Games you should be playing: The Creeps
Thank you we have our winners. This contest is over. Congrats to faithful Macenstein readers Brian and Dav!
Man, we’re going contest crazy here these days!
We’re launching a new feature here at Macenstein called “Games you should be playing”. It’s not quite a full review, just a heads up on games worth buying. We’re kicking the feature off with the adorably spooky tower defense game The Creeps
($1.99) , a game you should buy, but we also have 2 free codes to give away, thanks to the developer, Russell Bernau of Super Squawk Software (details below).
Similar to our game of the year title Fieldrunners, The Creeps is a tower defense game, meaning the object is to stop bad guys from getting from one side of the screen to the other (in this case, you want to save a little sleeping boy from the monsters that hide in his closet). The Creeps sets itself apart from other TD games with it’s sense of humor, creativity, and truly wonderful drawings and animations.
You begin the game by choosing a level from a “coverflow”-like interface. Initially all but one level are locked, but as you defeat them (by warding off the creeps for a set number of rounds), you unlock the next level, as well as an unlimited version of the level you beat. Each level has its own set of obstacles and monsters, as well as different types of weapons you are allowed to use.
There are a wide variety of little “things that go bump in the night” here – literally. When the creeps make it to the bed the whole bed jumps up! Allow too many creeps to hit the bed, and the kid wakes up, and the game ends.
Above: If you can save your money, you can upgrade your defenses into more powerful killing machines.
To aid you in your defense are a wide variety of weapons, just as cute and creative as the monsters they are meant to destroy. Since this is a game meant to take place from the POV of a frightened child, you arm yourself with items a kid might think would stop monsters, such as a toy raygun, glue bottles, flashlights (everyone knows monsters can’t withstand a flashlight), a boomerang, and many others. Some of the “big ticket” defense items actually use the iPhone’s accelerometer to attack, so for instance, if you use the oil can to make the path slippery, you need to tilt your iPhone (depending on the path direction) to keep the creeps sliding away. All these weapons can be upgraded into real killing machines, so you must learn to save up and place your weapons accordingly.
Above: Flashlights can be upgraded into serious light canons!
Issues
The biggest thing lacking from the game is sound. The visuals are so wonderful you can almost hear the sounds these creeps and weapons should make (I picture the yellow ghosts sounding like Gloop and Gleep from The Herculoids). Just like Fieldrunners, The Creeps has launched without sound, but Russell assures us sound is coming in an update, along with new levels, which is good, because once you discover the secret to beating The Creeps, some levels are fairly easy (although I spent about 3 days trying to get through them). Russell also says more levels are on the way, so all in all the future looks bright. Or should I say, gloomy, macabre, and scary? 🙂
Above: My super maze basically would have run on forever in unlimited mode.
The only other issue is the unlimited levels seem to plateau in difficulty after a point. I created a super maze and let the game run for 6 hours just to see how long it would go without me having to to do anything to my maze, and after round 450 or so and crossing the 10 million point mark, I got bored and quit. Russell says the update will make the game even harder, so we’re looking forward to it!
Above: These things are all so cute you almost don’t want to destroy them.
Conclusion
At $1.99 you definitely get your game-play money’s worth, and even without the host of goodies coming in the next update, The Creeps is a game you should be playing NOW.
OK, wanna win a copy of The Creeps for your very own? It’s easy! just leave a comment telling us the scariest movie you’ve ever seen. We’ll pick TWO winners at random On January 1st, 2009. Entries must be in by 12 noon eastern time. Thanks, and good luck!
The only movie to actually scare me…
Nightmare on Elm street. (the first one, the rest just sucked. )
Scariest movie ever seen: Event Horizon
Creepy as hell
The Descent
the shining…gotta love it
House of 1000 Corpses.
The Scariest Movie i’ve ever seen is definitely:
Funny Games (Original from 1997)
It was so weird that my best friend and me started a fight because we were so exhilarated of the intensenes of it.
The Actors are also really good.
Watch it if you can get it anywhere:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/
Scariest movie ever seen: The Silence of the Lambs
Scariest movie I’ve ever seen was Earnest Goes to Camp. I saw it as a kid, the guy freaked me out so much I had nightmares about him for until I was 10! Nothing else has scared me more than seeing that guys goofy face.
