Savage Moon Comments by Dan Pearson

I must get back into this, I quite liked it. Cheers for reviewing, I thought this one was passing under the radar.

I would've tried this IF IT HAD A DEMO.

denise richards is no longer hot

Tower Defense games. Jesus. I would like a quiet word with the inventor of those :P

Yeah, I would have liked a demo for it do but ultimately decided "fuck it" and thought I'd grab. If only to feed back to demoless people.

7? Massive fail. PS3lol.

Is that irony tomnol? I honestly can't tell.

I'll get this eventually, but I'm still clearing the games backlog. I do love Tower Defence though.

What's with all the Tower Defence games?

There's another one by Square coming out for all downloadable platforms soon, and you can't move on Iphone for Tower Defence games. I guess this is one genre that's passed me by...

It's the new Tetris.

"An insectivore is a type of carnivore with a diet that consists chiefly of insects and similar small creatures."

it doesn't mean insect-like, and it's not an alien that looks like an insect either. you would not, even in space, get much grief from rampaging aardvarks, or the like.

thought you'd like to know.

I would've tried this IF IT HAD A DEMO.

True for me too. There are plenty of XBLA games that I wound up buying because I liked the demo that I otherwise wouldn't have thought of getting. Wonder why Sony can't see it as a benefit?

add another to the wanted a demo list

Is there a demo for this?

"it doesn't mean insect-like, and it's not an alien that looks like an insect either. you would not, even in space, get much grief from rampaging aardvarks, or the like. "

Except that the aliens in this do look a bit like insects. And they are called insectivores. So nyah nyah. :)

......There are plenty of XBLA games that I wound up buying because I liked the demo that I otherwise wouldn't have thought of getting. Wonder why Sony can't see it as a benefit?

Can I get a AMEN to that!

Does it have co-op? Thats the best thing for me about pixeljunk monsters. No co-op, no chance of getting wife involved, therefore no sale...

Nope, no co-op, sadly.

KILLLLLLLLLZZZZZZONNNEEEEEEEEEEEEE...

Apologie... I fail to see the relevance. Whats this got to do with a 5/10 rated 5 year old PS2 game?

I just don't understand the "no demo" stance for a lot of PSN games. I'd love to try them but they don't provide that for most games on the service and most of the games I've bought on XBLA have been because I downloaded the demo ouit of curiosity and liked it.

Same for Super Stardust HD - loved the demo so I bought it.

Review for Harvest - Massive Encounter please.

I'm often suspicious when a game doesn't have a demo. For instance, like many, I was put off NFS - Pro Street because of the demo and never thought about buying it. Therefore, when no demo or even pre-release reviews were about for Undercover I presumed that it must be rubbish. I have been thinking about Savage Moon for some time but without testing it I'm still not sure

@retibra

I disagree, demos work just fine for the 360. There are a few games on Live Arcade that I would just not have considered without a demo first. N+ springs to mind. It is up to the developer to produce a demo which shows the full product in it's best light. If they produce a demo that is boring, bland, too difficult or for any other reason puts the potential customer off, it's their own fault.

SF2 HD edition springs to mind as a bad demo example (not being able to play single player... crazy. Instant delete for a product that I was vaguely interested in).

@ apolol

YOOOOOOUUU COOOOCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!

@retibra

Do you honestly believe the utter rubbish you wrote? We know you fly the Sony flag but defending lazy/bad decisions like this is bordering on the fanatical.

@retibra

"And once again you show up in the comments thread of a low profile PSN title"

I will post where I wish, and there is not a damn thing you can do about it. How many times shall I repeat this: It's a games website and I like to keep abreast of gaming news. Why won't that piece of salient information pass through your thick skull?


"trolling for a fight... "

No, pointing out what an idiotic comment you made. Game demos have been a staple part of the industry for at least 20 years (the first proper 'play the first level' demo I ever had was for XOR on the BBC Micro in 1986), but now that PSN has largely abandoned demos suddenly they are a bad thing?

Laughable, frankly.

@retibra
Specifically about small PSN / XBLA titles I echo the main sentiments that the XBLA way is best. Standardised and necessary for all titles so it needs to be planned from day 1. If a demo doesn't work in conveying the game well it is largely due to the demo itself and not the requirement to have one in the first place.

Nintendo is the worst offender for demos mind. It's stuck to it's cartridge roots and never provided them. Now it has a system in the Wii which is crying out for demos so you can check how well a game sits with the wii-mote controls and they still refuse to budge.

wow, saying demos are bad just because company X doesn't do it, isn't cool. At all.

