Its new and shiny! Dead Frontier, Unity version!

Not too long ago indie zombie mmo Dead Frontier was re-released with a lovely new Unity front end so I thought I'd have a bit of a play to see what it was like.

Much improved as it turns out! The old flash interface felt a bit clunky but the Unity version runs smooth. The whole feel of the game is just better but it still has the atmosphere of the previous version it's just more alive (uh, gameplay speaking at least!)

Zombies don't always just hone in on your position, some of them just wander around unless attacked. The combat feels very similar, mostly back-pedaling while shooting to avoid the zombie melee attacks.

The other thing I noticed was that there's no solo play any more, you're in the world with everyone else, shooting away. People were talking to me but I decided to be rude and not reply - mainly because I'd forgotten what the talk key was and couldn't be bothered to try all of them at the time! Also someone else had just run past with a chainsaw, cutting his way through crowds of zombies, so I decided to follow him instead, safety in numbers and all that...

I've not ventured too far into the game this time, unlike last time! But again you'll probably have to spend real cash (or recommend-a-friend for in-game cash) to get decent equipment any time soon. It's possible to survive without paying anything, but you won't get that super shotgun for months otherwise!

Saying that, this is an indie effort which should be supported because, well the guy has obviously put a lot of time into this and it's paid off! Also, as one of the in-game-ads says "Servers Cost Money!" I would have liked to have seen some changes to the marketplace though, that feels quite slow and it can take an age to sift through everything when you don't know what a good weapon is or not.

Anyway, since it's free to get started why not give it a shot? http://www.deadfrontier.com/

Sword Of The Stars - the new breed of ships!

Oho, I'm waiting for this one in a big way. Mainly because my brother is such a huge fan of the original and if our gigantic battles from that is anything to go by, this is going to be epic.

Kerberos has just released a teaser vid of the new ships, nice 360 degree inspections of them too. However not too much on the gameplay yet but I'm guessing they'll get there soon.

I wasn't too keen on the flickering logos either side of the ships, they were a bit distracting (maybe a bit of flicker, not so much would be better?)

Anyway, check em out!

Here Kitty! Blade Kitten!

Do you like japanese comic books? Do you like japanese comic book girlies? Are you specifically keen on cat-based japanese comic book girlies? Then by george you're gonna like this!

Blade Kitten is the game adaptation of the comic book by Krome Studios Creative Director Steve Stamatiadis (AKA Space Captain Steve.) The game follows a Felion (Cat type humanoid) Bounty Hunter called Kit Ballard as she hunts down criminals on the planet of Hollow Wish.

Genre? It's a 3D side scrolling platformer, which means plenty of mid-air acrobatics and missing ledges by millimeters but since you have a sword (the afforementioned Blade) there's lots of futurising swashbuckling to be done too. Also because this is the future, Kit often doesn't need to hold the blade and it rushese foward on her command, hacking down her enemies in an instant. Cool.

Also having Cat like abilities she can climb up curtains walls and ceilings, which often leads to secret bonus chests. And going back to my "missed jumps" comment, that was a bit unfair because for the more pinpoint accurate ones it lets you target the ledge by pressing Q and then magically (and pretty seemlessly) Kit ends up exactly where you wanted her. Also by pressing Q you can dig your blade into the ground to stop yourself from being blown away by huge air fans.

I've played through the whole of the demo now and found that it was good! Probably the best modern platformer I've played in quite some time but I think I enjoyed it most because of the small cut-scenes that littered the level whenever I got close to whom I was chasing. It's very much like playing a comic book because of these and Kit Ballard is a strangely likeable character, especially after reading the free online comics.

So definitely one to try, and you can get the game and demo here on steam

Now I could show a gameplay video, but most other blogs have used the main trailer so I'm going to put this one of the many costumes you can dress Kit Ballard in. Nice.

My Minecraft addiction (part 3?!)

Probably my final installment for a while as I don't want to get sucked completely into minecraft to never return!

But, well take a look at where I was a couple of nights ago:

I was removing the rest of the hill and it was taking forever! I was so tempted to start my bridge to that cliff over there. But I stuck with my plan! This would be a proper castle, with proper walls to keep proper monsters out!

