Showing posts with label Freeware. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Freeware. Show all posts
Monday, 23 August 2010
Enter the Story: Les Miserables
Enter the Story: Les Miserables is now free! Looks interesting. Check it for free here. You can read a review of it here.
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Osmos: Free Sound Track
Can't turn down free music The creators of the game Osmos have released the soundtrack for the game to celebrate their release on the iphone. check out the soundtrack for the game Osmos here in both MP3 and M4A format.
There's a little bit more to the story, if you've purchased Osmos direct from them you can get the newest album of Matt Jarvis for free. Details here.
If you've purchased it on Steam or haven't bought Osmos, you can still get it for free by checking out details here.
There's a little bit more to the story, if you've purchased Osmos direct from them you can get the newest album of Matt Jarvis for free. Details here.
If you've purchased it on Steam or haven't bought Osmos, you can still get it for free by checking out details here.
Saturday, 29 May 2010
Tiberian Sun + Firestorm Review
Just a couple of comments about the games which I've just finished:
Graphics and Art Direction
Comparing Firestorm and Tiberian Sun, I feel that Firestorm is actually more along the lines of what I felt Tiberian Sun should have been. The original Tiberian Sun suffered from brown and grey with only the occassional green, blue and orange Tiberian to brighten it up. Firestorm on the other hand introduces a variety Tiberium flora and fauna making the game more colourful, more organic and definitely gives that sense of just how alien Tiberian is and how its threatening the Earth.
Campaign and Storyline
One thing I liked about Tiberium Dawn and Red Alert was the fact that briefings made you feel like you were really a commander of your troops by placing you in the first person perspective. In Tiberian Sun however they removed that by having you play as Commander Mcneil, and the movies had you watching him do things. This change resulted in a loss of personal involvement. I'm happy that they reinstated this in Firestorm where they address you personally during briefings making your computer seem like a real battle console. I wouldn't mind however if they actually assigned you a name as it does seem somewhat strange in the briefings.
With regards to the plot, in Tiberian Sun, Kane and Slavic barely makes an appearance. Most of the time, it's just you receiving briefings from General Soloman similar to the first although Kane and Slavic are often talked about. You seem to only be chasing after them rather than battling them.
Also the GDI and Nod storylines intertwine but its hard to figure out where exactly on the overall time line you are on because the times they occur in can be different and you don't really see the same events from a different perspective. Instead you often play events that occur before or after the event in the other sides storyline.
I really like how in Firestorm that Cabal gets more involved in the GDI and Nod campaign. I particularly enjoyed his creepy mocking laughter as he launches cyborg attacks against you.
Gameplay & Interface
Still fairly fun as each side is different from the other. I do still feel that Nod still seems bit weaker than GDI even with the subterranean units. I guess the reason is Nod units are weaker and cost about the same or even more
Harvester AI remains a mess with harversters trying to return to refineries across the map. The only way around this is to have only one refinery.
Controlling Jumpset Infantry is more annoying than fun as you can't ask them to stay flying. They keep trying to land after eliminating one target.
I've also been trying to get the carryalls to automatically pick up harvesters and deposit them at the refinary but I can't see to do that which is a step back from Dune II
There are actualy a number of advanced options that you can set if you bother to read the manual including:
Patrol cycles
You can set up waypoints so units will automatically repair if damaged.
Conclusion
Overall, it's still worth playing now and there's no reason not to try it out now that it's free. Firestorm just seems more fun to me overall even though its shorter.
Don't forget, you can download the first three games in the Command and Conquer Universe here.
Graphics and Art Direction
Comparing Firestorm and Tiberian Sun, I feel that Firestorm is actually more along the lines of what I felt Tiberian Sun should have been. The original Tiberian Sun suffered from brown and grey with only the occassional green, blue and orange Tiberian to brighten it up. Firestorm on the other hand introduces a variety Tiberium flora and fauna making the game more colourful, more organic and definitely gives that sense of just how alien Tiberian is and how its threatening the Earth.
Campaign and Storyline
One thing I liked about Tiberium Dawn and Red Alert was the fact that briefings made you feel like you were really a commander of your troops by placing you in the first person perspective. In Tiberian Sun however they removed that by having you play as Commander Mcneil, and the movies had you watching him do things. This change resulted in a loss of personal involvement. I'm happy that they reinstated this in Firestorm where they address you personally during briefings making your computer seem like a real battle console. I wouldn't mind however if they actually assigned you a name as it does seem somewhat strange in the briefings.
With regards to the plot, in Tiberian Sun, Kane and Slavic barely makes an appearance. Most of the time, it's just you receiving briefings from General Soloman similar to the first although Kane and Slavic are often talked about. You seem to only be chasing after them rather than battling them.
