Every Extend Extra Extreme is an unique game with mesmerizing graphics and music.
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The second day after I bought Every Extend Extra Extreme, I played one round for 2 hours without realizing it. I've always liked games with similar graphics style and music selection. But E4 offers two different types of game play: the more traditional shoot 'em ups and the bizarre chain explosion puzzle game that start with detonating yourself.
There are many games that have psychedelic effects or highly stylized sprites on screen. Few of them are good. Sometimes even a guy who makes a great game like Tempest 2000 can make a disappointment (that's my opinion) that is Space Giraffe. Often the graphics is so distracting, that you can't really play too well because objectives or enemies are difficult to see. In E4, everything is seen from the top without depth perception playing tricks on you. There is a lot of data to process if you want to achieve high scores, but you don't always have to look at them. In my opinion E4 has mostly achieved a good balance of providing that firework-like graphics quality to celebrate impressive chain combos, and just the right number of things to pay attention to.
As a puzzle game it is built on top of very simple rules with obvious effects. Understanding the rules isn't difficult, but in order to make biggest explosion possible involves setting up the environment, using your skills to time and execute multiple detonations, and finally see the awesome firework that is the result of all the labor that you put in.
You can play this online against other players. It plays like Puzzle Fighter, where your chain combos are used to push this satellite toward another player. Here the need to introduce the largest chain explosion in the shortest amount of time possible is a good challenge.
There is also a unique mode where you select songs from your 360 library, and the game will perform analysis to give you a starting beats-per-minute value. After this is done you can play the game using your own music. It is interesting, as the result of analysis is beautifully displayed on screen. But the result is very inconsistent, especially for certain types of music. So far of all of the songs I've tried, Session from Linkin Park seems to work okay. If you have the Rez soundtrack, most of the songs from that CD are also good candidates (except for the junk produced by Oval, I just can't stand them). This, along with the R4 mode, are interesting distractions but I am glad that the core game play of E4 is much much more interesting.
This game also plays kind of similar to Fantavision, one of the best games ever to show up on PS2. But the audio and visual integration of E4 is much better, making it a better game to play in my opinion.
Game Mechanics and Controls
- In R4 mode, it's a shooting game. A button to shoot and RT for shield (that also damages enemies).
- In E4 mode, your goal is to cause as many chain explosions as possible by detonating yourself.
- Collect magenta power-up to increase the number of objects on screen to improve chance for more chains. This meter goes up to 380, but beyond the first 20 I can't really tell the effects. This meter also makes the beat of the songs go faster.
- Collect gray power-up to extend the shield duration, while shield is active it is okay to collide with other objects. If you don't have shield active then you crash, cause all meters to reset to zero.
- Collect yellow power-up to extend the play timer. Timer is always counting down even when chain explosion is in progress.
- Collect cyan power-up to increase multiplier. This multiplier is multiplied with the chain combo count to derive your score.
- There is a beat meter which oscillates between empty and full. If detonation happens at the same time the meter is full, then an additional mutiplier (x2) is in effect. If subsequent detonation also happens at full meter, then the multiplying effect is increased to x3, x4 up to x5.
- A few seconds after detonation, it's possible to cancel explosions by pressing the B button.
Excellent Ideas
- Game mechanics is very unique and engaging. A player's performance is clearly indicated by a high score or the number of chain combos initiated.
- The amount of points you can earn is impressive... trillions.
- Once everything is set up and you initiate an explosion, it's time to sit back and watch fireworks. The game plays itself for the next however many seconds or minutes; very entertaining for me.
- In the unlimited mode, you can play for as long as you want. The game doesn't make it difficult to extend time, and so even if you accidentally crash, it's possible to refill all the meters (although it'll take a while) again.
- The abstract graphics is always interesting for me. But I also like Rez and Geometry Wars.
- When the game ends it tells you about the game mechanics. I didn't have to read any instructions at all. It's so easy to learn and play.
- Controller vibrates according to the beat of music.
- Music changes depending on the tempo and the number of explosions taking place.
- There is a mode for the game to perform analysis of songs you select. Then you can fine tune the beats per minute value by test playing.
Annoyance
- This achievement of "surviving without a shield for 60 seconds" is very vexing. There are a lot of stuff flying all over the place...
- After creating custom data for your song, the game doesn't know to load the song for you. You still have to manually start the music before playing. I spent hours capturing and play testing, and this just seems like a final hurdle to persuade you not to use that game mode.
Other Notes
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