Finally as you can see, I started to peek through to my original refuge area where I first hid from monsters at night, without the knowledge of torches! I started up the furnaces and started to smelt the nicer looking rocks (the non-cobblestone ones) ready to finish off my floor to remove any earth blocks that might cause monsters to spawn upon them.

Then while removing some of these earth blocks I fell through the floor into a new dungeon I had not yet seen! I was beset upon by a zombie and managed to build a single tower upwards to escape! It's dark down there...

Finally after another days work the inside of the keep has reached stage 1! A nice floor all around and no more hill on the inside left!

Ahhh, home sweet home...And this is how it will stay until I get some serious spare time to work on it, but as fun as minecraft is it's still in alpha after all.

There's plenty I would like to see, especially in the way of crafting: there's just not enough yet! I can build great structures and when exploring you get to see some amazing sights (in terms of generated terrain, it's a thing of beauty!)

But there's not enough to hold my interest in the long run yet. I'm confident that Notch, the developer, is going to make this one of the most interesting games ever created but until a few more updates I'll be leaving my castle to stand proud on the horizon, steady and solid until needed...

Casual Corner: Hospital Haste!

Time for this weeks casual offering and this time it's (another) time management game called Hospital Haste.

You play as Nurse Sally and must attend to the needs of patients as they arrive at the clinic by fetching their charts and medicine as well as cleaning up after them.

Sounds a bit like hard work eh? Well luckily all you have to do is click on the jobs in the best order and try to build up combos of the same type of work to gain bonus points. So it's not quite as bad as it sounds!

The music was very muzak (not that I can talk!) and didn't really stand out, but it was enjoyable enough. The same for the artwork really, it wasn't the best I've seen but it was passable, although not quite as good as much of the artwork you see on BigFishGames.

I'm pretty much drawn to any time management game but I didn't enjoy this as much as, say, "My Kingdom for the Princess 2" but it was still a lot of fun and surprisingly difficult to get Expert scores on some of the levels!

Anyway, why not have a go with their free one hour demo, perhaps after watching the video below.

(PS: I'm thinking of giving some BFG game credits away in a competition soon so stay tuned for that!)

How to Rocket Jump

Now I'm sure many of you already know how to do this, but just in case here is a handy guide on the correct procedure for Rocket Jumping...



(Also check out his video on how to use aim-bot!)

My Minecraft addiction (part 2!)

Oh yes it continues and this time I've been busy building up the walls of my fortress after how successful the building of my tower was. This is how it was half way through...

So it's getting there. However even with this wall up (4 units high) I still had a spider spawn inside my walls at night! My next experiment will be removing all soil cubes (or at least a solid covering of stone) to see if that will prevent evil things from spawning into my new home.

During construction I did a fair bit of mining and have finally hit the bottom of the world! I now have some of the fairly rare red metal stuff so I can now build a compass to find my way home if I decide to go wandering. I also have a few pieces of gold which is carefully stored in my "what the heck should I do with this?" box.

However while mining I did uncover a single block that let 3 skeletons and a zombie into my own castle! I had to quickly run away (I've still not got any armor) and fight them off while building a door to my mine to keep them all out in future.

I also had a bit more of an explore of that strange rock formation further away, closer up it looks like this:

And has a huge mine underneath which will obviously require my attention later (and I mean I'll be sealing it up, I'm a big 'fraidy cat) I still can't wait to build my bridge to this at some point soon.

My Minecraft addiction (part 1?)

A load of other sites seem to be doing a Minecraft series so I thought I would start one. Despite this weekends disastrous update session I think this is one of the biggest games to hit the PC gaming world recently.

I've only owned the game for a week after spending £10 on a whim after reading an RPS article on the game. Its taken up so much of my time that I've missed 3 of my blogging deadlines already and not written a proper review for ages! But enough about me and the impact the game is having on the community (and me), lets take a look at what actually happens.

On starting you're immediately on your own, thrust into the big wide world, usually spawning by the sea and sand. This really gave me the feeling of being stranded somewhere and having to make the most of it. When I first started playing I didn't know about the very useful Wiki that's out there about crafting so most of what I built was guesswork, but I did manage to make some sticks to hit sheep with.

