Welcome to 2012 Time Wasters!
So I sit down to do some browser gaming and after checking a few Indie sites I head over to Armor Games (a personal favorite) and posted on the front screen is "This is the Only Level 3," a new game in one of my favorite browser based game series. So at this point you’re probably wondering why I’ve never showed the series off on the Weekly Time Waster. Well simply put it’s been awhile since there was a release in the series and the Time Waster is fairly young so I didn’t want to jip new games that were coming out by posting about an older one.
But let’s get to the meat of the article already.
This is the Only Level 3 (TOL3 from now on) is a puzzle based 2D platformer where the main goal is to complete the same level over and over again, except that each time the level needs to be beat in a new way. The title of the "level" acts as a sort of hint as to how to beat it each time, but even with that TOL3 left me scratching my head in thought more times than I’d like to admit. I’m not complaining about this though, a good puzzle game should make me stop and think or use trial and error to get the solutions.
The way in which the puzzles must be solved is what really makes TOL3 stand out from an overcrowded genre. A good example is how in one of the many iterations of the level the switch to open the final door breaks off and it just so happens to look like a cannon, so now we can use spacebar to fire a lazer (my gosh I spelled it like that from the get go, the internetz is corrupting me) from it and blast down the gate. This is one of the more mild examples of how TOL3 uses the environment in a unique way.
Some of the other puzzles really think outside of the box by having the solutions come from outside of the game level and in different areas of the gamem such as the scoreboards.
So besides mind bending gameplay, what else does TOL3 have to offer?
Well honestly not much. The game uses one single song throughout the whole game. Okay, so the song is really catching and fun to listen to, but after wading through 30 different versions of the same level it can’t get…repetitive.
The same goes for the graphics of TOL3. Sure there isn’t really much more you can do when the game uses a single level, and I’ve even come to accept the fact that the little blue elephant is a mascot of the series and shouldn’t be removed.
So while I’m not really holding this against TOL3, I am noting that the same old graphics and sound might be in market for an update. Maybe even go so far as to use them in a clever new way to finish the level. If anyone can do this it will be the creators of TOL3.
So TOL3 brings us into 2012 as a shining light of hope for browser based games to come with its innovative puzzles and gameplay. If I could stay on an Indie high and not play anything below this level I think I might explode from joy. Well here’s hoping.
This is the Only Level 3 solves its way to a wonderful 4 GiN Gems out of 5!