A Slime Appears

Abandon ship! (This blog has a new home!)

2008-03-05T13:46:00.006+01:00

Alright, there's a new version of Ye Olde Slime over at aslimeappears.wordpress.com. Please update your bookmarks if you have any, and head over there from now on. Feel free to link to it as well, if you have a site of your own. And tell all your friends. I'll try to keep things interesting. This is a semi-temporary solution, we'll see where it goes.
Ok bye!

Happy 100! (And there was much rejoicing in the lands...)

2007-12-30T09:23:00.000+01:00

This is my hundredth post here (give or take) and, sadly enough, my last. Yes, I said it!
A Slime Appears will be going on a indefinite hiatus, taking a vacation from games and its tired ilk. Many thanks to everyone who visited over the year. It's been great. Seeing stats climb every month has been hugely satisfying and heart-warming, but still, I have less time on my hands now and it seems since so many others are doing essentially the same thing, covering the same games and what not, doing it with more dedication, I will take a step back for a period of time and evaluate. If I re-launch, it will be slightly different. Hopefully it'll be more spontaneous and less rigid. A few more posts might dwindle down this way in the next couple of days - posts that were written but not finished, but otherwise than that, I feel that quality has suffered in favour of quantity, and we can't have that in 2008, right? Special thanks to Gnome, whom I'm secretly hoping is a girl with awesome interests who loves to talk about videogames and stuff, and not some Greek guy who's into retro gaming and RPG's. Still, one can't have everything in life, so I'll just say this: Thank you, everyone who has visited and supported A Slime Appears. I'll be seeing you soon enough. Check in from time to time, keep visiting the recommended links (to the right) while I'm away, and take care.

Sincerely yours,
David

Internet game of the week: Thule Trail (Flash)

2007-12-18T17:53:00.000+01:00

I actually had a really, really good time playing this, a remake of the educational game The Oregon Trail set in modern times. Basically an imaginative road trip, Thule Trail will remind you of the countless hours you've most surely have spent in some uncomfortable vehicle, on various holiday seasons, but in a fun way, of course.

Playing the game, you must make a number of decisions during the two thousand mile journey from Chicago, guiding your group (which you get to put together before leaving) towards the Atlantis Music Festival in Santa Barbara. Along the way you encounter hitch-hikers, various downhill races, random scenery (rendered truthfully in 256 colours, or something like that) and other nonsensical things.

There's also an element of resource handling featured in Thule Trail. All the things you might bring on a road trip (games and magazines to keep the morale up, music to avoid awkward silences, food and snacks so not to starve to death, gasoline, spare parts...) are needed to complete the game, and running short of them is not recommended. Keep your fellow travellers in high spirits, and their needs attended to. Marvellous.

Click here to take the trip. (via Indygamer)

Internet game of the week: The Tall Stump (Flash)

2007-12-11T10:35:00.000+01:00

I'm probably the last person in the universe to discover this game, but I'm gonna go ahead an post this anyway: The Tall Stump was created by three individuals, hailing from such diverse locations as Australia, the US and South Africa. How's that for multicultural team? The Tall Stump is, in essence, a platformer slash adventure game with focus on exploration and the solving of puzzles. As you traverse deeper into the stump you find obscure items and learn to use them in even more obscure, nonsensical ways. Like ~~moist~~ most adventure games, then. Highly recommended!

Click here to play it.

Download of the week: Dive (MAC/PC)

2007-12-07T17:14:00.000+01:00

Dive. This might look too simplistic, even for me, but guess what? It's actually really nice, and quite exciting. Use your keyboard or 360-controller to navigate the depths of this simple undersea action game. Dive deep into the abyss, communicate with friendly creatures, avoid dangerous ones. What mystery lurks at the bottom? It actually gets pretty interesting once you're down there...

Click here to download Dive for Windows, and here for the Mac version.

Random Encounter: Mixed reviews

2007-11-29T21:43:00.000+01:00

The Legend of Zelda - The Phantom Hourglass (DS)
This game is so good I'm not even going to bitch about things like that goddamn Sea Temple that you have to do over and over and over... I love you, Nintendo.
8/10

Bioshock (360)
I guess everyone has played and apparently decided to love Bioshock despite its shortcomings, so there's not much to say, is there? Somehow, I have the feeling that Bioshock is a let-down to many, but few dare admit it. Why? The answer is actually kind of simple: you want to love Bioshock. It is a profoundly well-designed game, gorgeous to look at, dripping with style and atmosphere - attributes rarely found in games.
The setting is breathtaking, the 50's aesthetics flawlessly implemented, glittering with Aldous Huxley paraphrases. It draws you in. The opening level is amazing, without doubt the best introduction I've seen in years or, indeed, ever. And the thing is, you're kind of spoiled from that first moment, which makes for the Achilles' heel of Bioshock: It never gets better than the first hour or so.

If I was to point the finger, level-design would be the most obvious reason for this. Personally, I would've loved more scripted events, like in the first level. All the while, it's essentially playing Invisible War mashed up with System Shock 2, but this time it's underwater, with a slight Chtulhu tinge to it. Now, how can that be disappointing?
7/10?

Assassin's Creed (360).
Fable truly set the standard for repetitive NPC comments. It was horrendous. Remember that awful chatter? Now get ready to add "-You filthy thief, I'll have your hand for that!" to the repertoire. Despite taking place in what must be one of the most beautiful realized settings ever presented, the Arabic world is home only to some of the most erratic AI you're likely to encounter, and the most rigid, bland mission structure you've ever seen. Assassin's Creed is a game that falls short of its expectations, but somehow manages to intrigue despite its repetitive nature.
7/10

Dementium - The Ward (DS)
Look at that screenshot. Looks pretty good, right? Albeit there's undoubtedly some unexpected quality to the stripped back Silent Hill-esque graphics of Dementium, its weaknesses are right there up front, too. Cramped controls, generic level design and poor textures are a few of them. If you've seen one room, you've seen them all. While that might be easy to forgive (since it's on the DS and not the PSP), Dementium suffers from poor collision-detecting. In close-combat, raining blows on unsuspecting zombies (witch, suspiciously, sport huge wound-like orifices on their torsos) every blow feels random. This will make you rely on other things to get by. Let me illustrate: An hour or so into the game, you're supposed to whack some wriggly worms in the infant ward that keep crawling out of air ducts and what not. "-Why, that'll take an eternity!" the average jaded gamer will exclaim, and so you bring out the old, trustworthy 9mm. Thus, when encountering the flying, screaming heads (that are, however vexing it might seem, not on fire) later on in the third chapter, I had plenty of health and enthusiasm, but no ammo. Sans bullets, I got slaughtered quite quickly and asked to restart the whole chapter. Which ultimately means this fucker is finished for all I care.

This pretty much makes for the most unreasonable review ever presented here, and maybe I'm being too hard on Dementium, but the flaws of the game are evident. Another example: there's a map that's nothing short of terrible, and again, a saving system that saves every time you enter a new room, but sets you back to the start of the level when you die. Such things are hard to forgive. In a game which drips with atmosphere and some seriously disturbed moments, that's the scariest thing of all.
3/10

Download of the week: Mr. Heart Loves You Very Much (PC)

2007-11-25T20:49:00.000+01:00

Simple minimalism is the best. That goes for this pixel-puzzler too. Simple equals fun. It's also the cutest name for a game I've seen for quite some time.

Download it by clicking here (direct link).

Retro game of the week: Total Recall (NES)

2007-11-12T15:22:00.000+01:00

I watched Total Recall a few nights ago, and it reminded me of two things:

1. Once upon a time, I used to write "Retro game of the week" posts, preferably every other week. I'll try harder.
2. While the movie itself is spectacular, the game I played on the NES back in 1991 was, as we say in Sweden, skitdåligt.

Total Recall is a 2D platformer with some top-down racing moments. The game was developed and released by Ocean Software for various systems such as the Amiga, but there was also the much-maligned NES version which was in fact different (worse) from the others, developed by Interplay and released by Acclaim.

Being a video game based on the movie, Total Recall had very little to do with the film. Aside from a few settings (such as the apartment, the subway and the arrival terminal on Mars), the developers threw in a few imaginary things to flesh it out. For example: There is a obscene amount of generic flying robots with lasers appearing everywhere, except in the actual movie. There's also a bearded midget in a pink jumpsuit who, no matter how many times you kill him, returns with a vengeance. Maybe his scenes got cut out of the movie? Maybe it was too weird having Arnold getting assaulted by a dwarf in a pink jumpsuit poking out of windows and garbage cans every five minutes, spraying bullets? I don't know. I'm just speculating.

Story wise, if you hadn't seen the movie (and chances were that your parents wouldn't let you watch it, since there's a girl with three boobs and a decent amount of graphic violence in it), you had absolutely no idea what the game was trying to communicate, as you get no information on why everyone is trying to kill you.

Now, being a mediocre gamer as a kid back in the early 1990's (and even worse some fifteen years later), I never made it past the second boss encounter, in the industry area after the subway level. One of the reasons for this is that Total Recall was fairly difficult. You only had one chance to complete each level - when your energy was depleted, the game ended. To calm down any frustrated kids, the Continue and Game Over screens showed an impressive recreation of Arnold's beautiful face, with classic Arnold references beneath it (as in the screen above), but never with reference to Total Recall, the actual movie licence you were playing. Smooth.