Anyway, after a bit of exploring I decided to start digging into a nearby hill right next to where I spawned. I decided this would become my home and would eventually be a massive castle. I didn't make much progress on the first day, a stick doesn't exactly cut through rock very quickly even in this make-believe world.

So on consulting the Wiki I found how to build proper tools from wood and rock and even iron. These helped me, over the course of several days, to dig out most of the hill and even downwards towards the core of the planet to collect more minerals (which so far has been disappointingly pitiful!)

However, check out my tower!

I know it's not too much to look at yet but it's the start of my castle! It will be epic. Also, check out that cool mountain to the left. That was there when I spawned and I plan to build a bridge from my castle to that and make it a great feature.

The inside of the hill that's behind the tower there took quite some time to dig out but I think it was worth the time...hopefully...

Yeah loads of torches and boxes (got some more out of view there)

Currently I haven't done too much exploring. I'm still building up my resources and tool stocks. I could really do with finding some good deposits of metals and such. But I'd also like my castle to be finished before I set off so I have a nice home to return to.

This game is far too addictive!

Trouble 't mill? GOG gone?

Good Old Games, that for two years has celebrated old PC games from the last 20 years, has seemingly gone! On visiting the site we're presented with the following message:

Dear GOG users,

We have recently had to give serious thought to whether we could really keep GOG.com the way it is. We've debated on it for quite some time and, unfortunately, we've decided that GOG.com simply cannot remain in its current form.

We're very grateful for all support we've received from all of you in the past two years. Working on GOG.com was a great adventure for all of us and an unforgettable journey to the past, through the long and wonderful history of PC gaming.


This doesn't mean the idea behind GOG.com is gone forever. We're closing down the service and putting this era behind us as new challenges await.
On a technical note, this week we'll put in place a solution to allow everyone to re-download their games. Stay tuned to this page and follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates.


All the best,
GOG.com Team

Oh dear. That's a big shame because you could get some real bargains off there and they usually had specials running each week and...well maybe not all is lost.

You could read into this, specifically from the "cannot remain in its current form" part of the message, that perhaps GOG will soon be back but with a different pricing method...or DRM...or something. There's plenty of fuel for the twitter rumour mill with claims of a monthly subscription for example (to which I would totally subscribe!)

Still, why they had to shut the whole site down to do this is a bit strange, and the last "solution to allow everyone to re-download their games" part was more worrying. Just when I was thinking about buying Stronghold too....and Stronghold 2...

Take a look at the rather sad message here.

A Revolution Approaches: Deus Ex 3!

It's always dangerous to hold out hope for a sequel not made by the original development team of the series. However there have been some exceptions over the years, most recently Bioshock2 was a nice surprise for me (which is good because that team is also making the new X-com game...)

So for a few years now I've been watching progress on the new Deus Ex game being made by Eidos-Montreal. I spent quite a bit of time observing the forums a year or so ago trying to fathom out if it was worth waiting for and I have to say I wasn't incredibly hopeful back then.

Then again, the sequel that was made by the original team was shockingly bad and didn't feel like the team had their heart in it. So maybe it's a good thing to have the third installment developed by people who enjoyed the first game the most.

I've read quite a lot spanning several sites and articles and these are the facts I've filed in my head about it:

• There's a cover system (hmmm)
• Tons of augmentations (upgrades for the character you play)
• Music is not by Alexander Brandon (boo)
• Ammo is not universal (each weapon needs it's own ammo type)
• It's possible to get through most of the game without killing anyone
• Levels can be completed in different ways depending on your play style (Stealth/Assault/etc...)

So my "hopefullness" level is rising, but because this game feels like it's a bit late now (I'm sure it was originally to be released in 2009 or something) it's just a question of when it will be out there to buy (supposedly March 2011 but we'll see!)

And because I always like to include a video, here's the latest trailer which has been shown at this week's Tokyo Game Show:

The Arcen Games Problem

Arcen games are in a bit of a pickle by the looks of things, which is a sad situation for all of us. The creators of the very well received AI War, but the apparently poor selling Tidalis have revealed that they are not doing so well financially.

