2016 Game Review Haiku, #39 – Ridiculous Marathon

Running, being chased
Avoid those trucks, the spike traps
One day, nothing left

–

Here we go again. Another year of me attempting to produce quality Japanese poetry about the videogames I complete in three syllable-based phases of 5, 7, and 5. I hope you never tire of this because, as far as I can see into the murky darkness–and leap year–that is 2016, I’ll never tire of it either. Perhaps this’ll be the year I finally cross the one hundred mark. Buckle up–it’s sure to be a bumpy ride. Yoi ryokō o.

RIDICULOUS MARATHON HAS CANDY, TOFFEE, SWEETS, AND CONFETTI

If you have an eye for detail or are anal about words being in all capital letters when perhaps they have no reason to be, you might be wondering why this blog post about Ridiculous Marathon has such style elements enforced in its title. I assure you this is not a clickbait attempt or new thing for Grinding Down in 2016. I assure you. This stems from looking up further details about the game on Microsoft’s website and discovering that the only text provided before the “read more” link is as follows:

GET READY TO RUN A CRAZY MARATHON FILLED WITH CANDY, TOFFEE, SWEETS AND CONFETTI

Er, yeah. Settle down, copy writer. Also, even after playing Ridiculous Marathon for a bit, I can’t agree that the game is filled with these items. You’ll see a piece of candy every few feet, but only until you complete the Daily Challenge, and then you’ll never see another sliver of candy again until the next day. As for the toffee and sweets–no idea where they are. Confetti appears from time to time as you morph into a powered-up piñata, but this isn’t a game about hitting the crap out of a stuffed container often made of papier-mâché. It’s an endless runner, through and through.

I’ll say with certainty that Ridiculous Marathon is an easier and more forgiving endless runner than Temple Run 2 and Lara Croft: Relic Run–put together. There are fewer turns and obstacles to avoid, with a larger focus on jumping over construction signs and avoiding trucks carrying long wooden logs. Your move set includes jumping, moving left to right, and sliding–that’s kind of it. There’s no turning corners or running along walls to not fall in pits, but you can double tap the screen to turn into an invincible piñata that will, I believe, save you from one crash. I’ve gotten pretty far without much outside help, hitting around 150,000 points in score. With the help of some revive diamonds, I expect to hit 500,000 points rather easily.

Naturally, with this being a free-to-play endless runner, there’s microtransactions available that could help each of your runs be more successful, but only if you plop down some cash. So far, I’ve ignored all of those options and am doing just fine. You can buy single use power-ups with the gold you collect as you move through the Amazon rainforest, as well as upgrade power-ups or purchase costumes for your characters, though those are simply cosmetic in nature. There are ads, but they are easy to dismiss, though I don’t understand why I have to sign in with my Microsoft account every single time I load it up to play; other mobile games don’t ask me to do this.

There are two systems at work to keep one coming back to Ridiculous Marathon, and they are the Daily and Weekly Challenges. The Daily Challenge tasks you with collecting a number of candy as you run, which is easy enough because, just like with all the game’s power-ups, you can spot them from a distance as a beam of light shoots up and out of them. Do this for five days in a row, and you’ll unlock a mystery box, which gave me some free piñata power-ups. The Weekly Challenge wants you to collect golden palm trees, and the one I’m on is for finding 21, of which I’ve gotten nine. They show up a whole lot less, so we’ll see if I get any reward by the end of the countdown, which stands at 34 hours left. Hmm.

In the end, Ridiculous Marathon is fine. It’s not as ridiculous as one might think, nor as tiring as running an actual marathon. Well, I actually can’t speak officially on that last part. Perhaps this is a runner better suited for younger gamers or those just getting into the genre. Anyways, I expect to play it for another week or two until I’ve wrung every ounce of fun from it, and by fun I naturally mean Achievements.

What in the world is broken with What in the World?

Look, finding decent screenshots of mobile games from my Windows 8 phone is nearly impossible, so I’m just going to grab random screencaps from HBO’s Game of Thrones episodes and roll with it from there. I’m sure you are all bummed to come here and see a smiling Carice van Houten as the ever-untrustworthy Melisandre rather than a static shot of What in the World?, a relatively plain-looking trivia game. But that’s just logistics, here at Grinding Down.

Originally, I wasn’t going to write about What in the World?, which I completed back in June 2015. When I say “completed,” I mean I finished all the available puzzles and popped every Achievement, including the one where developer Game Troopers asks you to log into Facebook so you can then share your score and other bullcrap. I didn’t consider the game a big enough experience to give it its very own haiku. Well, I just completed it again, seeing as it got a free update recently with more puzzles to solve, as well as Achievements to pop. Unfortunately, the game seems more broken than before, or perhaps it is time I heed all those pestering text messages from Verizon and upgrade to a new cellular phone. Nahhh.

First off, I had to replay What in the World? from the very beginning because, upon completing it a few months ago, I naturally uninstalled it from my phone, believing that this word-guessing puzzle slog forward was finished. My bad, but whatever. Seeing as the levels in this game are not random, I planned to just use a guide to get through all the odd celebrity names and foreign countries foreign to my knowledge, blitzing my way through once more so that I could play the new level 6 puzzles. This took several days, which is fine, as there’s an Achievement for playing for five consecutive days, but I probably could’ve gotten through everything in a night if the application didn’t break my phone within three or four minutes of each session.

Every few puzzles, a message pops up, either asking you to write a review of the game or rate it or follow the developer on Twitter. Annoying, but it’s a free game and does have the option to pay and remove ads, though I don’t know if these messages count as advertisements. I clicked “no” each and every time, but each and every time I did, the game slowed down, which, when you are dealing with a static image, is not extremely noticeable, but it dragged its feet when moving from right answer to a new puzzle. After a few of these, the game simply chugged at an unacceptable rate, nearly freezing my phone and killing its battery. Also, once you complete a full level, instead of returning you to the level select menu, What in the World? closes down and returns you to your home screen, which is not helpful.

Either way, I won’t be uninstalling What in the World? for a second time, as it looks like there’s more updates to come. I’m sure you are wondering why I’d put up with more glitchy sluggishness, and the answer is twofold: relatively easy Achievements and I guess I’m pretty into pop culture trivia. There were only a few puzzles that I really didn’t have a clue on, and again, most of these relate to countries or cities. Also, maybe before the next update, the developers will patch the game to have it work better on older cell phone models. Unlikely, but a boy can hope. Don’t worry…I’ll complain here if they don’t.

2015 Game Review Haiku, #46 – What in the World?

Study the picture
Guess what it is, or just look
Up answers online

–

From 2012 all through 2013, I wrote little haikus here at Grinding Down about every game I beat or completed, totaling 104 in the end. I took a break from this format last year in an attempt to get more artsy, only to realize that I missed doing it dearly. So, we’re back. Or rather, I am. Hope you enjoy my continued take on videogame-inspired Japanese poetry in three phases of 5, 7, and 5, respectively.