Chat Review: “Platypus” Brings a New Squish to Retro Scroll Shooters

Following the wild success of our last collaborative game review, Heather and I have teamed up again to take a look at Astraware’s Platypus, a side-scrolling shooter in the tradition of Space Invaders (only with much, much better graphics). Your home world, which looks suspiciously like it’s made of Play-Doh, is under attack by an evil enemy air force, and only you and your trusty Platypus fighter can save your cute, happy world from being bombed to smithereens.

Heather played on her Palm Centro, and I was on my Sprint Touch Pro. Read on to see what we think of Val Kilmer, classic Nintendo, and the California Raisins. Oh yeah, and the game too.

Heather: I did manage to finish the game today. What did you think?

Lauren: I beat it, too. It was surprisingly hard to beat!

Heather: The part with the bombs hanging from the balloons was tough. I couldn’t figure out what to do with them, so I just decided to fly around them.

Lauren: Oh, the minefields? I absolutely bled lives there.

Heather: Me too!!! I could start with 7 lives, and 2 credits, and be down to like nothing when I was done. It was evil.

Lauren: I was on autofire and didn’t know how to turn it off.

Heather: I was on autofire too. Have to hit the Palm button to turn it off.

Lauren: So I kept hitting the death blimps, you know, the ones with the skull and crossbones, and the mines, and then I would manage to avoid most of the carnage and die anyway. It took me forever to figure out that the little mines were killing my pilot. They were hard to see!

Heather: LOL. Me too. I didn’t know the bombs were leaving little bombs. I lost a bunch of lives that way. I didn’t know what was happening.

I would avoid the balloons, and then die on the electrical wires from the poles.

Lauren: Those can kill you too? I just avoided them because that’s what they taught me in kindergarten.

Heather: Good lesson to remember.

Lauren: Yep.

The hardest thing about it is when you blow up something, you get debris all over the screen, and it’s hard to pick out the deadly little bombs from the harmless debris.

Heather: I had the same problem. Especially when you kill a lot of enemies at once, and there is lots of debris.

Learning that the little flying presents turned into extra fire power was a big help. It made life a lot easier afterwards.

Lauren: I didn’t find that out until the very end. Again, that would have been good to know! And every time I managed to get the extra firepower, I’d die two seconds later and it would be gone.

Heather: I figured it out on accident. I shot a package, and then kind of ran into it.

Lauren: Another part that was hard was when you were firing the red rockets. They made so much smoke that it was hard to see what was coming at you.

Heather: I had that problem too, but they do a lot of damage. The ‘teal’ electrical bolts were the best weapon. I cruised through just blowing up everything.

Lauren: Loved those! My second favorite was the rapid fire. It had enough juice to take out big enemies but enough mobility to beat the little guys too.

Heather: I like the yellow spread fire as second best, you can hit almost everything on the screen. I though the green little arc was the worst one.

Lauren: The green arc was occasionally useful since it can kill a bunch of enemies with one blast, but you had to get so close to use it.

Heather: I learned the hard way that it’s bad to get too close. I blew up a couple of tanks, and they blew me up too.

Lauren: I deep-sixed the tanks with rapid fire. Worked really well.

Heather: Did you use the keyboard controls or the stylus controls?

Lauren: Stylus. The Touch Pro’s directional controls don’t really seem to be made for this sort of thing.

Heather: I tried the directional controls at first, since it seemed more natural, and I was having a hard time. I’d keep accidentally exiting the game. The Stylus was much better, and I had much better flying control.

Lauren: I find my reactions are faster when I use the stylus. Those little d-pads feel so cramped.

Heather: Yep. I put the stylus on the ship, and I was cruisin’. I was ‘Top Gun’ quality for sure.

Lauren: [sings] Highway to the danger zone!

Heather: LOL. Just call me Maverick.

Lauren: Can I be Iceman? I mean, between him and Goose…

Maverick: You can definitely be Iceman… Iceman is a cooler name.

Iceman: And he doesn’t die.

Maverick: That’s always important.

Iceman: Besides, Val Kilmer!

Maverick: He was Iceman and Batman. Who can beat that!

Iceman:

Maverick: Did you notice that the game did a good job of feeding you the right ammo when you needed it? At the end of levels with the giant ships, just as I was running out of red rockets, the red saucers would come so I could get more.

Iceman: Yeah, that was nice with the red saucers. I figured out that firing at the stars makes them change color so you can pick your own ammo, but some stars are stuck.

Maverick: I learned that too. Very important. Although, they never turned into the special teal stars.

Iceman: I think the teal stars were pretty much a one-time thing. But they ruled.

Maverick: They did!!!

