PoptropiCon Island, Reviews

Sam’s Personal Review of PoptropiCon Ep.3

Samwow5

(Warning: This review contains spoilers. If you’re looking for the PHB’s PoptropiCon Island Guide, our full written walkthrough with pictures, click here!)

samreview

Hey everyone! Before I start my review, I just want to give a brief explanation for why I haven’t been posting. The reason is because I had so many projects for my Key Club (just recently got elected Treasurer :P). In addition to that, I also went to 2 conventions for Key Club in my state capital. Now that’s over with & the summer is coming, I’ll have a lot more time to post! Anyway, let’s get to the review!

Let me just start by saying that the creators said the episode would release at 2pm EST (which is 1pm CST, 12pm MST, and 11am PST) it released at 1:30pm EST… It set me behind by 30 minutes and pretty much no possible way to get into the Top 10. Unlike Arabian Nights Ep. 2, I found this island very glitchy and hard to play.

Let me give you an example: You know that pink laser shooting down to the ground that never goes up in the Theater? I can glitch through it, and can’t go back on the other side where I came from… so I had to restart the island. This same glitch was also happening in other parts on the island too. There was also other problems I experienced with the island, like:

  1. When I clicked on a something else by accident while the character was talking, it froze.
  2. I moved by accident right when a scene happened (when the characters talk to each other), it glitched out.
  3. The items leaving your inventory when you left an area.
  4. You know at the end of the island where your fighting Omegon and you have to deflect the lasers onto the battery packs on the hands? Well, I didn’t do it in time and the hand squashed me through the floor and I was stuck there… had to restart.

After about 4 hours straight of restarting, I quit on the island for the day and started up again the next day. I ended up finishing the island about 27 hours after the island came out. As I had to keep restarting, I kept a notepad next to me of how many times I restarted & for what reasons.

  • I restarted 14 times…….14 TIMES!
  • 5 of the restarts was because items left my inventory when I left an area & went to another
  • 4 of the restarts was because I glitched through one of the many pink lasers
  • 2 of the restarts was because I was moving while a scene happened
  • 2 of the restarts was because other small little glitches in the dialog & froze
  • 1 when the hand of Omegon (in the boss battle) squashed me through the floor.

As the glitches & restarts kept piling up… I really got a good look at all the story, graphics & soundtrack. The story was great, I loved the concept of finding armor & weapons to defeat Omegon. I also really liked the part in the storyline where the girl in the basement betrayed us, it felt like I was watching a movie when the flick had a crazy plot twist.

The graphics were exceptional when I did get to see them. The graphics of the laser beam deflections were so cool & the effects that were put into the arrow breaking the glass under Omegon’s chair was crazy awesome. The soundtrack was great, as usual, Jeff Heim does his job very well :P.

This island could have been great in my opinion if it wasn’t so glitchy for me. The story was great, but pretty much every SUI island now has a lot of glitches…

If the Creators want good reviews, they need to put in the effort & time into the island instead of working on merchandise or some promotion to earn some money. I understand you have to earn money to make a living, but for the people to keep playing you need to give them a glitch-free island or they will start to go away…

On a scale of 1 to 10, PoptropiCon Ep.3: Reign of Omegon gets….

PoptropiCon3Samwow5

What do you think of my score? Do you agree with mine? Let me know in the comments! 😀

~SW5~

Daily Pop Sneak Peeks, Graphic Novels

Daily Pop Peeks: Prepare for MotM Island!

Slippery Raptor

Hey guys! Slippery here.

It looks like we’re having a Mystery of the Map Island soon! The Daily Pop sneak peeks from the past month or so have clearly been referencing scenes from the MotM graphic novel. Check it out. 😀

One Warm Line: Toward the beaux fort, see?
Embers: This fire burns, always.
High on the Hog: Eat, drink, and be merry.
GPS: You’ll never get lost, unless you already are.
Wildlife: Get in touch with your wild side.
Drydock: This one’s gone to ground.
Pen Pals: Rage, rage against the cage.
Whitewater: We’re looking at a raft of problems now.
Leftovers: Plenty more where that came from.
Atlas Shrugged: Now we’ve really gone off the map.
Mast Head: Don’t cross the streams.
Uncharted: This settlement is off the map.
Grotto Preminger: We’ll be direct: this common room is a star.
Fishbone: One of the greatest bands of all time.
Game of Thrones: Iron would be preferable to old splintered wood.
Basket Case: What a deflating voyage.
Run Aground: Whatever floats your boat.
Ascend: You will have seen the mountaintop.
Upsot: The hull, you say.
Downfall: Don’t go chasing these things.
Collapse: Jared Diamond might have something to say about this.

Yup, the graphic novel will be coming to life on Poptropica. The sneak peeks are the same as the novel — the deflated hot air balloon (which they rode on), the map, the broken viking ship, and even Oliver, Mya and Jorge inside the cage! Another thing to point out, looks like the common room in this island is called “Viking’s Grotto”. For what I can tell, it looks like we’re going to save the gang from the Vikings and stop Octavian from his diabolical plans.

