Will's Top Seven Reasons Why You Should Play: Super Crate Box

A little bit of a different one this time, instead of a rant about recent treats in gaming or trying to get sued by Sony for defamation, I've decided to write a review (cue dramatic music). However, this isn't your normal review, instead of talking about the pros and cons in a logical manor, I've just done this list of seven reasons why you should play this game. Why you may ask? Well its because I feel its more to the point (and also I'm lazy, but enjoy writing). Oh, and why seven? Actually, that's just because i like the number seven. I mean, ten's alright, but its no seven.

1. Its free. OK, should have mentioned that I'm talking about a game called Super Crate Box, that you can 'buy' on steam for $0.00, which as most things go, is a pretty good price. After all, free is the magic number. And hey, if you don't like it, you haven't spent any money so, eh, whatever man.

2. It's fun as balls. OK, probably not a point, but you get the idea. Basically the game is rather simple, you run around levels that are somewhat reminiscent of the levels in Mario Bros (not to be confused with Super Mario Bros.) in which enemies spawn at the top of the screen and run down a series of ledges until the get to a pit at the bottom, which causes them to agro and respawn at the top, now with a faster speed. Your job as player is to collected randomly spawning crates around the map to get points. Each time you grab a crate, you are equipt with a different weapon in which to kill the monsters to get to the next crate. Sounds easy yeah?

3. DON'T USE THE FLAMETHROWER! Right, not so much a selling point as a tip form a guy who spent all day playing this game. While the flamethrower is a fucking awesome weapon in game, using it would always cause my client to crash and me to loose all my recent progress, but im also using a rather shitty laptop, so use with caution.

4. Them Graphics. So I'm realizing as I write this how childish this 'review' has gotten, but hear me out. The game actually uses a rather simple arcade graphical style, again like Mario Bros, which gives the game a particular charm. If this was made in the '80s, I have no doubt that this game would have stolen all of my coins. The game is simplistic in design as well as gameplay, and thus the pixel art aesthetic really compliments the game design.

5. So if you've read this blog (I prefer to call it a column actually, but whatever), than you may have realised I have an affinity to Dark Souls. In fact, at time of writing, the background image is a Capra Demon from the first game. So it should come as no surprise that I like a good challenge in my games, and boy, does Super Crate Box have that in spades. I mentioned it was a simple game, but it's also very difficult. The game requires you to be constantly vigilant of fast moving enemies and to manage crowd control while going after your coveted crates. This level of enemy management and map control mixed with the desire to collect crates and the random nature of the new weapon you'll receive makes this game devilishly hard to the uninitiated.

6. Right, so this would all be well and good, with one exception. While the game is difficult, that's really the only reason why the game doesn't take about 3 minutes to compete. Unfortunately, Super Crate Box is pretty short, with only 3 levels in the game (but a bunch of unlocks which will keep you busy for a while), and only three enemy types, five if you count agro-ed versions. In fact for me, on of the main reasons it took me so long to finish this game was the aforementioned crashing, which lost me quite a lot of progress many times.

7. OK, but whatever Will, this game is FREE! that's like, the exact amount of money I have because no one reads this gaming column (except for you dear reader). Actually, that is a good point. Basically, SCB is a pretty small game, there isn't all that much to say about it. However, if you have an evening to kill, or are just bored and what to try a new game, or as i did, race a friend to see who can complete is first, you'll be hard pressed to find anything as good as Super Crate Box.

So as a final statement I give this game a 'Great to play by yourself or with a friend for a couple hours' out of 'But seriously, don't give it to someone for Christmas because, geez man, I don't even know if Steam lets you gift free games. And also, you don't have like, a fiver you can spend on a game that actually costs money?'