This is a real shame because Tidalis was such a well produced game it's a surprise it has not done as well. Is it because hard core gamers instinctively avoid puzzle games? Or because it didn't reach the right casual audience? There could be any number of explanations, but right now the important thing is how can the community help a struggling independent developer who is obviously capable of great things?

I made a few cheeky suggestions myself via email but I'm sure I won't be the one to think of the magical solution that will help so if you've got any ideas for the team, or fancy buying any of their wonderful games then why not pop over to their forums and spill em!

Here's a video of AI War (specifically the Zenith Remnant add-on) for those that have not yet seen it (or forgotten it!)

Left4Dead Comic And Valve Interviews!

There's a couple of goodies out there for Valve fans that have appear over the last few days. Firstly, PC Gamer have been transcribing a bunch of interviews they did while over there where they talk about all manner of things Valve and they're a very interesting read!

But more fun than a load of words is the Lef4Dead comic that Valve have released! Featuring 60 pages of zombie smashing goodness this graphic novel will describe not only how one member of the original cast dies but also documents some of the early days of the infection.

Named "The Sacrifice" this is only part 1, so the whole thing could be around 240 pages in total! It's well worth the read for anyone who's even seen a small part of the games and, most importantly has been written and drawn by people within Valve. So often it is sadly not the case...

Anyway, take a look at that here!

Scrabblin' to Victory!

Kind of casual corner time, but not really. I was a bit stumped as to wot to write about today but after consulting my "how to blog" handbook (one of those would be useful actually...) I decided to write about what I've been doing!

And over the last couple of days I've been very much into Scrabble on Facebook! I know, I know I can practically feel your faces contorting into puzzled expressions as to why I would do such a thing and play a board game online. However it's mostly practice before I go up against my good friend from the spellmaking blog who has a reputation for being very good with his words.

So I was quite surprised with how good the official scrabble on FB was. Okay, it's not the most complex of games to play anyway and they've had similar versions of the game online before to check out (eg, Yahoo's literatti) but even so it's good to see the word "scrabble" at the top of the page, even if it is overshaddowed by adverts!

It's free, you can play multiple games at a time setting time limits for moves, includes an online dictionary and quick reference for 2-letter-words so all in all the best online scrabble I can remember playing! I'd link it but I don't fancy linking a facebook page from here, you can easily find it by searching on facebook however...Anyway, take a look at this game of two titans battling it out (eg, my wife and I!)

I am a word genius!

I've been playing: Recettear!

After seeing the many previews that came out about this earlier in the month I thought it best that I cast my expert eye over this item trading shop game...

"So you want to run an item shop eh? No? It's more fun than it sounds!" No matter how I tried to describe this to people in real life I got pretty much the same expression, a twisted face of dissaproval. Sadness.

But it really isn't quite as boring as it sounds. You play Recette, a young girl who is left all on her lonesome after her father never returns from his most recent adventure. After not too long a debt agency turns up in the form of Tear, a fairly, demanding that she pay back a rather large loan that her father secured against the house. He sounds dependable to me...

So Tear convinces Recette to convert the house into a shop to be able to pay back the debt in more manageable chunks every week and thus the "adventure" starts!

I won't say too much more because I may do a larger review of this later in the week. But the Free Demo can be got from gamersgate!

So here's a video of the game in action which I'm sure will give you an insight into whether the game is for you or not. Prepare yourselves...

It has Levers! Excruciating Guitar Voyage

Excruciating Guitar Voyage is a strange name for a game I think you'll agree, but it's the name that WickedWorx have chosen for their Southparkian platformer.

And thus followed certainly one of the more memorable trailers for a game I've seen all year where the features of the game are listed quite as explosively as here. It also scores points for having a character called "Dan Flashbang" who also sports such wonderful facial hair.

Their base of opperations is http://www.wickedworx.net/ and, well the game isn't out yet but I'm certainly hoping to give it a good go when it's released.

And finally here is the trailer:

Will you help me Portal Two?

In the absence of a obviously witty post title that's what you get I'm afraid. Anyway, I'm getting all excited about Valve's Portal Sequel now, even though it's probably a year away or so (in realistic terms) and the co-op side of it is especially appealing. Provided I can actually convince someone else I know to play through it with me!!

