Two posts in a row?! -- ZOMG

Alright, now that I'm done with my challenge review, I'm going to get cracking on my second review. Of the day.

A day or two ago, awalters asked me if I would like to do the "underrated game review" of the week. I happily accepted, as he was going to do it on one of my personal favorite games on Kongregate -- Zwingo.

So, let's get this thing rolling.

Zwingo, essentially, is a game where you swing a white ball into other black balls, to protect a larger white ball in the center. However, it's a lot harder than it seems. There's fifty-five levels in this game, and the difficulty escalates with the levels. And, there's a boss every ten levels, which, are actually very tough to beat.

Back to the mechanics of the game.
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Here's what you are trying to do: (In more detail.) You, are the cursor. The semi transparent circle, which, in the first five seconds of playing, you'll find out you can control with the mouse. Attached to your cursor, is a white ball. This white ball is held on with a string. As you move the cursor, the white ball gets yanked around, seeing as it's connected to the cursor. There are other balls in the game as well. One of which is the most common, the enemy ball. These are black colored, and they are the bad things in this game. You don't want those things, so you must smash the white ball (on the string) into the black balls. The black balls are trying to hit a larger white ball in the center of the stage. That large white ball is inside a boundary, and if it leaves that boundary, you get a game over. I know this may sound a little confusing if you've never played the game, but that's why I've attached a screenshot to show you the battlefield:

As you can see, there's the large white ball, the cursor, the smaller white ball, and an enemy ball. Those are the basic parts of the screen. You'll also notice the XP meter (Which I'll get to in a bit), the level counter, and the score counter.

Moving on, like I said earlier, every ten levels you'll encounter a boss. These things are very difficult, and must be dealt with quickly, or it's almost a certain game over. The good news is, the bosses get their own separate levels; you don't have to deal with the boss and the normal black enemy balls.

Here's a screenshot of the first boss battle.


That black ball with the blue lens is the boss. You'll notice the health bar for the boss at the top of the screen, as well. These things can't just be pushed off the screen, each time you hit them, you deplete a little health, and you must deplete all of it's health before it finally goes down. Now, at the beginning of a boss level, go to the bottom of the screen, and get ready to strike as hard as you can.

Because, as I have so contingently forgotten to mention earlier, the harder you hit an enemy/boss, the more damage you'll do. And, not to mention, the more EXP you'll get to spend on precious upgrades.

Which brings me to my next subject: Upgrades. After every level, the upgrade menu opens up. You can buy upgrades with the experience you've earned killing enemies. There are four upgrades:

• Speed: The speed at which the white ball your cursor is attached to moves.
• Size: The overall size and strength of the white ball attached to your cursor.
• Boundary: Increases the size of the boundary that you must keep the white ball in.
• Target Size: It increases the size of the larger white ball in the center, making it harder to keep in the boundary, but give it much more resistant to enemy balls hitting it.

The first two upgrades are dependent upon each other; If you upgrade the speed of the ball too much, it makes it too small and hard to control to hit anything, and if you increase the Size too much, the ball becomes sluggish and hard to control. The same can be said about the bottom two. However, if you upgrade the pairs at relatively the same consistency, they will work in perfect harmony and improve your performance in the game.

Well, that about sums up Zwingo. My final rating for this game is an 8/10. Here's a quick breakdown of my rating:

Pros:
- Awesome music
- Great physics
- Fantastic upgrade system.

Cons:
- Gets repetitive after a while.
- IMO, the bosses are a tad bit too hard.

Alright, I suppose that's the end of my review on Zwingo. Sorry about that huge wall of text, by the way, I'm just naturally a very elaborative writer. X_X

~PlatinumIce