GUBBLE sucks ass

[digitalpress]

That's right.

I so wanted to enjoy this game which was designed by the same guy who did Crystal Castles (Franz Lanzinger). The game even looks a little bit like Crystal Castles but my oh my is it NOT Crystal Castles.

Franz is a great guy, and we've discussed what might happen if Crystal Castles was updated and taken to the present era of games, and the last time we had this conversation Gubble was in development for the PC. Sounded like a good idea, a little more interactive than the original but similar concept.

So what went wrong? Well for starters the game is really slow. It's more of a strategy game than an action game and all of the twitch reflexes you needed to survive CC are simply not necessary here. Even many many levels into the game (I was sure the pace would pick up), you're doing pretty much the same thing, which is grabbing a tool and "undoing" the screws on the playfield. As you progress through various stages, new stages are opened up on the "world" maze. Finish a world maze and you open up new worlds with new mazes.

It's really tedious. I miss the gem-eaters. I miss the bees. Hell, I even miss the elevators - Gubble is a huge step backward in just about every area. Franz may have just wanted to do something different with a similar concept but in my humble opinion this isn't a good direction.

So. When I see him again this August the conversation will start again: "what would Crystal Castles update be like on a modern game system"? And we'll see what happens next.

[CX2K]

I have to agree with you Joe!

I bought this game because it was $9.99 and I thought it would be cool because Franz, Steve Woita and some of the other guys worked on it.

Keep in mind, I bought the PS1 version which I suspect is worse than the PC version. It's way too slow and way too easy. My 6 yr. old cut through it in a matter of hours.

Don't know why but there's just no excitment to it. Even though the graphics are better than Crystal Castles, they're worse. Don't know if that makes any sense.

Well, don't want to rag too much but like you I'll be waiting for a CC update.

John

[ManekiNeko]

Whatta shame. The cabinet art on the side of the Crystal Castles machine always struck me as something that work work really well on one of the newer consoles. It looks a little like cel-shaded art except cleaner, more solid, and a lot more angular. I could only imagine what Crystal Castles would be like if the graphics in the actual game looked as nice as that cabinet art.

I'm not so sure about Franz... he seemed overly demanding in letters he wrote to Atari nearly twenty years ago. He bitterly complained about the quality of the 2600 version of Crystal Castles, which left me dumbfounded because I always considered that to be one of the BEST 2600 games and a surprisingly complete translation. The music's there, the monsters are there, and the graphics are quite good by that system's standards, featuring simplified versions of the isometric mazes in the arcade game and well drawn characters.

JR

P.S. I always liked Bently... I wouldn't be surprised if he influenced the design of my site's mascot.

[punkoffgirl]

My 6 yr. old cut through it in a matter of hours.

John

Don't let this comment fool any of you! His six year old is shaping up to be gaming champion of the world!

[bargora]

I'm sorry to hear about this. Crystal Castles was one of my favorites, although I'd never imagined that it would ever receive an update treatment.