Arcade

Freeware Friday: Gunroar

Posted Oct 3rd 2008 2:00PM by James Murff
Filed under: Features, Indie, Arcade

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

Much like food, there are games that we always go back to after performing an excursion into the vast wilderness of the frontier. These are our comfort games, the ones that we can always depend on to be full of replayability and excellent game mechanics. The kind of game that we sit down and play between rounds of Team Fortress 2 or after a long marathon session of Oblivion. Kenta Cho's shmup games, like Torus Trooper and rRootage, are comfort games thanks to their endless replayability and arcade-style addictiveness. Gaming comfort food. And Gunroar is among their ranks as well.

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Download: Graviton 2 Demo

Posted Oct 1st 2008 3:30PM by Steven Wong
Filed under: Downloads, Demos, Indie, Arcade

"Gravitron 2 is a retro styled arcade gravity shooter in which you must pilot your way through some of the most devious terrains ever devised."

40+ Stages packed full of enemies and traps.
3D Sound in a 2D enviroment.
Online HiScores (requires internet connection).
Configurable controls.
Stylized neon vector graphics.
Bucket load full of particle effects.
Dramatic musical scores.

Future expansion packs and updates (FREE)

Download the Gravitron 2 Demo (12 MB)
Download the Gravitron 2 Linux Demo (13 MB)

Hands-on: Deer Hunter Tournament

Posted Sep 25th 2008 5:00PM by David Craddock
Filed under: Features, Hands-on, Casual, Opinion, Arcade

Karelia, Finland's dawn air was crisp, and its icy mists were tinged with just a hint of gold from the sun peaking over the horizon. The earth was blanketed in freshly fallen snow, and a slight breeze caused the pine trees bordering a frozen stream to shiver, their rustling branches sending white crystals plopping to the ground. It was the perfect morning to live in peaceful co-existence with all other creatures upon the earth, to curl up near a fire burning in the hearth of the cabin near the lake and read a book.

But this is Deer Hunter Tournament, and in that context, either of those activities would have proven quite boring. For those to answer the call of the wild with a hail of lead, it was the perfect day for a hunt.

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Mac Monday: SketchFighter 4000 Alpha

Posted Sep 15th 2008 11:00AM by Akela Talamasca
Filed under: Downloads, Demos, Features, Hands-on, Mac, Screenshots, Arcade

SketchFighter 4000 Alpha, from Ambrosia Software, is a fiendishly difficult game. It's a top-down shooter in the style of the old vector graphics-based games like Asteroids, Gravitar, and Omega Race. However, the standout element (at least at first) is its graphic style: the game is rendered as though drawn in a grade-school student's tablet of graph paper. This extends not merely to the background (gray grid against plain white), but to the player's ship, the game's enemies, the obstacles, everything. This isn't just a refreshing change of pace -- the retro feel is inherent it the game's actual gameplay as well. How? Read on!

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Mac Monday: Wingnuts 2

Posted Sep 8th 2008 3:00PM by Akela Talamasca
Filed under: Downloads, Demos, Features, Hands-on, Mac, Screenshots, Meta BD, Arcade

Most of the Mac Monday downloads are, besides being great games, downloads for both Mac and PC. While there's nothing wrong with this, the ideal is the Mac-only title. Who better to bring it to us, then, than Freeverse, creator of many fantastic games for the Mac, including the previously-covered Neon Tango. Wingnuts 2: Raina's Revenge is a top-down arcade shooter in the style of the classic Time Pilot. However, it's much, much more intense and complex, even at its easiest level. How, exactly? Read on, O Learned Audience!

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Download: Bionic Commando Rearmed v1.01 Patch

Posted Sep 8th 2008 9:30AM by Steven Wong
Filed under: Downloads, Patches, Action, Adventure, Arcade

This patch updates Bionic Commando Rearmed to version 1.01, which optimizes the game to perform better with single core processors.

Download the Bionic Commando Rearmed v1.01 Patch (4 MB)

Gallery: Bionic Commando Rearmed

MacMonday: Larva Mortus

Posted Sep 1st 2008 11:00AM by Akela Talamasca
Filed under: Downloads, Demos, Features, Hands-on, Mac, Indie, Screenshots, Arcade

Larva Mortus is billed as a "retro horror action game" by developers Rake In Grass, and it more than lives up to its name. Calling it a cross between Smash TV and the X-Files would be too facile a comparison, but it's a decent starting point. Combining an intuitive interface with addictive gameplay, Larva Mortus will keep you saying "Just one more level" until the undead cows come home. Let's take a look after the jump!

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First Strong Bad Episode Two details and screenshots released

Posted Aug 26th 2008 9:30AM by John Callaham
Filed under: Downloads, Adventure, Arcade

Telltale Games' second episodic game series, Strong Bad's Cool Games for Attractive People, got off to a good start earlier this month with the release of the first chapter. Now comes word on the first details and screenshots for the second chapter, to be titled Strong Badia The Free.

