Review: I Braved Brave Man

[o.o]

Brave Man

Link: http://itunes.com/app/Braveman

Developer: Poppy

Price: $.99/59p

Lite: Doesn't need one

Played On: iPod 2G



During my time on TouchArcade, I have seen many price discussions, or should I say price arguments, and I haven't been here that long. The biggest discussion I have witnessed and taken part in was over the pricing of Doom: Ressurection. I can understand why people might complain over a £6 game (excuse the British currency) that doesn't even succeed in meeting the £1 an hour of entertainment milestone, which seems somewhat harsher when its $1 an hour as well. I've played for longer on Zombies & Me than Doom Ressurection, to tell the truth.

It is nothing short of petty for a price discussion over a 59p game with statements like 'It should be free'. Considering Jelly Car is free, I suppose theres still a standard for games without price tags. However being someone who doesn't mind throwing away a bit of money for fun (Maybe a little more than others), I took the plunge, which was a deep 60p plunge, I'll have you know, on Brave Man. The gameplay trailer was quite entertaining, and I couldn't help but think that this game should be called 'Stupid Man' or 'The Man With No Nerve Endings'. Seriously, who could take so much pain?

I know I've done it once or twice, but only with a pencil! Sticking my hand on a table and stabbing between the fingers is simple and destined to hurt when you miss. This is the simple concept behind Brave Man. A Man with a knife stabbing between his fingers. All you have to do is tap to make him stab. The aim of this pick up and play game is to stab between his fingers consequtively for as long as you can to get combos. Once his finger gets chopped off, it's game over. Your largest combo is the score for that round (not that you should have been getting more than one combo in one game, because as the knife speeds up, it is speeding up with time, not with combo!).

Oh, and that last bracket is pretty much the entire subject of this paragraph. The first time I got a combo of over 100, which is a big milestone for someone as clumsy as me, I was unable to submit my score to the online leaderboards. It wasn't because I didn't have WiFi - I did. It was because I lost my combo but skipping a 'Finger-gap'. I stupidly did not cut off the Man with no Nerve Ending's finger to end the session, but left it running. I left it running until the point that the knife-carrying hand was a blur at the top of the screen. You might think that it'd be easy to chop off the Stupid Man's finger when you can't even see the knife, but you'd be wrong with a capital FAIL. The knife can only land at either side of his hands, meaning you can't get a combo OR DIE. You suddenly have become a victim of the Infinite-Knife-Speedy-Glitch. Yes, I think this game needs to be called 'Quick Hand Man'.

Oh, and I should also say how much fun this is to play competitively. I've never really compared Flight Control scores with my friends, but I always lend out my iPod to my friends so they can give it a go (because it's obviously not worth SIXTY WHOLE PENCE ), but the real competition is on the online score board, which is why I still enjoy this game several weeks after it was released, and pardon me for the late review but it's one of the titles I enjoy or loathe enough to fling my spiky demon words at.

Also I should mention the graphics are 'retro-tastic'. I really like Poppy's work with stuff like this. All their games just feel like they came out of the past. Personally I prefer these kind of graphics to 3D nonsense that look like polygon-people that have been mashed about with the hammer of Bleeding Eyes (It's not that I don't like 3D games on the iPod, but I have certain games in mind).

So, if you are willing to spend a dollar on a silly little game like this, then go press the Buy Now button. If you think that 'Stupid Fast-Handed Man with No Nerve Endings' isn't worth your money, then.. then... I'll just leave this nice gap for you to fill in.