Just a quick note

2007-11-06T22:06:00.000+01:00

The servers containing some of my stuff has suddenly shut down and left me, well, feeling a bit left out, since some of my material was on that particular server. No worries though, everything will work out for the best... *whistles*

Random Encounter: BabyPals creeps me out (DS)

2007-10-30T19:07:00.000+01:00

Look at this. Just look at it! What an abomination. BabyPals for the DS might be aiming for something cute like Nintendogs, but inadvertently falls into another, very different category... It seems to remind me of the feeling you get when you discover blood in your toilet bowl. Been there? No? Let me just sum it up for you: it's not very pleasant at all. I'm pretty sure several young-mothers-to-be will have to reconsider things when they come across this one. And, what the hell is the health-gauge in the lower left corner for? The baby, or me?

"Have fun with a virtual baby as you feed it, play with it, bathe it, and teach it." Wow.

Click here if you want your share of hellish screenshots (via Gamespot).

Download of the week: Rorschach (PC/PSP)

2007-10-29T17:40:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been working the graveyard shift of late...
Download of the week, and a good find by ever competent Indygamer, is Rorschach. Developed by Jens Andersson and Ida Rödén, Rorschach is a detective-adventure for PC and PSP where you play an investigator who has been called to an asylum where the chief doctor has been brutally murdered. It kind of reminds me of the wonderful (but all too short) Miestas, and it is well worth your time.

Download it here (10 MB).

Internet game of the week: Bubbles 2 (Flash)

2007-10-17T21:22:00.000+02:00

In Bubbles 2 you control an ever expanding bubble, with no other purpose than consuming other bubbles. To mix things up a little there are spiky ones that will make you go *pop* coming at you in varying speeds. Doesn't sound too interesting, right? Well, add some classic power-ups (bullet time and bouncing ball, for example) and things get a little more exciting.

Click here to play it.

Download of the week: Katakijin (PC)

2007-10-17T20:18:00.000+02:00

When things get a little slow around here sometimes, it's like there's a drought of fun games to play. However, finally, a Ninja game worth mentioning arrives. Ultim8p00 is at it again, this time with a demo of Katakijin. Think Ninja Gaiden in 2D.

Click this direct link to download the demo (2.6 MB).

Internet game of the week: Manifold (Flash)

2007-10-07T23:21:00.000+02:00

You might have played it already, but otherwise, this physics-based platform-puzzler is definitely worth checking out. Run, jump and bend gravity at your will to make it through the levels. Highly recommended.

Click here to play Manifold.

Random Encounter - Halo 3 (360)

2007-09-30T12:51:00.001+02:00

Just finished playing through the Halo 3 campaign, the most anticipated game of the year. So, how is it? Well, Bungie, if it ain't broke... just tweak it, right? But seriously, I'm not so pleased with your third instalment, the closer of the series that renewed my interest in console gaming. I'm done with backtracking your levels. I'm over the fleshy tunnels (Doom pretty much nailed that about 15 years ago). I'm sorry that you couldn't keep it together and insisted on expanding your universe into a bloated corpse like George Lucas did with Star Wars. I'm not stupid, I read books and what not, but I can't fucking follow your plot. In short: I'm disappointed. Here it is one more time in case your eyes/brain blocked it out the first time: I'm disappointed with Halo 3.

Maybe it'll pass. Halo 3 is, undoubtedly, still one of the most enjoyable games out there, well-balanced and fun. But I was promised expansive vistas, battlefields a hundred miles wide, some meaning to the plot line disaster that was Halo 2. Or did I make that up myself? Thing is, you can't just regurgitate it yet again. Or can you? Is it just me? Am I getting old? Whatever...

Picture stolen from Wired.

Download of the week: Beautiful World (PC)

2007-09-25T18:47:00.000+02:00

I've been meaning to post this forever. Well, since February, at least. It's a pretty intense japanese bullet hell shooter. Give it a try. Press space to fire, arrows to steer, and z for area effect. It'll make your eyes go numb.

Click on this direct link to download it (4.2 MB).

Internet game of the week: Five Minutes to Kill Yourself (Flash)

2007-09-24T16:58:00.001+02:00

It's in the title, and it's pretty gruesome. A must if you work in an office environment.

Click here to play Five Minutes to Kill (Yourself).

Review: Anno 1701 - Dawn of Discovery (DS)

2007-09-24T16:35:00.000+02:00

It's pretty obvious that I have a soft spot for strategy and resource handling on the handheld, and even though this isn't turn-based, it comes close enough. There's nothing like sipping coffee and plotting your expansionist agenda without having to listen to the next-gen system overheating. Since previews and general anticipation of this title has been low or second to none, I expected it would face a similar fate as Settlers or the underwhelming Sim City DS. Luckily, both Edge and Eurogamer gave it 8/10, and I had my hopes up again.

Being a PC-port, it stays true to the tried and tested formulae of empire-building. At first you will have to concentrate on gathering the raw materials that are needed to build your settlement. Once you have enough materials, you can focus on expanding and improving it, increasing the population and managing the economy. Playing Anno 1701, the emphasis is entirely on the wants and needs of the residents of your sprawling colony. Every single building that you construct is a direct reaction to their demands, as they evolve from peasants to spoiled upper class citizens. As in most strategy games there is also a combat system in place that will see you defending your territory from invading pirates and opposing forces, but Anno 1701 is first and foremost a game of construction and economy - it might as well have been named Sim Colony.

Anno 1701 is a very well-crafted game, and the developer has clearly worked hard at fitting it to the limitations of the DS platform. For dedicated PC strategy fans it might seem a little lightweight in comparison, but is in fact far more accessible and deeper than expected. I'm not going to bore you with more details, and there's plenty of it in Anno 1701, and just join in on the praise:
7/10

Download of the week: Knytt Stories (PC)

2007-09-13T11:17:00.000+02:00

So, Swedish indie-favorite Nifflas has at last released Knytt Stories, including an easy-to-use level editor. He practically lives with a good friend of mine, so I'll try to interview him someday. IN REAL LIFE, people! Wouldn't that be great? Until then, seeing how I'm not exactly gushing productivity at the moment, I suggest you go ahead and give this little platformer a try. As with Knytt and Within a Deep Forest, its focus is exploration rather than enemy bashing. Quite special.

Click here to download Knytt Stories (35 MB).

Internet game of the week: Epic Fighter (Flash)

2007-09-11T19:54:00.000+02:00

Epic Saga - Extreme Fighter (by Double Fine) is a 2D fighting game well worth your time. Charming graphics accompanied by nice sound effects and a very competent soundtrack. I really enjoyed it.

Click here to play Epic Fighter.

Lack of updates update, um...

2007-09-10T16:18:00.000+02:00

There has been a lack of updates recently, I've been busy playing Bioshock and, after finally caving in, giving Gears of War a chance. I've also been busy partying all night with naked chicks. Okay, so that's not entirely true. But I have been playing Anno 1701: Dawn of Discovery for the DS. Expect a review pretty soon.

Bioshock is good. How good? Well, lets just say Eurogamer got a little too excited. I'll review it later. And as for Gears, I was really eager to bury it but somehow it's not horrible. If I was to give it a score right now, it'd be somewhere between 6 or 7 out of ten. August was a good month for A Slime Appears - actually the best ever, statistically speaking. It makes me really happy. Keep coming back. Thank you.

Internet game of the week: Platform (Flash)

2007-08-28T13:16:00.000+02:00

I got an email from Lewis Mitchell, creator of Platform, last week. Somehow I assumed that it was a new project, and that there was only one level at hand. Seems it's been official for the last 17 weeks. That means, since it's an episodic web game, that there are 17 levels available for you at the moment. I haven't had the time to play all of them, but they seem to draw some inspiration from SNES classic The Lost Vikings and other puzzle platformers. It's got traps. I love traps. I suggest you give it a try.

Here's a link to the Platform archives.

Retro game of the week: Pro Wrestling (NES)

2007-08-26T18:14:00.000+02:00

Pro Wrestling was released back in 1986, as the first wrestling game on the Nintendo Entertainment System. I'm sure everyone who ever came across that console have fond memories of it. The game featured only six wrestlers; Fighter Haybusa, Star Man, Kin Corn Karn, The Amazon, Giant Panther, and, of course, King Slender. They were all noteworthy. Still, Star Man is the one you remember most vividly and the one you always wanted to play, more than anything. The two-player mode had more replay value than most other games, and the fact that it isn't available on the Virtual Console network is beyond me. I hope Nintendo will come to their senses soon and release it.

Play it in your browser by clicking here.

Download of the week: Sword of Fargoal (PC/MAC)

2007-08-21T17:51:00.000+02:00

I'm gonna do a couple of RPG posts this week, I think. First out is a remake of classic dungeon crawl Sword of Fargoal, originally published in 1983 through a Silicon Valley company called Epyx, famous for pioneering adventure games such as Temple of Apshai and others. If you haven't tried it already, it's basic hack and slash: Exploration, red potions, fireball traps and experience points.

