Last week I criticized The Outbreak for having too simplistic a control system, offering a player little choice in how a game is played. This week, I'm eating those words with a look at Glorg, which offers almost less control to players, but brings some originality to the RPG format that is too fun to pass up, and is far too appealing for players who love their RPGs, but don't have time to invest in more complex games like World of Warcraft.

I'll be honest: when I first heard about Glorg, I didn't hold very high expectations. The game takes the title character, a unibrowed blob of a character, through a classic style dungeon crawl where he meets a variety of monsters and foes, vanquishes them, and grabs all the loot and weapon upgrades possible. That's a pretty simplistic concept, but the execution is even simpler. You see, Glorg only uses one button, and by "one button," I mean exactly that. Not a number pad plus a button. Not one button and alternate buttons to combine with that one button. Just one button.

The way that control system works is situational. Based on what's going on in the game, pressing your single button (usually the left mouse button) will do different things. Pressing it will move you along your path into the next room. Once you get there, pressing your button will explore the room, revealing what is there: whether it's empty, contains an enemy, or perhaps includes some free loot. If there's loot, pressing the button will pick it up. If there's an enemy... well, that's where things get a little more complicated.

When you face off against a foe, you have a few choices. Most of the time, pressing the button will swing your weapon, hopefully damaging your opponent. Holding down the button will charge your attack meter, doing a larger amount of damage when you release the button. Other times, you can predict when your opponent is about to swing and can press the button to block. I will admit, this mechanic turns the game largely into a button masher when combat occurs, and usually I found myself so wrapped up in hitting my enemy that I missed opportunities to block. Later in the game, blocking becomes more important though, so get some practice in with it early.

The one disadvantage of this single button mechanic is that you get very few choices when it comes to navigating through the dungeon. Glorg essentially operates on a track, and pressing the button just moves the character along that track, into the next room. When your unibrowed protagonist reaches a crossroads, you get no say in how the character proceeds, which can be a little frustrating. Since your path is dictated, typical RPG elements like leveling up really don't matter, since it's not like you can go back and face harder opponents now that you're a stronger fighter. The game does get more challenging the farther you go, but your character also gets more powerful, so the difficulty becomes more related to twitch-gaming - how fast you can press the button at the right time. I must admit, this is the one part of the game I'm not really crazy about, but the fun of the game definitely outweighs the disadvantaged controls.

I must confess this is the type of title I would normally pick up, see how much I enjoyed it, and then not give the game much of a second thought, but I would be doing the game a disservice if I didn't talk a little bit about the philosophical side of dungeon crawling. The site that pointed me to Glorg, JayIsGames.com, brings up an interesting element of the concept. As the player, you don't get to control where the character goes, but typical players of dungeon crawls would do exactly what Glorg does: fully explore a level before moving on to the next part of the dungeon. You don't get to control what weapon you have, always upgrading to the newest found item, but that's what most players would do: determine if the new weapon is better and then switch to it. As a game, Glorg may not give you much control, but it's an interesting point that much of the control you'd have in games like this would have the same result.

Despite the lack of control, Glorg is a really fun way to pass the time, especially when so many dungeon crawlers require so much time and effort, where Glorg is easy to pick up and put away, allowing it to be played in small doses. For those who have time to invest, the game gets more challenging the farther you go. It may not be as complicated as many other dungeon crawler games, and the RPG genre title may be liberally used here, but this is one flash game worth checking out.

Play Glorg at ArmorGames.com

Final Rating: B