Windows games.
Michel Ancel (the creator of Rayman) and his team produced a video gaming classic in 2003 with Ubisoft‘s Beyond Good & Evil.
It is a pseudo sci-fi fantasy, third-person action/adventure where you control a young woman called Jade, with a pig sidekick called Pey’j, and who is battling against the sinister “DomZ”.
Thimbleweed Park is a point-and-click adventure, released in 2017 by Terrible Toybox, and co-created by ex-LucasArts employees Gary Winnick and Ron Gilbert.
In case you didn’t know: both Gilbert and Winnick have been involved in the making of some of the best games of all time, including (but not limited to) titles such as: Ballblazer, Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island, and Day of the Tentacle.
Offendron Warrior is a superb retro gaming tribute to Eugene Jarvis‘s arcade classic Defender, using modern pixels and effects, by talented and prolific Korean Hijong Park. It’s currently available for free or donationware on Steam.
If you don’t know Defender – look it up, then go play it. Then come back and continue reading this.
Now… Imagine Defender, but with a few modern twists applied. Such as: homing missiles! And a transforming ship (Interceptor mode flies faster and Offender mode has rapid fire rate).
The basic premise of Offendron Warrior is the same as Defender: protect the vulnerable civilians from waves of alien Infectors, which will try to carry them away from the ground. You can shoot an Infector and it will drop the civilian, but if the civilian falls too far it will die. So you can (and should) catch them. You can catch a bunch of them and chain them up, which is neat. If you lose all your civilians it’s game over.
Holding down the transform button turns you into a mini mech, which shoots rapid, multi-coloured lasers out the front. Firing while moving up and down in mech mode creates a spread of fire, which is a good tactic for dealing with small groups of enemies. For everything else there are homing missiles. Homing missiles will take out every enemy on-screen, but are limited so must be used sparingly. The visual effect of a large group of enemies being wiped-out by homing missiles is quite amazing and really has to be seen to be believed. They are very satisfying to use!
Offendron Warrior is a simple but brilliant blaster. It’s a great tribute to Defender and a very playable and compulsive game in its own right. And – like all Hijong Park‘s games – it really is a tough challenge. It’s great fun, though. So don’t miss it!
More: PsychoFlux Entertainment on Steam
Steam: Offendron Warrior on Steam
Another excellent Hijong Park retro tribute game – this one possibly his best so far – Steel Alcimus is an overhead helicopter shooter with either twin-stick joypad, or keyboard and mouse controls. I played it with mouse and keys and found the control system to be really quite ingenious.
This game is a bit more complex than Park‘s other games, Rolling Bird or Frantic Dimension, so requires a number of tutorial missions be flown before you can start a campaign. Which is fine because the tutorial is well designed, fun to play, and much easier than the missions themselves!
When you finally get to some actual missions you really then start to see how good Steel Alcimus is. It’s a game that’s been made with real love and care, kept simple and playable, and polished like a game with a Nintendo Seal of Approval. Which it doesn’t have of course. But maybe should have. 🙂
Steel Alcimus – like Hijong Park‘s other games – is very interesting to play, but devilishly difficult to master. And – like his other games – it has a distinct graphical style. And it feels great to fly the helicopter around and blow stuff up. Steel Alcumus reminds me of a few good old games: Raid On Bungeling Bay, Cyclone, and Carrier Command, to name but three.
Steel Alcimus is on Steam now. There’s a free version, and also a very low-cost donationware version. If you like helicopter action games you should give it a try, and if you enjoy it you should consider buying the donation version. I did, because I like what Park‘s doing – he’s making fun games that are worth playing (he’s actually making the type of games I’d make myself if I could code). And I support that wholeheartedly.
More: PsychoFlux Entertainment on Steam
Steam: Steel Alcimus on Steam
Frantic Dimension is another great, free game, made by talented Korean Hijong Park and released on Steam in 2018.
The opening animatic in Frantic Dimension is quite funny – made even funnier by the slightly off-kilter use of English (it’s not a criticism – I like it). 🙂
Apparently you are the mighty Jason Allen and you’ve been kidnapped by alien Yadicans and must escape from their deathtrap fortress. And along the way steal a few of their treasured artefacts…
Frantic Dimension is a beautifully-presented, fast and furious ‘twin stick’ shooter (meaning: you use one joystick to move, and a second joystick to shoot in all directions), and is a wonderful love letter to classic arcade games such as Berzerk, Robotron 2084, Smash TV, and Total Carnage. And it’s also seriously hardcore stuff.
The idea is to explore the maze, and each floor (as much as you dare), looking for treasure. You’re constantly under attack by killer robots and must keep them at bay with your lasers. Once you’ve gathered enough treasure you can then start to think about finding the exit to the next level. The lower you go the more difficult it gets. And, by crikey, Frantic Dimension is not what you would call easy.
Most rooms are quite busy and the enemies very aggressive, so surviving is tricky. Shooting the various baddies is very satisfying, though, as they often explode in a pleasing manner. You’re given three smartbombs at the start of the game and using these makes the enemies explode like Roman candles. The onscreen carnage can at times be quite intense. Thankfully there’s a grid map in the top left of the screen, showing your position in relation to the exit.
Hang around for too long on one screen and an Evil Face will appear and start chasing you – a nice tribute to Evil Otto in Berzerk. Corner Zappers are a pain in the butt too. They sit in corners, firing diagonal lasers at you whenever you come within range. They are quite deadly and really get the heart pumping when you trigger them.
