Game Review: Aperture Tag: The Paint Gun Testing Initiative

Hello (subject name here)! Welcome to another series of tests at Aperture Science! I briefly talked about this new testing initiative in my Thinking With Time Machine review, but now that I have performed the tests, I will have to talk about this new series of tests. This is Aperture Tag: The Paint Gun Testing Initiative!

Aperture Tag is a fan-made mod for Portal 2 released about a week ago. This game is based on Tag! The Power of Paint, the indie game that inspired Portal 2's gel mechanics. In the game, you play as a new unnamed female test subject. You are woken up from your cryo chamber by a little robot named Nigel. Nigel tells you that he is in charge of a brand new series of tests, The Paint Gun Testing Initiative. In this new series of tests, you use a paint gun which sprays Repulsion Gel, which is bouncy, and Propulsion Gel, which is speedy, to solve tests. Everything is going great! The test guide isn't evil and the tests are fun! However, later on, you learn that Nigel, perhaps, isn't such a nice guy after all...

This game is pretty good. Is it better than Thinking With Time Machine? Well, some things Aperture Tag did better and some things Thinking With Time Machine did better. I'll start with the better. The game is much longer than Thinking With Time Machine! It is still pretty short compared to Portal 1 and 2, but this game should last you longer. This game has brand new full voice acting, which is nice. Nigel is a pretty good character! However, the voice acting isn't great. Definitely not on the level of quality of Portal 1 and 2, but it stands on it's own pretty well. The voice acting isn't bad, and it is better than no voice acting, making this game feel more like a Portal game. The writing and humour is pretty good, almost on the level of Portal 1 and 2! This game has an original soundtrack by the one and only Harry101UK! If you don't know who he is, he makes great Portal songs and videos on YouTube that look and sound like they were actually made by VALVE! This is probably his masterpiece! However, I was disappointed that there was no vocalized song during the credits, like Still Alive and Want You Gone in the other Portal games. Harry101UK makes great vocalized Portal songs! Why didn't he make one for this? Oh, well. I'm still gonna buy the soundtrack on Bandcamp! This game has all the Portal game mechanics and more, making the game feel much more complete. The story actually ends this time! There are no Easter Eggs, but there is developer's commentary and Community Test Chamber support! I feel this game has a long lifetime ahead of it! Now on with the things Thinking With Time Machine did better. It barely feels like a Portal sequel. Thinking With Time Machine was an obvious continuation of Portal 2, but in Aperture Tag, it is extremely unclear about where this is supposed to fit in with the Portal timeline. Where is GLaDOS? Who is this lady you play as? It isn't Chell, but Chell was the last one alive in Portal 2! Is this taking place during Portal 2? After? Before? I don't know! I guess this game is trying to be more it's own thing and less of a Portal sequel, but when you set your game in the Portal universe, you actually have to fit it into the Portal universe! Another thing that bothers me is that you don't really get to see anywhere new in Aperture Science. Sure, there are the fake outdoor environments, but those are at the end of the game and there aren't a lot of those. The only other places you see are ruined Aperture test chambers from the first game, and run-down old Aperture, where most of the game is set. Old Aperture was my least favorite part of Portal 2 visually, so you can see why I'm a little disappointed. In Thinking With Time Machine, you had all new environments that complimented the Portal test chamber design, but turned it into something that was completely different from anything in the other Portal games and it looked great! Most of the environments in Aperture Tag are pretty boring. The game is not as finely polished as Thinking With Time Machine or Portal 1 and 2. There is a lot of trial and error, which can be frustrating. Some of the tests are supposed to be solved in really weird ways that you would never think of because it doesn't look like it is the correct way, but it is. This makes the game needlessly difficult sometimes. The game can also get quite repetitive sometimes. In conclusion, this is still a good game! It is fun and fresh. This game isn't perfect, definitely not as good as Portal 1 and 2, but you should still get a lot of enjoyment out of it. If you want to try it out, it is 7 bucks on Steam AND you must own a Steam copy of Portal 2 to play. I would recommend this game for ages 9 and up because the game can be very difficult and frustrating. I'd give this game a 4 out of 5 stars! This was a triumph. I'm making a note here, huge success. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction! Next mod: Conversion! Summer 2015! I can't wait!

Have you played Aperture Tag: The Paint Gun Testing Initiative? What did you think of it? Tell me in the comments!

Game Review: Cartoon Network Punch Time Explosion XL

Hello my fellow gamers! Remember my Playstation All Stars review and how... similar it was to Super Smash Bros? Well, I think I've found another game that is even more similar, if you can believe it. This is Cartoon Network Punch Time Explosion XL!

Cartoon Network Punch Time Explosion was a game released on the Nintendo 3DS in 2011. An improved XL version was released for the Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360 soon after. It was re-released in 2014 as a Playstation Store and Xbox Arcade exclusive. This game is a fighting game featuring beloved characters from great shows like Dexter's Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, Ben 10, Captain Planet.... for some reason, and many many more iconic characters from Cartoon Network shows from the 90s and early 2000s. You know, back in the day when Cartoon Network actually had good shows! RIP good CN shows, we barely knew you. This game is IDENTICAL to Smash Bros. The damage is measured in a percentage that goes up, there are assist trophies, there are Final Smashes, and there's even a Subspace Emissary. There are only 3 real differences. The first and most obvious difference is that the game features CN characters instead of Nintendo characters. Duh, right? The second difference is how the Final Smashes work. Instead of chasing a Smash Ball around the screen, you just attack your opponent and your special bar fills up, just like in Playstation All Stars. When your special bar is full, you can perform your Final Smash, or, I'm sorry, your "Punch Time Explosion". Forget it, I'm just going to call it a Final Smash. The 3rd difference is actually pretty neat, if you get a perfect combination of character and assist, you perform a powerful synchronization attack, which is just as strong as your Final Smash, but it doesn't take away from your special bar. There is nothing else to say! This game is Smash Bros, but with CN characters. That's it, and I mean it this time.

