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Cute *and*
helpful. What more could you ask for?
Choosing
to name
their game Secondhand Lands may have been more than a little prophetic
for
Callipygian Games. Upon initial entry into the world, it certainly
looks like a
hand-me-down from the shareware games of the mid-90's. Unless you're
using a
truly ancient monitor, you'll be graced with an 800x600 window. If I
had loaded
this onto my Instinct or an
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/64835" target="_blank">iPhone
(either one of which is probably
powerful
enough to run it), I wouldn't be complaining, but this is the 21st
century
where the less powerful games run on an easily accessible browser
window rather
than forcing the players to download a full client.
The
only benefit of
limiting the game to such lackluster graphics is that there's no reason
it
shouldn't run on any computer out there. We've all heard the arguments
debating
the need to keep a game's requirements low in order to reach the
broadest
possible audience, but there needs to be a line that developers should
not
cross if it’s going to make the game less enjoyable. When I
finally discovered
how to adjust the screen size (and believe me it took a little work), I
discovered that Secondhand Lands did have its fair share of charm.
target="_blank">Charm
is actually the
only thing I think Secondhand Lands has going for it when you get right
down to
the nitty gritty. The developers have obviously spent a large amount of
time
infusing the characters of their world with a cute sense of humor. The
concept
of Secondhand Lands appears to be classic fairy tales all mashed
together then
gone horribly wrong. It's this slightly skewed view of the world that
gives it
any interest.
I
started my journey
out as a wolf since they're the natural bad guys of the land. The idea
of an
army of wolves working for Little Red Riding Hood was entertaining, and
the
fact that she has you talk to her friend, Rustee, (a proclaimed "big
bad
wolf”) to train up and get stronger definitely got a chuckle
out of me. After
talking with Rustee, I was off to go hunt monkeys. What monkeys have
against
the wolves or Little Red Riding Hood is anyone's guess, but at this
point, I
wasn't going to ask.
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Little
Stuart put up an attitude when I walked into their strike line.
The
target="_blank">sense
of humor I'd seen displayed earlier had given me a little bit
of hope for the game. Sadly, that hope turned out to be that slight
feeling of floating on air you experience in the scant seconds before
the roller coaster you're riding reaches the top of its initial descent
and plummets into the pits of doom. The combat in Secondhand Lands is a
sorry excuse in every sense of the word. Animations are minimal at
best, and the stuttering pace of battle will have you begging for your
computer monitor to blow up in your face just to end the pain.
When you level up you'll gain points to add to various skill trees and
to test the system, I chose to continually put all of my points into a
single skill (Bite) to see if I noticed any difference. Perhaps at some
point in time, you'll hit a magic number that allows you to
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/64857" target="_blank">feel
more
powerful, but I never reached it. After spending a number of
points in
Bite (and Bite alone), I never saw *any* noticeable difference in the
damage I was inflicting.
I will give the team points in their attempt to make things easy to
learn in the game. Every character starts out with their own little
Fairy Helper. Not only will she cast much needed healing spells while
you're getting your hindquarters kicked all over the place, she'll also
continually give you pieces of advice. These little pearls of wisdom
can be anything from a key combination to access your skills window to
general tips about the game. All in all, I actually found her quite
useful and I'd highly recommend that developers check out this little
helper to see how a quality tutorial aid can be implemented into a game
without being obnoxious.
At the end of the day, I have to say that unless you have a disturbing
need to relive your early childhood or are looking for a game that
should be safe for your six year old to play, you should probably avoid
Secondhand Lands. I imagine a young child may find some enjoyment out
of the game, but since I'm not a very young child, nor do I have any,
don't take my word for it. If you're interested, I'm sure the
Secondhand Lands team would love for you to give the game a try for
yourself.
