Neverending Boss

Written by: Matt

In video games, boss battles always seem to drag on. 'How is it fair,' you exclaim when Dr. Robotnik or Bowser are supposed to have died. 'I have slain you,' you announce idly to the game, 'and he regenerates. Why is he allowed to have 5 forms, and I only get limited lives! And I must keep the same weapons each time.' Using the same logic as Neopets did upon releasing Advert Attack, they latched onto another of their playing publics greatest pet peeves and decided to make a game that exposes you to the annoyance in its rawest form. In this case, shooting a bad guy who is not only very powerful, but infinitely powerful.

Playing it is simpler than me speaking, but I often get in a bit of a mess when I play it, and usually end up flying straight into Dr. Sloth. Not a great idea by any stretch of the imagination.

Gameplay

How much gameplay can you get out of shooting a machine over and over again! Still, I must write a substantial paragraph or two on this! Neopets realized that shooting a big red machine which rotates gets boring after a while, so attempted to make it as interesting as possible, by increasing the amount of different things there are floating around the screen, ranging from rockets, to your bullets to your powerups. I'd like to say that the power-ups contribute a lot to the game, but the problem is that considering the tiny amount of points available for shooting the baddie, even the worst player with all the power-ups in the world won't manage more than a few hundred points.

Controls

The controls are actually quite complicated at first glance, and are similar to that of Dubloon Disaster, with Up and Down being forwards and backwards. Left and Right rotate the spaceship in the appropriate direction. On top of that, the 'Z' and 'C' keys move the space ship left and right, called 'strafing', as supposed to changing the angle for the up and down keys to affect, and then you have a choice between using the 'X' key and the Space Bar to fire. The Strafing feature will rarely be used as it is considerably slower than the other means of moving, and firing using the 'X' button is rare as well, as it's just less practical, being smaller and further away from the other control keys.

I know I'm not the best at games by a long shot, but I always seem to mess up playing Never-Ending Boss battles, and at least once each game, I end up flying into Dr. Sloth's spaceship. I'm starting doing to on purpose just for kicks.

Graphics

The graphics are pretty good, but also very few. The sprites in the main game consist of the two spaceships, bullets and power ups. This is typical of a space shooter game, but you see very few graphics within the game. Still, what you can see is nice. The graphics when you load up the page are great, but perhaps too cartoony and cliché in the way that it presents to us the typical 'evil character' look, bordered with massive black lines.

The Verdict

Overall, the game is fun, but not a game you can just sit down to and instantly make 1,000NP on. A little bit of practice is needed to make it past the initially complex control system, and a little bit of patience trying to get past the very monotonous gameplay which just repeats itself. Still, it's a very interesting play idea, and Neopets probably did execute as well as it could've been executed. A game where the idea is for it to be the same forever? Well, there's not exactly a lot of scope for improving gampelay, and it was down well by adding variety in boss attacks and powerups.

Not my cup of tea, but has the potential to be a very enjoyed game.