Castelian

Year: 1987
Developer: Triffix

Castelian is a puzzle game, and it's a pretty clever one. Basically, you're this orange or blue poop with legs, and you have to walk around this tower, making your way up by way of elevators and dodging enemies, until you reach the top. Along the way, you can shoot, you can jump, and you can go in and out of doors that take you 1/2 way around the tower. It's a nice idea.

It even looks pretty good. As you walk, rather than moving around the screen, the tower is actually drawn as rotating behind you as your poop man stays more or less stationary. The result is a pretty cool 'world revolving around my point of view' feeling that works pretty well.

Unfortunately, Castelian controls like crap. I mean, honestly, crap. I'm pretty forgiving, but the 90th time i fell into a hole or got hit by an enemy i was sure was out of range, I started to get really pissed. I was cursing a lot, and Laura was getting uncomfortable. Everything was bullshit. I felt a lot like Mike did that time in 8th grade that he threw his controller and spit on his TV while we were playing Castlevania 2. Eventually, I stormed out of the room.

So, there you go: interesting premise, simple layout, cool graphics, all ruined by shite control. Oh, and there was a time limit. And it was short. We played probably 40 times each, and neither one of us could finish the first level, on novice, within the time limit. I mean, really -- that's some bullshit. And it's a shame, because I think that if you tightened up the controls and added 50 % to the time limit, this might have been a really great game.

But they didn't, so it's not.

Rating 4/10 There's something here, but it mostly just pissed me off.
Best Moment The 30th time that the level started, and we just took 3 steps to the right and died. Exxxxxxcellent.
Advice Try the PC version? Honestly, there's a good version of this game. This just isn't it.