If you’re still not convinced, try typing mysteryofthemapisland.com – and it will direct to Poptropica! According to a Whois search, the domain has been owned by Poptropica since February 25, 2015.

There’s been no official announcement yet, but it’s looking very likely. If you want to see more recent MotM sneak peeks, check out the PHB’s Daily Pop Sneak Peek Archive!

Also, if you haven’t already, visit our Comics page to read the entire Mystery of the Map graphic novel – even pages that have not been published on the Creators’ Blog yet!

Looks like the island is going to be exciting, and I can’t wait for its confirmation! Are you excited as I am? What do you think of it? Leave your comment below! 🙂

-Slippery

Mission Atlantis Island, Reviews

PHB Review: Mission Atlantis Island

Slippery Raptor

Hey Poptropicans! Slippery here.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a review on an island/episode, and although Mission Atlantis Island has been around for some time, we haven’t reviewed it as a whole yet – until now! (If you need a walkthrough, check out the PHB’s Mission Atlantis guide— complete with pictures!)

Warning: This review contains slight spoilers for the island. 😀

Episode 1: Into the Deep

missionatlantis1

For me, the episode is average. The episode itself was kind of uncomplicated and it lacks one thing—challenge. The island’s plot did tell that it’ll be simple but I think it needs something more. I can’t seem to find any difficult spots on the island since you only have to take a picture of the given sea creatures then move to the other but I had a bit of fun in this episode. The vastness of the ocean was seen through the visuals and the music accompanied the underwater scenery very well. What got me was the ending—it was nice and made me excited for the next episode.

Episode 2: Fortress of the Deep

missionatlantis2

The second episode was breathtaking. Curiosity started to get to me since rumors of aliens have spread throughout Poptropica. We didn’t encounter any despicable villains along the way, but some ferocious animals inside the city. It finally had a challenge after the first episode! Solving puzzles, taking footage of glyphs, getting puzzle pieces and aquatic animals made the episode very great. When I finished getting all of the animals in their cages, a couple of questions got to me: Why would it use animals to power up the whole city? Is this really a city? 

When I got to the stand where the puzzle is placed, it made me interested on what lay ahead. The music used in this episode was very appropriate for a dark place and an abandoned ancient city. The visuals and animations are really cool, especially for the sea creatures. The ending was quite startling because when the door opened and sucked us in, what would come next was left vague… I thought that we’d be in another dimension, and it made me very inquisitive for the final episode.

 Episode 3: Out of the Blue

missionatlantis3

The episode’s name speaks for itself—unexpected. Let’s start with the soundtrack. The music is so thrilling that you’d probably notice we’re in the climax of the story! Then the visuals are fine even to the details, and the animations were awesome – especially to the Leviathan, Atlantis drones and even the thingamabobs all over the ship. The visuals barely tell that we’re not in Atlantis at all, but in an alien ship!

This episode was the finest of them all. The revelations, the discoveries and everything was just amazing! The challenges were quite hard especially the disc part with the Leviathan.  What I loved the most was the ending scene— everyone was amazed at what we’d discovered! Mission Atlantis had a fine ending. 🙂

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your pain? er, Mission Atlantis gets….

missionatlantis4

What do you think? Do you agree with the score? Let me know in the comments! 😀

Pranks

April Fools 2015: Omegon’s Takeover!

HPuterpop

aprilfools

Hi Gs,

Well, as some of you may have guessed, Tobor Aureum was just a clever disguise for Omegon – and once again he came into the real world and trapped us all. BT came up with the idea, then I took care of graphics and in the end we all played a part in an awesome April Fools’ prank this year.

Tobor Aureum, if you haven’t figured it out already, means Robot Golden, which would be Omegon. Tobor is just Robot backwards, and Aureum is Latin for golden.

As the day progressed he made two posts, one with a picture of a nice, young Poptropican, the next with some of his good looking attributes gone, and finally Omegon revealed the next day. Through it all, however, there was a red glow in his eyes that I’m surprised some of you didn’t catch immediately. (Oh, and Tobor’s thank-you post also contained a hidden message that was revealed after the takeover!)

I also updated the header and background to give off a more graffiti-ed vibe. 😛

I put together 4 trapped PHB author graphics, which were fun to make. Featuring Samwow5, Spotted Dragon, Slippery Raptor, and Slanted Fish in Omegon’s infamous electro-cells!