Click here to download Sword of Fargoal for PC, and here for MAC.

Internet game of the week: Average Shoveler (Flash)

2007-08-21T16:41:00.000+02:00

This is really something else. Since we've stumbled upon other intriguing non-games, I thought you might be interested in this. Inspired by the graphic layout of Leisure Suit Larry (1987), Average Shoveler is an online game of sorts. The location is East Village, New York. It is snowing. Each flake of snow contains an image taken live from news/politics/sport/entertainment web channels, while people tell you top stories gathered from same sources. Now, while information seeps into your brain, your only alternative is to shovel it away, saving your life from the daily soft bombing of information overload. There is no way to win. While your are experiencing a fictional environment, you are playing with feedback (text and images) coming from the real world. It's weird. Check it out.

Click here to "play" Average Shoveler.

Retro game of the week: Hammer of the Gods (PC)

2007-08-20T00:35:00.000+02:00

Hammer of the Gods is a turn-based strategy game published in 1994, developed by New World Computing for DOS. The events of the game take place in the Viking age, but steeped in a generic fantasy setting to make us feel more at home. The goal of the game is to build an empire through expansionism while completing a set of goals, specified by the gods of Norse mythology. Victory conditions are different for each of the four races present in the game (the usual suspects) - Humans, Elves, Trolls and Dwarves. In order to complete Odin's final quest, the Humans must possess magic weapons, the Elves must control a fixed percentage of the population, the Trolls must build a large army and the Dwarves must own a large amount of gold.

Beside capturing (grey) neutral cities, British bastions and churches are also scattered across the Civilization-inspired map. I don't remember any resource handling, but maybe you could fill me in? Anyway, when attacking a city, the combat mode is similar to that of Heroes of Might and Magic. An interesting feature of the battles is that every unit has the possibility of parrying a blow, which, according to some, made combat less predictable. It's also quite capable of irritating the hell out of you. But who plays defensive, anyway? It's all or nothing. Hammer of the Gods also featured basic diplomacy, a random map generator and some decent multiplayer options.

The game disappeared quickly from store shelves (weak marketing campaign being one of the culprits), but Hammer of the Gods is, to the few who enjoyed it back in 1995, one of the most underrated strategy games.

Download it here. I reckon you'll need DOSbox to run it.

Internet game of the week: Toxic (Flash)

2007-08-16T14:05:00.001+02:00

Toxic is a game by Nitrome, who are also responsible for hook-shot favorite Frost Bite and other nice pixel games. Lay bombs, blow stuff up, find your way.

Click here to play Toxic.

Download of the week: Banana Nababa (PC)

2007-08-14T17:27:00.000+02:00

Time for some flimsy boss battles. Banana Nababa (formerly known as Boss Arena) is actually all about boss encounters, as you ascend a tower, facing the horrors lurking on each floor. There's a total of six bosses to defeat, and it's quite difficult. Given, I couldn't do it. That's nothing new, though. Arrow keys to move, F to jump, D to attack, and Space to toggle weapon. It has great music too, by the way.

Download it by clicking here (direct link, 2.5 MB).

Internet game of the week: Transmigration (Flash)

2007-08-09T11:30:00.000+02:00

You really have to play this to understand what I'm talking about. It's a high-paced, side-scrolling animation/shooter with a great upbeat soundtrack to boost. What's it about? I don't know. But how often do you get to play a game where you can be a dragon, a shark, a puma, and a bunch of fish? That's right.

Click here to play Transmigration.

Random Encounters: Resident Evil 5 (360/PS3)

2007-08-02T17:19:00.000+02:00

A current debate has surged since the release of the Resident Evil 5 trailer, post E3 2007. When I saw it, I knew the setting of the game and the ethnicity therein was going to be a problem. Most people did. Now, since I've developed a craving for more comments on the posts published, I'd like to make a serious attempt at a discussion. Retro gaming and social commentary. Can't fail, right?

It's perhaps the most predictable debate in video game history then, in a time when the UK bans Manhunt 2. A few newspapers has cared to address it, for example The Village Voice, and an African blog, which found it very offensive. The most troubling aspect of the game seems to be the setting, known, even to this day and through history, as the "dark continent". The other problem being that the protagonist is a white man who arrives at a ravaged continent to cure it of its plague, liberate its people, fight the virus and not getting infected himself. The AIDS connection is obvious in this case, making the decision to set it upon African soil a politically charged one. Changing the main character could perhaps smooth things over, and so would relocating the setting.

To get an outside opinion, I showed the trailer to a friend who isn't interested in video games at all. She reacted strongly to its graphic nature. Not only is it too much like current events and in poor taste politically, she argued, but the realistic graphics are also a huge problem. And so we stumble dangerously close to the old debate of photo-realism... With some luck, I hope Capcom try to emphasise the exploitation and problems of the African continent, merging it with the plot, and, as the trailer doesn't reveal any plot structures, that it merely looks bad right now because so little information about the game has been released.

Watch the trailer. Is shooting life-like African villagers taking it a step too far? Could Capcom get away with relocating the setting to (for example) Haiti, and why? Is this even worth arguing about? Share your thoughts.

Download of the week: Ninjah (PC)

2007-07-31T12:12:00.000+02:00

Ninjah is a colourful, fast paced platform game from Evildrbin. The general idea is to get from point A to B as quickly as possible with the help of your elastic ninja rope and your slow motion abilities (space). The slowdown mode is very helpful, since things tend to get tricky after a while. Move around using WASD-controls. Who can resist a grappling hook game? Not me.

Download it by clicking here (2.6 MB).

Internet game of the week: Rose & Camellia (Flash)

2007-07-30T21:44:00.001+02:00

So, there's been a lot of posts about this game on other sites, but that doesn't stop me from joining in on the slapping. Rose & Camellia invites you to the elegant art of female conflict, where you slap your opponent, drawing a slapping trajectory with your mouse and attempting to evade and counter-attack incoming slaps. Enough said.

Click here to play it.

2nd Download of the week: The Crypts of Despair (PC)

2007-07-22T22:55:00.000+02:00

The Crypts of Despair. I love a good title. This is a dungeon crawl with back-to-basics graphics and controls. You can hack and slash your way down to level 30, but I have to warn you though, this game is fairly difficult. There's a quicksave system in this version (F5 to save, F6 to load), and if you're lucky, you'll come across a few slimes in certain depths. Watch your step.

Visit this page to download Crypt of Despair (1 MB). Look for the "download file" link.

Retro game of the week: Balloon Fight (NES)

2007-07-18T15:21:00.000+02:00

Balloon Fight is, in non-harmful terms, classic multiplayer mayhem. I had no idea it was so "very similar" to arcade game Joust before I played it on XBLA a couple of weeks ago. I guess the concept of flying balloons is more comprehensible than riding some kind of ostrich with lances and stuff. Anyhooo... Balloon Fight was ported to the NES in the mid-eighties. It's clean and simple, but most of all, it's still fun.

Available now thru Virtual Console. You can also play it in your browser, here.

Download of the week: Chalk (PC)

2007-07-16T18:33:00.002+02:00

This is an old, token post. Not that the game itself is disappointing in any way (on the contrary), but simply because it's summer. Sporadic bursts of elusive Swedish sunlight makes video game blogging a hassle. So, I'm going to keep it to the point: Chalk is about drawing lines (using your mouse) across shapes to destroy them, or to reflect bullets back at your enemies. The right mouse button controls movement, while the left is used to draw lines. It's a very polished game from Joakim Sandberg, a swede who also made Noitu Love, et al.
In my opinion, this outing is far more original than his previous titles, and deserves all the attention. Highly recommended. Six levels.

Download Chalk (4 MB) by clicking here.

Retro game of the week: Duke Nukem 3D (PC)

2007-07-10T19:10:00.000+02:00

This game changed everything. While I enjoyed Doom as much as anyone else, I had a craving for something a little less gloomy, something in an urban setting. I never enjoyed the generic hell-inspired levels of games (I'm looking at you, Oblivion) since they're all the same: fleshy tunnels, scarred lava landscapes, red skies, and so on. Boring, right? But along came Duke Nukem (3D-Realms, 1996). It had me hooked from the minute I played the shareware. Classic is just another word for it.
Gnome's Lair recently posted something about a high-resolution pack, essentially a graphic update that replaces the 2D-sprites of the original game with fully 3D-rendered objects, and upgrades the textures and skins (the original version is considered to be a 2.5D game). Now you can play the most infamous FPS ever without cringing because of the 640x480 resolution or puking from the nausea induced by circling pixelated sprites.

And then there was the Build engine. My God... The days wasted on that level editor amount to quite a few. Sectors, grids, tags and numbers - it wasn't very user-friendly. But then again, me and my friend Stefan got really good at it, so I guess it was worth it. To be honest, playing the updated version still makes me feel slightly sick, but nevertheless, Duke Nukem 3D is one hell of a game. You shouldn't miss out on this.
I mean, it's got aliens, strippers, rocketlaunchers, pool tables, arcades, pipe-bombs, and features some of the best one-liners in a game, ever. When Nintendo released a port for their Nintendo 64 it had, not surprisingly, undergone some censoring. For example, smut stores had been replaced by... gun stores. Way to go.

