Space Giraffe Comments by Kristan Reed

Much ado about nothing.

I've tried the demo twice and by ten minutes in each time I had a splitting headache. As much as I want it to be good, it's simply badly presented. I'd also point out that it poses a serious risk to those sensitive to flashing lights. The safety of this title is questionnable at best. At any rate, 10/10 for advancing the kingdom of hippydom one step closer to Doors nirvana. 0/10 for producing a playable game.

@I_Have_The_power

The comparison with FPS games is clunky I'll admit, but the point I was trying to make is that the game is often dismissed as unfair when it really isn't (or nowhere near as much as people seem to think it is). I compared it to being sniped in a FPS more because it's a one shot kill in the same way that being hit by an unseen bullet in SG. But FPS games pull the same stunts dishing out non-lethal damage from unseen sources all the time (which can be lethal if your health is low enough). (Edit: better wording (hopefully))

That's beside the point really. The point was more that if you run round a blind corner and get sniped once, you should really be looking for a different approach next time. People are prepared to do that in a lot of games, because it's generally pretty obvious that there are alternate approaches. With SG if you get hit by something you haven't seen it's much harder to see what you could possibly have done about it - even though there are techniques that will keep you alive.

I'm not trying to vindicate bad game design. I'm saying I don't think it is bad game design. The game has been designed to allow you to play it without seeing the bullets. I'm not saying the game doesn't have bad design decisions in it - I just don't believe this is one of them. I am generally pretty childish. I don't think I was being so here. The comparison wasn't ideal, but i believed it the best way to illustrate my point. People are criticising it for things they let other games get away with.

I'm only evangelising the game in the same way that people do for other under-appreciated games like Beyond Good and Evil and Psychonauts. These are games that are easy to dismiss but deserve to reach a wider audience. It's only natural to want to share good things with others. Interestingly, if I was to evangelise Bioshock in its comment thread, noone whatsoever would question my motives. It's only the divisive games that get that.

It hasn't got a poor score IMO. The only comment I've made about the score was that the 6 was an odd one. I can understand the 8, but a 6 seems strange. No-one gives marmite 6 out of 10. This doesn't seem like a game you can think is OK. I'd understand a 3 more.

@Geowolf (as if anyone's still reading at this point...)

Apparently the game doesn't need an epilepsy warning because it's covered by the global one that covers XBLA that exists somewhere. I'm buggered if I remember ever seeing it. They should have made an exception in this case, because if any game's going to trigger it, this would be the one.

i'm with krudster on this one - couldn't see wtf was going on. at least it didn't cost much.

I agree with Mr Manic Miner UK.

I'm crap at games, Most days I can't even score 200'000 on Geometry Wars, and still can't kill the end boss on Gears of Wars (on easy), yet I've so far managed to get up to level 70-74 on the Giraffe.

Though I'm now struggling when the webs start spinning around.

This is all well and good, but when are you going to put up the Space Giraffe reveiw???


/DOUBLE TAKES
:O

load of old wank. cant see whats going on at all, controls are utter wank whenever you go upside down, far too many glaring obstacles to playing it that no amount of clever references can mask, whatever the die hard apologists may think.

4/10 (although there is an 8/10 game struggling to get out.)

I love this game, and I'm leaning more towards Shinji's interpretation than Krudsters.

And that's alright!

I agree with MMUK about not needing to be a ninja gamer to like this. My Geometry Wars score is shockingly low, and my twitch gaming skills are dying with old age, but I still enjoy this old goat of a game ;)

Fortunately the game doesn't cost much and there's a demo - so give it a chance. If you like it, awesome, if you don't, no harm done!

If you try to see if you're about to hit something or something is about to hit you, then yes, it's almost impossible to see. But you're supposed to think ahead all the time, think about where you're not supposed to go in a few seconds; you usually get plenty of feedback for that.

Compare that to (again) Geometry Wars, where after 300K-400K the game just becomes an explosion of lights and particles where you only have a split second to react to incoming threats... Space Giraffe is definitely a LOT more fair than Geo Wars (and most other arcade shooters on XBLA), yet this game consistently gets picked on for supposed hardcoreness. So add me to the list of people who're not normally very good at these type of games but are quite good at SG.

Still, good job by Eurogamer with the two reviews though, sounds they at least gave it a fair shot.

Actually, I'm finding Space Giraffe to be quite easy as well now. Well, there's difficulty spikes (nnngh @ levels 16, 32 and 64!) but once you've learnt and you've stopped playing the game like a shmup then it's no where near hardcore difficulty.

Not liking this game - for any reason - is the true mark of a lesser human being. Failing Space Giraffe is the precursor to failing at life.

Incidentally, the screenies remind me a bit of the acid trip in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

/travels to another dimension

@Veldaban +1

As far as I'm concerned this game is utter pony.

Thank christ for the ability to download trial versions, no points had to be wasted on this neon turd.

