Lil Gator Game: Greenalink's Lil review

Game: Lil Gator Game
Developer: MegaWobble
Publisher: Playtonic Games
Release date: 14th December 2022
Price: £16.75 or US $19.99
Filesize: 252 MB

 Lil Gator Game is a late 2022 indie game developed by MegaWobble and published by Playtonic Games.

The story involves a gator who loves their big sister, playing adventure games during childhood but "millions" of years later, the big sister has adult responsibilities and the gator is struggling to get her to join in the fun again.

The gator is a young kid who wants nothing but fun and gets stressed out whenever there's grown up stuff involved such as studying materials, organising a restaurant or making your own hat, fortunately the NPCs twists their words after noticing the gator's initial response to make it sound more fun and encourage motivation.  One interesting small attention to detail is that the young ones tend to have all of their words in lowercase whereas the grown-ups have proper casing (with a notable exception from the screenshot below).

The gameplay is a 3D adventure Breath of the Wild-lite experience. It's not super massive, the weapons do not have a durability system and there's no labyrinths dungeons to explore but both games share the stamina wheel mechanic mainly used for climbing and certain items to a lesser extent. There is no health/death so the player is fully invincible and all of the breakable assets are stationary and made out of cardboard to have that imaginative play feel for the gator's quest.

At the start you have to find a sword, a shield and a hat. The shield isn't used for defending at all but for shield sliding instead, it even includes the shield front flip if initiated from mid-air.  The sword is a melee weapon used as a reliable way to break assets to earn currency which is junk. Junk is used to craft new items during the quest, there are a few identical ones with little differences, for example:
A dart gun and a shuriken, the former has an arc effect similar to a grenade launcher whereas the latter travels in a straight line, the ammo is unlimited so you can fire constantly to your heart's content.

After clearing the small island, you get a text message from Tom who has a "construction" site for a small town/playground by the radio tower from the big island. From there, you have to clear three main quests, one from each major NPC (known as Jill, Avery and Martin). Jill specialises in nature, Avery focuses on building a restaurant with a group of theatrics buddies including a spaceman, a western cowgirl and a bat. Lastly there's Martin who is hanging out with older friends... trying to stay cool. These main quests involves clearing tasks from the major NPC's friends and eventually motivating them to go to the playground, this can include trying to catch a hercules beetle. being a court judge to expose a liar or taking down a UFO.

Unlocking buildings to improve your playground requires "NPC Visitors" as currency, this is earnt by clearing quests.

Quests are usually bitesize tasks that can be cleared in 1-5 minutes depending on the challenge. One slightly tough challenge for example was trying to find 5 ninjas themed targets thanks to a time limit but it did involve looking around the area as the targets were both high and low from the starting point and there were loads of bushes so try and cut those down first should make it easier.

Without spoiling the end game, there is an interesting sequence and a strong conclusion that sends an important message to the player(s).

After clearing the game, you're given a megaphone which is used to find any other NPCs that haven't had their problem(s) solved, this is an interesting way to find uncompleted tasks as with most modern games, you're given a map with loads of icons on screen to complete your todo list, the other item is the ability to text message Jill to help you find every breakable enemy/chest in the game as that is required along with the quests from the NPCs to unlock the second ending.

This game doesn't have a map and while it would have been nice, it does encourage more exploration. 

In fact, some of the NPCs will give you clues to find certain locations, one key advantage on the lack of fast travel is that you'll find other junk and quests along the way to help you get closer to 100% completion.

Did you know this game has a mini trampoline as a sliding item? Using that to land right after jumping from a high place never gets old. 

The music is light-hearted up beat music with a warm feel probably comparable to life sims games such as Animal Crossing and one part has an eerie tone that occurs when going inside a bat's home turf. The big island is notably dynamic as it changes the instruments based on the gator's current location.

Overall, the game is surprisingly enjoyable for nearly anyone, it's accessible for young ones to complete and older gamers would love its witty writing, the entertaining in-game mechanics if you ever wanted to speedrun it and the message at the end of the story. It's not a super long game to beat, for some.... it's at an acceptable length without overstaying its welcome.