This kinda of indulgence hurts the community. There are better ways of proving one's love.

danbojones wrote: ""it doesn't mean insect-like, and it's not an alien that looks like an insect either. you would not, even in space, get much grief from rampaging aardvarks, or the like. "

Except that the aliens in this do look a bit like insects. And they are called insectivores. So nyah nyah. :) "

your riposte to my riposte would have been perfect ... except that the aliens are called "Insectocytes". i believe your "nyah nyah" was premature...

Personally I'd much rather Sony had said in 2009 every release needed a demo rather than trophies - not least to stop exclusive demo madness like with Tomb Raider Underworld. Certainly first and second party boxed and digital titles should lead the way, developers and publishers should believe their product can make an immediate impression on gamers, or at the very least draw them in.. Demos and preview versions are made for most games anyway, when they are presented at expos and for journalists so not giving these a bit of spit and polish to make them presentable as representative of the final product to the public doesn't make sense.

Make it like the Wipeout HD ones among others which have a shortcut that directs people to buying the full game if they want, so I agree having a demo of Savage Moon with a single level on it isn't too much to ask.

The no demo thing is rather dumb, but even if Sony (or whoever is responsible for the game) does not want to put one out, they should at least get review code out there so that sites like this can have reviews ready for when they hit, not several weeks after!

Not having a demo is stupid. But I bought this because I like Tower Defence style games.

It's fantastic, but some levels are bastard hard!

It's decent enough and a bit of a change if you are used to Pixeljunk Monsters. As long as you have the money you can place the towers on whatever useable terrain there is in each level. Also you can put towers on top of the blocking towers which comes in handy, especially if you use them as a bit of bait for the monsters to attack.

@Dan / Jdoki

Other reviews have mentioned that it's got a b*stard vertical difficulty curve. How bad is it? How many levels would someone new to the tower defence thing get thing before breaking their nose on the wall? And is the difficulty one that can be figured out with strategy with a bit of thought, upgrading the weapons, or is it just trial and error?

As for "woulda if it have a demo" - I agree to a point, but surely that's why you're reading this review? It's not as good as a demo for sure, but for a couple of bucks game, does it really matter? Didn't stop you buying GTA. Retibra's dead right, and makes me reconsider Dead Space because I hated the demo (what the f**k are you meant to do when those spidery things jump on you?) - didn't show up anything good in a game that was a potential GoTY for so many.

@3william56
It is tough. Not ball breakingly so until you're some way through though, and never to the point where I felt I was being cheated. Often it's just a matter of learning the waves and planning strategy accordingly. Perseverance will see you through.

@justsomeone

You are absolutely correct. I stand admonished.

@danbojnes

you are a gentleman, sir.

I went through the first few missions fine, got to one I had to retry at briefly and it got a bit hairy at a point but still seemed ok. I thought Pixeljunk Monsters had a wall of a difficulty curve, I went from handling stuff ok to 'oh my god, why won't the boss die?'.

The game feels satisfying to play, I like being able to go into the towers CCTV and sitting watching carnage. Also stuff firing back at me was a bit of a new novelty I wasn't expecting.

I've said before, right down to the atmosphere and presentation, this has the spirit of an Amiga game. Good stuff!

Just bought it, was kinda attracted before and the decent review sealed the deal. I don't regret it: it's a nice twist on the TD style.

The difficulty ramps up quite steeply, but it's nowhere as steep as in PJ Monsters, so it's not frustrating. You can get through levels with less than perfect scores, leaving perfection polish for further replays, whereas PJ Monsters quickly turned unperfect defense into straight level loss. It's also more obvious why you fail a level, and what you have to improve, something that was kinda missing in PJM.
The graphics, audio and overall style are polished and pleasing, killing the insects is quite satisfying in itself :)

I just wish there was more variety in level replay style (with challenge modes like in Desktop TD)

I'd give this game 85/100. Good graphics, really enjoyable gameplay... However, it's really hard to finish some levels without damage, because of giant bugs that destroy any tower in 1 hit. And therefore the gold trophy is really hard to get.
BTW, it HAS a demo, and actually it's a locked full version - when I bought it from demo's menu, the game just downloaded and installed a very small activation file. It appers that this game requires only 200 mb on hard disk, which is quite surprising, with such good graphics.