Alright, that's it... You had your fun and made your point with "Free Will - The Game" and I let it slip by, but this is just beyond the pale... It's not funny and it's not thought provoking, it's just pretentious, self-righteous and pompous beyond all possible belief...

First of all, this is not a "game", this is a flash author ramming both his retarded sense of humor and his downright obnoxious views on gaming down our innocent throats... This sort of "Forced Aesop" is one of the cardinal sins that any author, regardless of medium can make and not only does this ENTIRE FLASH revolves around, but it is quite possibly the single worst example of it ever created...

I won't bother going through each of the scores I usually give individually (since there isn't actually a game here to review), but I will briefly say that the graphics are marginally good at best, the sound is OK, with decent voice acting (but is yet another example of good voice acting not making up for an otherwise terrible flash), "style" would normally get zero points both because what gameplay that does exist is completely broken (i.e. cannot be reset) and because the way the flash force feeds us the author's message has no sense of "style" whatsoever and "gameplay" would, of course, also get a zero, since the game cannot actually be played...

I'm sorry mate, but as a game this Flash is atrocious, as a delivery vessel for your views it has all the style, subtlety and grace of a speeding mac truck and all the effectiveness of trying to inflict pain by whipping one's victim with a warm lettuce and as a comedy it completely falls flat, being not in the least bit humorous... And I can't think of any redeeming elements this flash has besides the voice acting and even that, given the evidence this flash as well as games like Red Moon and Vorago, seems to be more of a curse than a blessing...

Unless you fancy a few minutes of getting the flash author's nonsensical opinions shoved down your throat, save yourself the time and don't come ANYWHERE NEAR this flash!

Note: In the past, Newgrounds reviews had a set of six "subscores", a system I still use... Keep in mind that the 'violence' and 'humor' scores have little (if anything) to do with how good a game is... They are only there because they used to be in the sub-scores and are only a measure of how much violence and humor there is to be had in the game (if any). Also, the sub-score 'interactivity' has been replaced with 'gameplay'...
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I never thought playing flash game would make me feel sick, but your game somehow managed it...

Graphics: 4/10 (Poor): Whilst the graphics are technically proficient, artistically they're absolutely hideous... The strange golden leaves look bad and obscure one's vision, while the Captain has by far the singe ugliest character model I've ever seen in a video game... The platforms aren't too nice looking either and the enemies are nothing to write home about... In fact, a four is really being generous and as I said, it's only because the graphics are very proficient from technical standpoint... Also the background looks nice...

Style: 2/10 (bad): The vomit inducing camera rends any sense of style this game might have had asunder... Not that it has much in that department anyway as the elements don't exactly work well together... If the game is set in a dysotopian future (as seems to be the case), why are the platforms made of stone? Furthermore, what exactly are the things that are attacking the Captain? At least telling us what they are and why they should be attacking the Captain would be nice as otherwise they seem like random enemies that were just thrown in to give you something to fight, which drags this rating down massively... Also, what was with those leaves? A couple of points for the lack of bugs (unless you count the camera), however...

Sound: 5/10 (OK): The sound wasn't too bad, but the music and special effects were terribly repetitive and didn't sound all that great...

Violence: 1/10 (Slight Violence): Mostly, you're shooting what appear to be machines and even when you're not it's the same sort of bloodless carnage you see across most forms of media...

Gameplay: 0/10 (Atrocious): As the title of this review says, the camera is absolutely horrific... This thing rapidly zooms in and out and darts all over the place as the enemies buzz about the screen, leaving the player confused, disoriented and feeling downright sick... Often the camera will move so far away that the character isn't even visible and the degree to which it zooms in when there are no enemies on the screen makes navigating the level necessarily difficult, particularly when it is impossible to tell if there is a platform below you or not... Even without the piss-poor camera, however, the game would still be dull and uninspired at best... The combat quickly becomes boring and is frustratingly difficult (again, even without the dodgy camera), with the enemies darting about all over the place and phasing through the walls, making them very hard to hit, even as they tear you to pieces... Then there was the first boss fight against the enemy soldier, which is insultingly easy... Then there's that insipid powerup that makes the Captain fire two shots diagonally, making it even more impossible to hit anything...

