Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

What is it?

Rocket Knight, available for PS3, 360, and Steam, is a sequel to the three Rocket Knight games on Sega Megadrive/Genesis and Super NES from some fifteen years ago. The plotline in this game actually picks up fifteen years after those games ended and continues with a similar storyline with lots of familiar faces and locations. This differs from the approach of other franchise refreshes that either serve as remakes, such as Bionic Commando Rearmed, or those that take greater liberties with canon, such as Mega Man Powered Up. Sparkster, an opossum in a suit of armor with a sword, battles an army of pigs and wolves, as well as arch-nemesis Axel.

What’s the story?

While a game like this certainly doesn’t need a story, there’s one here anyway. It’s pretty tight with the canon of the original three games. In fact, under the Help and Options menu, synopses of the original three games can be read, expanded to more suitably connect with the new game. Sparkster has been pushed into retirement by the king, who’s called him “a relic of the past” in this time of peace. Sparkster is farming when the game opens, and we see his wife and child before the kingdom’s peace is broken. Sparkster runs into his home and after a lot of noise, comes sailing out on his rocket pack once more to save the day.

How does it play?

Sparkster wears a rocket pack which he can use to blast through the air, sometimes in quick bursts, but in some instances he spends the entire stage airborne, scrolling shooter style. Stages are generally either a platform event or a scrolling shooter. While Sparkster shares most of his moves between the stages, the mechanic of changing the gameplay up between these two styles goes a long way to keeping the game fresh throughout. When you’ve completed a tough platforming stage and you’re tired of running and jumping, you’re in luck: for the next stage you’ll be sailing through the sky and taking down hulking pirate ships. It’s pretty great.

The platforming sections have you running and jumping as well as boosting around for short bursts with your rocket pack. You can zip forward a distance to traverse gaps and even fight enemies, or you can blast off at an angle, ricocheting off walls to climb between vertical surfaces. Sparkster can even do a corkscrew attack to break through certain places, or do a spinning attack in place. As an opossum, he can hang by his tail from rails, climb around on them, slide downward, or spin to attack while on there. He also has a short-range missile weapon he flings from his sword, which proves invaluable for attacking enemies and sometimes operating switches.

Controlling the rocket pack is revolutionary here when compared to using a digital controller from the 16-bit era. The original Sega Megadrive/Genesis game posed a number of challenges with control which are completely solved using an analog stick. I fully expected to find myself using the d-pad to work Sparkster, but I was on the stick in no time and never felt like the controls had betrayed me while playing. The game introduces mechanics one at a time throughout the first couple of stages, but you have access to everything Sparkster can do from the start, so no worries about having to “learn” abilities before using them. If you’re really having trouble, there’s a very thorough “How to Play” section in the menu with 12 sections that teach all the moves and concepts used in the game.

While platforming, the rocket pack runs off a power meter. It depletes quickly while in use, but refills quickly when not in use. One chapter takes place in a frozen area, and the screen and meter ice over. Your rocket pack’s fuel doesn’t replenish except when you’re standing near one of the many braziers placed around the level, which was a surprising and fun mechanic.

The game has two modes, Arcade and Free Play. Arcade is the main adventure where you progress through the game by completing stages and defeating bosses. Free Play lets you then go back and replay any of the stages you’ve reached in an effort to become better at them, either to be able to progress further when you go back into Arcade Mode or to improve your score and thereby your position on the already crowded online leaderboards. Unfortunately, there are a limited number of lives and continues in the game, which means you could get very far in the game and then find yourself all the way back at the beginning. It’s something of a disappointing choice by the developers. While I found the game much easier on normal difficulty than the original game, and I progressed much further, running out of continues and having to end the game was a real letdown.

How does it look and sound?

The game effectively captures the style and feel of the original game without feeling like it’s the same game. The graphics are bright, stylized, and colorful on both 360 and PS3, though the framerate seems stronger on the 360. The sound is really great too, with lots of high quality music but perhaps not enough variety. Even the songs that are different really sound very much the same. The songs will be familiar to those who are long time fans of the series.

How’s the replay value?

The game starts with normal and hard difficulty levels available. Normal difficulty is somewhat easier than it was in the original game, but it still becomes quite challenging by the middle of the fourth world. I reached the third world before losing a life, and then quickly depleted the remainder of my lives and continues in world four. Aside from completing the game on a harder difficulty level and striving to place on the leaderboards, there’s really not a whole lot else here, as there aren’t many trophies in the game to keep you playing. Only two of the trophies can be obtained without completing the game at least once. The attempt to raise the challenge level by limiting continues is not effective for increasing replay value, only the frustration level of the player.

Is it worth it?

At $15, Rocket Knight may be a hard sell to younger gamers. The game would rank as a remarkably meaty title in the 16- or even 32-bit era, and in fact the originals ranked as three of those, but today a game like this, small enough to fit on a CD-ROM and delivered digitally, however polished, is not a $15 product. Pump the game up with more trophies and some multiplayer modes, things like that, pop it on a disc and sell it in a box with a manual, and you’re looking at a $40 game that, unfortunately, nobody would buy. I love the game and I’ll probably be playing it for some time, but if you don’t have the roots to appreciate what the game would have been in 1995, you won’t find it worth $15 in 2010. So in the end, a great game, but it should have had at least an option for more of even unlimited continues… and it should have been cheaper.