Freeware Review #1: Bonesaw

Welcome to the first Freeware game review of Bonesaw, now these reviews will sometimes be a bit more brief than my other game reviews, but will give all the general information you need to know about the game. My first review is for Bonesaw The Game, an action platformer developed by Kyle Pulver. It combines elements from classic platformers and action games but does it stand out?
Story:
This is a fictional story based around the Clarkson collage hockey team, the Golden Knights. As they are preparing for a hockey match, the evil Referee comes in to stop them all from getting to the game as he puts all the golden knights teammates into the inter dimensional penalty box, other than you that is. You are then whisked out on a quest in order to save the hockey team while fighting the "sluzers" guarding you from achieving victory. Its a simple story, but there are quite a few funny moments in the story to make it enjoyable the whole way through.
17/20
Design:
You play as one of the Golden Knights hockey players who is tasked to take on the Referee to save his team. The game is designed similarly to many games of yore such as Kirby's Adventure, Super Mario Bros. 3, and it even has many different sound effects taken from the NES Megaman games. Each level is designed like the Mario 3 games as you must get from point A to point B while killing some enemies or solving some puzzles on your way. Enemies come in a good variety(with some color swaps) and the later ones give you a good challenge, but the early enemies are extremely dumb. The regular human enemies hardly even throw a punch at first, but you should still not give them an opening to do so. Hidden in each level lie three golden hockey pucks, but I won't spoil what they do since its more fun to discover what they do. This also gives the game a decent replay value, since you will most likely miss some of them and it would be best if you collected them all.
18/20

Gameplay:
By far the best quality of this game is the gameplay, and it is spot on. It plays like a classic platformer merged with a beat em up. Your abilities consist of a four hit combo which allows you to pull two punches then a kick and finally an dragon punch-like uppercut. You can also perform a spin kick in the air to get enemies while jumping and perform a dash kick by running and pressing the attack button. This would get repetitive if it wasn't for the power ups you could get. These upgrades appear in certain levels and once you get one, killing enemies becomes much easier. A great example is the first one you will find: The Hockey Stick. Not only does this keep you more of a distance from your enemy and double your attack, but while in the air you could perform a spin attack which really helps when breaking blocks that are in your way.
The only weakness to this is the fact that if you get hit once while carrying a weapon, you will drop it and it will fly around the screen for a couple of seconds where you can retrieve it, much like the Kirby games. After a few levels, you will have to fight a boss which will take a great amount of strategy to beat, and once you beat the boss you will go on to the next world. One thing to not is the red Bonesaw meter over your health, as you kill enemies and collect the red orbs they drop the bar will fill and once that happens, you will be able to activate the powerful Bonesaw mode where you gain a giant sword, or "Bonesaw" where you can shoot a powerful shock wave and do a powerful aerial spin. The only issues with this is that it makes boss fights relatively easy if you have it activated, but overall its not too much of a problem. However another issue, and this is a big one is that the game can sometimes be frustrating. Some of the puzzles in the game(mainly those that involve you hitting a giant ball into a holder) are just really irritating at times and the enemies sometimes deal more damage than they should, but most will find it a great challenge and since this game is trying to give a classic feeling the frustration is acceptable.
20/20

Sound:
If there is a word to describe the soundtrack in this game, Retro would be it. The game has some extremely catchy music that sounds both new and retro. Plus it sounds relaxed too, like if one is frustrated at a certain point of the game, the music could easily keep one relaxed. The sound effects aren't too original, but they are taken from great NES games of the 80's(mainly Megaman) and they fit their roles just fine. There is actually a tiny bit of voice acting here too, mainly the brute-like voice you hear every time you get the Bonesaw gauge full or when you complete a level.
19/20

Presentation:
The game looks and runs like an 8-bit game on a super Nintendo(if that is possible). While it looks and feels like a retro side scroller, the animation and frame rate makes it feel like it wouldn't be able to run on a console like an NES(hypothetically speaking, since this is a computer game). The color pallet vibrant and colorful, and the enemies and bosses look awesome. There are a lot of pallet swaps though with environments and enemies which kind of detracts from the variety.
19/20

Overall:
This game is an amazing piece of freeware. If you are into retro side scrollers like Mario and Kirby, I demand that you download this right now!

93/100
SPECTACULAR

Download Link: http://www.kylepulver.com/view.php?id=12

Note: Sorry this took so long to review, I have been doing much schoolwork and have been indulged with Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst(private server)...which will be the next game I will be reviewing. Also, sorry for the lack of images, all the ones I tried to upload turned out to be errors and wouldn't let me publish this post so go to the website to see the screen shots, sorry :(

Update 3/7/09: Review progress

I again haven't been active in a while. This is because I have much more studying to do than ever and I am working on two reviews at once. One of them is my first freeware review for the game, Bonesaw. It will be the first of the two to come up on the site. I will soon after post the Call of Duty: World at War DS review afterwords. So hang in there, good things will come for those who wait.