Fold Review
February 11, 2008
Fold is an enhanced version of one the wonderfully polished Manifold, offering new challenges and options. It’s another game that features controlling physics, but manages to do it in a never before seen way. The objective of each level is to get from the start point to the goal while avoiding sawblades, spikes, deadly plunges. You control a character who can run and jump, and you get the ability to create anomalies that propel your character in the direction they’re pointing. You can use them to accelerate horizontally, leap high up into the air, or cushion a fall. You can even use them to bounce from point to point, just like a trampoline. Since they can point any direction you want them to, you can direct them towards a wall to change the pull of gravity and walk on walls. The easy levels are a tutorial of how to play, the “uneasy” mode is a test of skills, and “Doubleplus Uneasy” mode is a difficult challenge that takes luck, quick reflexes, and quite a while to beat. Like I said before, the game is well polished, with excellent graphics, sounds and gameplay, as well as providing a challenging game.
Fold gets an A+
Protector Review
February 10, 2008
Protector is a new tower defense game that incorporates RPG elements in order to make a great game that consumes hours of your life at a time. Just like any other tower defense game, you build stationary towers that fire at incoming enemies. Except in this case those towers happen to be mages and warriors who gain experience for every kill they get. Instead of using gold that you get from killing enemies to upgrade your towers, you can only use gold to upgrade towers that have gotten enough experience points. There are four different elemental mages, a warrior, and four unlockable characters that you can place on the map. Certain enemies are stronger and weaker against different elements, so variety is best. Instead of just having one level that you always play on, Protector gives you a map of the world, much like Risk, and lets you choose where to attack. There’s no penalty for losing, and you can return to the main screen at any time. Whenever you complete a different area of the map you get skill points that you can use to strengthen different characters, unlock new ones, or lower prices for different things. The difficulty curve is wavy, with the game starting out easy for a few levels, then it becomes hard, turns easy again, and repeats the cycle until you beat it. It takes a long time to finish a single level, and trying to beat the game will consume hours of your life.
Protector gets an A-
Zunder Fury Review
February 10, 2008
Zunder Fury is another game that falls under the category of flash based shooters. It’s set apart from the typical shooter because it depends more on strategy and planning instead of simply shooting at whatever you see. You still have to shoot at whatever you see, it’s just that each enemy has a different way to shoot at. Some enemies are invulnerable unless you shoot them from behind, so you have to lure them and quickly shoot. Some enemies are slow and powerful, some are fast and weak, and some have tricks up their sleeves. One enemy even turns into a smaller enemy when it’s defeated. There are dozens of enemies, and each one has different ways to defeat it, which makes for an interesting game. You can choose between two ships, with each one having it’s own weaknesses and strength. Zunder is fast, nimble and shoots at a long range, but it’s weapon is weak. Fury has a powerful gun with a wider spred than Zunder, but it can only shoot in a small range, is incredibly slow, and has a hard time maneuvering. Gameplay is simply shooting at enemies with your gun, and using your limited amount of bombs to destroy everything when the screen gets too crowded. You toggle your gun on and off by clicking the mouse once, so you can focus more on aiming. It also gives your fingers a rest from continually clicking. During the game you get to upgrade your ship using points you get from defeated enemies. You can improve your speed or your weapon, get more lives, purchase more bombs, or add to your highscore. The game gets unfairly difficult after the first few levels, and the difficulty curve is like running up a wall, but other than that, Zunder Fury is a great game.
Zunder Fury gets a B
Complete Team Fortress 2 Guide
February 10, 2008
I’ve made several posts with a guide for every class, so here’s a list with links to all of them.
Scout Guide
Soldier Guide
Pyro Guide
Demoman Guide
Heavy Guide
Engineer Guide
Medic Guide
Sniper Guide
Spy Guide
General Advice
I hope you find something here that you didn’t know before.