Also the GDI and Nod storylines intertwine but its hard to figure out where exactly on the overall time line you are on because the times they occur in can be different and you don't really see the same events from a different perspective. Instead you often play events that occur before or after the event in the other sides storyline.
I really like how in Firestorm that Cabal gets more involved in the GDI and Nod campaign. I particularly enjoyed his creepy mocking laughter as he launches cyborg attacks against you.
Gameplay & Interface
Still fairly fun as each side is different from the other. I do still feel that Nod still seems bit weaker than GDI even with the subterranean units. I guess the reason is Nod units are weaker and cost about the same or even more
Harvester AI remains a mess with harversters trying to return to refineries across the map. The only way around this is to have only one refinery.
Controlling Jumpset Infantry is more annoying than fun as you can't ask them to stay flying. They keep trying to land after eliminating one target.
I've also been trying to get the carryalls to automatically pick up harvesters and deposit them at the refinary but I can't see to do that which is a step back from Dune II
There are actualy a number of advanced options that you can set if you bother to read the manual including:
Patrol cycles
You can set up waypoints so units will automatically repair if damaged.
Conclusion
Overall, it's still worth playing now and there's no reason not to try it out now that it's free. Firestorm just seems more fun to me overall even though its shorter.
Don't forget, you can download the first three games in the Command and Conquer Universe here.
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Spirit Engine Review + Save Files
So just finished The Spirit Engine by Mark Pay. A freeware RPG game. If you love RPGs I highly recommend you get it. It's an amazing effort and I think still stands the test of time. By the way, I enjoyed it way more than playing Quake 4.
Download it from the official site here:
The Spirit Engine
Don't forget you can download the music for free at Josh Whelchel's site here:
Spirit Engine OST
The game has good writing, good story, good pacing, good grahpics and I only get stuck in a couple of places and had to level up a little. Which is good because I can't stand training for too long.
Anyway, here are a couple of gameplay and interface issues I noticed with the game which mar this otherwise great freeware classic. Most of these issues are fixed in the Sequel The Spirit Engine 2 so take this as a lesson in what not to do in an RPG.
1) Save points cost gold - Games like Resident Evil did the same thing with limited saves and was the game better for it? I don't think so. Furthermore, save points cost more money the further you travel into a world. The thing is the game has a sneak/run past function allowing you to cross completed areas without engaging in battle. So what I ended up doing was using that to travel back towards a free or cheaper save point to do so. It just means more pointless clicking for the gamer.
2) Skill chains are hard to change - You can save up to 3 skill chains and toggle between them mid-battle on the fly but the better option is to enter the skill menu causing the game to pause and then changing it. Entering the skill menu is much better because it gives you greater control over what you want the characters to do.
3) Skill chains are hard to track while in combat - Because the timing is different depending on the skill used you don't really know where on the skill chain your character is. i.e. is the character performing skill 1, skill 2 or skill 3? It's easy to tell if you've specified all of them to be different. E.g Life Drain, Chain Magic, Kinetic Shield. But if you're like me and have a chain such as Life drain, Life Drain, Kinetic shield and need to change it, it gets troublesome. Is my Wizard on the first Life Drain or the second?
4) Pointless underground graphics - One of the unique aspects of The Spirit Engine is the fact that the game takes place from a side-on perspective similar to platformers. I am very curious why Mark Pay bothered to create graphics showing the underground. i.e. tree roots and buried rocks. It certainly is interesting but honestly I would have preferred some sort of additional GUI interfaces to help address the above issues as covered above.
5) More descriptions required in the menu - When buying an item, a very creative text by the merchant gives you a rough idea about what the item's special properties are for. Unfortunately after buying it there is no indication of what it actually does except for an asterisk next to its name. You have to exit the current game and check out the included help file for a more detail description. Annoying as there seems to be plenty of empty space in the game and equipment menus that could have used for it so it's curious as to why this was done. Maybe something to with memory issues?
6) Skills were unlocked too soon - You obtain access to all the skills early on in the game there really isn't anything to look forward to. I was kind of hoping to see some super powerful attacks or something but unfortunately these never materialised which is a shame. I think maybe one special ultimate per character would have been cool. Not a big deal but would have been icing on the cake.
7) Larger inventory needed - There are a fair number talismans and pieces of equipment in the game. It would have been nice to be able to have a larger inventory to actually keep most of them!
7) Music instruments are a bit too artificial - First of the actual melodies are actually quite pleasant, I do feel Josh Whelchel does need make the music instruments less artificial and sharper. I can't really complain although because it's free free free!