The final product was so worth the work and I was really glad to see a good plan come to fruition. 😀

aprilfools1

Throughout the day, we had the PHB authors gradually change their profile pictures to henchbot avatars, and because we all live in different time zones, it gave off the effect of us being gradually converted (just as we will slowly convert back to our regular avatars).

henches

Fishy also wrote a post to update everyone about the prank that Poptropica pulled this year, the floppy-disc Text Adventure – all in Omegon’s commentary. It’s pretty enjoyable to read, so head over there and give it a look see. 😉

The best thing about this prank, however, was the comments. The majority the time it was either me, BT, or Fishy who was commenting as Omegon, and the other authors joined in by pretending Omegon had taken over their accounts. I have to say that the conversations (and sometimes arguments) were just gold. The post “The Reign of Omegon lives,” got about 400 comments which is colossal, and through these we learned a few things about Omegon:

  • Omegon likes creme-filled donuts
  • He assigns numbers to his hench-bots
  • His electro-cages have themes
  • His middle name is FEAR
  • He talks in really annoying ALL CAPS

We also learned that some of you would willingly give themselves up to Omegon and join in the fun of being a hench-bot! What loyal fans we have… 😛 The comments are really witty, so go have a read!

omegon commentsAnyway, thank you, everyone, for the fun yesterday. It was really exciting and many of you had fun trying to solve the mystery of the Blogging Intern. Until next year…

//Ok, back to my donut — hey, where did it go? What is this?  Raw fish?! Wait… no… CRAWFISH?!//

TAFN.

-HPuterpop

Pranks, Uncategorized

The Text Adventure (commentary by Omegon!!!)

Omegon

THE REIGN OF OMEGON LIVES.

SALUTATIONS AGAIN, EARTH-DWELLERS. IT IS I, OMEGON, HERE WITH AN UPDATE THAT MAY INTEREST YOU ALL. I CAN SEE BY YOUR CONSTANT SASSING IN THE COMMENTS OF MY LAST POST THAT THIS WILL BE RIGHT UP YOUR ALLEY BECAUSE IT INVOLVES THE CLEVER CRAFT OF WORDS.

APPARENTLY THIS IS A NEW PROJECT CALLED “POPTROPICA: THE TEXT ADVENTURE.” WHICH IS BASICALLY POPTROPICA WITH JUST A BLACK SCREEN AND WHITE TEXT. GENIUS!

PopZork_intro

OH LOOK, THEY HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN “IMPOSSIBLE PUZZLES THAT PLAYERS SOLVE BY LOOKING UP WALKTHROUGHS”. AFTER ALL, THAT’S WHY THIS BLOG EXISTS, RIGHT?

PopZork_puzzle

YES OF COURSE I WANT TO MAKE YOU CRY, CAPTAIN CRAWFISH. AND AFTERWARDS, I WILL NOM YOU AND FEED YOUR REMAINS TO THE PHB READERS LIKE THE GREAT VILLAIN I AM. NO, YOU’LL NEVER TAKE ME DOWN. NOT LIKE THIS CURSED CTHULU…

PopZork_boss

POOR GUY. HE WAS ONLY TRYING TO WREAK HAVOC ON POPTROPICA AND TAKE OVER THE WORLD. I CAN UNDERSTAND THAT.

BESIDES, THE ADS ON POPTROPICA ARE KIND OF LIKE ME AND MY HENCH-BOTS – THEY ENTICE YOU WITH THEIR CHARM AND BAM! YOU’VE BECOME ONE OF THEM. THEY SAY THE ADS ARE HARMLESS, BUT THINK ABOUT IT, THEY’RE JUST AS DIABOLICAL…

PopZork_custom

WELL ANYWAY, IF YOU WERE HOPING TO TRY YOUR HAND AT THIS BEAUTIFUL TEXT ADVENTURE, I’M AFRAID YOU’RE GOING TO FIRST GET YOURSELF SOME GOOD OLD-FASHIONED FLOPPY DISC-COMPATIBLE COMPUTERS, WHICH IS PRACTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE (NOT TO MENTION INCONVENIENT!) IN THIS DAY AND AGE. SERIOUSLY, WHAT ERA DOES CAPTAIN CRAWFISH LIVE IN?? I TOLD YOU HE WAS BETTER OFF BEING EATEN.

BUT HEY, IT’S APRIL, AND FROM WHAT I HEAR, FOOLISH THINGS CAN HAPPEN. NOT FROM ME, OF COURSE; I AM INFALLIBLE.

BY THE WAY, MY TAKEOVER OF THIS WEBSITE IS GOING WELL. THE PHB STAFF HAVE BECOME MY HENCH-BOTS, AND MANY HAVE FALLEN VICTIM TO ONE OF THE CLASSIC BLUNDERS – THE MOST FAMOUS OF WHICH IS “NEVER GET INVOLVED IN A LAND WAR IN POPTROPICA” – BUT ONLY SLIGHTLY LESS WELL-KNOWN IS THIS: “NEVER GO IN AGAINST OMEGON WHEN DEATH IS ON THE LINE!!!”

WITH THOSE WORDS OF WISDOM IN MIND, I SHALL END THIS POST. PEACE OUT. TYRANNY IN!