Recently at PAX (Penny Arcade Expo, which I've never been to...bah) they showed a trailer of the co-op section of the game which, if I've understood everything I've read about it, has it's own story and all! While previously only grainy "Shaky-cam" footage was available before the net has become awash with HD versions of the video in the last few days.

So here it is one of those, posted by the Valve fan site Halflife2.net! Yay!

To Victory! VVVVVV!

It's been a while since I've come across a retro-platformer that I can completely recommend. VVVVVV is a fantastically spectrum-like game all the way down to the loading screen (you know, with the loading bar around the edge like a speccy used to have? No? Go here then and learn what it used to be like for us!)

Anyway, ignoring the look we must judge this game on the remaining 3 important attributes of any pc game.

Gameplay, which is excellent. This is a 100% skill based game which, according to the steam description, you can complete in any order dependent only on how good you are right now. You can save at any time but there are also plenty of checkpoints and they're worked out very well to provide enough of a challenge while keeping you hooked.

The Music is awesome, I'm a big fan of chip music - there's a real skill involved in it's creation and it's surprisingly difficult to make it easy to listen to consistantly.

And finally the Story, while fairly basic gives you a bit of a boost when you do something well and complete some of the more difficult challenges. The background being that you must attempt to rescue the crew of your ship who all have names based on their colour (which is far less racist than it sounds!)

So all in all very cool. I'm a few hours in and have not yet completed it. Although I've uncovered most of the map and only have 1 crew-memeber to save I've no idea if I'm near the end or not! If it turns out it's a bit short I shall report back, however so far it's certainly been worth the £4 it's being sold for on steam.

But you can also buy it direct for cheaper (yay!) for £3.36 from the developers website, which you should definitely do. And there's even a free online demo (flash)! (psst, it's also available on mac)

And as usual I enclose a self addressed envelope video of the game in action:

Are you mad, Lylian?

In my inbox-of-terror this morning I find an interesting press release for an interesting game!

From independent studio PixelPickle Games (nice) approaches Lylian (episode 1) which is a side scrolling beat-em-up game set, as far as I can tell, in a children's (mental?) hospital.

The trailer is strangely disturbing mainly down to the obvious mood swings that Lylian appears to suffer from. Also, notice the teddy she flings around? Her sidekick apparently, although I'm not yet sure to what capacity he/she helps Lylian, everyone should have a teddy bear helper!

What is clear from the game play video is that Lylian appears to attack her enemies, which seem to be nurses working at the hospital, by flailing the long sleeves of her straight-jacket! Very resourceful...

Although Lylian has not yet been released, you can find more over at their official site and here's the teaser trailer.

New Review: Battlefield Academy

Wow another review so soon?

This time it's Battlefield Academy from Matrix Games/Slitherine (you know Slitherine? The guys who do the "computer simulations" for the Deadliest Warrior TV show?)

BA is a turn based strategy game set during the Second Wold War. Since the review is out (and you should definitely go and read it) I won't bore you with too many details here but instead will show you a nice video of how to play the game:

(Not) breaking News! Duke Nukem revived by Gearbox!

Well I'm not much good at breaking news stuff so I generally steer clear of it, plus there's hundreds of sites out there for that kind of news, I'm sure you all visit here for more digestable news without tons of ads spamming you...*Anyway*

Yes officially announced last Friday (the 3rd) Duke Nukem Forever has been brought back to life by Gearbox software (my heroes, but not just for this - I still love Borderlands!) And whats more - people are actually playing it. Right now. Okay well testing it is probably more accurate but, blimey it's been a long decade to wait including many unreached release dates.

Everyone seems very excited about this but I completely reserve judgment until I play it! After all, this is Gearbox, but it's got more to live up to than any other game ever!

Finding a decent video of the gameplay isn't as easy as it should be (get your act together 2k games! Oh, and put me on your press-list please!) But this is the easiest to watch so far:


My thoughts: well they're all playing on consoles for a start which is always a bad sign. One of my major gripes with Borderlands was it's console like control system (agh, turn mouse smoothing off!) Also a lot of the early stuff in the video looks like it contains quite a bit of...extra curricular activities that you can partake in, hmmm. Love the look of the whiteboard you can draw on! Otherwise I'm feeling very lets-wait-and-see-ish, not in a negative way but more in a "I've been hurt before!" Kind of way.

