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NEWS: PAGE 1

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Welcome to the news section, which will be updated on a daily basis or when something interesting is available to write about.

A lot of the news will be text only.  This is because most news are usually rumours and inaccurate.

If I take any news from any other site, I will mention where it came from.

23rd of May, 2011

Freeware Game Pick: Gunroad (HamCorossam)

If you have fond memories of the light gun-equipped arcade machines from the '80s, then you'll be very familiar with how Gunroad works. The screen scrolls automatically as enemy soldiers pop into view to shoot at you, so it's up to the player to take them down quickly while there is still a window of opportunity and an element of surprise. Retaliate slowly, and you'll lose a few points of health and get that much closer to defeat.

Mouse controls are used for light gun emulation here - holding down the left mouse button allows you to fire your gun continuously, and pressing the right button deploys a smart bomb to clear the screen of all normal enemies (bosses will receive heavy damage). Reloading your weapon is done automatically whenever your gun is out of bullets, and shooting at medikits or chocolate bars will restore some of your health.

Gunroad comes included with two difficulty settings, but even on easy it will take a bit of effort to clear all of the game's four stages. There are two files to download from the official site: gr_full.lzh allows you to play in full screen mode (may not work for certain display cards) while gr_win.lzh will display everything inside a tiny 320 by 240 window.

You can download Gunroad from the bottom of this page.

Browser Game Pick: Raid Mission (GamePirate)

Raid Mission tries hard to be an arresting experience but it doesn't quite make the cut. However, it doesn't change the fact that the game is relatively entertaining; it just could have been so much more.

Combat is turn-based but implements something that reminds me of the Active Time Battle system utilized in Final Fantasy IV. You have tactical equipment, ranged weapons, melee, aiming to consider and specials to provide the competitive edge. As the game progresses, you'll eventually be able to assign different classes to various members of your squad as well. In spite of how appealing that might sound, it doesn't really get complex enough for my tastes. Still, Raid Mission might keep you preoccupied for the duration of a coffee break which makes it just fine in my book.

Plus, I don't remember the last game that had a mobster boss shouting, 'Darnitdarnitdarnitdarinit!' all the time.

Click here to play the game.

Freeware Game Pick: 0.AD (Wildfire Games)

Described by one of their many commentators as akin to 'Age of Empires in 3D', 0 A.D is a pretty snazzy offering that real-time strategy fans might just want to snatch up. I mean, for one, in spite of the considerable polish, 0 A.D is free. Yes, that's right. Free, open-source, cross-platform and dedicated to the tribulations of ancient warfare.

It looks like players will be able to 'relive or write' the history of six Western civilizations: the Roman Republic, the Celtic Tribes, the Persian empire, the Iberian Tribes and the Carthaginian Empire. Developed using the Pyrogenesis engine, 0 A.D has been in the works since July 2009. Now, I'm personally not the biggest real-time strategy fan out there (long-running obsession with DotA not withstanding) so I'm somewhat ambivalent about the whole thing. However, 0 A.D does look lovely and judging from the information in the website, it has made people in the Linux world deeply ecstastic.

0 A.D is still a work in progress. In fact, Alpha 5 was only recently released on May 20th. Interested in taking a look? You can download Alpha 5 here.

Browser Game Pick: The Dreamerz (Rob Donkin/RobotJAM)

The latest point & click adventure from Rob Donkin and RobotJAM looks and feels like a children's story book. It also reminds me a lot of Super Mario Galaxy, something that could be attributed to how the individual planets have been assembled and the way the protagonist has to bounce from one spherical world to another.

So far, text appears to be limited to the diary that you acquire early in the beginning of the game and the various signs scattered throughout the land of dreams. Everything else is conveyed with signs and images. The objective behind the Dreamerz is a simple one: fix the Dream Machine and ensure that everyone can now dream in peace.

Click here to play.

