Castlevania: Sonata in Red (2007)
by Hardle . (Download)
plays fine on both Wine and Vbox on Linux
Castlevania SiR is a magnificent rendition of a Castlvania game (of the SotN-kind) as an old-school jRPG. It sports the same addictive gameplay as it’s 2d-cousins, the-one-more-room-and-then-I-stop-playing syndrome that makes you play until night has fallen and sleep deprivation set in. But what fun. There’s the ingenious level design (the game has around 21 levels) that isn’t fulled by a linear succession of different areas, but by a complex maze of interwoven areas. This is combined with a level-up-system that forces you to explore, since you can only level-up once in each area, after you’ve beaten a certain number of enemies.
While fighting (in short: grinding) is very much essential to the game, without it you won’t get the strength to beat the many bosses, there are no random battles that are part of so many jRPGs and can be quite annoying. You see enemies wander around and can confront them (or not) at will.
Another lovely aspect of the game are the countless secrets, for example there’s a boss rush mode whose final boss is much harder to beat than the final boss of the game. There are certain passages under water, for which you need an item to dive indefinitely. The sub-weapons you can collect and other stuff. Backtracking areas you’ve already traversed is essential to find everything, but that’s made easier by a teleport system. Another well done aspect, the story, is told in small pieces here and there and fits neatly with the whole Castlevania-canon of the official games.
All in all, an excellent game that perfectly captures the atmosphere of Castlevania games. Heartily recommended.
Rating: 5/5
So Dark The Night (2008)
by Cliff Burns (Download)
So Dark the Night has a similar character dynamic as Conan Doyle’s famous duo, only that Sherlock is a woman and Watson hopelessly in love with her. The story is told from the viewpoint of the later one and shows their current case, a former, rather harmless gathering of occultists who have become a shade darker. I’m not sure what I expected a novel by Cliff would look like, since I’ve read only some of his shorter work, but I surely didn’t expected such an accessible and fun read. Furthermore, I’m addicted to books that mix elements of the fantastic with detective fiction, so this was right up my alley.
As I already said, the main character dynamic is drawn from a tried and true schema, but Evgeny Nightstalk (the Watson) and Cassandra Zinnea also have elements of hardboiled/noir. Evgeny is the typical hard shell but emphatic core private dick (who still loves to fight) and Cassandra is the unattainable beauty who loves to play with fire. But there’s more to both of them. While Evgeny is always talking about how smart Cassandra is, for example, the most memorable quality of her that we see is her unwavering moral code, always willing to do what is necessary to protect the weak and helpless. She is the heart and Evgeny the fist.
There’s also a host of other interesting characters that help the two, for example a Sherlock Holmes mini-me version (Burns captures the nature of the original Sherlock perfectly, but has also fun with turning the original upside-down by giving him an unexpected weakness).
Before I close this, I have to mention how much I liked the inclusion of real events, people and stuff in the book’s own secret occult history. More than once I went to wikipedia to look something up, only to find myself traversing wikipedia for hours.
This was all a bit over the map, but it all adds up to one book I can heartily recommend. It’s a great read and I hope I will one day hold a paper edition in my hands, because this one deserves it.
Rating: 5/5
Kings of Power 4 Billion % (2008)
by Paul Robertson (online)
His last big outing, Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006 was an animated love letter to 2d-action games like Metal Slug and similar ilk. Like in a game the two main characters fought their way through a diverse lot of levels until they freed their stolen girl friend and confronted the final boss. Über-violent, fast-paced, silly and yet damn funny and entertaining.
Now, about KoP4B, it could be said this is just more of the same, but somehow it had less of an impact on me than PBCBSF had. There are more good characters in KoP4B than in PBCBSF, which makes it at times much more confusing with all the cuts between the characters. It’s also less clear what is going on, who’s actually the enemy and why is everyone fighting him/them. The ending is… bizarre. Overall, it looks like an attempt to break the mold set in PBCBSF, but without Robertson actually knowing what to do beyond making nostalgic flashbacks to video game history. Still, the animation is pure eye candy and looks excellent.
Rating: 3/5
Barbie Seahorse Adventures (2007)
by imitation pickles . (Download)
playable on Ubuntu via Python: python run_game.py
Since my recent move to Ubunutu I’m searching for some good freeware games for that system, but so far my search wasn’t that successful. I knew that when it comes to commercial games Linux-systems aren’t exactly crawling with the good stuff, but I had hoped it might be different with freeware games. Sad to say that most of the stuff you’ll find are simple arcade clones. One - maybe the major - reason is that Linux-systems seem to miss good game creation tools like RPGMaker, GameMaker, AdventureGameStudio and all the others, that have created a wealth of freeware games on Win-systems. But enough about that, I wanted to talk about Barbie Seahorse Adventures, which is platformer game playable on Ubuntu using Python.
First the good stuff. I really loved the style and graphics, reminds me of some good platformers I played in the past on my old, battered SNES. The controls themselves are also well done, making it easy to move around with precision.
Now the bad stuff, which also reminds me of some platformers of my console days and these are not good memories. I absolutely hate the level design. Most of the time while playing I was trying to figure out whether I could go a certain direction safely or whether I would plunge to my doom. Games with such a level design need a certain Trial and Error method to advance: Can I go there? I can’t see whether that’s the right way. Lets jump. Oh noes, killed. Maybe that direction. Arghh. No, that wasn’t good too. Ahh, he wanted me to go that direction. Repeat ad nauseam. That’s not funny and not a good way to design levels. But yeah, the art is nice.
