Arcade Fuzz

Genre: Compilation / Arcade

Players: 1

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Review:

Arcade Fuzz is a compilation game that includes two separate titles, both different sorts of Arcade-style games: TTV3 and Warpzone Drifter. Here’s what I thought of each of these games:

TTV3 is an Arcade-style game that has you as a small character on a screen full of moving objects, with the goal being simply to move to the edge of the screen without touching anything. Players are challenged to do this for as many screens as possible.

It’s a simple, straightforward concept, presented here with an aggressive and repetitive techno soundtrack, as well as high-contrast visuals that are stylistically ugly but mostly conducive to this sort of gameplay with one major caveat – your character doesn’t stand out very well, being mostly the same color as much of the swirling mass of objects you’re supposed to be avoiding.

This is compounded by the game’s other major issue – the transition from one screen to the next is jarring, and it’s far too easy to lose track of where you are in the mess of what’s going on, and maybe even immediately bump into something and get a game over, especially since the threat of being hit by something or having your exits blocked off encourages players to constantly be moving.

With this combination of frustrating design choices, it makes for repeated deaths that feel unfair and easily avoided if the game made it clearer where your character was, or at least gave you a second to get reoriented with each new screen.

In the end, this is a good concept undone by its flaws, and while the game may be a fun challenge for a few minutes, its frustrations will probably see you losing interest before too long.

Game	Genre	# of Players	Grade
TTV3	Arcade	1	D+
tl;dr TTV3 is an Arcade-style game where you’re tasked with reaching the edge of each successive screen without touching anything. It’s a decent, simple concept that’s undone by a character that’s not always easy to see in the mess of what’s happening and a fast pace that keeps you from getting your bearings.

Warpzone Drifter is an Arcade-style game where players direct an out-of-control car as it skids across the screen, trying to direct it to hit each of a series of circles before time runs out.

Visually, this game’s presentation is simple but interesting, with a repetitive aggressive techno soundtrack and an aesthetic like an old Windows screen saver as your car leaves a trail on the screen and tentacles comprised of lines attempt to bar your way. However, given the nature of this game, it would have been nice if the game did more to make it clear which way your car was pointing, as turning can make it blend into its own trail, and it’s very easy to get spun around to the point where you don’t know which way it’ll go next.

Simply controlling the car in this game is one of its biggest challenges. It is constantly moving with a pedal to the metal, but turns are delayed due to a significant amount of drift, to the point where even after turning your car around 180 degrees, it still takes a moment for this change in direction to register.

Between the tough controls and the lack of an indication which way you’re going, it is far, far too easy to completely lose control in this game, especially since you can easily become unsure whether you’ve successfully turned your car away from the edges of the screen. While the game’s unwieldy controls are a large part of its appeal, the game does little to help the player understand these controls.

With more work, Warpzone Drifter could have been a fun but challenging physics-based game, but the issues this game has keep it from being little more than an interesting distraction.

Game	Genre	# of Players	Grade
Warpzone Drifter	Arcade	1	D+
tl;dr Warpzone Drifter is an Arcade-style game where you drive an out-of-control car trying to reach multiple points on the screen within a time limit. Unfortunately, the game’s difficult physics are made even more frustrating by a graphical presentation that makes it difficult to see your car’s orientation, resulting in far too many unintended deaths.

As you can see, I’m not a fan of either of the games in this collection, but for both games I can definitely see potential in them, and if they had been tweaked just a bit, both of them could have been pretty enjoyable smaller games, and the $2 price tag would have been a great value for the pair.

“Would have been”. Sadly, as these games are now, it’s hard to enjoy either of them because their design flaws (and specifically their visual design) results in a lot of frustrating deaths that feel like they could have been avoided if these games did a better job conveying their information to the player visually. With these flaws present, I can’t really recommend this pair of games, even at their low price.

tl;dr – Arcade Fuzz is a compilation of two Arcade-style games, TTV3 and Warpzone Drifter. TTV3 has players avoiding obstacles and trying to reach the edge of the screen, and Warpzone Drifter has players steering an out-of-control car to various points on the screen in a time limit. Unfortunately, both games have frustrating visual design that doesn’t convey necessary information to the player, resulting in frequent, frustrating deaths that sap the fun out of these games.

Grade: D+

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