This wasn't quite fixed in The Spirit Engine 2 unfortunately. I guess I was hoping for Playstation 1 type music but still getting music that's sort of more similar to Sega Megadrive and SNES music.
The Spirit Engine Troubleshooting
Crashing to desktop after battle
A very common bug in the game is where your game crashes to the desktop after battle. This usually happens about 30-45 minutes of playing without exiting the game. This bug is due to how the program engine interfaces with newer windows. The only way around this is quit the game completely and re-enter it. I usually do this after I reach a save point.
Screen too small in Windows XP
You have to right click and set to resolution to run at 640x480 resolution on the "The Spirit Engine.EXE" file.
The Spirit Engine Save Files
You can download my Spirit Engine save files here in case you would like to replay the last level, defeat the last boss and watch the ending again.
Spirit Engine Save Files
The characters I used were:
Download it from the official site here:
The Spirit Engine
Don't forget you can download the music for free at Josh Whelchel's site here:
Spirit Engine OST
The game has good writing, good story, good pacing, good grahpics and I only get stuck in a couple of places and had to level up a little. Which is good because I can't stand training for too long.
Anyway, here are a couple of gameplay and interface issues I noticed with the game which mar this otherwise great freeware classic. Most of these issues are fixed in the Sequel The Spirit Engine 2 so take this as a lesson in what not to do in an RPG.
1) Save points cost gold - Games like Resident Evil did the same thing with limited saves and was the game better for it? I don't think so. Furthermore, save points cost more money the further you travel into a world. The thing is the game has a sneak/run past function allowing you to cross completed areas without engaging in battle. So what I ended up doing was using that to travel back towards a free or cheaper save point to do so. It just means more pointless clicking for the gamer.
2) Skill chains are hard to change - You can save up to 3 skill chains and toggle between them mid-battle on the fly but the better option is to enter the skill menu causing the game to pause and then changing it. Entering the skill menu is much better because it gives you greater control over what you want the characters to do.
3) Skill chains are hard to track while in combat - Because the timing is different depending on the skill used you don't really know where on the skill chain your character is. i.e. is the character performing skill 1, skill 2 or skill 3? It's easy to tell if you've specified all of them to be different. E.g Life Drain, Chain Magic, Kinetic Shield. But if you're like me and have a chain such as Life drain, Life Drain, Kinetic shield and need to change it, it gets troublesome. Is my Wizard on the first Life Drain or the second?
4) Pointless underground graphics - One of the unique aspects of The Spirit Engine is the fact that the game takes place from a side-on perspective similar to platformers. I am very curious why Mark Pay bothered to create graphics showing the underground. i.e. tree roots and buried rocks. It certainly is interesting but honestly I would have preferred some sort of additional GUI interfaces to help address the above issues as covered above.
5) More descriptions required in the menu - When buying an item, a very creative text by the merchant gives you a rough idea about what the item's special properties are for. Unfortunately after buying it there is no indication of what it actually does except for an asterisk next to its name. You have to exit the current game and check out the included help file for a more detail description. Annoying as there seems to be plenty of empty space in the game and equipment menus that could have used for it so it's curious as to why this was done. Maybe something to with memory issues?
6) Skills were unlocked too soon - You obtain access to all the skills early on in the game there really isn't anything to look forward to. I was kind of hoping to see some super powerful attacks or something but unfortunately these never materialised which is a shame. I think maybe one special ultimate per character would have been cool. Not a big deal but would have been icing on the cake.
7) Larger inventory needed - There are a fair number talismans and pieces of equipment in the game. It would have been nice to be able to have a larger inventory to actually keep most of them!
7) Music instruments are a bit too artificial - First of the actual melodies are actually quite pleasant, I do feel Josh Whelchel does need make the music instruments less artificial and sharper. I can't really complain although because it's free free free!
This wasn't quite fixed in The Spirit Engine 2 unfortunately. I guess I was hoping for Playstation 1 type music but still getting music that's sort of more similar to Sega Megadrive and SNES music.
The Spirit Engine Troubleshooting
Crashing to desktop after battle
A very common bug in the game is where your game crashes to the desktop after battle. This usually happens about 30-45 minutes of playing without exiting the game. This bug is due to how the program engine interfaces with newer windows. The only way around this is quit the game completely and re-enter it. I usually do this after I reach a save point.
Screen too small in Windows XP
You have to right click and set to resolution to run at 640x480 resolution on the "The Spirit Engine.EXE" file.
The Spirit Engine Save Files
You can download my Spirit Engine save files here in case you would like to replay the last level, defeat the last boss and watch the ending again.
