Posted by Paul Eres
Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:21:00 GMT
Au Sable is a game by the maker of All of Our Friends Are Dead, Amon26, and appears to be at least a spiritual sequel to that game. Fans of the previous game might enjoy the new one. For those who didn’t play that one, they are both platformers which focus on delivering dark and creepy feelings.
There’s more variety than the first game, and the controls feel tighter, and the art is just as nice. My only complaint is that the mouse cursor is off by default and the only way to learn how to turn it on is in the ReadMe file (which I missed and played through the game with that difficulty).
Again, you can get a taste of the game from Ortoslon’s playthrough if you’re sleepy or unconvinced by this review.
Posted in Platformers, Unique / Bizarre, Highly Recommended, Windows, Freeware | Tags Amon26 | 37 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:21:00 GMT
Hammerfight came out unexpectedly on Steam this week. Formerly known as Hammerfall, the game is set in a unique fantasy world and puts you in control of a flying machine that can be equipped with various knives, swords, flails, hammers, axes, and guns. Use the mouse to fly and to fight – Hammerfight employs a physics engine to let you swing weapons using the motion of your machine.
This game is strong and very manly in an ancient sort of way, kind of like Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. Because of the direct control you have over swinging your weapons, getting a solid hit in Hammerfall feels REALLY good, and you’ll be doing a lot of it during a variety of manly activities like hunting giant cave worms with a ball and chain or fighting for your life as a slave in the arena. After each battle, a victory screen will pronounce your glory and say things like “You are now known as Derek the Barbarian,” or “You are the Worm Slayer,” or something like that. Also, as you progress, you’ll get decked out with all manner of sweet flying machine armor, and have banners hanging off of you that flap around as you kick ass. It’s awesome.
When the game was still called Hammerfall there was a playable demo available. Hammerfight is still the same great experience, but with all the polish it needed to be a full commercial release. (For one thing, the English text has been cleaned up considerably, making the storyline much more easy to follow.) It’s just as gorgeous, detailed, fun, and challenging as it was before, just better.
Hammerfight is a masterpiece, and $9.99 is a bargain. Go grab it!
TIGdb: Entry for Hammerfight
Posted in Multiplayer, Highly Recommended, Steam, Windows, Action / Arcade | Tags KonstantinKoshutin | 48 comments
Posted by Xander
Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:10:00 GMT
“It’s bloomin’ great!” – Xander
Sorry for that. Anyway as you should be aware Eufloria, previously ‘Dyson’, has been released on Steam, D2D and through the official site. If you didn’t know this then I’m afraid you’re simply not cool. However in reading this post you now DO know this, and have automatically been saved from an awkward moment of self-doubt and an accusing glare. It’s fine, no need to thank us, we’re just doing our job. If you really do want to show your gratitude then why not pick your favourite digital distributor and play one of the most elegant strategy titles of recent memory.
If you’re still on the edge, you can also play the demo to find out if nothing else just why we needed to tell you that you could.
TIGdb: Entry for Eufloria
Posted in Highly Recommended, Windows, Strategy, Abstract | Tags AlexMay, RudolfKremers | 57 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:33:00 GMT
Fatale is the latest mystical experiment from Tale of Tales. It’s inspired by Oscar Wilde’s interpretation of the biblical character Salome, although, in my opinion, knowledge of the story is not required to enjoy the game. I wasn’t familiar with it before I played.
I think the game captures the spirit of the story very well. I don’t think it’s meant to retell the story, per se, but to give it a certain added richness by letting you explore a few of the critical scenes in interesting ways. It’s worth mentioning that Takayoshi Sato (of Silent Hill fame) did the character design, which is perfect considering the sensual and macabre nature of Salome’s tale. Overall, the graphics and audio are quite good.
I enjoyed Fatale and came out of it thinking about its implications and intrigued by its source material. However, I still feel that it’s a good game that’s shy of great. For it to be great would require more detail in the simulation, which sometimes feels clunky and uninspired. Whereas these flaws might go unnoticed in the games of “seasoned gamers” (a phrase playfully cribbed from the website), in Fatale they really stand out for the simple fact that looking around and taking in the environment is the game’s primary focus.