Time to complete story ~4 hours

Time to complete everything ~6 hours.

Score: B+

Lil Gator Greatness:

Heartwarming/Charming tone with an important message.

No frustrating mechanics to rely on realism such as ammo/duratabilty and HP.

You can Naruto Dash

Cheeky references with semi-frequent nods to The Legend of Zelda.

Lil Gator Flops:

Not much to do after reaching second ending other than getting faster times on mini-time trials found  in some locations, a New Game + would have been fun to see how fast you can beat the game with best gear.

The ragdoll demonstration was pretty dark as the NPC was almost being MTV's Jackass worthy, none of the characters can die but still.... I was "uhmmm" for a second thinking don't try that at home.

Key provided by Playtonic Friends from Pressengine online.

Official tournament event tours hampering the day one quality of the product - Part 1.

Quality day one releases were quite the norm for a long time and still is today to a slightly lesser extent but that usually depends on the game's genre and long-term support. 

Big franchises also have big events to help promote the game in the longer run.

But not everything can go to plan.

In this series I will cover two games that had lacklustre day one releases thanks to other big marketing shenanigans that made it "easier said than done" to delay the main game 

The first one is a juggernaut entry that from 2016 perspective.... what could possibly go wrong after the amazing Street Fighter IV series?

Capcom Pro Tour x Street Fighter V

Street Fighter is Capcom's flagship 1V1 franchise which caused a global phenomenon in 1991 thanks to Street Fighter II: The World Warrior.

Part way through early 2010 when Street Fighter IV era was its main game, Capcom introduced a pro tour series known as the Capcom Pro Tour, a series of official tournaments where the highest ranked players (+1 from last chance qualifier) gets a chance to win a whopping six figure cash prize.  The Capcom Cup finals before the pandemic era were held around mid-December, a few weeks before the end of the year, Capcom Cup in December 2015 was the last BIG tournament to focus on Ultra Street Fighter IV and interests after that event were shifted to its sequel that was coming out a few months later.

The problem:
The start of a new tour series happens in March and the new Street Fighter V game came out in February 2016 so practically a month to practice., the impressions of the day one build was clearly underwhelming in content as it lacked both:

a Story mode and even the obligatory Arcade mode which nearly every good to average fighting game has.

Pre-release trailers clearly focused on the esport player base thanks to the real-life tournament footage used in the trailers, but not everyone plays "For Glory" as a fair number of players play games "For Fun". Survival mode, the only true single player mode at the time was tedious in higher difficulties thanks to cheating psychic A.I being able counter react to the player's input and the early days there were no in-game items to use in order to turn the tables, so you only had one life. This was the only way to unlock extra colours so... good luck getting the harder colours with an hard to win character. 

Did you know that Extreme difficulty used to be called Hell difficulty? That name change happened around the first DLC release featuring Street Fighter 3's Alex.

Before Extreme there was Hell.

The reason:
Giving the game one month of playtime was enough for pro players to get familiar with their mains and having a 9 month pro tour season allows more countries to host their Capcom Pro Tour Tournaments, if it lasted for 6 months (say starting in June) then fewer countries would have been able to host it as some locations may have their venues occupied by other events not related to Street Fighter.

The anti-influence:
Tekken 7 was out for arcades in February 2015 and had a few delays before its console launch in June 2017, they took notes at Street Fighter V's disappointing start to avoid the same mistakes, fortunately for Bandai Namco, Tekken didn't have an official pro tour until a few years after launch, so its day one build was downright superior to Street Fighter V's launch edition thanks to having actual content for any type of player to enjoy and as of 2022 it's currently one of the most popular entries of the franchise thanks to long term DLC support and a very strong tournament showcase, even for spectators who've never played Tekken can appreciate the now iconic slow-mo moments when both players land their final blows at a (potentially) game ending round.

Ken Masters, another factor for SFV's plague thanks to his banana hair design.

In 2022, the upcoming Street Fighter VI had a much stronger beta testing reception thanks to many quality-of-life features to training, "bad online connection" mercy quits, accessibility to different control styles, a proper single player mode, gimmicky gameplay modes that were very reminiscent to 90s fighting games in a era when pro tournaments were an extra instead of a priority.