Arachnophobia- Freaking hate spiders
Matilda
Silence of the Lambs
karla, its just creepy
Donnie Darko – that rabbit freaked me out
definitely The Thing. when that thing came out of his stomach i was almost done.
The Thing.
When I was a kid, I asked my dad to put on this movie thinking it was Swamp Thing. He kept asking me if I was sure this was the movie I wanted to watch. The dogs turning inside out scared the crap outta me. I was under the sheets the rest of the movie.
SCARIEST MOVIE I’VE EVER SEEN IS
THE STRANGERS
i was 5 years old an my parents were watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of dome and i came down stairs from and saw the part where they riped the guys heart out and i was so freakin scared i couldnt sleep for a week
By far the scariest thing I was forced to sit through……..House Bunny!
The scariest movie I ever saw was Glitter with Mariah Carey. I took my sister to see it in the theater and had a difficult time stomaching the popcorn………(sorry, I just threw up in my mouth) while seeing that giant shrew on the big screen. I had many a scary dreams in the nights that followed.
The Blair Witch Project – it left a lot to the imagination, which to me is creepier than special effects. Thanks for the opportunity to win this game.
High School Musical, man that thing scared the crap outta me. I hid behind the sofa during that. I’m now scarred for life.
Sex and the city
Damn, Jessica Parker’s make up is spooky as hell, I always cried a little when seeing her on the screen…
Scariest movie is The Ring
Probably it was “The Ring” (japanese version, of course: “Ringu”). At the time there were no terror stories told that way, I remember most of my friends having a hard time to sleep for several days. The film was so crude exploring the deepest fears, pushing the boundaries of terror to a whole new level.
“MUM AND DAD”
The Exorcist terrified me…
W.
That was a scary piece of cinema.
Monsters Inc. – truely scary
Not a big fan of the scary, but The Relic freaked the crap out of me. Sat in a big theater with great sound, and the “thing” seemed right behind me.
For me it’ll always be THE EXORCIST … !!!
Alien – the first time I saw it in the theater, it was a Saturday afternoon . . . when I left the theater, I can remember being thankful that it was a bright, sunny day after 90 minutes of sheer terror in a dark and claustrophobic place!
Event Horizon. There were a lot of obviously scary moments in the film, but there were so many subtle elements in it that just creeped me out. It wasn’t the things that you saw that made it scary – it was the thoughts of what had to have happened to cause the things you could see … like the blood caked on the windows on the bridge.
Mrs. Doubtfire.
I’m still having nightmares.
Show Girls
Children of the Corn. I saw it when it first came out on video and I was but a child…scared me to death.
Ringu (i.e. Japanese and original version of “The Ring”).
I was so terrified that I had to move my television AND my computer monitor out of my bedroom before I could sleep. And they stayed out for at least a week!
Poltergeist!
Saw 1
When I was little.. I saw Aliens on television.. MAN, that was scary for me.. In some scenes, I had to turn off the sound.. 🙂
So.. Aliens!!
Event Horizon – can’t watch any horror movie anymore after that.
For mine: The Haunting (the original, black and white version.)
Without question, the movie that still disturbs me the most is “7”
Muppets Christmas Carol
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Muppet-Christmas-Carol-Michael-Caine/dp/B000B7VZJM
They look sweet and innocent, but turn your back on them and they’ll have the cheese wire round your neck! hehe
Happy new year Macenstein!
Event Horizon for me too, just plain freaked me out, I’ve not watched it since, ever. I like to sleep at nights.
Black Christmas (original version) gets my vote.
it’s been said before – “The Ring”
The Truman Show freaked me out, for some reason.
Alien. The original one, Director’s Cut, as seen at a cinema, some 20 years after the original release.
Hitchcock’s “Birds”
H-Man! I was little and atomic power was real and we were having red threat warnings and I lived in New York City and even though it took place in Tokyo spreading the the US, the whole thing was so creepy and sneaky that everywhere i went i looked for the slimy gelatinous man-eater and awoke at night turning on the lights to see if it was oozing on my ceiling! Yikes!