Game: PowerUp
URL: http://www.powerupthegame.org/
Cost: Free
Estimated Age Range: 10-16
Reviewer: Andy Rose
PowerUp is a massively multiplayer game that teaches about energy conservation and the environment on a fictional planet called Helios (which is more or less just like Earth).
The problem with PowerUp is that it is just not fun. Many, if not most, of the features are buggy or underdeveloped. The multiplayer component is rendered almost pointless because the communication aspect of the game has been intentionally restricted by the developer. The level of polish is incredibly low. The only decent aspect of this game is the graphics, which are not particularly important for a game like this.
The in-game help was awful as well. There is no explanation of how to do the missions at all. They just assume you'll figure it out on your own. The only place where I could figure out how to access the solar panels I needed to fix was deep within their website; and for a game aimed at twelve to sixteen year olds, they're not going to get many people looking too hard. The one time I was able to find a group of people working on a mission and join them, they all quit once we got to the panels because nobody could figure it out and I couldn't explain it, which brings me to my next topic: the chat system.
The chat system consists of lists of canned phrases you can use to communicate with the other players. For example, I can say "hi," "l8r," and "cool," among other things. I cannot type my own messages though, and this stems from what I assume is an attempt to make the online environment safe for younger children. I understand that, but when the missions are so poorly explained that nobody can figure them out, how am I supposed to tell my teammates how to complete them if I can't type my own words? Not only that, why don't they just give me NPC (non-player character) helpers if I can't even chat and truly collaborate with the people I meet? It is an incredibly flawed design.
There are a host of glaring bugs, many of them minor but unprofessional. For example, when you are in third-person-view and you look too far down, your gun disappears yet you still look as if you're holding it. There are graphical clipping issues with the weapon as well, and the butt of it goes right through your arm. Not only that, but when you aren't moving, the gun is rotated 90 degrees to the right, which makes it appear to be floating on top of your arm. That is only the gun -- a minor part of the game at best -- mind you. Several times during the mission briefing (what little there is) what they tell you to do is broken or unimplemented. For example, once I finally figured out how to access the solar panels on my own, I was told that I needed to point them at the top of a tower and that I'll be able to tell I'm doing it right because my crosshair will turn green. In fact, you need to point it at a black hole about halfway down the tower and the crosshair doesn't change color.
The quests designs are abysmal as well. In the solar panel mission, I was told to adjust the solar panels to be aimed properly. Once I figured out how to do it, it wasn't so bad, except I had to do it to twenty solar panels. Twenty! It was incredibly boring, and I was frustrated because I needed to race against a clock that is ticking down. There was no way to complete it by myself and I thought I'd have to restart. However, I was never told that the clock just gives you bonus points so my worrying was for nothing.
The other aspects of the game aren't fun either. Driving a solar buggy, which sounds fun in concept, is very frustrating because the wheels don't adjust back to normal. That is, when I press the "move right" key, the wheels angle to the right, but since I'm accelerating, they continue to push to the right even if I let go of the "move right" key, leading to my doing very sharp donuts in the desert. The only way I got to my destination was by slowly aiming in the right direction and then spending about a minute making sure that my wheels were perfectly straight. It didn't matter that there were mountains in the way. The buggy can just drive straight over them for the most part. Not only that, but for all my trouble I was given a score which has no bearing on the game and, as far as I can tell, cannot even be compared to other players.
Every once in a while (i.e., whenever you walk by a lamp, phone, power strip, or laptop) you are shown a message box asking you what you want to do. For example, with a lamp I can replace the bulb with two other kinds of power-saving bulbs or leave it as it is. Of course, the game doesn't remember this so every time I walk by one of those things I get the same message. Not only that, if you select the correct message, you're shown a "You saved energy!" screen that you can't quit out of. It goes away after about 20 seconds, but you can't aim while it is on screen so you're stuck walking into a chair while you slowly wait for it to go away. Eventually, I learned to actually not save energy so that I would not have to see the repetitive, annoying message.
Beyond that, the game has only a little bit to teach about energy conservation -- knowing to put your computer in sleep mode instead of a screensaver -- which can be taught much more easily and less painlessly some other way. If a teacher was around to supervise and direct the missions, it might have slightly more success, but as it is, the game is broken, poorly created, and hardly had the chance to teach me anything because I wanted to close it constantly.