Capcom Cup 2022-2023 season aka the last BIG Street Fighter V tournament will end on February so Street Fighter VI make its debut spotlight a few weeks/months later.  Knowing that Capcom Cup finals can start a few weeks after the new year and not before during pre-pandemic days, Street Fighter VI could be out in April time so that it has one month of exposure for players to experiment before the first Capcom Pro Tour in May which will take 9 months to reach to the end of the 2023-2024 Season... February 2024, the question is... will all of the content teased in past trailers be available on day one?

Next time... will be covering a series where they tend to release new games in a pair because why not.

Greenalink inspects and compares Thrustmaster's eSwap X Pro to the eSwap S Pro.

This product was provided to me from Thrustmaster to see how well it performs at high level grind for a good run whether its speedrunning or long sessions.

After reviewing the eSwap S Pro, I was provided the premium edition called the eSwap X Pro. Aimed towards the elite crowd of players with 4 rear buttons, 3 swappable "movement" slots and even swappable triggers & rear pads for colour customisation, in theory this should be outright superior. What surprised me is that how much quality of life improvement the cheaper S model has and there is a simple reason for that, the X model came out first sometime around late 2020 and then the S model in late April 2022.

So this "review" is more of a brief comparison between the two controllers and what I am hoping in the future revisions of the eSwap series, the reason for this is that most of the features I've mentioned from the eSwap S review such as hair trigger & control stick deadzone adjustments applies to the eSwap X as well.

Comparison 1

The control sticks (mainly the ones that were provided with the controller itself).

The eSwap X sticks provided with the controller have swappable thumb pads to make it either resemble an Xbox controlller by default or a retro PS1/PS2/PS3 controller, the height of a stick (pole part) from the lowest part to the thumb pad stick is notably higher than a default Xbox One/Series controller, this does make a difference for my thumbs as they need to put an extra effort to reach/stretch and rest on the pad. These sticks provided with the controller are less comfortable than the shorter sticks that are the default for the eSwap S model, the downside with the shorter stick piece is that the thumb pad cannot be changed into the Playstation 1/2/3 style pad.

Left = Default stick
Right = PS1/PS2/PS3 style stick

        

Pay attention to how my thumb is resting.

Comparison 2

USB Connection:

The eSwap X uses Mini A connection and eSwap S uses the newer type C, not only that but the X model has a small hole around the top of the controller designed for a specific cable to perfectly fit into, this makes generic USB mini A cables look a bit out of place. The newer S controller doesn't have this design and so any USB type C cable can be used without worrying whether or not it looks out of place.

         

    Model X = Picky USB mini A slot.    Model S = Reliable USB type C slot.

The cable provided with Model X is ideal as it fits in perfectly,

avoid using generic USB Mini A cables if you can.

Comparison 3

L/R buttons.

So the S controller seems promising so far but I noticed that the X model has better shoulder buttons. My guess is that the physical clicks felt more noticeable as at one point the S controller's shoulder buttons were not clicking as consistently as it used to that I had to press them on the edge closer to the USB port just to make sure they were working. So I say the shoulder buttons from eSwap X are indeed better.

Comparison 4

The D-pad

So the style of the D-pad closely resembles the Playstation series D-pad with 4 arrows facing at the very centre, there is a small rectangular hole at the very middle which requires using a tool to insert, twist and pull to take out the D-pad. 

This is one of the X model's key selling point, being able to position on either left half slot to function like an Xbox or Playstation controller. The D-pad itself is usable for 2D action/platforming games but not so much for fighting games for two reasons. 

Left = Default layout

Right = Playstation layout.

1) The edges of the directional buttons feels a bit rough and not smooth meaning frequent quarter circle forward inputs can hurt your thumb.

2) Whenever I was pulling off a quarter circle forward (QCF) input, I had to move my thumb slightly higher up during the motion than usual or else it would never register a single direction input (purely left/right) before hitting my punch/kick button which causes my character to execute a crouching normal attack instead.

A tool provided with the eSwap X controller is the intended way to take out the D-pad piece from the unit.