Can Gearbox really make this the game everyone wishes it to be?

D2D Turns 6, with lots of deals!

While I'm in a dealy mood, what with BFG's summer deal yesterday why not continue the blog trend with news of Direct2Drives "We're turning 6 years old, woo!" Sale which started on Wednesday (I think?)

The gimmic being that they'll be selling different games each week for £6 each and this week it includes some classics like "Defense Grid", "Titan Quest" and "Knights of the Old Republic" (although I'd recommend waiting for a Steam sale for that one perhaps?)

These can be found here

But also you may see up there, hidden in the top right corner a sign saying: "Click here for awesome daily deals" kind of as if they don't want you to see them! Currently today you can get "Gun" and "Vampire the Masquerade 2" for cheapo prices!

And those can be found there

Casual Corner Part 2: Sale on at BigFishGames

BigFishGames are holding an Endless Summer Sale! Except that it ends on the 6th of Sept 2010, so if you've seen any of their standard edition games that you like the look of then this is probably one of your last chances to get them for a cheapo price!

Recently they upped all their prices from $6.99 to $9.99 but in this sale you can get any standard edition game for only $4.99!

All their games have 1 hour trials so you even have time to try them out first, of course I would highly recommend either of the "My Kingdom for the Princess" games, as previously mentioned!

So here's the way to do it, visit the site, download a trial of a game, decide if you like it or not and if you do use the following promotional code: ENDLESS when buying it. Simples!

The only thing you can't do is buy a special edition version of a game using this code, but I've not tried any of those yet so I can't vouch for their specialness...

Of course anything you do buy helps support this site too (yay!) So it's also for a good cause!

Casual Corner: My Kingom for the Princess 2

This was an insta-buy for me, I really enjoyed the first game and have been waiting for a sequel ever since!

So if you've not seen the original (which is still briliant) here's the low down: You are presented with an area and a number of tasks. You start off with only a single worker who can perform one task at a time.  This worker can perform most tasks, such as clearing logs off a road or building bridges and repairing broken roads.

Further through the game you get more and more choice which influences the order in which you can perform tasks. Upgraded your mine rather than you sawmill? You can clear more rocks but probably not build those bridges!

The sequel has introduced a load of new elements which build on the original - such as having to use monks to clear ghosts (rather than the temple just removing them all at once) and the new bonuses that help with resources.

Other new bits are the added arcade levels inbetween the standard game sections, such as navigating your ship around some rocks to collect all the coins. Not exactly ground breaking stuff, but a nice break from the rest of the game nonetheless.

It's very tactical time-management and being the perfectionist that I am I can't help but try and complete all levels in the bonus time. This of course means I end up with the completed castle at the end of the game!

So with all that said, Click here to visit the page on BigFishGames

And here's a (rather badly produced in my opinion) video of the game in action:

Guest Review Time! Worms Reloaded!

Today we welcome a very special guest reviewer, none other than my team-mate and good friend: Alistair White! (But we lovingly call him "Pikey")

And he'll be telling you all about the delights of the latest Team17 offering: Worms Reloaded that's recently been released onto Steam.

Click here to read the review!

And as usual, here's a video of the game in action:

Unreal Sonic! Sonic GDK...

Currently we're all waiting for Sonic 4 (episode 1) to be released, or at least I am! But so far no PC release information has been forthcoming, which is a shame and probably indicates they'll be ignoring us again...Woe is us...However all is not lost! As I was browsing Gametrailers today (I'm not feeling too well) I came upon a very interesting video for any sonic fans out there!

Basically some very clever chap has been working on a sonic-the-hedgehog game development kit using the Unreal Torunament engine! And it's looking rather fine so far.

No enemies shown in the video yet but I was quite impressed with the physics and gameplay that can be achieved. The 2D perspective part was the best for me as it gave a sense of what classic gameplay could be achieved by the engine.

I'll be keeping an eye on this because I'm a rather sad Sonic fan, and in the meantime here is a video of the GDK in action!