Team Fortress 2 Spy Guide
February 10, 2008
The Spy is the most dreaded class in Team Fortress 2: With the ability to cloak and disguise as an enemy, he causes every member of the opposing team to franticly check behind them, inspect any teammates, investigate any strange noise, and look around for him. Everyone from the Heavy to Engineer is afraid that he’ll sneak into their base and kill them off one by one. Read more
Phosphor Review
February 9, 2008
Phosphor is a great death match first person shooter written using Adobe’s Shockwave, which lets you have all the fun of a shooter combined with the ease of simply typing in a website. It has graphics similar to Quake III, Half-Life and Deus Ex, so you don’t need a top of the line computer to run it, and it’s lack of having to install it lets you start playing on any computer with Shockwave on it. The gameplay is fast paced like Unreal Tournament, with your character sprinting across the map and able to kill or get killed in seconds if you aren’t paying attention. There are four weapons: A Machine Gun, a Pulse Gun, a Sniper Rifle and a Rocket Launcher, so you can choose what type of player you’re going to be. I personally like using the Pulse Gun and Machine Gun, and occasionally I use the rocket launcher. There’s only one map, so there’s no real variety, but considering that this game runs in your browser, you can’t be too picky. Even then, that one map is expertly made, with several secret tunnels, open areas, narrow halls, and even a sniper tower. The controls are slick, which makes it easy to aim, run and jump. You can configure it to have either computer controlled characters, or play on a network. The AI characters are smart, and I’ve never seen them fall off of buildings or get stuck in walls. They’re also balanced, so that you never feel like the game gave you a cheap kill. If you feel like playing a shooter at the office, then Phosphor is your best bet.
Phosphor gets an A
Team Fortress 2 General Advice
February 9, 2008
There are many strategies, hints and tips that can benefit every class, so instead of re-writing the same thing for every guide, I’ve just put a list of general advice here.
1. Practice
When you first load up Team Fortress 2, you might not be used to a game that involves more than shooting everything in sight. Spending a good ten to fifteen minutes will let you get used to their strengths, and give you an idea of their weaknesses. Since you’ll die often when you haven’t gotten the hang of things you might want to switch over to an instant respawn server, especially if you’re a Scout, Medic or Spy. Read more
Overlord Review
February 6, 2008
After hearing several people tell me about how great Overlord is, and how it’s got all the comedy of Psychonauts combined with the gameplay of Pikmin, I finally decided to try it out. I have to say, I’m not disappointed. Although the game gets a bit tedious, and you can easily throw away twenty minutes of work by accidentally clicking in the wrong place, it still managed to entertain me. Read more
And Yet It Moves Review
February 6, 2008
And Yet It Moves is another game that utilizes the natural fun that you can have from manipulating physics, and combines it with all the traditional running and jumping from your typical Mario or Sonic game. It’s short, looks unique, and has a decent amount of replay value, but it’s main selling point is that it’s completely free. After getting AYIM from the website, installations was as simple as a right click. I figured that a small game like that would be shallow, ugly, and easy to forget, but it turned out to be one of the best 2D platformers I’ve ever played.
Read more
Off-Road Velociraptor Safari Review
February 4, 2008
Off-Road Velociraptor Safari is a new game from Flashbang studios that combines racing around in a jeep and smashing Velociraptors to create an refreshing new game. The game makes you drive a jeep that has a speed booster and a “Spiked Capturing Ball” which is really just a glorified mace. You drive your jeep around the world, and you try to gain as many points as you can. You can get points by killing Raptors, collecting orbs, doing stunts/jumps, and damaging your jeep. The fact that you can smash Raptors would make this game awesome, but it also has nice game play. It’s incredibly entertaining to impale Raptors with your Capturing Ball, and jumping off one of th various ramps scattered around is a blast. It feels like a combination of Tony Hawk and Jurassic Park, and it’s so addictive that every time your finish a round you feel like trying to beat your high score. The game features full 3d graphics, nice scenery, and lets you expand it into a full screen window. The game also makes it fun to play with the physics, since you can launch your weapon if you time it right. I spent around half an hour fooling around with launching it, and only managed to hit a Velociraptor once. Take a look at the trailer if you want to see it in action.
Off-Road Velociraptor Safari gets an A+
If you look close enough, you can see that a Velociraptor is driving the jeep.
