[Subtitles by danielsangeo] Welcome to the Game Dungeon. This is Helious, a
puzzle/arcade-action game. Now, before I get into this, I
want to talk about the story, because this game has one of the
best back stories in gaming history. Okay, so the short version is
it's May 5th, 1993. The programmer, Sean Puckett,
has just gone to bed when he hears this constant
droning sound. He looks out the window and his
whole house is covered in green light. At this point, he's getting
concerned because this is unusual, even for Florida. So, he decides to just get out of there. So he runs downstairs but outside is a
perfect copy of himself standing there, reaching its hand out to him. At this point, he blacks out. When he comes to,
everything's back to normal. The green light and sound are gone. So, he looks around his house
and sees his computer is on. He takes a look at it and it has some green
slime on the keyboard and floppy drive, and loaded on the system is
the full source code and executable for this
game right here. He added the title screen
and released it. Last episode, I said this game
would not be of this world. Well, I meant that LITERALLY, as
in this game comes from outer space. That is if Puckett is to be
believed and I don't see why not, so let's take a look at it. You start off with this tentacle thing to pick different colors and
symbols that you cycle through. Well, I'll destroy some of the
mystery for you and tell you that this is your
level-select screen and these symbols are a code. You have to play through the
level in order to find the right sequence. So let's check it out. Here is the core of the game play. You control this inflatable ball thing
to propel yourself around the level. It works kind of like
propulsion in space. And, like space, there's no friction and
you lose no speed while you're moving. But you lose a tiny amount when
you bounce off a wall. So, as far as alien space orb
simulators go, the physics are dead on. The levels vary quite a bit, but your
overall goal is to collect these blue gems and then make it to the flag. If you have them all, then it will reveal the correct symbol
for this part of the combination code. [chirping] Oh, and I should mention the sound
effects were added in by Sean Puckett. Not only does he say this in the readme
but I kind of guessed that anyway. [buzzing] The original alien files don't
have any sound, so... yeah... Now, you can die in this game,
quite easily sometimes. Your fuel for movement is also your life. If you run out of air or if you
overinflate yourself, that's it. You do have unlimited lives but
the levels vary in difficulty from so-so to kind of brutal. In some levels, you have these
entities that can kill you, although, I like how if
you ram into them, you still take damage but
you eliminate them also. Some gems will give you temporary
or limited powers to attack them, but it's really clunky to control; you have to be moving in the
same direction as your shot and then try to veer away in
time after firing. It's awkward at best but maybe
if you're a fighter pilot, this will seem more natural to you. I am not a fighter pilot. So, what can we conclude so far? Well, I think it's obvious that the aliens
advocate the use of violence for self-defense, so, they may come in peace but they're
ready to throw down if they need to. Looks like Malcolm X was right. Also, while it's obvious that the
aliens can see our color spectrum judging from the select screen, I think
maybe they see more colors than we do or else their whole planet has a
weird atmosphere. So, maybe sunsets look
green or blue to them. Or else their fauna have a totally
different pigmentation than ours. Because, look at these colors.
This is not to my taste at all. Or maybe they just think like Andy Warhol. Plus, you have graphics tiling
all over the place. To me, that feels kind of lazy, but I'm guessing from the aliens'
perspective, that's not the point. The point of this is to unlock this code. Now, I HAVE beaten this game and I WILL show you the ending
at the end of the video, IF you think you can handle it. The more sensitive people in the audience
shouldn't stick around for that part; I'll give you a warning. But, before I get to that, there's even more than meets the
eye here with this game. Remember how the aliens gave
Sean Puckett the source code? Well, Sean, as our
representative of humanity, decided to split the game up
into two parts. One of them he gave out
for free as shareware, which is what you've been
watching so far, and the other half he charged 24
bucks for and repackaged as Helious II. I can only imagine the aliens
are disappointed by this. Then again, maybe this is
exactly what they expected. Either way, I feel like this makes us
look petty on kind of a cosmic scale. I hope the NSA or NASA
bought a copy at least. I mean, 24 dollars is still a damned good
deal for extraterrestrial computer code. Anyway, a few years ago, Sean
must've had a change of heart and decided to post Helious II
on the Internet as freeware now. So, let's move into that! Double review! [Subtitles by danielsangeo] Okay, okay... Y'know, I'm not even sure how to
pronounce this game's name. I'm just going with "hee-lee-oce"
like the Greek god, but maybe it's intended as
"hee-lee-oos", OR maybe Puckett wanted to sound
French with "hell-ay-oo". This is a French
painting--Monet. All right, so let's start
"Hell-ay-oo" Deux. Now, this should look familiar by now but I can tell you right away it's different. I don't know if this will show
up on the video, but the old level select moves
smoothly left and right, but this one sort of resists me
and then twitches into place, like this is some sort of
organism thrashing around. Also gone are the symbols to
unlock the code so it makes you wonder what's
going on here. The gameplay in Helious II is
pretty much more of the same, although the levels are a LOT harder. More on that in a minute. Also, you may notice this version
has poorly-rendered classical music. [8-bit style classical music] I'm not sure if it really adds
anything to the game or not. I bet if you asked people on the street if cheaply-synthesized classical music is
fitting for a silent game created by aliens, they won't have a definitive
answer for you either. So, if you don't have alien codes to