20 Minutes of cam footage of Final Fantasy Type-0

18th of May,2011

2BadCompany would like to know if anyone would play the game below if they released it.  If you're interested, then pop off to their forum and tell them.  More

I have always been a fan of Virtua Cop style shooters and Takahiro Miyazawa has released a browser game on his site called Nobuyuki Forces 4.  Why not give it a try.  More

A Knight's Quest - Quest for Milk (Juice-Tin)

Juice-Tin's latest game A Knight's Quest: Quest for Milk is absolutely ridiculous. Ridiculous in a good way, mind you but still ridiculous and also a surprising amount of fun to play. Filled to the brim with pop-culture references, it's an adventure game of sorts that will have you in the role of Knight, a slightly mean-spirited chap in blue armor who is out to get his mother more milk. Now, as is the case in all good quests, things are never that easy. In fact, there's even a giant department store outside (which takes the form of a castle, interestingly enough) called 'Everything but Milk' that seems to be there just to spite you.

Short and sweet, there's not much else I can say about it without bordering onto the realm of spoilers. A Knight's Quest: Quest for Milk is definitely not a deep, inspiring metaphor for the human condition but it's definitely filled with its fair share of snickers.

Go here to play now.

15th of May,2011

One exam down and two left to go and then I'm free for a while.  I wish I had some money though, but who doesn't.

Amazon has an interesting book called 250 Indie Games you must play.  There might be some gems within that list that everyone will enjoy.  US and UK

The Sony Network is now a work in progress according, but when will it function propperly?

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - America Teaser

3rd of May, 2011

Time flies when you're having fun.  It's been nearly two weeks since my last post.  WOW!

Browser Game Pick: Sci-Fighters (Dim/Flukeduke)

"Oh, god." Two words I don't expect to reveberate on loop when I'm playing a quirky little Flash game. While there is not even a whiff of cartoony violence anywhere to be seen, Sci-Fighters is strangely horrifying once you've gotten into it.

A collaborative effort between Dim of Super Flash Bros and Flukeduke with musical accompaniment provided by Evan X Merz, Sci-Fighters is basically this top-down arena death match that will have four players struggling to elude a hungry monster. In most normal games, this would mean a panoply of weapons and people co-operating to kill the abomination out for their blood. Not so, however, with Sci-fighter - the objective here is to feed your friends to the monster and be the last person standing. To accomplish that, you'll have things like the bait-gun to wield; it's a device that will coat anything it touches with appetizing goo, making it the prime target for the monster.

I've been playing this with another friend for about fifteen minutes now and I still myself going 'Oh, god' repeatedly as we cram into a corner of the room, hoping frantically that luck will have the hungry alien pick someone else first. Sci-Fighters definitely holds true to the old saying, 'With friends like these, who needs enemies?'

Click here to play.

Browser Game Pick: Transylvania (Begamer)

Transylvania is adorable in a slightly peculiar sort of fashion. After all, you don't always get terrified potato-men stranded in the middle of a creepy countryside all too often. Done entirely with silhouettes, Transylvania is one of those little point-and-click adventures that require you to solve the puzzles in each screen in order to allow the hero to move from point A to point B.

As you might have guessed already, the story told in Transylvania is slightly surreal and filled with some implied cartoon violence. The puzzles are extremely straightforward though amusing enough for the most part. At best, it's probably going to take up about ten to fifteen minutes of your time but I think it's still worth the diversion.

Go here to play.

22nd of April, 2011

Time flies when you're having fun.  A week has passed so quickly and not a lot has happened.  Let's have a look of the best of the week that was.

Tale of the Last Promise trailer

Freeware Game Pick: Life Fortress Volcabamba (Zakuro Fantasia)

Life Fortress Volcabamba is a horizontal-scrolling shooter which mimics the style of classic MSX games, created using a rather popular programming language in Japan called Hot Soup Processor (HSP). There are no power-up items or options to collect here, although you can change the direction of your shots using one of the two switching methods available for selection at the start of the game. Players can choose to set the direction of their shots by pressing the fire button and a cursor key at the same time, or have their shots rotated clockwise whenever the X key is pressed.

The game features six stages to play through (the final stage might only be accessible after you've collected all of the green-coloured volca stones), but chances are that very few people have the necessary skills to beat the entire thing without turning Japanese first. Fortunately for us there's a recording of a complete playthrough for Life Fortress Volcabamba on Nico Nico Douga, which had also been kindly mirrored on YouTube by Trilobyte.

