S&S; Indie Review: Slick

Title: Slick
Format: Xbox 360
Release Date: August 21, 2012
Publisher: Halcyon Softworks
Developer: Halcyon Softworks
Price: $1
Rating: Violence 0/3, Sex 0/3, Mature Content 1/3

Slick, developed by Halcyon Softworks, looks as though it came straight out of the old Gameboys but some of what was there appears to have been lost in translation. It has the perfect 8bit look and has fantastic chip tune music. The music is something a gamer could easily jam to and not be ashamed of doing so. The fact that only about ten colors is used in the whole game only strengthens the visuals of the game and makes it look all the better. There are no collectibles of any coins or a heart system so one touch of anything deadly will kill the player. The re-spawns are nice since they are instant but they can't really help with some of the levels absurd difficulty.

There are five worlds each with twenty levels. The first world was actually pretty challenging since it was in fact the first world but there was only ever one really major difficulty spike which was 1-17. A good half hour to an hour was spent trying to get past one too many death traps. With no checkpoint a level has to be executed perfectly to move on. Upon getting to World 2 some new mechanics were introduced and the game reduced the difficulty until level 2-4 and after about a half hour the level was finally complete. Unfortunately 2-6 was even harder and after two hours and an almost broken controller the game had to be put away before any damage was done.
Final Thoughts:
The game was a ton of fun when the difficulty wasn't unfairly spiked. That said Slick can only be recommended to those who are truly the toughest and have a great control over their anger. Whether its the fact that holding down the A button after a jump causes an automatic second jump or the stuttering the character does upon landing on solid ground. The problems this game has are simply to great for the common and even above average fan of platfomers.
S&S Rating: 6/10