Hey Time Wasters!
This week I have something a little different for you than my normal reviews: a ‘proof of concept’ rather than an actual game. I stumbled across this maybe-Xbox-game-to-be while searching through my daily time wasting materials and thought it was good enough to be brought to light. But that said, instead of this being a final review, it’s going to be more about explaining the game and what I think of this concept so far. So, let’s get started.
Zineth is a game where you are a cowboy in an exoskeleton (at least this is what it made me think when looking at it). Your job in the game is being an errand boy who has to skate around the city and surrounding areas using your mad skills to perform various tasks. When you complete these tasks you get money, and with this money you upgrade your sprite. I’ll explain the sprite thing a little later. For now I’ll keep talking about the tasks since we’re already on the subject.
Your work missions are basically all the same: collect pages and deliver stuff. Only the mission of going to the moon catches you truly by surprise from your boss. But other than your work missions there are also side missions you can do that earn money and also help you reach your goal of getting to the moon. These missions are a little more diverse with things like time trials, breaking objects and collecting stuff. One of the main side quests that will assist you most is the side quest involving the hawk.
The hawk has a key role in this game, and is also the reason why you use your money to upgrade your sprite. Alongside the actual game, there is a smaller game inside where you control a little 2D sprite in a little cell phone world. This sprite’s only function is to be made more powerful in order to go into a versus mode against the hawk and win. Obviously, the more powerful your sprite is the better chance for victory. And once you beat the hawk, you unlock a new area that advances your ability to get to the moon.
So that’s the concept of the game, and in my opinion it successfully communicated what the future project is supposed to be. The other areas of this demo were a bit wanting with its single color, little or zero texture, low-poly graphics, and also its average music and sound effects, but I personally found it to be appealing (but I like the really old 3D style). However, I was impressed that the cell phone option already had functions for connecting to Twitter and other interactive things.
In final words, I would love to see this game go forward and become something fully fleshed out and finished. I would also like to see a lot more missions and also more stuff to do with the sprite world (maybe even an online versus against other people? A guy can dream). So far though, Zineth gets a forward push from me.
Even when being just a concept, Zineth earths 3.5 GiN Gems out of 5!