Rating: 2/5
An Untitled Story (2007)
by Helix Games . (Download, Solution)
tried to play it on VirtualBox with a WinXP installation, didn’t work out, had to play it during Easter holiday on my sister’s WinXP-system
As difficulty goes, this one is slightly easier than the Jumper games. If you played those, you’ll know that this doesn’t mean much. Even on the easiest setting AUS will prove unbeatable for most beginners and the highest difficulty setting will chew up most pros as well. I haven’t beaten it yet, still searching for two more gold orbs. Since I haven’t finished Cloudrun and the Nightwalk yet, I have an idea where they might be, but I’m not actually sure I want to play on. Like I said, it can be really hard. At first I thought The Curtain unbeatable, with some annoying ghosts following me while I tried to make some difficile jumps, but when I actually met the Ninja at the top and stopped him, I thought nothing could be worse. My error. Helix games can always get worse.
So far I haven’t talked much about the game itself, which is a typical Metrovania-type of game, which emphasizes exploring and getting new abilities to enter new areas. Unlike most games of this type, it’s hard as hell, but unlike the Jumper games (which aren’t Metrovania games, but were made by the same guy) I thought it was much more addictive and actually made me want to finish it (well, unlike right now, I’m not sure I want to finish it anymore, having seen some of the difficult parts of Nightwalk). The graphical style is completely different than that of the Jumper series. Where Jumper was all straight lines, here everything is twisting and the landscape looks much more natural. The music is well done, as it was in the Jumper games. What I really like about the game are the inventive boss encounters. There’s a wide variety of bosses and beating them (hard as hell again) is as much about good skills as it is about finding out how to beat them.
Despite the difficulty, this one is even better than the Jumper games. Excellent game.
Rating: 5/5
Salamander Dream (2005)
by Hope Larson (Online)
When you’re a kid the forest near were you’re living can hold a world full of magic. In the evening shadow monsters haunt it, in daylight other wonders can be found there. When you’re a kid, the names of foreign countries promises places full of magic. For some people it seems obvious that when you grow up, when you’ll outgrow these childish ideas, the wonder and magic will cease to be.
Salamander Dream makes the case that while things inevitably will change when you grow up, magic can still have a place. Only because you’ll know more about the world and some things turn out to be mere shadows or places not filled with the magic of your youth, doesn’t mean you have to give up to look at the world with open eyes and acknowledge everything around you is full of interesting things that hold worlds, small and big, full of wonder and amazement, even under the more experienced and scientific scrutiny of the eyes of a grownup.
Nice, clean art and a very pacifying atmosphere. At times the narrative is a bit too sparse on details about the characters, but overall this is one well done comic.
Rating: 4/5
Copper
by Kazu Kibuishi (Online)
One of the things I looked up after reading the first Flight anthology was the webcomic Copper by the anthologist of Flight One. There were also two Copper stories in the anthology and they are not much different from the webcomic. To tell the truth, I find the stories okay, a bit bland and not really something where you need to deploy your mind much. They aren’t really funny, or insightful or anything else. But I really dig the art. When it comes to that, the art by Kibuishi really speaks its own language and carries the whole comic. It’s lush and colorful and it makes you want to see more of it.
Rating: 4/5
Retro (2005)
by Cactus . (Download)
Retro is an Asteroids-clone where you control your spaceship via mouse. Like Insect Invade 2 this is something to play in between, when you’ll have two or three minutes free time. As far as Asteroid-clones go it doesn’t offer much more than just the basic concept, but the bare bones graphics, which still exhibit their very own style, and the fast action makes this one fun to play. And the music is excellent. That tune really enhances the gameplay experience.
Rating: 4/5
Insect Invade 2 (2005)
by Cactus . (Download)
The simplest things can sometimes be a source of great joy. Which is odd when you’ll talk about a game sporting a random naked guy shooting at strange creatures falling out of the sky. Sometimes they leave (after you killed them) more powerful weapons or other items behind, which allow you to kill the falling creatures even better. This is not a very complex or deep game, but as I said, it’s surprisingly entertaining for those few minutes when you need something to occupy your time.
Rating: 4/5
I Wanna Be The Guy (2007)
by Kayin . (Download, Playthrough by BikdipOnABus: 1 2 3 4 Final)
If Jumper is something of a standard for insanely hard but still fair platformer games, then IWBTG is the same for unfair platformer games. What do I mean with unfair? Unfair means it’s not obvious from looking at a screen what’ll kill you. Yet, unlike other games, in IWBTG it’s not because of bad game design, it’s part of the design. IWBTG is made to punish you. I can imagine the creator sitting before his computer designing these levels with a mean grin on his face. It’s sadistic, but strangely also very entertaining at the same time. If you know your gaming history, you’ll have many nostalgic flashbacks, for example incorporating Tetris or Arkanoid (or Breakout if you’re even older) in a platformer strikes me as a touch of genius. Or the boss sprites. Still, this game is hard, first you’ll have to learn every screen like a memory game, then you’ll have to jump precisely and well. Or you can watch the playthroughs on YouTube.
(if you want to see something funny, here is the final played by cloud9745, who has also made a very lengthy, but also very entertaining playthrough of IWBTG, his final shows the discussion between your character and the final boss)
Rating: 4/5