Left = eSwap X   Right = eSwap S
The S version feels a lot more comfy to use and
more reliable at pulling off QCF motions but this D-pad is locked in place.

Comparison 5

The mappable rear buttons

In my earlier review on the model S, I was concerned with certain FPSes requiring extra commands from the D-pad such as Halo Infinite but after posting that review, my friends told me they mapped the rear buttons to both crouch and jump which makes sense in a close quarters assault rifle combat where mixing up your movement can make a huge difference. Two buttons are usually good enough for most action/platforming games. Having four buttons really depends on the genre you are mainly playing, the most efficient use are games that rely on twin sticks and has 4 action buttons that were initially mapped to the four face buttons and/or 4 direction buttons from the D-pad. This usually applies to first person/third person shooters and top-down twin stick shooters where the players can still use action buttons that were mapped to the rear buttons whilst having both thumbs on both sticks at all times.

Left = eSwap X   Right = eSwap S

The S model is still usable for many games despite only having 2 buttons and the text on those buttons stands out a lot more than the X model.

Possible improvements/suggestions for a future series 2 model.

The eSwap's biggest strengths are ease of swap ability and in some cases future proofing by using revised parts. For example, using the shorter sticks that can be bought online or the pair that were included from the eSwap S. I would like to see a way for the swappable D-pad piece to be release friendly without a tool which at the moment is surprisingly doable by holding underneath both sides of the D-pad, though I would be weary if it could damage the edges in the long run.

The mappable buttons should have the ability to program multiple of inputs on a single button through ThrustmapperX's app, they'll be ideal for action genres, especially fighting games, having a single rear button to map both Medium Punch and Medium Kick for example to enable a single button press to execute Focus Attack (SFIV) and V-Skill (SFV). This is going to be very vital for the upcoming game in 2023: Street Fighter 6 thanks to the new Drive Parry and Drive Impact mechanics.

In my previous review, there was a game called Azure Striker Gunvolt which has special skills mapped to either the keyboard (F1, F2, F3 & F4) or the right analouge stick, if the controller had advanced mapping settings to map a rear button to a key from the keyboard, it should be possible to have each skill slot mapped to a button with the eSwap X.

Lastly, the main reason why there should be series 2 revamp for the eSwap X in the future is to simply support USB type C otherwise it doesn't feel absolutely superior over the eSwap S.

The boxart between the two are very identical as well. A simple background colour change like the Playstation 5's Regular edition vs Playstation 5's Digital edition and Xbox Series S vs Xbox Series X are night and day difference.

 The boxart between the two are way too identical
as they both share the same use of colour.
Yes the controllers are indeed different.

In conclusion, the eSwap X has potential but is held back by eSwap S's lower RRP price and quality of life improvements on both the D-pad and USB connection. Though saying that, if you are not afraid at spending extra money to get shorter sticks and can live with the USB mini A connection and workable D-pad outside of fighting games, then it's a pretty good controller but for speedrunning purposes, the eSwap S does the job better in most cases other than being restricted to the Xbox layout for movement pieces due to locked D-pad.

A quick rundown:

USB connection: eSwap S

Shoulder buttons: eSwap X
D-pad (overall comfort): eSwap S

Versatility (layout combinations and rear button count): eSwap X

Greenalink reviews: The Thrustmaster eSwap S Pro

My first review on a piece of hardware.

This product was provided to me from Thrustmaster to see how well it performs at high level grind for a good run whether its speedrunning or long sessions.

The Eswap S Pro is a tad cutdown version of the Eswap X Pro with less swappable slots and less rear map buttons. However, the ace in the hole is the new D-Pad which is notably different to the Eswap X Pro version. Because of this feature, I played a fair amount of 2D games to get a good impression.

Front

Back

The D-Pad is a plus shape type like the Xbox One style and not the circular style as seen on Xbox 360 and Xbox Series models, I grew up getting used to the circular style on the 360 controller that I was a small minority who really liked the D-pad for that system. So, when I got to try out the Eswap S's plus shaped D-pad, it was really comfy, it almost felt like it was gel squidgy yet really solid when moving my thumb from left to right. You get to hear the clicks when a new direction is pressed inside the controller. I tried out a few long sessions with the D-pad starting off with trying to get a 1 credit clear run on an arcade game called Midnight Resistance, now this game is mostly holding right and probably left at some points and my left thumb was fine after 3 hours of attempts.  