Click here to download the shareware version (5.6 MB), and install it somewhere.
Then download the high-res update (190 MB). Get it here, or by clicking here (direct).

Internet game of the week: The Adventures of Cagney (Flash)

2007-07-09T16:56:00.000+02:00

Ah, interactive novels, solo adventures,
game books. Call it what you will. What I remember about those novels, is that they had just about a thousand ways to die, and one or maybe two ways to complete the adventure. The Adventures of Cagney (written and illustrated by Rey Ortega) is a new online escapade, and it stays true to the formula, as it should. There can be no fresh take on solo adventures. Trial and error is always key. Grimy death everywhere, when you least expect it. Enjoy!

Proceed to play the game, or do you want to play Barbarian instead? It's your choice.

2nd Download of the week: FreeCol (PC/MAC)

2007-07-08T14:32:00.001+02:00

I tried to watch Terrence Malick's The New World yesterday, but as it turns out, it's just The Thin Red Line all over again, but with Indians and what not. It got me thinking of the original Colonization, and what a great game it was. There shouldn't be any need for an introduction, but if you didn't know, Colonization was a turn-based, politically incorrect expansionist game, created by strategy genre stalwarts Sid Meier and Brian Reynolds, published in 1994 by Microprose. By chance, Independent Gaming mentioned an open source project similar to FreeCiv, called FreeCol. It plays well, so buckle up and get ready to wack some natives and steal some gold, all in the name of tobacco, Christianity and the Queen.

Disclaimer: I am not a racist. I resent all colonial and imperialistic behavior.
Click here to download FreeCol for Windows, and here to download it for the Mac.

Retro game of the week: The Adventures of Rad Gravity (NES)

2007-07-05T13:30:00.000+02:00

I suddenly had flashbacks of playing this odd platformer, and I had to go through Nintendos entire NES catalog to remember the name. I knew I would recognize the title if I saw it, and I did: The Adventures of Rad Gravity. Published 1990 by Activision and developed by Interplay, it featured multiple locations and planets to visit, and had nice, crisp graphics. The story? Rad Gravity is sent on a galactic adventure to rid the cosmos of the evil computer Agathos. As I mentioned before, you move from planet to planet, from Turvia where the gravity is reversed to Volcania which is a (wait for it...) lava world. First stop: Cyberia, a seedy world full of crime and men with robot legs. Population: 200 idiots. Rad arrives to even the score. Sounds like fun? It's not. Playing it today, it's not nearly as interesting as I remember it. On the contrary, it's quite stupid. And the graphics? Ugly. Guess you can't trust the judgement of a 10-year old.

If you would bother, you can get the ROM here, or play it in your browser here.

Download of the week: Hakaiman (PC)

2007-07-03T10:19:00.000+02:00

I hesitated for a few weeks before finally trying Hakaiman. Screenshots look terrible, and a top-down stealth action game doesn't really excite me that much, in theory. Controls are a bit complex at first but logical once you get the hang of it, and the text is in Japanese, but that doesn't matter: Press X to change your weapon, Z to throw a grenade or reload your gun, hold Ctrl to strafe, and hit Shift to punch, interact or fire away. There are six levels in total. Nice clean graphics, destructible environments, and excessive violence. Don't let the screenshot put you off.

Get it (1 MB) by clicking here.

Internet game of the week: Bloxorz (Flash)

2007-07-02T11:20:00.000+02:00

The picture says it all. And yeah, Bloxorz is pretty frustrating and challenging, but it's good. There are 33 stages to complete, so it should keep you busy for quite some time.

Click here to play Bloxorz.

Retro game of the week: Journey to Silius (NES)

2007-06-29T12:18:00.001+02:00

Journey to Silius is a NES game released in 1990, developed and produced by Sunsoft.
It has some gameplay similarities akin to Contra or Mega Man, and featured unusually strong music for that time; low-quality bass tones added depth to the usual square and triangle waves of the 8-bit machine.
Originally, the game was supposed to use the Terminator license, but after Sunsoft lost the rights, the game was further edited, primarily by changing the main character sprite.

Journey to Silius had five stages in total.
Not much, some will say. However, the main reason I remember Silius, besides the brilliant music, is because of its high difficulty. Five stages was more than enough. Needless to say, I never completed it. Don't think I ever will.

Get the soundtrack (25 MB) here, and click here to play the game in your browser.

2nd Download of the week: Helium Boy (PC)

2007-06-27T01:02:00.000+02:00

Helium Boy is a nice Swedish-developed 3D platformer, of some sort. Gameplay is simple enough: Collect the stars, don't let the birds or ninjas puncture your balloons, and watch out for the water. You probably know the deal by now. Controls are a bit awkward at first, so I suggest you have a look at the tutorial before you play.

Download Helium Boy (11 MB) by clicking here.

Internet game of the week: Miestas (Flash)

2007-06-26T01:22:00.000+02:00

If most games had even half the charm of this one, I wouldn't be complaining so much. Miestas is an all too short effort, but a very pleasant one. It has a delightful jazz tune to accompany its hand drawn, cut-and-paste graphics. Go on, solve a puzzle or two.
It'll put you in a good mood.

Follow this link to play Miestas.

Download of the week: Alex Adventure (PC)

2007-06-25T11:43:00.000+02:00

Alex Adventure is a fine, almost surreal, little platform game with weird colours and strange creatures. Well, it is surreal, no doubt about it. Collect three different artefacts in this two-stage demo. Go ahead and try it.

Click here to download the demo (8 MB).

Retro game of the week: Alien Breed (AMIGA/PC)

2007-06-20T20:25:00.000+02:00

Alien Breed is a top-down sci-fi shooter influenced, heavily, and unofficially, by the Alien films. It was released in 1991 by Team17 for the Amiga and later in 1993 by MicroLeague for DOS. It quickly became a classic. Team17 then decided to release a special edition of the game before finishing the sequel. This interim release came a year later, in 1992. Alien Breed Obliteration is a remake based on the interim version, rewritten from scratch with subtle improvements, featuring 15 new levels. Your mission is still the same though: blast your way through the alien invasion. It even has a co-op mode, so two players can once again team up and share the keyboard. Good times.

Click here to download Alien Breed - Obliteration (1.6 MB).

Internet game of the week: Space Bounty (Flash)

2007-06-19T15:22:00.000+02:00

This might be an old game, but I'm enjoying it, so I'm putting it up anyway:
Space Bounty is a Flash shoot 'em up with heavy weapons and double-jumps.
Who doesn't love double-jumps? That's right. Here's a hint: Save your ammo.

Click here to play Space Bounty.

2nd Download of the week: FreeCiv (MAC/PC)

2007-06-18T19:37:00.001+02:00

FreeCiv is a turn-based single and multiplayer strategy game, and as the name implies, it's exactly what it advertises: a free version of Civilization. Albeit being a poor mans version, its lack of flair and detail does not cripple the quality. It's still enjoyable, and it's still very much like the original Civ. And guess what? It's available for the Mac as well.

Click here for the MacOSX version (15 MB), and here if you want the XP version (7 MB).

Download of the week: Gesundheit! (PC)

2007-06-17T14:21:00.000+02:00

This is, without question, one of the most impressive indie games I've mentioned here, all categories. Gesundheit! (by Matt Hammill) is stylish, beautiful and warm, gorgeously animated and cute beyond belief. Help an allergic green pig save a city from snot-eating monsters. The visuals are not the only aspect of Gesundheit! that deserves mentioning, since audio and the original toy-instrument soundtrack is really impressive too. This demo (v.1.1.2) contains a tutorial and twelve levels. It's wonderful.

Download Gesundheit! (39 MB) by clicking here. DO IT, NOW!

Retro game of the week: North & South (AMIGA/PC)

2007-06-16T13:30:00.001+02:00

North & South was developed and published in 1989 by Infogrames (now Atari Europe), as an offshoot of the Belgian cartoon Les Tuniques Bleues, which is based on the American Civil War. A lot of people, not necessarily into games, remember this game, generally because of the real-time strategic battle scenes. I know I do. I used to play it on my friends Amiga along with other excellent titles like The Chaos Engine and Cannon Fodder. Gameplay is simple and functional. The strategic board map is separated into states and territories, which, if conquered, generates funds and soldiers with each turn. If the state features a train station, the attacking player is forced to complete a short side-scrolling mission through a fort to capture the state. On occasions, the player would also get the opportunity to capture an enemy train in a similar manner, as seen in the middle picture above.

The battle scenes, also considered the key action element in the game, is different from the platform sections and the strategic map. In this mode, each player controls an army consisting of infantry, cavalry and cannons. The battlefield setting where you fight it out is simple but well-balanced and detailed. Destructible scenery was nothing to expect back in 1989 - and the ability to do so made North & South feel special. Taking out the bridge was a good defensive strategy if outnumbered, but it took two well-aimed hits from the cannon, and time was always sparse. However, in every battlefield separated by either river or canyon, advancing armies could always use a secondary, indestructible passage across. The wealth of different game modes and the overall arcade feel that was evident throughout the game labelled North & South an instant classic. I've been trying to find a way to offer you the Amiga version since the DOS version looks like hell, but Amiga emulators are more complicated than I thought.
I'll include it in this post later, if possible.

