Score: 7

"What was the music?"

submission: Lucky's 13 + 2 tutorials

date: January 18, 2005

What was the background music?

Score: 3

"It's not impossible!"

submission: BumperBall

date: January 16, 2005

I actually did score a point. The trick is to get the ball bouncing very fast and almost vertical on the left side; you do this by carefully aiming the ball into the spinner -- there *is* a limit on the speed of the computer paddle; it's just very, very high.

Score: 0

"Misattributed"

submission: The Zelda Quiz

date: January 14, 2005

The Zelda theme is by Konji Kondo, not John Williams. As far as I know John Williams has never scored a video game (though his music for movies has, of course, been used in derviative video games).

Score: 4

"What Did That Have To Do With Ender's Game?"

submission: The Third Invasion

date: January 14, 2005

Umm, that was basically defender combined with a scrolling space shooter. I can't remember anything involving dodging asteroids or aliens trying to blow up the earth in that book. And by "I can't remember" I mean it wasn't in there.

Score: 5

"Well executed, poorly designed"

submission: Radioactive Snakes...Mars

date: November 30, 2004

While the coding made the interface very smooth, the game itself was essentially unplayable. The time limits were unreasonable, there was no convenient way to estimate the time it would take to make a turn, and it didn't help that the game blended a top-down perspective with controls more suited to a first-person game.

Score: 4

"Instructions were confusing"

submission: Soul Master PLUS

date: November 23, 2004

It took me about eight tries to realize that the black areas weren't flyable; I just started out and saw myself unable to move, making loud popping noises, and flashing red, and wondered what on earth was happening. Once I figured it out, it was okay, but you REALLY need some better instructions.

Score: 4

"Flu"

submission: Flu Shot Rejection!

date: October 13, 2004

The influenza epidemic of less than a hundred years ago was "the worst epidemic the United States has ever known." -- 25 million people in the United States died. So flu itself has a very low survivability rate (though modern medicine has improved this), and the REASON that not so many people are dying from it now is precisely that so many people are vaccinated against it.

Score: 10

"No talent displayed..."

submission: Virtual Break

date: June 4, 2004

...but the music is awesome!

Score: 0

"Wow."

submission: Shove It

date: June 3, 2004

You made a really stupid sokoban clone, just like the eight million other sokoban clones, except with graphics so small I can't see them, and you want people to PAY MONEY FOR THIS?

It's too bad that those of us who don't like blatant advertisements weren't there in time to blam this in the first place; why the hell is this on the front page?

Score: 10

"Sheer Genius"

submission: Banana Phone 2

date: May 27, 2004

Wow. What's the name of the song?