Here's their description of the episode (due for release this September) "When Strong Bad fails to obey the King of Town's totally unfair email tax, he's placed under house arrest. Once freed from his wrongful imprisonment, Strong Bad goes on a mission to unite the local warring factions under the Strong Badian flag. Is Free Country USA ready for such an awesome ruler?". By the way, Telltale will be attending Penny Arcade Expo this weekend where they will show off a preview of the new episode.

Gallery: Strong Bads Cool Game for Attractive People

MacMonday: Maelstrom

Posted Aug 25th 2008 11:00AM by Akela Talamasca
Filed under: Downloads, Features, Hands-on, Mac, Screenshots, Arcade

On today's MacMonday, we're going seriously old school, to the tune of 1993, when Ambrosia Software sold their first game, Maelstrom. Just as it's easy to dismiss last MacMonday's Big Kahuna Reef 2: Chain Reaction as a Bejeweled clone, Maelstrom takes as its source the classic coin-op Asteroids.

Yet the differences between the two titles are vast indeed, going beyond the color palette and updated graphics. We'll go into detail and examine why Maelstrom is just as addictive and playable today as it was 15 years ago.

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Can you apply the Torque?

Posted Aug 21st 2008 8:00PM by James Murff
Filed under: Arcade

Jesse Venbrux, that ever enigmatic peddler of experimental games, has gone a much gentler route on his latest endeavor. Well, gentler in the sense that it's not experimental. Dubbed Torque, it's slightly different than your standard fare arena shooter, which means that it is hard. But that's fine with us. You spin and fire uncontrollably, and by holding down Z you can focus fire in one direction. That's it. Featuring hypnotic graphics, simple gameplay, and excellent controls, it's a great entry into a crowded genre, definitely worth a play for any fan of classic arcade gameplay. There is an online leaderboard as well as several modes to plumb the depths of.

[Via IndieGames]

Review: Bionic Commando: Rearmed

Posted Aug 19th 2008 3:00PM by Steven Wong
Filed under: Features, Action, Opinion, Arcade

For some, playing Bionic Commando Rearmed is like walking down a street they grew up on after it goes through heavy renovation. Things seem both familiar and different at the same time. For others, it's like visiting a city for the first time after only hearing about it in conversions, TV/movies, and books/magazines. Everything gets measured against expectations without any sense of nostalgia. We fall into the latter group. But whether you're reliving the "good old days" or experiencing this platform shooter for the first time, Bionic Commando Rearmed delivers excellent and challenging retro platforming action.

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Welcome to the Border of Life

Posted Aug 18th 2008 8:00PM by James Murff
Filed under: Action, Indie, Arcade

For the indie and amateur developer, a shmup is a great way to learn the ropes of the industry. The engine is easy to build, you must make it interesting and unique, balance it to provide a good challenge, and the concepts are very simple to understand. A student team at KobeDenshi have followed this philosophy and created Border of Life, a grapple-mechanic horizontal shooter. The graphics are effective, but the gameplay could use some more refinement. It's hard, mostly because the controls are difficult to get used to.

[Via Lithium Leaf]

Live vertical scroller history with Genetos

Posted Aug 14th 2008 7:00PM by James Murff
Filed under: Indie, Arcade

Nothing like traversing your roots to make you all nostalgic. Genetos is a freeware shmup that goes back and takes a look at all the old styles of shooter, getting players in touch with their shmup roots as it pushes forward the generations. The gameplay is simple. You play it like any other shmup, only collecting green items will push you towards a "generational shift". When you shift (which is always during a boss fight), you are suddenly using a ship from the next generation to fight a boss of the last generation. It goes from Space Invaders to Galaga to Raiden to Bullet Hell at the moment, with one stage still left before all the stages are finished.

MacMonday: The Great Tree

Posted Aug 11th 2008 11:00AM by Akela Talamasca
Filed under: Demos, Hands-on, Mac, Screenshots, Arcade

Reflexive Entertainment's The Great Tree is a game containing elements reminiscent of other titles while still retaining its own unique identity. Regardless of which other games it might remind you of, it's as addictive as anything else, belying its fairytale appearance.

In The Great Tree, you play as a fairy, charged with collecting free-floating pollen to nourish the titular tree that grants life to all fairies. Don't let the faltering voiceover get in the way of your enjoyment of the game; the story itself can be safely ignored. It's really all about the increasingly frenetic gameplay. More on this after the jump.

Download The Great Tree Demo [Windows]
Download The Great Tree Demo [Mac]

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Go Beryllium! Destroy those atoms!

Posted Aug 4th 2008 4:00PM by James Murff
Filed under: Indie, Arcade

We promised some deeper information on the Eegra Shindig games, and here we are! The first place winner in the competition is the minimalist bullet hell shooter Go Beryllium. As we are huge shoot-'em-up fans, this is good news for us. The game itself is rather simple for a bullet hell game. You shoot down enemy ships while dodging bullets. It's simplicity belies its addictiveness, though. Your bomb repels enemy bullets, the entire game is atom themed (bosses are large uranium atoms, you collect quarks, etc) and the usage of the colored quarks is genius. The music even syncs with your attacks and the destruction of enemies. This is a must play for any fan of vertical shooters and is a great relaxing-but-challenging game.