Download North and South (1 MB) for DOS by clicking here. It should run on Windows.

Internet game of the week: Dice Wars (Flash)

2007-06-15T19:51:00.001+02:00

I played a little bit of Risk 2210 AD last weekend, and I have to admit I'd forgotten how fun board games can be. As a reminder to you, here's Dice Wars. I'm not too sure about the rules and how they work, but the colours are crisp and it randomly generates every board, so it's good, clean fun. Give it a try.

Click here to play Dice Wars.

Download of the week: Lyle In Cube Sector (PC)

2007-06-10T11:40:00.000+02:00

Lyle In Cube Sector (by Bogo) is a block throwing adventure game with retro style graphics and non-linear gameplay. You literally throw cubes on your enemies to take them out. Here's the "story": Lyle's kitty has been stolened [sic] and now he must journey through the wonked out lands of the Cube Sector to retrieve his meowmeow companion! How about that? This game looks and plays like a spoofed out Metroid.

Click here to download Lyle In Cube Sector (1.1 MB).

Internet game of the week: Tactics 100 (Flash)

2007-06-07T18:02:00.000+02:00

My good friend Marcus, who keeps providing me with tips about nice flash games, sent me this link a few days (weeks?) ago, suggesting I should try Tactics 100. It's a pure Battle Chess spin off, but with the option to customize your team and characters. You can't do that in chess, last time I checked... It even has a multiplayer mode, people.

Follow this link and try it out.

Summer of Slime: Update

2007-06-07T10:36:00.000+02:00

Look outside. Is the sun shining? You bet it is. And as a result of this, there has been a decline in the number of posts lately, and I can't guarantee things will pick up. Hopefully I'll review Sim City, Brothers In Arms and
Anno 1701 for the DS during this summer, maybe even some games for the 360, but since we have to buy each and every game things might not work out as planned. However, summertime in northern Sweden doesn't always equal sunny weather - if the temperature drops and the rains come in, well, then maybe I'll spend more time in front of the computer, and there'll be posts a plenty. Keep coming back.

Download of the week: Valdis Story (PC)

2007-06-06T12:58:00.000+02:00

Here's a good looking pixelated 2D fighter RPG with combos, nice backgrounds and lots of bloodshed. This demo features two stages, a summon spell, and a few bosses.

Download the demo (7.3 MB) by clicking here.

Retro game of the week: Syndicate (AMIGA/PC)

2007-06-04T10:33:00.001+02:00

Remember Syndicate? Of course you do. Otherwise you wouldn't be here. Without question one of my favorite games ever, Syndicate was developed by legendary, now defunct, company Bullfrog. It was, and still is, grand in scope and realisation. Sure, it looks a little stale in retrospect, but back then (1993) the isometric graphics were outstanding and detailed. Remember the commercial screens, advertising fake products? Remember the futuristic vehicles and the neon lights? Or was your tiny mind busy focusing on trenchcoats and lasers?

Syndicate, quite self-explanatory, was about guiding a team of agents around various cities in just about all countries of the world, performing duties for your syndicate; assassinating executives of a rival corporations, rescuing captured allies, persuading scientists to join your company, or simply wiping out enemy agents. You were also required to manage the funds to finance weaponry and tech upgrades, by means of taxing territories. More conquered territories meant more money, which in turn meant new cool stuff. The game itself was quite open-ended. All the countries avalible in the world map were, as I remember it, free to explore at any time, in what order you deemed appropriate. Solving the missions were also a matter of individual approach. When Syndicate came out, its rather graphic and indiscriminate violence sparked some controversy, which obviously only made it more popular with the kids. Glorious days.

Click here for some nostalgic footage.

Review: Puzzle Quest (PSP/DS)

2007-05-27T18:03:00.001+02:00

Puzzle Quest is, at first glance, a carbon copy of Bejeweled or Zoo Keeper, but with a classic RPG twist to set it aside from those titles. You're presented with an 8x8 grid of pieces. By swapping one piece with another and lining up columns of three (or more) identical colours, you receive colour-coded mana, gold, experience points or inflict harm upon your opponent. You'll travel about an inviting overworld map, dotted with castles, villages, lairs and strongholds, taking on quests and fighting monsters. You'll receive new weapons, equipment, and spells. Sounds like fun, right?

It is. But the core mechanics of the gameplay are, in a sense, too static and haphazard. While you often need think several steps ahead every time you move a piece, there's no doubt you'll wonder whether the AI is cheating. And, to be fair, the problem is that luck and randomness are inevitable factors of each battle. The DS is naturally immediate in its control scheme, although the graphics aren't as crisp and clear as they are on the PSP, and there are barely any flashy special effects. Both, but especially the PSP, has problems with the screen freezing up at times, requiring you to replay your opponent once again.

Puzzle Quest is challenging, and it soon gets repetitive. Personally, I get the feeling it is a one trick pony at heart, and that assumption is reinforced when you consider the static setting of the challenges, which de facto can't offer much variation or surprises. Still, it has a certain depth - although you're not exactly urged into exploring it.
6/10

Download of the week: Battle for Wesnoth (MAC/PC)

2007-05-22T17:29:00.000+02:00

Seems some of our visitors are using MacOSX, meaning they can't enjoy any of the games we recommend, with a few exceptions. And, since I don't want this site to be a complete waste of time for Mac users, I've decided to try and publish some Mac-friendly games. Battle for Wesnoth owes a lot to Heroes of Might and Magic as well as Warlords II. It's been in development for some time now and the result is a sophisticated, turn-based strategy battle scenario game taking place in a fantasy world amongst heroes and fantastic creatures. I'm not being sarcastic or anything -
it's actually quite good. Help yourself. Especially if you're using a Mac.

Download the demo for Windows (60 MB), or for MacOSX (80 MB).

Download of the week: Ninja Loves Pirate (PC)

2007-05-17T17:13:00.000+02:00

And, now that we have looked into games featuring zombies and ninjas in recent posts, what does that leave us? Pirates, of course! Or, even better, all three combined:
Ninja Loves Pirate. In this game, developed by Swedish studio Muskedunder, you get the chance to chop zombies into pieces playing as either a ninja or a pirate. Enjoy!

Visit this page to download the demo (28 MB).

Internet game of the week: Ninja Rinseout (Flash)

2007-05-17T11:04:00.001+02:00

Since we've already covered zombies in the Flash-section, we might as well publish something about ninjas, too. Ninja games seldom makes much of an effort to capture that sinister feeling of rooftop sneaking, shuriken slinging and ninjatō slicing, but
Ninja Rinseout actually comes close, using simple, yet effective means. Like ninjas do.

Click here to play Ninja Rinseout.

Download of the week: Qui'Ifon (PC)

2007-05-08T10:24:00.001+02:00

Qui'Ifon is a work in progress, but it's so charming I decided to recommend the pre-Alpha version anyway. According to its author, ultim8p00, it was inspired by Cave Story and features some really nice pixel touches. The controls are slightly more advanced than your average pixel game, and makes for a more satisfying experience.

Visit this page for instructions and a download link. Via Independent Gaming.

Review: Star Fox Command (DS)

2007-05-07T20:52:00.000+02:00

What the hell is this? I know it's a bit late to review Star Fox Command, but it drives me absolutely insane. There's no holding back this time.

Star Fox Command has a solid presentation and nice graphics, similar to Metroid Prime Hunters (which is overrated, but few dare admit it). However, when playing flight simulators, draw distance is important. Scenery and textures are really impressive in this game, but object pop-up ruins the whole experience. Your only friend is the radar, since most enemies don't show up on-screen until you're flying past them. If you're lucky enough to spot an enemy in the distance, the ship you're controlling is right in the middle of the screen, effectively blocking your line of sight. Thus, combat tend to get confusing when there are red dots all over the radar screen but no enemies on the actual game screen.

The turn-based strategic map mode of the game (it's in the title: Star Fox Command), where you draw routes with the stylus, is well implemented but often a matter of frustrating trial and error. All in all, I really dislike Star Fox Command. Oh, I almost forgot: Everything is a race against the clock. Each mission has a given number of seconds, steadily running out. While time trials can be fun and challenging, they often become stressful and, in essence, distracting and frustrating. What I do enjoy about this game is flying through hoops, the gibberish generator and the talking toad Slippy.
3/10

Internet game of the week: The Last Stand (Flash)

2007-05-06T16:56:00.002+02:00

I'm going to keep this brief and to the point: The Last Stand (by Con Artists) is about defending your perimeter against oncoming hordes of zombies, surviving the night, using the precious hours of daylight to scavenge for weapons, finding survivors and patching up ye old barricade. It's simple. Shoot the zombies. Preferably in head.

Follow this link to play The Last Stand.

2nd Download of the week: Which Way Is Up? (PC)

2007-05-02T20:16:00.000+02:00

I never get tired of good platformers. This little gem of a game is called Which Way Is Up? and was developed by Finnish team Puskutraktori.
A traditional 2D platformer at heart, it has a slight rotational twist to the gameplay. Help a mysterious salesman named Guy find his way out of a labyrinth of dangers and bad dialogue. This is just a beta (version 0.6.5), but it plays well. It's an excellent work of simplicity: use the arrow keys to move around and hit the z-button to jump, find the keys and avoid the enemies.