Iceman: There were a couple of configurations of red bombs that I had a lot of trouble shooting down for the ammo bonus.

Maverick: I was a little surprised by the electric when those giant pop cans started firing at me.

Iceman: That definitely got me once or twice.

Maverick: Jumpy pop cans and eggs.

Iceman: The eggs were kind of funny. You know, when they weren’t shooting at me.

Maverick: I agree.

Iceman: And then when there were two of the pop cans… bad things. I’d get caught in the middle or at the edge of the screen with no place to run!

Maverick: Me too!!! I hated that. It was hard to pay attention to the little red dot ammo, and worry about the electric. Tough level!!!

Iceman: Brutal!! That was another one where I ran through entire credits.

Maverick: Me too. Next to the pop cans…I think those missiles that followed you were the worst.

Iceman: They were so hard to shoot down when your ammo was the red rockets. I actually died less from the tracking missiles with regular ammo!

Maverick: Yeah. Normal ammo was better for them.

Iceman: What did you think of the lives/credits structure? It reminded me of a video arcade. You’d get so many lives, and when you ran through them you fed the machine another quarter and got another pack of lives.

Maverick: I liked the fact you could earn so many lives, because there were some really tough areas. It seemed to be you got 1 life per 10,000 points.

Iceman: But not exactly… I never could figure out when you earned an extra life. The spacing kept changing.

Maverick: You are right about that. I was trying to pay attention, but towards the end it was hard to tell. 1 credit after making it through all 5 areas is a good/fair reward.

Iceman: For me the key to getting through the whole game was to rock out on the early levels and build up as many lives as possible. I think I topped out at 13.

Maverick: I made it as high as 7.

Iceman: Yeah, after dying about fifty times in the minefields I got pretty good at Level 1! Hence the 13 lives.

Maverick: Evil minefields! The graphics on that level messed me up. I was worried the bombs in the background were going to kill me. Evil minefield!

Iceman: Word.

Maverick: I tried to kill everything in sight in the early levels for the bonus points. That other present that gave you the 2x crown helped a bunch.

Iceman: The bonuses for killing everything were critical. You’d be tempted to go for the fruit that gives you a few hundred points, but if that made you miss a single enemy it could cost you thousands at the end of the level.

The 2x crown?! I totally missed that!!

Maverick: It came from another one of those presents with the balloons. After I figured out about the extra fire power, I thought maybe the next present would be an even better weapon. This little gold crown showed up, and everything was worth 2x the points. All the fruit.

Iceman: Oooooohhhhhhh…….

Okay, wiping the drool off. Did you play on Easy?

Maverick: Yes I did.

Iceman: I tried Normal a little. Didn’t get very far. Lots more enemies.

Maverick: I’m scared to see the minefield in the advanced level.

Iceman: Ooh, I shudder to think about the minefield.

Maverick: I might give it a try. I need to do the update for the Palm OS, but I was afraid it would reset my progress. So, now that I’m finished, I’ll update and check it out.

Iceman: Good luck.

Maverick: Thanks!!! I still need to finish the aquarium game. Stupid evil butcher octopus.

Overall, the graphics were amazing. Especially the level that had Saturn in the background. I was honestly surprised how good they were for the Palm.

Iceman: The graphics looked great on the Touch Pro.

Maverick: You are enjoying your Touch Pro experience. It does look like a pretty cool device.

Iceman: Does it show that much?

I really liked the Claymation look. When I was a kid one of my favorite videos was Claymation. It brought back memories.

Maverick: California Raisins.

Iceman: Those things always creeped me out.

Maverick: LOL

Iceman: You know how some people are scared of clowns? I was scared of the California Raisins. Which is much easier to deal with going through life.

Maverick: True, you can just step on the raisins. They are tiny. One of my best friends is afraid of flying monkeys.

Iceman: Hey, the flying monkeys weren’t so bad in the end.

Maverick: I loved the claymation look too. I wouldn’t change a thing about the graphics. The music was quality gaming music. Made me think classic Nintendo, if that makes sense.

Iceman: No, I get that. The whole gaming experience was kind of retro. I liked it a lot. I mentioned earlier how it reminded me of classic arcade games. The credits, the music, just the whole scrolling shooter style. There’s definitely a nostalgia factor coming into play when I think about why I had so much fun with the game.

Maverick: I loved the retro look. I agree that’s why I liked it too!!! An updated version of space invaders. We have a Wii, and most of the games we have are the old nintendo ones from the online store.

Iceman: Oldies but goodies. They made some classics!

Maverick: They did. I love the Mario where you can pull the stuff out of the ground. Although, I will say I’m terrible at it.

