amazin' George Remastered Reviews

Amazin’ George is a frustrating experience. Despite my best efforts I was not compelled to finish the game and I am okay with that as I think most people would probably put in less effort than me. As far as this gameplay goes it is… fine. Doing mazes is a legitimate game and Amazin’ George does it pretty well. The mazes are varied, and they are quite maze-like, so the goal is achieved. That being said they are quite frustrating. First off, I wish there was a directional arrow. I do not think this would eliminate the challenge of the game and could even be used to trick the player into following the wrong path, but knowing where you need to be is super helpful. I have done corn mazes before, and you always know where you are supposed to end up, it does not hurt the experience it merely gives you a level of guidance. The arrow could be time-based and only show up at the last 5 minutes or something, it could be an item, or you could use the 3d environment to your advantage and make a tower to use (I had one in a corn maze before). Without this guidance, it is slightly more frustrating. Speaking of frustration I was never 100% sure how the balls of yarn worked. All right so I get that they can occasionally get you treats very simple, but then they can also give you a speed-up that is supposed to be bad as it gives auditory feedback that it is bad? It can make things more difficult, but that is not always the case. Not only that but it feels random as when I move sometimes it just moves me in random directions. It feels sloppy and frustrating, but don’t worry once you reach level 3 I had them stop working altogether, not even a sound would play. Speaking of things that are not clear and frustrating, what are rabbits and frogs for? Do they do anything or do they just frustratingly block your path? I was not able to interact with them and that was annoying as they got in my way. The enemies are way too hard to avoid, a lot of the time there is nowhere to outmaneuver them and they generally move faster than you as well and so I just ended up just giving up the treats to get past them, and the sharks are even worse because they made you restart the level. Speaking of sharks though level 4 was one of the most unpleasant gaming experiences I have had in quite some time, the reason being that jumping is just outright scuffed in this game. I don’t understand how it works, it seems like it needs a running start of at least one space, but does not always work, and sometimes when you do not get a start you just jump anyways and it feels too quick and slippery to respond properly. Then there is the issue of distance it just is not clear, I could easily make a jump in one spot that is large, but a small jump was impossible. This made level 4 terrible because if you jump in the wrong spot or jump (or don’t) when you don’t mean to you have to start the whole level again after a shark wrecks your day. It just felt gross to play. Lastly, for gameplay, I need to discuss the reason I stopped playing. I intended to at least get to the DLC for this game but chose to cut it short as I think any sane person would do. When I got to level 5 I paused the game, funnily enough, my cat was pawing at me for a treat and I needed to eat so I just got up and went to go do that. 12-13 minutes later I get back to my desk and realize that for whatever reason despite the message that says, “it’s Paused, meow!” (with that capitalization mind you), the timer had been going down and I had maybe a minute left, well I had all the treats I needed so it was not a huge deal and when I timed out on level 3 it just finished the level because I had enough treats, so I was not worried. Anyways I should have been, because when the timer finished I failed and went back to level 1. An hour of work wasted, yes there is a save feature, BUT this is inconsistent and just outright an error that can’t be ignored as it ruined my experience immediately as I was not saving, 1 because I intended to finish it in a single session if I could, and 2 because I did not need to I was doing fine. If this would have happened on level 3 I would have had no issue as it was consistent and I could learn from it, but this was out of the blue and was caused by a menu lying to me and saying that it is paused. This soured me so much about this game, yeah it is pretty boring and has some issues, but this is unforgivable. I did later return to check out the remastered version and sadly even after the update the gameplay is no different and I was running into the same issues that made the experience frustrating, in fact, I was really displeased to see how I was struggling more and how I had to retry level two a few times to try and pass it. This game just isn’t fun take my word for it. I hate to be that guy but the story of this game kind of sucks. It is done in a kind of rhyme style at the beginning of levels, and it doesn’t flow well and I was never gripped by its narrative. If anything, it felt like a waste of time. It was inconsequential to the gameplay and never really added to the experience. The UI had some issues. First, I did not know I could change the game volume until I quit to the menu. When I start up the game and it gets right down to business, I immediately pause to try and find options to change the volume, and they are not there. So I play the game until I am quitting and exit from the menu to find that there is a main menu and I can adjust settings from there. Even odder, in the remastered, it has no menu to go to you can only save and such at the end of levels. And better yet, the only way to quit either version of the game is to exit full screen and close the window or alt-F4. Why is everything hidden, convoluted, or missing? And get this, when you start the game a second time it starts you at the beginning so if you want to load your game you have to skip the initial dialogue, exit to the menu, and then load it. This is fixed in the remastered content, but the remastered now lacks a volume option so 1 step forward 2 steps back I guess. This kind of simple stuff shows disregard for the user’s experience. The Music is thematically fitting, but from what I listened to is limited to 2 songs and a sped-up version of 1 of those songs, so get comfortable with repetitiveness. Sound effects are also limited and are very simplistic. So there is nothing to praise in the sound department. Artistically this game is a mishmash of 3d environments with largely 2d pixel assets and it is fine. If you like that older style of games I think you will appreciate it. In the update, the game is brought to the graphics of the sequel which has more of an N64 vibe, and honestly, I think they are worse from a stylistic sense, but if you like it you can freely switch between the two. I wanted to like this game, I hate to be so critical of small devs, but lying about my experience to make someone happy is worse. Even for the pennies I paid for this game, I don’t think it is worth it, it was just a frustrating experience. I wish I could say the update done after the second game’s release made things better, but as far as I could tell it improved nothing (and in fact may have broken more things). It’s disappointing because this game feels unique in its own right, but unique is not always good.