“Donk.” “DONK.” This metallic sound as the main freak you control runs into walls is entirely the most annoying thing about Blockheads Clash, from independent games maker Outside The Box. If there's a Jack in the world with a big round head, you’re the “In The Box,” with a hammerhead cube-tete that is your only weapon. Five keys move your “PC in a Mac world” main character through a series of rooms, looking for keys and banging on floor buttons to exit and boxes to uncover different “treats” - mainly energy and health points. Your discovery of the differently colored keys give entrance to adjacent or future rooms. If you haven’t mastered the basic elements of the game within five minutes you’re one of those still stumped by Pac-Man and online Flash bubble wrap. A limited range of baddies come, zombie-like at you trying to pound your noggin and punk your junk with their bigger blockheadedness; look - that one could fit a stereo; look - that’s gotta be for a 40-inch plasma. The $9.95 download-only game also could have been called, “Too Stupid To Die.” Even for a trainee keyboard computer-game commando, it is very hard to get killed as the assailants come, slowly to hurt you bad. With simplistic graphics, this game isn’t a visual stunner; but it’s the plot that moves the units anyway, right? Groundhog Day, meet Max Headroom. There’s 30 minutes in the demo, enough to figure out whether the game’s for you. And it’s worth the time if you’re not in the middle of 100 other games to give it a look-see. Screenshots at the Web site seem to show some harder, wilder challenges, but if the main character doesn’t get to move any faster, it’ll be a tough slog. “Donk.” In the single-player mode, you are a lone wolf, moving trancelike through the rooms, seeking the most nihilistic way to “use your head.” The (drunken) appeal would be bringing in other players around the keyboard to throw temples tantrums. This is incorporated here and is part of the demo. Somehow, though, the idea of four people playing finger-Twister over the keyboard trying to direct themselves around this crashing cantaloupe world, doesn’t compute. If Lucy Van Pelt could somehow have been included into the mix, emasculating shouting “You blockhead!” when the player did something particularly thickheaded, we’d have an undeniable winner. Anything’s better than, “Donk.” “Donk.”
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