Sunday, October 14, 2012

Freeway Fury 2

Today I just discovered a terrific Flash game on Newgrounds called Freeway Fury 2.
The game is kind of a cross between the NES Knight Rider game in the perspective of the old Grand Theft Auto games for the Gameboy Color. The goal of the game is to continue driving to the end of each level and avoid crashing into other vehicles. The twist is that the player can also jump from car to car in much the style of Frogger. And much like Frogger, if you land on the road, you will get creamed by cars.
By performing various stunts (like jumping from car to car) you get Nitro boost points to accelerate the vehicle you are in to get to the end of the level in time. I'm going to say it now, there's not many things more fun than flying a jet plane and jumping out of it and into another.
The game is simple enough in mechanics and premise that it's very easy to get sucked in, and fun enough to get a little addicted.  Plus, there's a high score board to get on (which I did eventually), which is always good for arcade style games. But there's an interesting quirk in the calculation. When you die, you don't lose points, but get to keep all points you gained in that life. Since you get 6 continues, the best way to get a high score is to actually get a lot of points and die on purpose a few times. While it surely isn't expected, it definitely works with the flow of the game, and doesn't totally discourage hardcore players from simply restarting instead of using the continue. Anyway, I'm going to stop talking and let you all play.

For those interested, here is a link to the game:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/583975