Spirit Engine Save Files
The characters I used were:
- Clara
- Edward
- Matthieu
Sunday, 21 February 2010
Spirit Engine 2 now free
Saturday, 2 January 2010
Dr Blob's Organism Review
Dr Blob's Organism is a shooter with a twist. Instead of controlling a spaceship on a screen, you control lasers around a petri dish and fire inward trying to prevent a blob from escaping the petri dish. It's initially quite fun but the novelty of shooting in a petri dish wears off there really isn't enough variety in powerups, graphics or enemies to push you to play. There are freeware games with more varied gameplay.
A smooth shooter but it feels below average in some way. Recommended to try out for the funky music and novel gameplay but thankfully you no longer have to pay for it.
A smooth shooter but it feels below average in some way. Recommended to try out for the funky music and novel gameplay but thankfully you no longer have to pay for it.
Saturday, 31 October 2009
Tribes 1 and 2: Released to and Supported by the Community
To promote Tribes Vengeance back in 2004, Tribes 1 and 2 were released for free along with CD keys. CD key distribution eventually stopped and although the games were still freeware and playable over LAN, you couldn't play over the Internet with other players.
The Tribes official servers were shut down last year and the community has stepped in over the last year or so. You can now get setup and play Tribes 1 and 2 here and here respectively. I'm pretty sure Tribes 2 works not so sure about Tribes 1 unfortunately.
The Tribes official servers were shut down last year and the community has stepped in over the last year or so. You can now get setup and play Tribes 1 and 2 here and here respectively. I'm pretty sure Tribes 2 works not so sure about Tribes 1 unfortunately.
Monday, 5 October 2009
Engima Rising Tide for Free
Enigma: Rising Tide is a well-received naval simulator that has now been released for free by the developers as reported by Rock, Paper, Shotgun. The iso which can be downloaded here. It's the Gold version of the game which lacks a number of minor options and doesn't have a soundtrack but otherwise is the same as the retail version. The developer who released it has stated that they'll get around to updating it to the retail version eventually.
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
ASCII Portal
Clocking in at just under 10MB, Asciiportal is inspired by the game Portal. A fun game that even has some gravity and physics in it. Check it out. It's a fun game even in its own right.
Saturday, 19 September 2009
Tales of Monkey Island - Free - Today Only
Get it while it's hot. Telltale Games is offering Tales of Monkey Island free to all registered users for today only. Get it now here!
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
Sourceforge Explorer: Magic Set Editor 0.3.8
If you're into battle card games like Magic The Gathering or Marvel VS and over 15 you're a gaming geek. Say what you will, but if you're still playing battle card games at that age you probably own at least one D & D rulebook and quote passages out of the latest Forgotten Realms novels.
So I'm sure somewhere along the lines of being a battle card player you'll have wanted to make your own cards which is where the free program Magic Set Editor comes in. It's a really cool program that allows you to create your own battle cards very easily. The full installation package for version 0.3.8 comes with templates for Magic The Gathering, Marvel and Yu-Gi-Oh. To create your very own custom deck full of magical cheeseballs, possessed household items and toy tanks all you need to do is choose a card template click on the card template and away you go. In addition there are plenty of useful features like a statistics feature and a search function.
I'm sure this is on the too-do list but the most glaring omission is the lack of an easy to use template creator. You can manually create templates using scripting and adding files in the directories but it is somewhat inaccessible to most people at the moment. But you can't really complain about something like that when the program is free right?
Check it out here.
So I'm sure somewhere along the lines of being a battle card player you'll have wanted to make your own cards which is where the free program Magic Set Editor comes in. It's a really cool program that allows you to create your own battle cards very easily. The full installation package for version 0.3.8 comes with templates for Magic The Gathering, Marvel and Yu-Gi-Oh. To create your very own custom deck full of magical cheeseballs, possessed household items and toy tanks all you need to do is choose a card template click on the card template and away you go. In addition there are plenty of useful features like a statistics feature and a search function.
I'm sure this is on the too-do list but the most glaring omission is the lack of an easy to use template creator. You can manually create templates using scripting and adding files in the directories but it is somewhat inaccessible to most people at the moment. But you can't really complain about something like that when the program is free right?
Check it out here.
Sunday, 16 August 2009
Chzo Mythology + 1213 Special Editions for Free
The Chzo mythos is a bunch of free short adventure horror games created by Ben 'Yahtzee Croshaw. They are entitled 5 days a Stranger, 7 Days a Skeptic, Trilby's Notes and 6 Days a sacrifice respectively. They are considered one of best freeware horror adventure series and have won numerous community awards. The special editions with author commentary which original required donations are now free so download them here. What are you waiting for?
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