Xbox Live Indie Game Review – You Will Die
This game is fucking cruel. It’s evil, and it’s quite possibly one of the hardest games in the Indie Games section. It doesn’t screw around. You have one weapon, one life, a shield that hacks away at your score (which is the ultimate point of the game) and no apologies. Most people I’ve seen who play this (including me. Hey, I never said I was good at these games) can’t get past about level 3 or 4. Out of, from what I understand, 32 total levels.
So it’s definitely appropriately titled. It doesn’t matter how good you are, you WILL eventually die.
That doesn’t mean it’s any good though, now does it. We’re going to have to make that determination as we go … well … more like I’ve already made my decision and you’ll just have to read on and see.
Pixel Force : Left 4 Dead. Pure awesomeness.
Now, I haven’t had a chance to play this MUCH (though I have been playing it since I downloaded it about an hour ago as of this writing) but this is a … for the most part … faithful de-make of Valve’s Left 4 Dead in an 8 Bit NES style done by Eric Ruth Games. Which means it’s top down, pixelly zombie killing goodness. All of the limitations of the NES seem to come into play here, and it’s a lot friendlier to single player play. You have the regular zombies that just kinda stand around, and either when they’re shot or when they notice you they go into full top speed attack. The special infected ARE here, though they work a little differently. Such as the Boomer shoots fireball looking puke projectiles, the hunter is pretty much the same except that when he pounces you, you just mash on the buttons to get him off of you. The Smoker just sends you spinning with his tongue. The witch is pretty much the same, though I haven’t pissed her off yet. :) And the tank … I haven’t seen him yet (maybe he’s a boss?) but there are sound files for him.
All the survivors are here in they’re 8 Bit glory (Zoey is still hot in 8 Bit form by the way), all the levels are here in a top down perspective except for maybe Crash Course … but maybe that will come in a later update. And the music … chiptuned awesomeness that is in a friendly MP3 format to haul around with you, which I plan on doing. And when you first start the game, as it’s loading, you get an NES cart mockup for Left 4 Dead. Awesomeness.
The only bad points I can see here in the short amount of time I’ve had with it is that there only seems to be a machine gun, a pistol (which can be dual wielded) and the shotgun. No hunting rifle, assault rifle, pipe bombs or molotavs. Of course, this is version 1.1, they MAY come at a later date. And there is only local 2 player support. Now, yes, I know that most NES games were only capable of 2 players simultaneously, but come on. There WAS that severely underutilized 4 player adapter. And how bad ass would be to be able to play this game online with people.
And, it lets me get my zombie killing on with my netbook. Which increases it’s awesomeness.
Now, when you get into this game, bear in mind that it plays a lot differently, mostly from the top down perspective. And you can only shoot in 4 directions. But the way the game is set up it works great. Hopefully it’ll get more updates with the missing weapons and maybe some online support … which might be wishful thinking, but hey. :) Download after the screenshots and gameplay video.
PC Demo Impression of Gridrunner++
What the hell did I just play? It's hard to explain, but it's a vertical SHMUP with trippy graphics, oddball 8 bit inspired enemies and sound and you are attempting to save sheep. Yes, sheep that increase your multiplier. The game is pretty easy to play, and runs in a window instead of full screen. You just shoot everything on screen. The ship fires automatically, you use the mouse to move around and use the right mouse button to fire your SheepieZapper which randomly destroys enemies until it runs out. It's fast paced, and the way the sound is set up in the game ... imagine playing this as an arcade machine, and in a circular pattern around you are others going very very loudly. It's just insane. You can snag it right here. It'll run on practically anything, I'm running a 2 ghz P4 Dell notebook with 768MB of RAM and crappy Intel graphics. It runs just fine. It definitely hits a high mark in my book just for the sheer oddness and insanity. :) And of course there's a Mac version. And be sure to read the history for the game in the menus, the roots of this game go all the way back to the Commodore Vic-20 and is a pretty interesting read to go along with a damned fun game.
Mario Bros VGA
This is another one of those games that I was first introduced to via the Atari 2600 instead of the arcade. Although later I did end up getting it for the original Nintendo at a yard sale and played it on that. But when I got this I was kinda starting to get into PC gaming, and this fit the bill perfectly, even though the sound is, yet again, being pumped out of the damned PC Speaker. But I was too young to really care, and if I wanted good sound I'd hop over to my Nintendo and play that because the PC my family had at the time didn't have a sound card in it. But if you like the original Mario game, this isn't a half bad version of it. Of course nowadays we have emulation and Nintendo's Virtual Console and things like that, so this is kinda out of date. But it does give me some good memories.
Download - 46k As always, use DOSBox
Joust VGA
My first experience with Joust wasn't in the arcades to be perfectly honest. I don't even think I've played an ACTUAL Joust arcade machine ever. My first experience with it was for the Atari 2600, and despite the changes from the arcade (the floating eggs, the lack of a hand coming out of the lava, the eggs hatching and being collected to the enemy birds working completely different, etc) I loved it. And being that I had no prior experience with the arcade version, THAT was Joust for me. Around the time this version of the game came out in 1990, I was heavy into bulletin boards getting whatever games I could find, and this was one of them.
Rampage for DOS
I have ... mostly ... fond memories of this game. The platform I played it on the most was the NES. And though I do still play it from time to time, I still can't get over the ending. All that work ... uugh. Anyway, the arcade version is where the fun is, and the NES version did a decent job of recreating that. The PC version though ... not so much.
ASCII Space Invaders
I hold text mode games in a special place, because for years that's the only type of graphics the computers I had access to could display. This changes the Space Invaders gameplay a little bit. In the first couple of levels that I played there were no barriers, so it's more like Galaga in the end, just without the Kamikaze ships raping you. But it adds new weapons to the mix. A nuke that clears the screen of enemies, a bomb that clears out the bottom row, and a missile that will cut through an entire column of them if timed just right. The only real problem is that it's a little difficult to control your ship. There's a slight delay when you press left or right. And the PC speaker sound is as annoying as anything else the PC speaker spits out. But once you get past that it plays pretty well considering what it is. Worth trying out at least once in any case, though it's doubtful it'll hold your interest for THAT long.
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Starfighter - You remember The Last Starfighter? Remember the game in the movie?
Hell yeah.
I remember seeing the movie The Last Starfighter when I was younger, and from my fuzzy memory I remember this kid being really good at this Starfighter game and getting recruited into the actual thing that was happening as a result of it. Kinda like what a lot of people seem to think the US Army is doing with the America's Armies game or whatever it's called. And the other thing I remember thinking when I saw the movie was "Where can I play this game?" much like I would imagine a lot of people thought.
Pac-Gal - ASCII Pac-Man game from 1982
A simple ASCII graphics Pac Man game. Plays pretty good even after all these years, even though on my computer when I grab the power pellets, the ghosts glow green for about a second or two making the game balls hard. Still, worth a download for those of you who are interested. It even has PC speaker music going. It's kinda like a VERY early version of the awesome Pac-Man C.E. with only one mode. You may need DOSBox for this one, and on my laptop I had to set the speed for 30000 for it to be playable. Although you can set the speed lower if you want more of a challenge.
It's a simple enough game to play. Use the arrow keys to move your happy face around making sure to keep away from the Hearts, Spades, Diamonds and Clubs. Eat the flashing dots and they turn green allowing you to eat them. Pretty simple stuff, but pretty hard too.
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