The Black Knight

http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/the_black_knight

When can the killer treasure a betting knight?  Here, me thinks.

Well, I've review Infinite Ocean on Monday and in the air of reviewing The Infinite Tower last week this week goes to this game, The Black Knight.  A game about a valiant knight that goes out doing valiant things.

... kidding!  No seriously!  You play the role of a henchmen that works for a loan shark that runs around beating the ever living shit out of people to get money to give to your boss.

Well, ok, fine.  You play this brute who is the title character.  The king is pissed that people are not paying their taxes cuz he, like, needs a new swimming pool or something.

Actually the queen needs a new handbag.  Sire, what did you do?

So, you are tasked to, well, beat the taxes out of the peasantry.  The harder you hit them the more they will pay you.  Pretty self explanatory.

Controls are simple enough.  Your character automatically walks to the right of the screen and you click the mouse to swing you weapon at various people, foreground objects, birds, and shops that you walk past.  Timing is key, as while you can hold the mouse button after a successful hit to charge for an extra powerful swing, missing and hitting the air disables you for a period of time.

Hit everything but the witch!  She'll turn you into a pig!  I'm serious!

Now, I gather that some of you might have figured out that this sounds very simple... maybe too simple, and I can assure you that this is all you do.  Not that there is a problem, except after a while everything starts looking the good damn same.

I mean, which stage is your favourite one?

The sunny day in the town?

The countryside?

Or the night out at the castle... what a second!  I though nobility was except from paying taxes... oh fuck it.

Course, I complain about this, but I also complained about the lack of variety in Infinite Tower, and that was a game that was even more simple than this.  So I am happy that the developer at least gave us different backgrounds, and for what its worth the music for each 'stage' is different, alongside the appropriate aesthetic changes for all the sprites in the game to match the background.

This game was made before everyone had an iPhone I might add.

Though I think its worth mentioning that its kinda fun to listen to people utter everything from "Owie" to "you nasty brute" and even the rather funny "nice shot"  when your smacking them upside the head.

Now, one final point I would like to bring is the fact that this game has an upgrade system.  No, I'm serious.  Aside from an amulat that gives you more gold per hit, a tonic that makes you hit harder, and therefore get more gold, and oils that reduces cooldown for missed swings, you can also upgrade your weapon to hit harder and further.

Which is all fair and good, until you realize that this system is broken.

I'd bet you can get the mace by stage three

Meanwhile you are sitting on a mountain of gold and you have no idea what to do with it other than simply stalk pile it so you can keep playing just to see how much gold you can get before the game is over and the king sacks you.

Now, the verdict.  The game is about as mindless as a Michael Bay movie and about as tasteful as the School Shooter mod for Half-Life, where someone took a kring-inducing scenario and tried to make it 'fun.'  For better or worse, this game's fun fades along with the novelty of playing a bad guy and becomes a boring and forgettable experience.  In fact, I wouldn't be talking about it except I needed an excuse to post an authentication sentence for some service.