. It's simple enough and with most flash games, the simpler the better.
As you get into the upper echelons, the sky starts turning red, which is an interesting effect and gravity starts to take a lesser toll on your marshmallow dude. This is useful because you're going to have to start climbing the blocks before they even land because the water will start rising much more quickly than before.
Anyway, so when you do die, which as I said before results from a block falling on you or the water catching up with you, you will be taken to the game over screen which will tell you how high you climbed and will show you the tower created during your climb. It's kind of cool to see what your tower looks like afterwards, though it takes too long for it to scroll all the way to the top and you get bored of watching it. It's a pretty cool feature, though.
If you are a member at "TheGameHomepage.com", you can play the "High Score" version, which will record your score if you so choose when you are done and post it on an online leader board. I haven't tried this yet, but if you like that sort of thing, it's open for you.
The sound isn't very impressive. There are a sum total of four sound effects in the entire game, two of which are in the intro when they tell you who made the game, one of them is the option select noise for the main menu, and the other noise is for when you die. There are two songs. One of them (Dreams of Above by Maze Master) plays during the actual game while the other one (Action Bed II by Ludzix) plays during the broken tutorial which can only be exited by refreshing the browser. However, Dreams of Above has a pretty catchy tune which, surprisingly, doesn't get annoying as you play.
Throughout my play time, the only glitch I encountered besides the tutorial was a weird bug that would happen during the middle of gameplay. This glitch took your character's ability to wall jump, which can end a game. All you have to do to get rid of it is restart the game (which can be done at any time by clicking enter) and the glitch is fixed.
Despite some minor problems, Avalanche is a solid game. It's everything a casual game should be. It's fun, addicting, and easy to learn. So, if you get a moment or are just bored, check this game out. It's worth your time.
4/5
Great!