Overall: 1/10 (Terrible): I'm sorry, but a 1 is the best I can do... This game is absolutely dreadful from start to finish... Ugly graphics, average-at-best sound, godawful camera, sub-par gameplay, platforming that isn't really platforming and powerups that hinder more than they help... Yeesh... I suppose it's slightly better than Mysteryville though... slightly...

Note: In the past, Newgrounds reviews had a set of six "subscores", a system I still use... Keep in mind that the 'violence' and 'humor' scores have little (if anything) to do with how good a game is... They are only there because they used to be in the sub-scores and are only a measure of how much violence and humor there is to be had in the game (if any). Also, the sub-score 'interactivity' has been replaced with 'gameplay'...
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Graphics: 7/10 (Good): I have to admit, I have a personal bias against the style of "silhouette" graphics presented in this flash... I just don't think they look nice... Quite a fair bit has been done with this style of graphics in this case, however... The effects and character animations are decent and the cutscenes and animations for the special attacks look great... However, the mediocre looping cloud animation in the background and monochrome black is, overall, a little on the boring side...

Style: 10/10 (superb): I have to admit, this game quite simply oozes style from every pore... All the elements come together almost flawlessly... The music might be just a touch on the cheery side for the theme of the flash, but when I played it, this didn't bother me... There is also a conspicuous lack of bugs, except, perhaps, for some dodgy collision detection, but that comes under gameplay, rather than style...

Sound: 7/10 (Good): All the sound is good, but not overly inspiring... Music, voice acting and sound effects, all good, but not fantastic...

Violence: 3/10 (Little Violence): Sure there's plenty of sword slashing going on, but there's none of the gore that one might expect to go with it...

Gameplay: 3/10 (Very Poor): Ah, now here's where this game REALLY falls down... My review title is "A frustrating walk in the park" with good reason... On one hand, the combat is insultingly easily... Oftentimes, a couple of taps of the X key will send even powerful enemies sailing over the edge into spikes or a bottomless pit (the ones that charge towards you as part of their attack may even run straight off the edge by themselves if you stand close enough to the ledge when they attack and then evade it by jumping) and even when it doesn't, it's just a repeating pattern of either mash Z for the easier enemies, or hit Z a few of times, run away, come back and repeat for the harder ones (including the King's guard... as long as you don't corner him his lightning attack is easy to avoid)...

On the other hand, however, the platforming is an exercise in dodgy-at-best hit detection and questionable level design... The wall jumping, in particular, is terribly fiddly and it's only by mashing the jump button that I can manage to do it with any sort of reliability, but even then it doesn't always work... You also can't look below you (traditionally accomplished by holding the crouch button for a bit) before jumping to your doom (though often you will be able to guess when there is a bottomless pit below you)... It would also have been nice to give us fair warning about some of the obstacles, such as the "see-saw" platforms that you have no idea about until you've already slid off one to your death....

It isn't all terrible, though... The swordplay is somewhat fun, if hampered by your character lunging forward all the time (usually when you don't want her to) and sending a group of enemies tumbling away from you with the special attack is very amusing... However, the controls do feel a bit stiff and what fun there was quickly evaporated come the heavy platforming sections... The game is also noticeably short...

Humor: 0/10 (No Humor): None to speak of...

Overall: 5/10 (OK): The trouble with this game is that it's a sad case of "all flash, no substance"... A bad game (for reasons I address above) dressed up in rich styling and decent graphics is still a bad game, but you should certainly get some brownie points for the effort that obviously put into those elements... Still, I can't help but think that this would actually have been better as a non-interactive Flash movie.