TIGdb: Entry for Fatale
Posted in Unique / Bizarre, Macintosh, Windows | Tags TaleOfTales | 105 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:27:00 GMT
Here are a couple of good-looking old-school 2d games coming from teams known for FPS’s:
Capsized is a platform game that’s reminiscent of Exile. Coming in 2010 to Steam and XBLA, from the creators of the multiplayer FPS Nexuiz.
Locomalito, best known for their chunky FPS 8-bit Killer, are working on Hydorah, a Gradius-style shmup. It will be released as freeware at some indeterminate date.
Thanks to Pixel Prospector for the news!
Posted in Xbox 360, Videos, Steam, Windows, Previews | Tags Alientrap, Locomalito | 21 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:28:00 GMT
The latest version of DoomRL has been released. The last version was released over a year ago, so this is nice surprise for fans of the fast-paced roguelike. Version 0.9.9 has a lot of neat additions, including weapon and armor mods, unique items, new levels, new traits, new alt-fire modes, and a badge/medal system, among other things. Lots of balancing and tweaking has been done to the game, too.
This is the coolest version of one of my favorite roguelikes, so I recommend it.
TIGdb: Entry for DoomRL
Posted in Demakes, Roguelikes, Linux, Windows | Tags KornelKisielewicz | 18 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:46:00 GMT
Amanita Design’s Machinarium was released last Friday. The game is superb. It’s a beautiful adventure game set in a unique world populated with all kinds of lovable, crazy robots (the protagonist is especially endearing). In my opinion, the visuals are peerless – every room is gorgeous, and filled with little details and surprises that ignite the imagination. The puzzles can get pretty difficult, but by and large I found them to be relatively intuitive and well-done. They’re quite varied, too, and include a mix of hotspot-hunting, inventory-management, timing, and mini-games.
Machinarium marks a very high point in the adventure-gaming and I highly recommend it. Even people who are put off by the slow pacing of most adventure games should try it, as there’s no dialogue in Machinarium and you are sucked into the game itself very quickly (even the title screen is fun!). You can play the demo right in your browser on the game’s website. The full game is $20.
TIGdb: Entry for Machinarium
Posted in Macintosh, Highly Recommended, Adventure, Puzzle, Linux, Windows | Tags AmanitaDesign | 20 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:21:00 GMT
World of Goo has turned one year old and is having a big sale this week to celebrate. Until October 19th, you can pay whatever you feel the game is worth! Yowza!
Posted in Macintosh, Community, Linux, Windows | Tags 2DBoy | 31 comments
Posted by Xander
Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:30:00 GMT
So it’s not quite the season yet, but what would an MGS game be without a little bit of hype? Arthur Lee will be once again providing a swish parody of the famous series, featuring a suprising amount of gadgets/weapons which seem to mix functionality and the funnies quite nicely.
Release date should be fairly obvious, which hopefully will give some time to improving the music which isn’t quite as accomplished as the rest of the game’s presentation appears to be. The puns however are fantastic enough that I will completely ignore that this isn’t ‘The Underside’.
Posted in Stealth, Videos, Windows, Action / Arcade, Freeware | Tags ArthurLee, MrPodunkian | 19 comments
Posted by Xander
Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:40:00 GMT
Star Guard is a short and sweet action-platformer from Vacuum Flowers available for either PC/MACs. Set in a minimalistic and dark world, you play a green guy fighting red guys who are controlled by an evil wizard. You shoot the red guys with X and jump over their cowardly bullets with Z, though a gamepad is recommended if you’ve one available as you’ll need to squeeze off a lot of bullets in quick succession.
This is especially true in the later of the game’s nine levels, each featuring the same charmingly simple aesthetic, although the larger enemies feature some slightly more stylish flourishes. It’s a rather strange game because the pacing and difficulty doesn’t quite mesh with the infinite lives given to you on a normal playthrough. Where as typically mines/traps would require caution and dexterity, these will simply not respawn so even if you die you can just get through the section without worrying about the consequences. Which is fine, however I would’ve preferred if they came back when I did so I could effectively ‘beat’ that section rather than skip it.
That’s literally my only problem with the game and other than that it’s a wonderfully conceived platformer, and if more games could do plot exposition in such a seemless fashion so as to not even slightly interrupt the action then I’d be pretty damn happy with that.
Posted in Platformers, Macintosh, Windows, Action / Arcade | 49 comments