enter in, what's your objective in this one? Well, that's an interesting question because I found Helious II
to be so damned hard, I was having difficulty
beating ANY of the levels. It's not that they require
almost impossible moves, it's more like you have subsections
that are difficult but doable, but then multiply that times twenty and
throw a maze in there for good measure, and you're bound to
screw up at some point. It's just as much an endurance
test as it is a gameplay one. If you haven't guessed, I'm not
a fan of this gameplay design. I like puzzle games just fine, but I like
my puzzles separate from my action. Either you give me time to solve complex
puzzles or you let me blow things up. I don't like situations in between. The most complex puzzle I like in action
games is HOW should I blow things up. And there's a lot more
than that going on here. So, I would criticize this game design, but
it was made by aliens so what can you do? Let me ask: has anyone in
the audience seen a UFO? I never have and I've done a lot
of running at night before. However, I haven't seen drunk or high or needing medication while in the
desert or really isolated farm somewhere, so that's probably lowered my odds. Those people tend to have the
best luck with UFO sightings. So, Helious II is much MUCH harder, but for the sake of this review
I had to beat ONE level in this game just to see what happens. I mean, the symbols are gone; I
have no idea what to expect now. Well, maybe, MAYBE, half of
these levels I could beat if I were to invest the better
part of a day into each of them, but so many of them SEEM doable but then just turn into a nightmare test
of attrition that I keep failing. But, I finally beat ONE of them
by being cheap about it. It has no enemies; it's just a big maze. So, I went and mapped it out so
I could have one level to beat. Here's my map if you want to
follow in my footsteps. It's not completely accurate; this is
just a half-assed approximation. This is a map I made out of
spite, not enthusiasm. And even then, it still wasn't easy. There's one section in here that
requires a lot of patience, where you have to drift very slowly in
these tiny cracks to maximize your fuel usage. If you try to take things any
faster, you'll just kill yourself. It's not even a skill thing; any momentum you build up, you have to
get rid of when you make a hairpin turn. It's just physics. The name of the game
is be patient or die. So, I finally got all the gems,
I made it to the goal and beat the level. Then what? Well, I went back to the select
screen, and it's not obvious but now there's an additional
knuckle joint added on my tentacle thing. Boy, there's a great line to
quote out of context. Anyway, what happens when all of
them get filled in? I do not know! In fact, I'm not sure ANYONE knows,
because to the best of my knowledge, there's no save state for this game. If you load it up, your knuckle joints
disappear and you start all over. That means if you want to BEAT Helious II, you would essentially have to keep
this game powered on until you do. Wow. That right there might propel this into
one of the hardest games I've ever seen. Now, I'm not saying it's
THE hardest game; there's a lot of psychotic platformers
out there competing for that title. Plus, this game doesn't have
cheap trap deaths. It's just a long slog. But having levels this harsh
COMBINED with no save states? That's old school hard. I could easily see this being in
a top 100 hardest games list. But, hey, at least you get
infinite lives. Still, I'm not sure ANYONE has
beaten this game. When I covered Nyet III, I was
pretty sure SOMEONE had beaten before; they just hadn't shown it online, but Helious II? I don't know. So, what happens when you beat it? Well, according to the author, nothing
special, but his wording is kind of vague. I can only assume once you beat
this, the alien mothership will be notified and they'll come take you for further studies
as you've no doubt passed their test. Now, the question is: will the aliens still get the signal
if you're running this on an emulator or do you need an authentic DOS system
running in order for them to recognize it? Again, I do not know. I'm not sure anyone ON EARTH knows since I tried contacting
Sean Puckett about this game. His official website seems to
have been abandoned for years as many links don't work and his official
Yahoo! email no longer works either. I even got a reply saying the delivery failed. I tried an alternate email left
on an outdated résumé and got no reply. So, for now, he may have disappeared. Now, I don't want to say he was ABDUCTED
by aliens--maybe he went along willingly-- but there's some increasing
suspicions surrounding this. Also, I have to wonder if Sean
has even EXISTED here since 1993. I mean, he mentions seeing an exact
copy of himself before he blacked out. How does he or anyone know
if he's still human Sean or if he was replaced with alien-replica
Sean imbued with the same memories? The real Sean Puckett could've
disappeared over 20 years ago. You never really know what you're dealing
with when you're talking about aliens. So, that's Helious. It's interesting, but I don't think we have to worry about
aliens taking our jobs as game developers. Even in '93, we were putting out
better games than this. The visuals are nothing special and the
gameplay is clumsy and kind of brutal with a lot of tedium mixed into it. It's just not my kind of game. So, I give up, aliens. You win. You've convinced me that I'm not
ready for interstellar travel. I'll stay here on Earth
and keep paying my bills. While I think Helious FAR exceeds what
we could hope for in terms of first contact, all-in-all, this game makes
me a little xenophobic and I think I'll be sticking to
games made on Earth from now on. That's it! Stay tuned for the next special
Fourth of July episode. And now, I'll show you the
ending to Helious I. Small children and people with heart
conditions should stop watching here. See ya next time. Okay, here it is. ...oh, oops. Hold on. Yeah. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I SEE EVERYTHING! [music] "I know you won't believe my
story. That's alright. "You don't have to believe it. I know it
happened, and that's good enough for me."