Iceman: Mario 2, right? The one where you can play the Princess and she flies?

Maverick: Yep.

Iceman: I just mis-typed that the Princess files. Super-secretary!

Maverick: LOL. She fires with her stapler of death.

Iceman: She wouldn’t be so far out of the plumbers’ league. Let the Mario Bros. have some social equity!

Maverick: Women’s right. I wonder why they picked plumbers?

Iceman: An excuse for the pipes? Oh, that’s a chicken and egg question.

Maverick: It is. They must have developed the game, and needed a reason for all the pipes. It would seem kind of strange to start out with a game about plumbers saving a princess.

But then again, you never know.

Iceman: Well, stranger things have happened. Maybe it was all based on a true story.

Maverick: Maybe. I’ll have to Google it tomorrow, and see what I can find.

Iceman: This is a very impressive digression. We are the most ADD reviewers ever.

Maverick: ADD is my speciality. It’s what makes our reviews so fun. Never know where the yellow brick road will take us.

Wizard of OZ is on TV, by the way.

Iceman: I was wondering about the random yellow bricks. But anyway, Platypus, yeah? Good stuff?

Maverick: Very good stuff!!! I love the side scrolling shooter games, and the stylus control gave me much more freedom than ever using the controls. Graphics and music rocked!!! Plus, all shooter games should have a wide variety of weapons, and this delivered that.

Iceman: I loved the graphics so much. My little pilot was adorable. There was a good mix in the game, too. Different enemies, different strategies.

Maverick: I agree. Lots of different enemies….in the sky, on the ground, and in the water. I liked the added detail of seeing the little guys parachute out of their planes as you destroyed them.

Iceman: Right, so you knew that no tiny Claymation people were injured or killed during the playing of this videogame.

Maverick: Good disclaimer. LOL

Iceman: The difficulty balance was well done, also. Even Easy wasn’t too easy! But I got a lot better with practice, and I could see eventually being able to get through the Hard levels.

Maverick: I think practice is needed for all good games. You need to figure out the best way to kill the enemy. I might give the hard levels a try.

Iceman: One thing I found slightly frustrating was that there was no way to save your game mid-progress. Say you died stupidly three times in a row. There was no way to restart that level. However, that’s how it is on the old arcade machines. All the save options in most games have spoiled us!

Maverick: If you just exited mid level, it would save it for you. I didn’t have any problems leaving and then coming back.

Iceman: Right, the Auto-Save was terrific. It even worked perfectly when I got phone calls.

Maverick: Auto-Save is our friend.

Although, I will add that yelling as I try to avoid the bombs and other ships is still a big part of the game.

Iceman: Yelling is practically mandatory. Especially in the minefields.

Maverick: Yelling is required in all games!!! Evil minefields and butcher octopus.

Iceman: We should review a chess game next and see if you yell at it.

Maverick: I would. I’m sure I’d yell at the knights for stealing my queen.

Iceman: That sounds like the beginning of a really good story.

Maverick: LOL

Or a bad SciFi channel movie.

Iceman: Aren’t they the same?

Maverick: Very true. I saw a pretty good one about an ice dragon vs. a fire dragon.

Iceman: I’ll have to catch that next time it’s on.

Maverick: I believe it’s called Fire and Ice. Very creative naming.

Iceman: I don’t think I ever would have figured that out.

Maverick: I’m glad I could help.

Iceman: It’s much appreciated.

Well, does that about cover it for Platypus? Fantastic retro feel, great graphics and fun gameplay?

Maverick: I believe it does.

Iceman: Make that graphics and music.

Maverick: Can’t forget the music.

Interesting name, why “Platypus”? The ship does not look like a furry billed animal…

Iceman: I think it’s the sound of the word. “Platypus” just sounds a little bit goofy. It goes very well with squishy Claymation.

Maverick: That makes sense. But completely unrelated to a spaceship shooter game. They should have made something look like a platypus just for fun. Like the last evil ship or something.

Iceman: I’m looking for the sequels, “Koala” and “Echidna.”

Maverick: LOL. Too funny.

Iceman:

Maverick: I guess we shall see….

Iceman: Maybe Astraware can produce them after they do Insaniterrarium.

Maverick: Good call. They are going to be busy. Plus, it’s a little easier to fork out $9.99 for a game vs $50 for PS3 or Xbox. On that note, I am off to see the Wizard….and fold some laundry…

B-)

Iceman: It’s been fun chatting! As usual.

Maverick: Yes it has. I love these little reviews!!!

Iceman: Good night!

Platypus costs $14.95 for Windows Mobile or Palm, and it’s also available for BlackBerry, Symbian, and iPhone.

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