Download Which Way Is Up? (3.7 MB) by clicking here.

Retro game of the week: Master of Magic (PC)

2007-05-01T15:05:00.000+02:00

I actually wasted a few days of my life playing this game about two years ago, when I had nothing better to do. Master of Magic was released in 1995 by Simtex/MicroProse and plays like a cross between Civilization and Warlords II. You choose a wizard, pick a race (High Elves, Gnomes, you know, generic fantasy) and guide them to world domination by building cities, raising armies and eradicating the other wizards.
Each race has its own selection of units and buildings. The Civ aspect comes into play when you research new spells (instead of new technologies) and upgrade your cities as new buildings becomes available. The spells you can cast are plentiful and varied - there are area effect spells, summoning spells, elemental magic, and so on.

What blew me away about this game (almost twelve years ago, mind you) was its turn-based combat. Detailed and challenging, it took the Warlords characteristic and gave it an in-depth visual presentation. Another aspect about Master of Magic which resembles Warlords II is the presence of heroes and magical items. Late in the game heroes become very powerful, to the point where no army can defeat them. This is also the weak point of the game: balance. However, Master of Magic offers deep gameplay and variation, which is why you should try it.

Here's the direct link for downloading Master of Magic. You'll need DOSBox to run it.
There's also an Master of Magic clone for Windows XP available here, although flawed.

Internet game of the week: Meteor Busters (Flash)

2007-05-01T14:54:00.000+02:00

I know I've been posting lots of retro pixel shooters lately, but you'll probably appreciate Meteor Busters (from studio Dot-Invasion) anyway. This one is slower that the other (rather manic) shooters mentioned earlier, so if you were stressed out by them, try this one instead. One nice thing about Meteor Busters is that the sprites are all done in the same green/grey palette, giving it a pleasant Gameboy feel. Besides the retro look, everything is crisp and professional, with parallax scrolling and what not...

Follow this link to play Meteor Busters.

Download of the week: Engage to Jabberwock (PC)

2007-04-29T21:09:00.001+02:00

Engage to Jabberwock is a freeware game from Japanese developer Platine Dispositif. It is, in short, a bullet-hell Zelda. No, seriously. In the game you roam a large 2D dungeon, blasting enemies with various magic spells, collecting items on the way. Essential, and pretty. Make sure to change the control setting to keyboard before playing.

Download Engage to Jabberwock (4 MB) by clicking here.

Download of the week: Force Majeure (PC)

2007-04-16T22:13:00.000+02:00

If you like shooters with lots of bullets, nice pixel art and good music, Force Majeure is for you. Swedish developers Monokey are also responsible for Loveless and Bollen, and I recommend trying them as well if you haven't already.

Get the Force Majeure demo by clicking here (11 MB).

2nd Download of the week: Super Haunted Insomnia Tower (PC)

2007-04-10T14:22:00.000+02:00

Even though the acronym of this game is (literally) "SHIT", it's still one the best name ever (Zombie vs. Ambulance was a great name, too). Super Haunted Insomnia Tower has more than a hint of Ice Climber elements to it, and is nearly as frustrating. Your goal is to guide the funny looking yellow character up the haunted tower, where 10 different fiends (all with unique powers) try to bring you down. As in Kid Icarus, you can warp from the left side of the screen to the right side and vice versa. While controls are a bit on the slippery side, you should try this game, if not just to hear the music.

Download Super Haunted Insomnia Tower here (2.5 MB).

Download of the week: Cortex Command (PC)

2007-04-09T13:21:00.000+02:00

Cortex Command is an amazing pixel physics game from Data Realms. After going through a major physics overhaul, it's really starting to come together. This is gory multiplayer action where you maneuver rockets, robots and soldiers against your opponent. At the same time, you must protect your brain located in your base (hence the name) while buying and equipping troops to attack your enemy's base.
I recommend reading the instructions first. This version (build 13) features multiplayer skirmish and co-operative play with up to 4 friends in split-screen. Enjoy.

Download the latest build (15 MB) by clicking here.

Review: Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (DS)

2007-04-08T20:55:00.000+02:00

Pro Evolution Soccer 6 for the Nintendo DS is a lot like its older siblings, only uglier and not as talented. Being the youngest and weakest in the family is never easy. While looking outdated and stripped of gameplay mechanics, it's still a decent sports game, and it plays just like the other versions. When it comes to basic gameplay, it's accessible and uncomplicated to play. The most apparent issue is the artificial intelligence of the players, especially the goalkeepers, who can't be trusted at all. By that, shooting and scoring is exceptionally easy. On lower difficulty settings, some players tend to stand around doing nothing, not reacting when someone dribbles past them. However, there's always wi-fi multiplayer to make up for that inconvenience.

Framerate problems are also an issue, occurring when there are too many players on screen. How many? Seven. Corner kicks and the like are therefore a harsh slowdown affair. Sound is terrible, with irritating, looped crowd noise that sounds like something you find in between radio stations. I don't know much about audio design, but I do know that looped segments of sound should be subtle to make the looping less obvious, which isn't the case here. Even though PES 6 is an audiovisual nightmare at times, it's both engaging and fun to play. Perhaps Sensible Soccer would have been a more fitting title for the DS? Think about it, Konami.
6/10

Random Encounter: Rock Band (360/PS3)

2007-04-06T17:35:00.000+02:00

It's always sweet when you're able to foresee the future, and some time ago, one of my many premonitions came true. Alas, a rock band videogame will be born.
And so it was. The creators of Guitar Hero have announced that they will release a game unlike any game previously seen in the music game genre; four players will be able to gig at the same time in unison as a rock band. When it comes to instruments it will be the standard rock band setup, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer and one vocalist. How the game will look remains a mystery, but the creators have promised that all "band members" will be able to play after the same note streaks to avoid clogging up the screen with four different streaks of notes.

Personally I think Rock Band is going to be a wicked game - it will drain even more hours from normal civilized conversation and replace them with mindless toy-instrument bashing, not forgetting the good old strangled-cat vocals that people will try to force from their alcohol infested breathe. So if you think that your parties wasn't silly enough when you had Sing Star and Guitar Hero, this will take you and your friends to the next level of wannabe rock stardom…

A Slime Appears: Easter update

2007-04-06T13:03:00.000+02:00

Easter is here, and the first non-game related post makes its way onto A Slime Appears. There are going to be some changes ahead (nothing radical, just improvements) regarding contributors and design, hopefully for the better. No reviews for a while, due to lack of time and reasonable games to play, but we will be posting reviews of Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (DS) and Puzzle Quest (PSP/DS) very soon. A new feature called Random Encounters debuts this week, where my good friend Johannes rants about games in general or stuff in the periphery. It's not a news post, it's not an article, but it's something. Watch this space.

2nd Download of the week: Skyhammer (PC)

2007-04-05T10:46:00.000+02:00

Here's a little Easter egg for the holidays, cause we know days pass slow.
Once upon a time, there was a game called Skyhammer. It was never finished. However, there's a demo of some sort (it's actually the unfinished game, in its whole) floating around out there. According to the author, the demo has about 45 minutes of gameplay. Get it, it's absolutely beautiful.

Click here to download Skyhammer (2 MB).

Review: Hotel Dusk - Room 215 (DS)

2007-04-03T17:46:00.001+02:00

A text-heavy, linear, slow-burning, dialogue-driven point-and-click adventure. Does that sound interesting? I was really looking forward to Hotel Dusk since the studio behind it, Cing, delivered Another Code (also known as Trace Memory) two years prior to this release, received as one of the best adventure titles for the DS. But, having spent a decent amount of time with Hotel Dusk in airports and other soul-diminishing locales,
I think they might have been aiming too high with Hotel Dusk.

Hotel Dusk is presented in an original way, though. The DS is held sideways like an interactive novel, with animated pencil sketches portraying the events and conversations taking place. You play as Kyle Hyde (yeah, I know, just let it go), a door-to-door salesman by trade, who three years earlier served as a cop for the NYPD. Unable to let go of his past, he's soon dragged into a strange turn of events at the hotel.
The developers has dropped the top-down perspective of Another Code in favour of first-person navigation through the environments, giving the player more immediate control over what to investigate. And while 3D movement equals more ~~running into pixelated walls~~ freedom, the graphics are rather crude.

Gameplay is typical for its genre, with advancement through talking to characters, finding clues and solving puzzles. While there are too few of the puzzles,
the conversations are engaging and very well-written. The people in Hotel Dusk are sympathetic and likeable characters, and you really feel the urge to know their story, which is rare in games. Since the ~~unskippable conversations~~ slow flow of dialogue really forces the player to adapt to its pace, many gamers will feel obstructed and frustrated, but at the end of the day, we need more games like Hotel Dusk. It's an aquired taste.
6/10

Internet game of the week: Castlevania (Flash)

2007-04-02T16:25:00.001+02:00

Castlevania - The Blood Way... How's that for a title? Based upon the classic Castlevania series, The Blood Way is set in Eastern Europe, 1856, where Transylvania is struck by terror. To no surprise, it's count Dracula versus the Belmont family once again. Unfortunately, there are a lot of bugs present in this Flash game. Nonetheless,
it beats work or studying.

