Sunday, August 5, 2007

Weekly Random Review #2: Orb Avoidance 2


My Overall Rating: 3 stars
Good: More appealing graphics, same original gameplay as the first.
Bad: No breaking changes made since the last game, many prefer the old version for it's simplicity.


Kalinium is at it again with a sequel to the beloved Orb Avoidance (a.k.a. circles of death). For those of you who are not familiar to the Orb Avoidance games, here's the quick overview; Balls follow your cursor... if they hit it, you die. So, you try to "lure" them into blocks that stand inside the stage, destroying them.

If you are familiar with it, you will notice a big change right away. The graphics have been completely rehashed, making the game look more professional than the first. When you play the game on the other hand, you will find that not much has changed in that aspect. Basically some blocks explode and others just vanish, but essentially it's the same old game made to look a bit more colorful. In my opinion, doing this to the game made it lose it's simplicity value, degrading the game. A sequel should always stride to be bigger and better than it's predecessor, and I think this game has failed that. If you read down the comments of the game, you will see that many users agree with me, even preferring the original. Not all is bad though! The music has seen some light and tops off the new look.

In the end, I feel that this game has lost what made the former game so appealing in the first place. So in my opinion... Orb Avoidance > Orb Avoidance 2.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I realise this comment was posted months ago about a game nobody really knows about anymore, but I'd just like to reply to it as the developer of both the games. Hey, someone might read this...



When redesigning the game for the sequel I was constantly given the feedback not to ruin the winning formula. People liked the gameplay of Orb 1. People didn't like the graphics.

My aims in making Orb 2 was not so much to make an entirely new gameplay strategy but to fix the problem people were having with the first one - that it didn't look as good as it could.

In doing so, I seem to have got the support of the new comers of the Orb Avoidance games, but - and in some respects I knew this would happen - not kept the support of the Orb 1 players.

The bottom line is that Orb 2 was not meant to replace Orb 1 - merely to offer a different way of playing onto the Orb Avoidance gameplay that had proven itself to be successful.