Midnight Resistance, played with Thrustmaster's Eswap S Pro.

LB + RB used to rotate gun.

The face buttons (A B X Y) while not exclusive to the Eswap S are all flat shaped with very short travel distance as if you were clicking a mouse, this doesn't sound like much but faster reactions to press inputs can make a significant difference.  

Trigger locks is a feature that has been seen on various pro controllers for the system including the official Elite series. The ones I have work ok but there were rare occasions that the Right Trigger will activate an input for a frame or two that would cause my gun to fire a single bullet for 1-2 seconds in Halo Infinite despite not even touching it. A quick fix was to unlock the trigger and then re-lock them just to make sure, it didn't happen all of the time but it makes me wonder if this problem occurs on other trigger lock controllers. 

The triggers are shaped differently too that it's better to place your fingers along the grove of the triggers and not touching the edge, that part feels more rough than the official Xbox controllers, so try and get used to that if you can.

Slipstream 16 minute run of me holding RT with the Thrustmaster eSwap S pro.

Then comes the rear buttons known as M1 and M2. The Eswap S only has 2 mappable buttons compared to the Eswap X which has 4 mappable buttons, this decision is questionable, probably done to make the Eswap X more worth for the money but on the flipside, you can probably get away with 2 map buttons for single player games.

Front side controller, showing 2 swappable slots on Left Stick & Right Stick

Rear side controller, showing the hair trigger locks and 2 mappable buttons.

I played a game called The Surge, a souls-like game set in the future with construction robots as the theme. When mapping the Right Stick Button to M2, it felt like a convenient Z-Trigger style lock-on when focusing on an enemy as my right thumb was still hovering over the ABXY buttons. A simpler example of having only two M buttons is mapping the D-pad Left and D-Pad right as a way to change weapons, this works in various games, most notably Shadow Complex.

Lid opened.

Bird's eye view. Includes controller and USB type C

The controller while $40 cheaper than the Eswap X, it has some notable caveats over the competitive model which may want you to save some money and get the premium version instead.

The Eswap S only has 2 swappable slots instead of 3 as seen on the Eswap X, the left stick and right stick slots are swappable but the D-pad is fixed in place, I think this is unfortunate for two reasons:

1) While the D-Pad is phrased for having good diagonals, it is placed in an awkward position for playing fighting games when swift and/or complex motions are involved. To put it into context, a lot of (professional) fighting game players from mid to high level have been using the standard PS4 controller as the console of choice is for the majority of tournaments is the Playstation 4.

The controller is probably still ok for Dragon Ball FighterZ thanks to being exclusively Quarter Circle Forward/Quarter Circle Backward motions and other fighting games at a casual lower level. I'll be surprised if one can go far in tournaments using this controller though.

2) To follow it up, the Eswap X can alter the D-Pad and left stick placement to make it feel like either a Playstation style layout or an Xbox style layout. The Eswap S is strictly an Xbox layout which can be a deal breaker for some. However, if you are a person who doesn't like the Playstation layout at all, it's a non-issue.

The other disadvantage over the X is that some games have a huge execution benefit with four rear buttons instead of two.

A modern FPS game I play called Halo Infinite takes full advantage of 4 rear buttons by mapping each D-pad command to a M button ranging from:

AI Scan to highlight dropped weapons

Marking to send information to teammates such as locating power weapons or tagging enemies.

Grenade swapping to... swap grenade types

and Drop weapon for the high level strat of dropping a weapon to reduce cooldown time after a melee attack.

Halo Infinite Ranked in action before 2022, wasn't played with Eswap S Pro.
Just giving you an idea on gameplay context with extra commands such as Marking, Grenade Swapping and A.I scan (yellow flash), showing two map buttons isn't enough for this.

With only two rear buttons, I went for AI Scan and Grenade swapping as those were my two most frequent commands, but it really needs at least one more because Marking plays a huge role throughout the match for intel without sounding obnoxious on the mic.