I'm just going to say right away that I am not a fan of Cartoon Network. I used to be a HUGE fan of Ben 10: Alien Force, but that's about it. I either haven't seen or never got into any other CN shows. However, I still wanted to try this game because it seemed interesting. I love trying out Smash Bros clone games, so I bought it. And I have to say, this game is pretty good! I actually really like it! The controls aren't perfect, they're a little bit slippery, the characters don't really feel like they have any weight to them, and it can make some platforming segments of the story mode and platforming in the battle stages a little bit unfair, but you do get used to it pretty quickly. The character roster is quite large, and while it does have lots of missed opportunities for good characters, I am definitely not complaining. There aren't even any clone characters! Even the great Super Smash Bros series can't seem to make a game without at least a few clone characters. The character strengths are a little bit imbalanced, which is really annoying and a pain to deal with in Arcade mode, since you only get one life. It's not a huge problem in the basic Battle mode of the game, so I guess the imbalance isn't a huge problem. I actually really like the Story mode of this game! The gameplay is varied, with lots of mini games to break up the main, beat-em-up, Subspace Emissary gameplay so it doesn't get repetitive, and it works! The writing is also very good! It's funny, and clever and witty! The real downside is the cutscenes are really lazy and poor. The game in general doesn't have very good graphics, but the cutscenes are very disappointing, especially in a Cartoon Network game. Isn't Cartoon Network known for its high quality animation? Not here. The cutscenes are just still images of characters moving around the screen with only the narrator talking most of the time. Speaking of the narrator, let's talk about the voice acting. Ha! See what I did there? 2 puns in one sentence! I'm funny. Anyway, the voice acting is only okay, when there even is voice acting. The character that you hear the most is the narrator, Space Ghost. His dialogue is very funny, and his performance is pretty good. As for the other characters, well, they barely speak at all! When the characters in the Story mode get dialogue boxes, they don't even talk! They just make noises! Aren't cartoon characters something like 80% voice? If you take away their iconic voices, what are they? Empty shells. The good news is, the characters do talk during levels and battles, and at the end of battles. What really sucks is that they didn't get most of the original voice actors, since a lot of cartoon characters in this game are from shows that are pretty old. Most of the characters sound almost nothing like the original voices! Johnny Bravo's voice is too low, Mac's voice is too normal, and Dexter sounds more like Timmy Turner from The Fairly Oddparents than Dexter! They have Tara Strong voicing a lot of the characters in this game. If you don't know who she is, she is a very talented voice actor that has been in countless cartoons. She plays Timmy Turner in The Fairly Oddparents, which I guess explains Dexter's voice. She plays Twilight Sparkle in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and she plays Raven in Teen Titans, just to name a few. You can tell that the actors tried their best to sound like the original characters, but they didn't quite get the right voice. Now, as I said before, I am not a CN fan, so the wrong voices didn't really bother me that much, but I see how it CAN turn off die-hard CN fans from this game. Anyway, back to the Story mode. The story is very short, maybe only 90 minutes long, which is good, because the game forces you to play through the story mode to unlock all the characters. Seriously, you start out with, like, 6! Plus, you have to purchase all the XL version exclusive characters from the in-game store with points you earn from beating levels and finishing battles, like in Marvel VS Capcom 2. You can also purchase show clips, which is good, since I haven't seen most of these shows! I need some context here! You can also buy alternate costumes for your characters, and extra battle stages. This really gives you some incentive to keep playing the game to unlock everything, which worked because I'm addicted to this game! I did come across a few game breaking bugs and glitches. If you fell into some pits in the story mode, the game freezes on a loading screen and you have to reset the system, and in the battle mode of the game, the game freezes sometimes if there's a lot of stuff going on on-screen and you have to reset the system. These bugs and glitches are a neusence and they can break the flow of the game, but they aren't a huge problem. I like it how everything in this game is a reference to a CN show. From the enemies in the Story mode, to the stages and levels, unlike the generic and uninspired enemies and stages in Super Smash Bros Brawl's Subspace Emissary, to the special moves, to the remixed music, this game is oozing with CN references just waiting to be noticed by long time, die hard fans. Overall, this is not a bad game. I like it, it's fun, it's Smash Bros, it's classic Cartoon Network, and it's a labour of love made just for long time CN fans. While is isn't as good as Super Smash Bros, or even Playstation All Stars, this is still a great game to check out, play with friends, and ruin your friendships! If you want to try it, it's 20 bucks on the PS Store and XBLA. You could also try out the original 3DS version, but it has a lot less content and features, and it's overall a worse game. Just go with the digital re-releases. I'd give this game 3.5 stars out of 5! Doo doo doo doo!

Have you played Cartoon Network Punch Time Explosion XL? What did you think of it? Tell me in the comments!

Next Smash Bros clone game: Digimon All Star Rumble! WHAT???? 40 bucks?? I'll wait for a sale, thank you very much.