Click here to play Castlevania.

Download of the week: UFO - Enemy Unknown (PC)

2007-03-31T12:38:00.003+02:00

I think it was this game that really sparked my love and interest for turn-based strategy in the first place, and I think most gamers in their late twenties or early thirties would agree that it is one of the best strategy games ever made. Its prototype, Laser Squad 2, was picked up by Mircroprose Software and published in 1993 as UFO: Enemy Unknown (in Europe).

In repelling the extraterrestrial threat, the player is tasked with managing the base and the troops, as well as looking after the funding and research development. The action elements of the game comes into place when you order units to intercept the UFOs, and then sending units to investigate the crash site, neutralize the survivors and salvage the alien technology. I discussed this game with a friend the other day, and the alien autopsies came up. Seems we both agree they were much more fascinating than the 3D illustrations/renderings of today. The level of authenticity and detail of the pictures are really impressive, meaning one could study them for a long time. Truth is you couldn't wait to bring the next specimen to the slab. Morbid, but true.

One of the most important aspects in making UFO a classic was the line-of-sight system. The fact that you could only see what your soldiers were able to see kept the game interesting. During the enemy phase, you can hear movement or even catch a glimpse of your alien foes, plotting against you. The depth of gameplay was well ahead of its time, with research and funding needing constant supervision and combat and character customization central to the strategy element. Hands down one of the best games ever, it had several successors, none of them better than the original.

Click here to download the game. It should run on Windows, et al. No promises.

Retro game of the week: Shadowrun (SNES)

2007-03-29T20:18:00.000+02:00

Adapted from the pen and paper RPG, Shadowrun was a pioneering attempt at open gameplay, worth looking into even today. It was developed by Australian company Beam Software (now Melbourne House) and released in November 1993.

The gritty dystopian atmosphere presented in Shadowrun is typical for the classic cyberpunk setting - the main characters last name, Armitage, is even (rather blatantly) derived from William Gibson's famous cyberpunk novel Neuromancer. The story takes place in an miserable future where massive corporate structures control a world inhabited by humans as well as orcs and elves. An integral part of the storyline revolves around the conflicting/symbiotic relationship between magic and technology. Riiight.

Shadowrun combines both the statistical factor of the tabletop game with real-time combat. Controlling the slow cursor is something to get used to, especially when enemies respawn in almost every room and sometimes in the streets, making the sluggish crosshair even more irritating. Besides that, I see little reason for not delving deeper into this game, once again. A new Shadowrun game is coming to the PC and Xbox 360 later this year. I have no faith in it.

Instead, use an emulator and start looking for the ROM.

Download of the week: Guxt (PC)

2007-03-27T22:27:00.000+02:00

Guxt is a top-down shooter from Pixel. As the name of the developer suggests, it's entirely minimalistic in design. It is fast paced and elegant, with small bursts of color interrupting its otherwise chromatic palette. Although beautiful to look at, with nice pixel sprites in the same constrained color scheme, it doesn't allow for much sight-seeing: as with many other modern shooters, Guxt is very difficult. Still, challenging as it may be, it's nothing but a delight to play. Guxt is not yet complete, but there's a five stage demo available for Windows.

Click here to download Guxt (270 KB).

Internet game of the week: Rick Dangerous (Flash)

2007-03-25T20:31:00.000+02:00

A true classic, Rick Dangerous (by Core Design) made a splash on the scene in 1989 as one of the most frustrating games on the Amiga. One might even call it the ultimate game of trial and error. And traps.

I used to play it with at least two friends at the time, so each could memorize different parts of the levels and keep track of the numerous traps. Did I mention Rick Dangerous is all about traps? Poisonous darts and wooden spikes, everywhere. This Flash version of the game even has a built-in cheat to help players suffering from short term memory like myself: all you need to remember is to press home every now and then to revive and replenish your ammo. Although the first game is dear to me, Rick Dangerous II is obviously the better game. I figured it'd be boring to put it as Download of the week, so I decided to include it in this post. Enjoy.

To play the Flash remake of Rick Dangerous, follow this link.
Click here to download Rick Dangerous II for Windows (2 MB).

Download of the week: Eternal Daughter (PC)

2007-03-23T14:41:00.000+01:00

Eternal Daughter is an epic side-scrolling adventure game that took some two years to complete. According to the creators, it's an homage to their favorite games from their early years, like Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, but there's also a good deal of Zelda-esque elements in there. Eternal Daughter is very demanding and difficult, but is so in a good way - there are no sluggish controls or bastard platform jumps to ruin the whole experience.

Download Eternal Daughter here (9 MB).

Retro game of the week: Outcast (PC)

2007-03-20T17:16:00.000+01:00

I remember installing the demo of Outcast when it was released way back in 1999.
I had seen screenshots of it in magazines and it looked gorgeous. I had my hopes up. Did it look good? Yes. Did it look better than anything my eighteen year old mind could ever imagine? No. But it really fascinated me. As with Trespasser, I never got a chance to play the whole game, and that kept me wondering how it would be like. I wondered for a long time. Eight years, actually.

I tried Outcast yesterday, and I have to say I'm impressed. It certainly shows its age, but still has a graphical flair and special feel about it. The game is an even split of action and adventure (viewed from a first or third person perspective) and it's completely nonlinear in its structure - you can pretty much go anywhere at any point, and there are plenty of optional quests you may not even encounter unless you talk to every character you come across.

Outcast used voxels, a pixel technology developed and employed in games at the time. There's a more technical explanation of how that works here, but the short version is that voxels are efficient when it comes to rendering large outdoor landscapes without the use of polygons, allowing spectacular draw distance.

Unfortunately, Outcast isn't freeware, but it's available at your favorite Torrent search. There's also a demo, if that's more convenient (130 MB).

Internet game of the week: Gateway II (Flash)

2007-03-19T16:42:00.000+01:00

Another indie-developed game from Sweden? Well, why not? Gateway II, developed by Anders Gustafsson, is simple but stylish and delivers an excellent narrative, thick with emotion and dark humor. Guide the avatar through a series of rooms, solve the puzzles within each room to advance to the next. Give it a try.

Visit this page to play Gateway II.

Retro game of the week: Alone In the Dark (PC)

2007-03-15T22:41:00.000+01:00

Alone In the Dark is simply one of the best horror games ever released. Much responsible for paving the way for other "survival horror" games such as Resident Evil, Alone In the Dark used multiple fixed camera angles and low-resolution polygon zombies years before that. Developed by Infogrames (now Atari) and released in 1992, it might seem that I'm romanticising the early and mid 1990's, but as I recall it, a lot of good games were published back then. And a lot of awful games, too.

However, Alone in the Dark is clearly a innovative and artistic game. Players are given the option of choosing between a male or female character (Edward Carnby or Emily Hartwood, respectively) and then tasked with investigating the suicide of a friend at the mansion of Derceto, which is the setting of the game. The unfolding of the story is revealed when exploring the mansion, looking for clues in books and notes scattered throughout the game. The storyline clearly draws much of its inspiration from the works of the late H.P. Lovecraft. For example, the occult tomes found in the mansion's library include the Necronomicon and De Vermis Mysteriis, both taken from the Cthulhu Mythos.

Gameplay involves inventory/environmental puzzles and some pretty confusing shooting/fighting elements, later copied, refined and more successfully implemented by the Resident Evil series. If you're into scary games, don't miss out on this one.

Click here to download Alone In the Dark (5 MB).

Download of the week: Grand Theft Auto 2 (PC)

2007-03-13T17:50:00.000+01:00

Everyone is eagerly awaiting the new trailer for GTA IV. That is, everyone with nothing better to do. It's easy to forget that one of the worlds most infamous and successful franchises started out as a top-down game in pixelated 2D.

Grand Theft Auto 2 was originally released for PlayStation and PC in October 1999. While the gameplay concepts and storyline (make your way as a low-life crook through the crime underworld) established just two years prior in the original Grand Theft Auto are essentially the same in the follow-up, the second installment in the series expanded the open-ended crime world formula with a host of new features, including the advent of multiple rival gangs.

GTA2 has been optimized to run on modern PCs and is available gratis here.

Internet game of the week: Orisinal (Flash)

2007-03-07T17:33:00.000+01:00

There are quite a few charming games over at Orisinal, maybe too many, but if you haven't tried them already I recommend these games (represented by their icons):

Download of the week: Death Worm (PC)

2007-03-03T00:32:00.000+01:00

I couldn't find any information at all regarding this game, but I guess there isn't much to be said about it, either. In Death Worm, you control a huge underground-dwelling worm. Your goal is to eat things above the surface - birds, people, aeroplanes, giraffes, and so on. It reminds me of the classic Amiga shoot 'em up Wings of Fury (1990), only less sophisticated.

Visit this page to download Death Worm (4 MB).

Retro game of the week: Another World (AMIGA)

2007-03-01T12:38:00.000+01:00

(...Right, here we go. Don't get distracted this time, just finish the post. Hope it doesn't come out all nostalgic and pretentious like it usually does... Note to self: Don't forget to Wiki that rotoscoping-animation-thing... No big deal. Alright...)