One thing I've noticed that felt odd initially at first is the placement of the Start/Options button, they were placed much higher and further away from the X button. The official Xbox controllers have the start button very close to the X button. This is more of a learning curve for me whenever I have to pause the game to execute a save & quit warp or something else like retrying the level but this can be remedied by mapping Start as a rear map button on games that I played fine on the official controllers so it's not all too bad.

This controller is compatible with the MiSTer FPGA although do note that the 2 rear mapping buttons only function to existing buttons that were mapped (so M1 that is mapped to A will be treated as A and not M1 only) and cannot be treated as their own buttons when it comes to mapping commands on many of its retro cores.

 Button mapping. 

If there was one thing I would like to see in the future through 'advanced settings' perhaps is mapping the buttons to a certain direction of the left or right stick.

This might be a bit tricky to program when using the controller's mapping feature alone because it currently only maps 'click' based inputs ranging from ABXY to Left/Right stick buttons but there are very few games where single commands were mapped to a direction of the right stick.

For example: In the Azure Striker Gunvolt games, the special skills are mapped to one of the four directions on the right stick. Moving the stick up activates the 1st special skill slot, moving the stick right activates the 2nd special skill slot. 3rd for down and 4th for left.

You can use the keyboard by pressing F1, F2, F3 and F4 which is naturally awkward to use.

The current solution right now is to map a keyboard button to a Left/Right stick button by running a Keyboard to Controller App on the PC and then map Left/Right stick button to a rear map button.

Example:

(Keyboard > Controller > Map Button)

F1 > LSB > M1

F2 > RSB > M2

The ideal solution:

RS 'holding up' > M1

RS 'holding right' > M2

This might be hard to do properly unless you have some sort of Advanced settings on ThrustmapperX app.

Note: On top right part of the image shows special skills that can be pulled off by using the Right Stick. Stick directions cannot be mapped to M1 and M2 buttons. So I had to use Antimicro to map a Keyboard input to LSB/RSB and then map a stick button to either M1 or M2.

Lastly the sticks, they are strong to keep in place but not too hard to pull them out and replace, I like how they slide back in flawlessly like a cube filling in the missing gap. The thrustmapperx app has an easy navigation system to track data on analogue sticks' deadzone/sensitivity curve, trigger % factor, currently mapped buttons and the ability to save presets which will be very handy for trial-and-error purposes on testing analogue sensitive games like trying to get movement after moving a fraction of a millimetre on the stick. I can't say too much on the sticks other than the bowl area of the stick feels bigger than the official Xbox sticks which is nice for my slightly medium sized thumbs.

Trigger locks options is a must for speedrunners and FPS players to input the RT/LT commands as soon as possible. You can adjust the values to make them a tad more sensitive but not too sensitive.

In short does it excel for long sessions? Yes, I can see this as a reliable controller with quality-of-life execution improvements on face buttons to convenient stick replacements whenever one of them has a drift problem, as you don't need to open up the controller and solder in the no drift pcb by Helder Gametech.

If you want to take full advantage of the rear buttons to perform extra commands instead of using the D-Pad then go for the eSwap X button but if your game doesn't need that, then this model is fine to use. Price can be debatable compared to other brands around this price but what they don't have is swappable parts to replace or customise with ease to make your own controller not only looking good but function to play good too. 

The eSwap S only comes with the two mini sticks attached but removable by default making it a near 'Switch Lite' experience as you rarely want to swap the sticks out, so buying extra sticks is the only way  to either change colour or to replace a drift stick. 

This is best for:

Single player speedrunning on the PC where controller is good to use for many 2D platformers and 3D action/adventure games.

This is okay for:

Some First-Person Shooting games that benefit aim assist and require fewer extra commands to map to rear buttons.

This is probably not okay for:

Fighting games at a high level mainly because the nice D-pad is placed in an awkward position. Only use it for casual play.

People who play wireless as this controller is wired only with USB type C.

Controller provided by Thrustmaster.

Thrustmaster's Eswap S Pro controller product page:
https://www.thrustmaster.com/products/eswap-s-pro-controller/