Perhaps if this game was made and released on an actual MSX console twenty-five years earlier, it could have turned out to be a cult favorite among fans of classic console shmups. Life Fortress Volcabamba is available to download from here, although you'll need to find a missing msvcr71.dll file online and place it in the folder with the unzipped content before the game will run properly. Windows only. (source: Doujin Game Pick)

Trailer: Garshasp: The Monster Slayer (Dead Mage Studio)

Matrix Cat Fight funny

14th of April, 2010

The cliché about men thinking with their dicks may not be true, but when I read an article about a Japanese director's first thoughts about the Nintendo 3DS being that the fans would love to see 3D breasts, I start to think that there may be some truth to it.  More

According to Naoki Yoshida, Producer of Final Fantasy XIV, the game will soon have materia for crafting.  How about fixing the problems with the game engine and make it run properly.  That way, someone with a PC that isn't less than a year old can play the f**king thing.  More

Steamlands (Nitrome)

Pop Tart Cat

9th of April,2011

I think I'm getting bored of Anime; especially Anime that focuses on a bunch of clichéd teenagers. How many times do we have to look up some girls skirt, whether we want to or not.  It was funny about twenty years ago but now I find it creepy; maybe I'm just getting old.  So if anyone out there has some suggestions for anime movies and tv series that is peodo-porn or has women wearing next to nothing, I will be glad to give it a try, but that eliminates almost three quarters of all Anime.

It has been a slow week and nothing interesting has turned up.  Don't blame me, I'm just the messenger.

Is it me or is Soldier of Fortune 2 f**king hard.  I'll have to play the game on a lower setting; it's handing me my arse and it sucks!  LOL

2nd of April, 2010

Better late than not at all; I wrote a small script to the movie screen called Amazing Grace

Here's a funny April fools joke regarding a new Super Mario Bothers movie.

Duke Nukem forever throwing turds

26th of March, 2011

It's amazing how quickly time passes.  I still haven't uploaded that script yet.  I'll try and get it up this Sunday.  I have too much homework.

A very funny Gearbox clip

 
Dungeon Siege 3: Official Katarina trailer

Bob+FrantomenK:  The Swedish Bundle of Joy

There's a pay-what-you-want sale currently on puzzler Bob Came In Pieces from Ludosity. The game, along with the album The Massacre by FantomenK can be picked up for whatever price you desire (with a minimum of $2) for both PC and Mac.

Infinity Danger gets released on Xbox Live Indie Games

A love letter to the classic indie bullet hell shooter Warning Forever, Infinity Danger is now available to download from the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace.

Not only does Infinity Danger look fantastic in motion, it's also incredibly cheap, priced at a single dollar. Those players looking for a good competitive shmup to get their blasting fingers around should note the inclusion of a world ranking, that marks your progress against every other player while you destroy boss after boss. There are even in-game achievements to collect.

Infinity Danger can be downloaded now from the Xbox Live Marketplace. [Source: the2bears]

18th of March, 2011

I will be posting my first script some time tomorrow.  It is a 5 minute short and I hope you like it.

On the 29th of March, 2001, a game using the Source engine.  What got my interest was a dinosaur that looks like a tank.  The game took over two and a half years.  More

Drinking games for Mario Kart

10th of March, 2011

I'm not keen on the HTML 5 nonsense; it keeps asking to save some file which has nothing to do with my main page.  I could learn to write my web code in Wordpress, but I'm not getting paid for this shit.

If you're a cheating bastard like me, you might find this unlimited money cheat in Dragron Age 2 useful.

Here's a tech demo of Epic's new game called Samaritan

8th of March, 2011

I don't know what university was like in the past, but they seemed to designed to make life as difficult as possible to get a decent grade:  Ambiguous language, not following the instructions for electronic submissions and I don't think a native Spanish speaking person should be teaching English language.