Nothing to add really, so:

"If you manage to refrain from using your pods, then you'll gain bonuses"

FNAAR FNAAR!

> Space Giraffe is not a normal game

It is. It's just a game, same as any other. If people would take off their Jeff-Minter-is-so-cool-and-indie blinkers they might realise it.

This does at least demonstrate the futility of reviewing games, since there's no accounting for taste.

Spodge

Splodge

this is the only xbla game i bought outright before playing the demo, I like Jeffs spirit, and wanted to support him....I was drunk at the time, my girflriend used to read his blog, so she also approved of my impulsive purchase, I have spent about 30 minutes with the game, and would have scored it a 3, but then upped it to six because it was Jeff...but no, for me, its crap and confusing. and maybe my respect for jeff is diminishing, he's a nice bloke, but given the chance I would think a lot of people could have done a better job than him of making an xbla title.

saith. un. tri. tri. chwech. deg.

Space Giraffe?

Isn't that the new game by Geoff Winter?

I think its a good game and one that you need to perservere with to a certain extent to enjoy. Im pretty crap at it still but its got that one more go feel about it to try and improve my score each time.

First few times through its fair to say I hadnt got a clue what I was supposed to be doing but once it clicked i found it pretty addictive.

I certainly wouldnt recommend it to anyone as its a real must play to see first but I think 6-7 out of 10 would seem fair.

I know Shinji's highscore as he's on my friendslist, but not Krudster's as he turned me down :'(

Heh, yeah - I suck at it :) Doesn't stop me from enjoying playing it loads, but I'm awful at it. Funny thing is, contrary to MMUK's claims on this front, it's genuinely the "twitch" aspect of it that floors me. I can practically play it with my eyes closed, I'm so used to the auditory cues, but the actual twitch control sees me dying stupidly every time.

Typically the night where myself and a pal sat and got the damned thing all the way to 100 through sheer willpower was on HIS 360, so I didn't get the achievement. Bah! :)

I've always enjoyed weird and trippy games that give most people headaches so I've been getting on well with Space Giraffe. My favourite part so far was when I reached the level 30 area, where new enemies would show up but be amongst the action. The only thing that gave them away was the new sound effects they brought with them, which left me frantically trying to figure out what was making them while dealing with everything else.

Hmm. Not that good a selling point when I write it down.

The advise I would give anyone playing would to be actually to just slow down. Don't try and play on twitch, even if you feel you have to. Take a more considered strategy...

OK, those normal enemies... Ignore them, but you want to take out boffins asap, and keep those flowers cultivated, they're good for keeping the power zone active. Be aware of the sound of bullets being fired, and what's in the background waiting to come into play. etc etc.

The closest thing I can compare it to is driving, it seemed so complex at first. With so much to keep your eye on, but you learn and it becomes second nature. Same with Space Giraffe.

It's the work of a genius. With cows and sheeps sounds.

Can't stop playing this, it's even eating some of my Bioshock playing time... I'll try to get connected to Live sooner or later just to see how my scores fare compared to the rest of the world...

To those who accuse people like myself (Minter fans) of enjoying this game and rating it highly *JUST BECAUSE IT'S BY JEFF MINTER*, I say: feck off.

I'm a fan of his because I like a lot of his games, not the other way around. He's not a perfect game creator but this particular game could well be my most favouritest Yak game, nay, twitch shooter yet.

PLUS: I paid less for this than I did Sheep in Space! RESULT

\o/

Shinji: Oooooh, that's gotta hurt. I hate getting scores / achievements on other people's profiles, or the other way around for that matter. Mate of mine was playing Dig Dug on my profile over the weekend and he's a lot better at it than I am, got a bit annoyed that he unloaded achievements and registered more than double my previous score on it under my tag >:(

Oh, and some of my best advice: play the tutorial. Then play it again, and try to get the "score 10 million on the tutorial" achievement. You'll understand the game mechanic far betterer ;)

At a glance it looks this would appeal to the same people who think Every Extend Extra was a stroke of genius. And that bored me to tears.

Your glance is flawed since I was never a fan of Every Extend. Never played the commercial versions of that game though.

Heh, you bottled it by going with two reviews and then neither of them was that controversial a score!

80's game design, a step by step guide

a) find some things you can code up that you think are really cool
b) smoke loads of weed/do acid and write bollocks that explains what you've done
c) Hope the sales of the resulting game cover the cost of b)

(see Bugaboo)

I love the graphics, tunes, just the game's shit boring with loads of "why did I die?" and "I can't be bothered to find out" followed by "guide-button-Y"

see bugaboo? do you mean bugaboo the flea that game rocked as does every extend extra, space giraffe and rez all underappreciated classics

I've found I've got through the first 60 or so levels without hardly ever using a jump pod other than to extend the power zone. Then suddenly the arrival of the "Dave" audio cue has led to a renaissance in my panicked dodging and jumping routine.

Going to steady myself for battling through to the end.

the graphics of this game helped cause an astigmatism............ thank you space giraffe