Qwak (Amiga) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
54Qwak is another legendary game by Jamie Woodhouse, released by Team 17 in 1993. Let's take a look!
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Production Notes:
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Captured: 9th June 2021 (compo run)
Voiced: 18 July 2021
This footage was recorded during the Lemon and EAB Superleague competition, on the 9th of June 2021 (three tries). I wanted to do well at this, considering I'd just witnessed a master class by King Graham Humphrey on his Twitch channel, so I thought I could do better. But it was not to be. Sadly I wasn't good enough to collect a mighty x4, x8 or x16 gem bonus because as soon as you die, you lose this accumulation factor.
This was the first time I had played the game, and the footage is after a few warmup tries. As mentioned in the review, in one of those warmups I reached the snow levels, but ran out of eggs, which was very unnerving to try to survive the levels to generate more ammo. That footage would have been perfect for the review, but I was trying not to record everything I ever do and turn it into 'content' for the channel, as this can interfere with a dedicated competition run. I also recorded Tiny Bobble which we also played in 2021 (this year) and that review will be coming out next year, 2022.
Its worth point out that I forgot to mention in the review that if you can get the peaceful bonus for not killing anything on a level, you get X2 fruit collected/eggs bonus, so you get double the ammo. Its a good idea to have at least 250-300 eggs for each new world, and learn which levels you can dodge and get the double ammo, and which you have to shoot stuff to survive. Fruit can be scarce later on, depending on random fruit showers and bonus sections.
I was experimenting with the live microphone setup for this one, as my voice sounded so good on the 2021 Waffle video, I thought it might be fun to try the same thing for a review. The difference is noticeable, and those who liked the more bassy sound to my voice in the reviews of old might find this a return to form? You can bet I wont be using that setup again for my reviews, but if anyone prefers the rather muffled deeper range then let me know.
The music seemed rather low and the sound effects were louder. I tried to put up the volume of the game audio, but then I ended up conflicting with the loudness and it sounds like I'm shouting in some parts of this. The comparison zone was another accident, as I didn't plan to add one for this review until I read up on the other versions. This section was really enjoyable for me, especially as I made the overlapping game audio sound a bit like an Arcade. I don't think the BBC version was released, so the Amiga version was the first one.
Danscore:
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The Amiga is often considered to be a purely platform game oriented machine, with a couple of good driving games thrown in. So to cut it above the other platformers out there, a game really needs to be top notch. Smooth 50hz/fps update rates, AGA quality graphics on an OCS machine, something like 70 levels, 10 ingame tunes, tones of collectables and power ups, and generally a lot going on. This game ticks all of those boxes, but apart from being NTSC compatible, it also has a number of other flaws and frustrations. At first the player will attack the levels with everything and quickly run out of eggs. So the player will try the cautious way of only shooting when necessary, but this too can mean they leave it too late to start fighting back, take some hits, and have to do a balancing act while constantly watching out for new armour. So a middle ground of run and dodge Vs all out attack much be found - perhaps the Zen of what is just and unjust - a middle way. I never found that middle way, and its easy to use up a hundred eggs on some levels, and quickly eat through those vital reserves. It's a thinking persons platformer, if there was such a thing - which I applaud, but at the same time, it would have been so much more fun if the player could go in all guns blazing and get far. Having to NOT shoot anything in order to have double bonus and enough ammo to actually get far is a weird scenario, and having random spikes dropped on your heard can seem mean and uncalled for. Being stuck on the early worlds can be rather boring, and although you can train on the level you died on, it's no substitute for actually progressing naturally in the first place. The random elements add to that frustration for me, and mean this game gets a score of 6 out of 10. There is nothing wrong with the presentation, but after three weeks of solid playing this in the compo and not breaking through to the mid levels put me off playing it again, and that's a shame, as this is otherwise a jolly good game.