We Play Stuff

Colloid
http://www.addictinggames.com/colloid.html
About ten minutes ago, I thought Colloid was going to be probably the worst, least detailed game of all time. Looking back, I was only half right -- it might be the least detailed game ever, but it certainly is not the worst. Basically, you are a relatively small dot. Before you can even become accustomed to your newfound dot-ness, a barrage of other multicolored dots flies at you from the top of the screen. Therein lies the object of said game: mouse-over as many dots of your current color as possible. By "your current color," I mean the color of your dot, as well as the background. Hitting any colors besides your own will result in a penalty, and consequently your score drops. There's a timer bar in the top-right corner of the screen which does two things: 1. Alert you as to what the upcoming color is, and 2. Inform you as to how long you have left in that color.

There are a few downsides to this game, mainly the fact that you the game seems to finish whenever it wants, regardless of how you're doing. Also, laptops aren't the most conducive platforms on which to play Colloid. I can only imagine how fun this game would be with a mouse. Or I could walk into the other room and actually experience it... but then what would I use my imagination for? Thinking? Wha?

Oh. Sometimes you're about to grab a huge, sweet bunch of (insert color here) dots RIGHT as the designated color changes, and it docks you a bunchapoints. But chalk that up to human error. Lastly, you kinda get Guitar Hero-vision after playing this game for a while, but who doesn't like a little disorientation, a touch of the dizzies every now and then.

4/5

Ongaku
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/387592
I'm a huge fan of rhythm games, so when I saw one on New Grounds, a top notch site for flash games, needless to say I got excited. The game is Ongaku, from Armor Games. It's funny because this is probably the first rhythm game I've seen with an actual story to it. You play as Ongaku, the living, crystal music note, once the top piece of a magical wand, brought to life by the good magic of Harmony, and the dark magic of Discord, Harmony's arch rival, all of which you'll find out if you happen to not skip the intro story.

The gameplay reminds me somewhat of Taiko no Tatsujin DS, which most of you don't know as a Japanese drum-based rhythm game. The "notes" scroll from right to left, and you have to hit each one as it comes. The notes take the form of up, down, left, or right arrows, and you have to either hit the button of the corresponding arrow, or hold the button down so when it gets to the cursor, you still hit it. Ongaku varies it up a bit, though; pressing the W key moves your cursor up to the top level and pressing the S key moves it back to the bottom level. "Notes" can come from any of the three levels, requiring players to switch off between holding W, S, and nothing to hit all of the notes. As you hit the notes, a background picture starts to appear, and if you do well, begins get colored in by paint, revealing saturated colors and strange and unique creatures. The more notes you hit, the more of the background you paint. Except for the tutorial, you have to reach a certain percentage in each level to "buy" the next level, all the way up to the sixth and hardest level. To get to it, you need to have an upper 90% for each previous level. As hard as the controls sound, they're not. Play the game and you'll find a simple, yet intricate feeling control scheme.

The game has a lot of personality, displayed in its art, background music and sound effects. There are seven different songs to play including the tutorial, and most of the sound different and cool. One thing that I disliked about this game is the fact that the notes seem not quite randomly placed, but they definitely don't compliment the beat very well because they're placed badly, which can be confusing and off-putting. Also, as the difficulty increases, the capability to "scoop" the notes by just holding down the correct arrow button diminishes, due to arrows being placed very close together. In these cases, you have to actually hit the button at the correct time, which may be difficult for the less-coordinated players. By the last level, I was seriously struggling, but on the third or fourth try, I found my groove. The last level does take some serious coordination, though. Once you've beaten the last level, you're informed that you've beaten the game, and it refers to the story from the beginning, telling you that Discord is still on the loose, and that the game is to be continued. Hopefully in the next iteration they clear up some of the issues that keep Ongaku from being a truly enjoyable rhythm game.

4/5