From the makers of the excellent DinoRun comes another exploration of mayhem in Atari drapings, laced with sweat and 8-bit MIDI. Mountain Maniac has you playing an estranged dwarf hammering out boulders from a mountain top to destroy a city below. Its like Pachinko meets Rampage with a suitably pissed off Scandavian midget going where no Southpark character has gone before. The joy of watching the boulder fall, the comedy of emergent timing as it crushes a bald eagle, narrowly misses the sasquatch and destroys a major bank, it almost makes you forgot that you can influence the boulder's path. I'm not sure which is better, having more control or having more looney tunes comedy as people's homes and lives are ruined by sheer physics.
Taper your beard and get antisocial, this game is simple, pure, fresh and fun. Its also a great example of how game investing should be done, pick out a talented team that has already distinguished themselves in doing something that has unique gameplay, not just good production values. Then you let them do pretty much whatever they want, and you get some crazy gem like this. Nice work PixelJam, and complimentary to that, nice work Adult Swim's portfolio manager!
Smart Investment
Funny you should mention Looney Tunes, as that investment strategy is the same one Warner Bros. used for their staff. Those manic Tex Avery shorts had more life than bloated Disney flicks any day; I hope the analogy is aparrent enough.
Crude, little control over
Crude, little control over what happens (even if you can somewhat control the boulder), and yet the pixely graphics, 8bit music and old school explosion sounds make it so fun.
Oh, and also the fact that you play an angry midget, that's pretty cool too.