16 year old “D” joins us once again to give his review of the virtual reality labyrinth game, Dark Nebula.
Content Type: Game app
Description: You remember Labyrinth? That wooden box with that little marble in it? There would be a bunch of holes and numbers in it and no matter how carefully you tilted it the ball would never go where you wanted it to go and would always end up going just a little too far or come up just a little too short? I absolutely hated the diabolical thing. It was impossible, frustrating, you never got any better at it, and it would only lead to rage quit after rage quit.
Dark Nebula puts a much needed spin on that useless excuse for a plaything, kid-size torture device. Dark Nebula is based on Labyrinth, but it has a distinct sci-fi theme. You control what looks like a futuristic hockey-puck, and by tilting the kindle every which way you guide it through eleven levels of gradually increasing difficulty. The music is surprisingly calm and dark at the same time. It keeps you relaxed so that you don’t get worse if you get frustrated like so many other games.
The puck moves a lot slower than a marble. It can go pretty fast, but you have so much more control over it. The mazes have laser barriers, spinning spike walls, switches you activate by pushing smaller pucks onto them, blaster turrets, bottomless pits, little launch pads that send you flying through the virtual air to cross bottomless pits and jump over spike walls, and a secret level eleven at the end.
This game seems pretty determined to keep you playing, as each level you pass you get better and better; enough so for you to be able to get past the next level fairly easily. Not too easy, not too hard. It’s the perfect amount of challenging and keeps you focused on completing the next level. They keep adding new little gadgets or traps you need to master for each level you pass, but it doesn’t get repetitive. It even has a bit of a storyline! Not a very descriptive storyline, but a storyline nonetheless. And it’s a pretty good story too. When you do happen to die, be it falling to your virtual death, getting hit by a spike, laser, blaster beam, or however you may die, the traps move slower, making it easier to pass through them until you get to the next checkpoint, where they move at normal speed again.
This is important because this game’s score is based on how many little orange canisters you collect, how much damage you take/lives you lose if any, and how fast you complete the levels. Most of the score is based on the time, however. If you get two silver stars and a bronze star for the time, you get a bronze star for the entire level. To get a silver star for the level you need all silver stars for each of the three categories or better, and same with the gold star. When you can’t get silver or gold, it doesn’t frustrate you. It makes you say “I’ll do better the next level.” And you do!
For every death you are able to go faster, more carefully, and with more agility. With this, you begin to get daring, and when you get daring you mess up which puts you back in your place. You really get into the game. It’ll keep you occupied for hours. It takes around forty minutes to beat the game, but it has pretty good replay value. It never gets boring. So, in comparison to that diabolical, wooden, Pandora’s puzzle-box, Dark Nebulae doesn’t put you in a rage that makes you mess up even more, it’s surprisingly relaxing for such a dark looking game, the puck goes where you want it to go, the traps are interesting and challenging, and each level is long, but not tediously so. It’s a pretty epic game.
What I Liked: I liked the Sci-fi theme, and these levels that sped you up in a forward direction so you had to move side to side quickly to evade obstacles that would mean certain doom. I also loved how chilled out you get when playing the game. Keeps you in the zone and I find it therapeutic for relieving stress. And, not to spoil anything, but the design of the eleventh level is completely different. It’s unique and puts a twist on the rest of the game.
What Could Be Better: More levels would have been nice. Though, there’s a “To be continued” at the end so I’m expecting this to be the first in a series of epic Labyrinth-based games.
Overall Rating: 5/5 stars
I Would Recommend To: Anyone. Anyone can master this game, provided they have a semi-steady hand. I don’t really think shaky hands would affect gameplay either, so just anyone. It’s a great game. It isn’t very intimidating, it isn’t frustrating, it helps with stress, and it’s just an epic game. Anyone can figure out each little mechanism and make it to the finish with time to spare. It isn’t a very time consuming game either. I highly recommend this game.
Dark Nebula has an average Amazon review rating of 4/5 stars and is currently priced at 99 cents.