Another World was all about trial and error, instant deaths and endless frustration. Still, it was one of those bright moments in gaming history. Developed by Eric Chahi in his garage back in 1990, Another World clearly reflects his solitaire vision. It has a lonely, cinematic atmosphere that's evident throughout the game. Upon seeing this game at age 12, the graphics and the gameplay mechanics were too good to be true. The groundbreaking visuals were created using an Amiga 500 with 1MB RAM and a 20MB hard drive, Deluxe Paint being the tool for pixel perfection.

While gameplay elements like combat and jumping are flawed and imprecise, adding to the already high difficulty of the game, such imperfections does little to hamper the unique and immersing experience offered. Now available as a boxed collectors edition for its 15th anniversary, Another World features high-resolution backgrounds and increased detail.

To download the demo version for Windows XP, click here.

Download of the week: Invalid Tangram (PC)

2007-02-10T18:53:00.000+01:00

Yet another shooter? Yes, but this time with Tetris-esque elements. Invalid Tangram is a 2D game that's part vertical shooter and part puzzle. The design, programming, and art were all done by Josh Szepietowski in 2005, and uses vector rendering to produce its original graphics. Invalid Tangram was chosen as one of ten Student Showcase Finalists out of more than 100 entrants in the 2007 Independent Games Festival, and is well worth a look.

Click here to download Invalid Tangram (1 MB).

Internet game of the week: Polarity (Flash)

2007-02-09T16:24:00.000+01:00

Ikaruga, once hailed as one of the hardest shooters ever, has a less aggravated cousin: Polarity (Stimunation Games). Gameplay is essentially the same as its Japanese relative. It's a top-down shooter with red and blue enemies. You control a ship that can switch between these two colors for both offensive and defensive advantages.

Polarity was in fact commissioned for Wrigley's Candystand website and advertises Eclipse gum.
God bless product placement.

Click here to waste a few minutes on Polarity (flash version).

Download of the week: Knytt (PC)

2007-02-08T15:16:00.000+01:00

Featured as "Internet Game of the Month" in Edge #172 (February), Swedish creator Nifflas, known for his Within a Deep Forest outing, has created Knytt, which is more of the same pixelated 2D goodness and superb music Deep Forest offered. It's a pure, minimalistic platform game that suggests exploration rather than the ordinary challenges of traditional platformers.

Knytt is free, and you can download it (19 MB) here.

Review: Final Fantasy III (DS)

2007-02-04T15:26:00.000+01:00

I can't understand why everyone is complaining about Final Fantasy III (Square Enix). It's a remake, a makeover. It's not supposed to be mind-numbingly good and set the standard for games to come. Instead, it is as much a homage to the old Famicom version as it is to the heritage of old-school role playing games.

The story involves villagers in trouble, dames in distress, evil counselors, four orphans and four magic crystals. It has pretty graphics and well-written, entertaining dialogue. What more could you ask for?

FFIII is also a technical achievement, with vivid colors and lovely rendered characters. However, it makes little use of the dual screens. The top screen is blank for most of the time, and the obvious choice would've been to put a dungeon map or at least the rather dull world map up there. On a more positive note, I'm actually using the stylus! There are a few other issues that mar the experience, as well. FFIII, being old-school, is almost devoid of side quests. And when you think you've found one, there is no way to keep track of the quests - not even a logbook where to actually read all the important conversations you skipped through to get to the action.

The game doesn't hold you by the hand at all and can be frustratingly difficult at times. If enemy battles are generally quite easy and tend to get repetitive, the opposite can be said about the bosses: behemoths of hit points, capable of taking out your entire party within two or three turns. The lack of checkpoints or the ability to save before encountering a boss is therefore sometimes hard to forgive. And so, Final Fantasy III is everything it should be. It's not a let-down. It's a polished, linear and time-consuming RPG, complete with level-grinding, random encounters and clichés.
7/10

Retro game of the week: Beneath a Steel Sky (PC)

2007-01-29T19:55:00.000+01:00

To save time and effort, this is also Download of the week. Beneath a Steel Sky (released in 1994 by Revolution Software) is a true adventure game classic. I have lots of fond memories of this game. Although I only finished it once, back in 1994, some scenes from the game somehow managed to leave permanent images in my game-obsessed brain. One of them is from the opening scene (above left).

Beneath a Steel Sky is set in an huge futuristic industrial city where its inhabitants endures a totalitarian government, which draws obvious comparisons to the bleak, dystopian nightmare once envisioned by George Orwells. It's an accomplished and detailed world, superbly illustrated by artist Dave Gibbons. The game fuses logical (if sometimes vexing) puzzles, a thought-provoking storyline and warm-hearted humor (much the courtesy of robotic sidekick Joey) into an experience that surpasses most games in its genre. And, since Beneath a Steel Sky is classed as freeware since 2003, everyone can enjoy it for free.

Click here to download the full version (65 MB) of the game (Windows).

Review: Yoshi's Island 2 (DS)

2007-01-25T21:10:00.001+01:00

We need to talk. I'll go first, okay?
It's like, we're spending all this time together, but, you know, it just feels... wasted. I know you really tried hard to make this work, and you do look better than ever, but I don't know... It's still not the same as when we first met. You know, you're gorgeous, really, but you're just no fun. Not fun like you used to be, anyway.

No, I'm not seeing someone else! I mean, I have been spending time with Portrait of Ruin, but we're just friends. Yeah, I promise. No, I don't hate your music! Why do you keep saying that? I'm not crazy about it, but it doesn't bother me, alright? Jesus.

Look, you just annoy the hell out of me sometimes. And there's literally no touching either. What's up with that? And the balance is all wrong. It's like, all easy at first, and suddenly there's shit coming at me from all directions, and I'm thinking, What the hell just happened? What's going on?

And it's like that all the time with you. I don't know where I'm going or what I'm doing this for anymore... We had some good times, but that's not enough, that's all I'm saying. Sorry, I need to move on. I need to play other games. It's not you. It's me.
5/10

Internet game of the week: Samorost 2 (Flash)

2007-01-23T19:01:00.000+01:00

Samorost 2 was created by Amanita Design (based in the Czech Republic) and released back in 2006, so it's neither shiny nor new, but if you haven't played this charming piece of work yet, here's your chance.

The game is essentially a point-and-click adventure with puzzle-solving at its core. Entirely simplistic in its design, there is no inventory or dialogue - the problems presented are solved by interacting with the environments and manipulating objects.
The characters and level design really makes the Samorost series stand out from other flash games. It's beautiful in both visual design and animation, reminding me of paintings by Swedish artist John Bauer, although with a sci-fi twist.

Follow this link and enjoy Samorost 2.

Review: Age of Empires (DS)

2007-01-23T18:39:00.000+01:00

Age of Empires - Age of Kings for the DS is handheld strategy at its best: time-consuming, detailed, well balanced and turn-based. The dual screens allows immediate map overview and statistic information is easy to access without having to leave the battlefield. The stylus, however, feels clumsy and inaccurate; you'll soon discover that using the d-pad is a much more effective way of handling units. As in most other strategy games, real-time or not, resource management is key. Age of Empires is no exception. In short, that means the tried and tested gold, gold, gold, upgrade, attack formula is applicable in this case as well.

Still, Age of Empires is indeed a very joyful experience. However, some minor issues might suggest otherwise. Graphics and animations are crude, and although the isometric view is clean and easy to navigate, units have the tendency to clutter the screen. The game also suffers from poor AI at times, and tends only to challenge when playing pre-set scenarios with fixed resources and armies. Even on a higher difficulty setting enemies either slumber, attacking only when spotting player units, or (most noticeably in multiplayer) wage two-front wars without the means or resources to back it up. Also, the one-turn research output diminishes the scope of the scenarios, but since some battles take several hours to finish, that might not necessarily be a bad thing.
6/10

Retro game of the week: SimCity (SNES)

2007-01-23T11:24:00.000+01:00

I remember wasting one of those perfect, once-in-a-decade Swedish summers on this game, sitting inside, waiting for new funds, trying to merge my blocks into those elusive Top-buildings. I guess that was back in 1993. While I never really cared for any of the sequels of the series, this release remains one of my favourite simulation games ever. Developing new strategies for growing Residential and Commercial zones still keeps me busy planning and writing down possible concepts of placing blocks (near water, 3x3, police station within block boundaries, grass or gifts in the middle, railroads instead of asphalt) to maximize population growth, offering hours and hours of SimCity bliss.

SimCity is available for the Wii through Virtual Console.

Download of the week: Trespasser demo (PC)

2007-01-21T21:19:00.000+01:00

One of my first true next-gen experiences, Trespasser (released in 1998 by Dreamworks) featured abysmal gameplay and was almost unplayable thanks to something resembling an interactive, virtual hand. This original take on controls made everything extremely difficult; picking up an object was hard enough, let alone aiming a gun. Now, add some dinosaurs and a pre-historic physics engine and you get a FPS that is impossible to forget, although not in a good way. However, in its attempt to immerse the player it somehow manages to intrigue and frustrate at the same time.

Get the demo (30 MB) and see for yourself. If anyone makes it off the platform, feel free to share your experiences with us.