Trailer: Fallen Frontier (Moonshot Games)

With a production crew that consists of ex-Bungie Studios employees, I would have thought that Fallen Frontier would features an interface akin to those in your standard first-person shooters. Interestingly enough, it doesn't. Moonshot Games' upcoming title is a 2D sidescrolling shooter that will feature both single player and co-operative play, something that seems almost mandatory in the genre.

According to what has been revealed so far, the game revolves around your stereotypical jaded lawman and his misadventures in the frontier worlds of Alpha Centauri. Presentation-wise, I can't help but draw comparisons between Fallen Frontier and the recently released Gemini Rue. However, where the latter is an adventure game, this looks like it will be a far more visceral experience.

While I'm going to withhold judgement till I have had the opportunity to try out the game at PAX East, I'm going to have to admit that Fallen Frontier looks rather lovely in a grim, dystopian sort of way.

You can investigate Moonshot Games' official website here.

Trailer: Viriax (locomalito)

6th of March, 2011

How time flies when you're have fun.  I'll try to update the site news bi-daily.  So, please be patient with me.  You could actually contribute if you want, it is our site and not just my site.  HA HA HA HA!

Trailer: Bumpy Road (Simogo)

Bumpy Road is a charming game about a car and its journey along a perilous road. Coming soon for your iThing, the game sees you touching the screen to manipulate the road and surrounding, pushing and bouncing the car to safety.

The art is really gorgeous, especially the various backdrops, and the gameplay looks pretty fun. As long as the controls feel tight, this is most likely going to be worth picking up. Bumpy Road will land in the App Store later this spring. It will also see a release on Mac.

21st of February, 2011

For the last week I have spent re-installing windows, checking for Viruses and re-installing all my programs because of a java script that contained some nasty questions.  So I wrote a small piece asking the question, are viruses killer reliable?

Browser Game Pick: SHOC Trooper (Ruben Garza)

SHOC Trooper is an isometric exploration shooter that feels rather amateurish, yet enjoyable enough. You are the SHOC Trooper, and you are set on various missions to kill aliens and clones and other sci-fi thingies.

The controls feel a little wrong, and it can be difficult to walk in the direction you actually want to go, but otherwise it's solid entertainment. The graphics look rather retro, and the game doesn't pretend to be anything more than a mindless blaster, with silly voice-overs and simple puzzles. Worth checking out, especially since it took developer Ruben around a year to create.

Play over on the SHOC Trooper site.

Browser Game Pick: Rebuild (Sarah Northway)

In essence, Rebuild is a city-building simulation game, the kind that requires to balance resources and expand your territory. However, unlike its cousins-in-genre, Rebuild doesn't come with a fertile plot of land to work with. Instead, what you have here is a city devastated by your standard zombie infection. As the leader of a battered group of survivors, you're going to have to scavenge for food and recruit new people, balance guard duty with excursions into the unknown, deal with rival gangs, stray dogs and the omnipresent of zombie attacks. While zombie games are a dime a dozen these days, Rebuild stands out as one of the few that requires you to work on the administrative duties behind survival.

Turn-based in nature, Rebuild allows you to set the pace of the action, something that become neccessary once food falls in short supply. As I've mentioned previously, there's a lot to do in Rebuild and your limits are pretty much dictated by the number of available survivors at your command. There often seems to be a surplus of survivors, however, but first-hand experimentation has demonstrated that you should never send a teacher to do a soldier's job. Difficulty-wise, the game seems geared for all skill levels; professional gamers might start at Hard immediately to provide an adequate amount of challenge.

You can play Rebuild on Armor Games now.

9th of February, 2010

This woman below is called Haruna Ikezawa and she lost her PSP.  She wasn't bothered about the fact that her machine fell out of her pouch whilst waiting for a train.  How do you accidentally not notice a machine that could be used as a weapon dropping on the floor?  She's upset at the fact that her Monster Hunter saves, which she has invested over 70 hours on would be lost.  The moral of the story is to not be an idiot!  More

On the weekend I got to play with the Nintendo 3DS.  We were not allowed to take any pictures of the games, but keep an eye out for Kid Icarus.  The screen was crystal clear but did not impress me enough to buy another hand held console.  I only recently bought a PSP.  The games will sell well but I don't really want to play the same franchises in a pseudo 3D.