Frantic Dimension is so tough that it could tear the arm off a Wookie when it loses… It could escape the event horizon of a black hole… It could beat Vin Diesel in an arm wrestle… You get the idea… Ultimately, though, it’s great fun to play, and as you slowly improve you’ll find that there’s more to Frantic Dimension than at first meets the eye.
The game does have online global score rankings, which you can upload and contribute to after every game you play. Good luck getting anywhere near the top rankings though – the highest scores are insane!
More: http://www.psychoflux.com/
Steam: Frantic Dimension on Steam
Rolling Bird is a modern tribute to the classic arcade game Rolling Thunder.
Graphically it looks a bit like an NES game, or an old arcade game. The colours are bold and the animation simple, but still excellent.
Gameplay-wise: you control a guy with a gun. He can shoot (obviously); jump forward; jump upwards (onto a higher platform), drop down (to a lower platform), and duck. And of course he can run left or right and enter doors (by pressing ‘up’ when stood in front of one). Some doors contain weapon upgrades, others: bullet refills, but most contain nothing at all – other than more enemies.
The game is basically a simple run-and-gun shooter, but is extremely challenging and really quite ingenious in its design as it uses ‘procedural generation’ to create the levels (ie. they’re different every time).
I can’t underline, though, how difficult Rolling Bird is. It’s one of the most difficult games I’ve ever played. Certainly one of the most difficult to grab… If you want to see how it should be played, watch this video.
The game’s designer, South Korean Hijong Park, has created a number of free and donationware games that are available on Steam right now. They are all well worth a play in my opinion.
See also: Golden Hornet, a great helicopter shoot ’em up by the same guy.
More: http://www.psychoflux.com/
Steam: Rolling Bird on Steam
Vladimir Romanyuk‘s incredible SpaceEngine is a simulation of the entire observable universe, with the goal being “scientific realism”, and to reproduce every known type of astronomical phenomenon.
It uses up-to-date data on real interstellar objects (from the Hipparcos Catalogue for stars, and the NGC and IC catalogues for galaxies), all of which can be visited and explored using the simple controls and the Heads-Up Display (the HUD, which also displays detailed properties of any object that is selected, such as mass, temperature, radius, et cetera); it uses procedural generation to fill in the gaps, and describe places we don’t yet know; and it also includes a complex space exploration element for creating relatively realistic spacecraft to travel around in. Be warned, though: SpaceEngine is not Elite Dangerous, No Man’s Sky, or any other kind of fictional space opera – this is serious, hardcore, realistic stuff. You do not go around blasting lasers at Thargoids in this…
That said: anyone with even a passing interest in astronomy, physics, or science should have a look at SpaceEngine. It’s not perfect (and is improving all the time), but it is pretty damn astounding – the level of detail, variety and beauty in the game is jaw-dropping. Just like the real universe…
The first public release of SpaceEngine was in 2010, and it has been free to download and use since then. Only recently (June 2019), with the release of version 0.990 on Steam, has SpaceEngine become a paid-for program. And at a mere £20 it’s a worthwhile investment if you’re fascinated by the cosmos and science – as everyone should be!
More: SpaceEngine on Wikipedia
Steam: SpaceEngine on Steam
More about SpaceEngine:
The software has its own built-in database which gives detailed information on all celestial objects and allows the player to create custom names and descriptions for them.
SpaceEngine has a locations database where players can save any position and time within the simulation, and can load it from that specific point.
Although objects that form part of a planetary system move, and stars rotate about their axes and orbit each other in multiple star systems, stellar “proper motion” is not simulated, and galaxies are at fixed locations and do not rotate.
Most real-world spacecraft such as Voyager 2 are not provided with SpaceEngine.
Interstellar light absorption is not modelled in SpaceEngine.
SpaceEngine is easily modifiable and supports a large variety of add-ons. The online community has created many third-party add-ons, including high-resolution textures, language localisations, spacecraft models, edited shaders, galaxy models, lens flare effects, and fictional planetary systems. Most add-ons are available via the official website forums.
In SpaceEngine‘s “beta spaceship mode”, the program simulates inertia, realistic gravity wells, and atmospheric dynamics.
Although faster-than-light travel is not currently possible, SpaceEngine implements a feasible warp drive based on the Alcubierre drive.
Relativistic effects on the speed of light are simulated, in areas such as redshifted galaxies, the gravitational redshift exerted by black holes, and the theoretical redshift produced by the above-mentioned warp drive.
The fourth Fallout was released by Bethesda in 2015, some seven years after Fallout 3, and five years after Fallout: New Vegas. In fact: I would call this the fifth Fallout game, because Fallout: New Vegas was more than just game number 3.5, in my humble opinion – it was the best game in the entire series. But anyway… What do I know?
What Fallout 4 retains from the previous games it benefits from (like lockpicking, hacking, and companions, which are essentially the same), and what Fallout 4 loses from the previous games it also benefits from too. Excepting for maybe the Perk Chart, which I found to be a big step backwards, usability-wise, in Fallout 4.
That ‘blip’ aside, I love the sparse and refined interface of Fallout 4; the story and conversations are simpler and more realistic; and ‘crafting’ has taken on a whole new meaning this time around. New additions to the gameplay, such as building and defending settlements, the use of power armour, and manufacturing helper robots, I think are all excellent. Although base-building in Fallout 4 is not perfect (trying to get fencing to connect up is a bitch), the fundamentals behind it work very well and add another dimension to the Fallout experience.
Of course, Fallout 4 is all about chasing quests, gaining and using experience points, playing politics with different factions, and hoarding every piece of tech and weaponry you can get your hands on. Exploring the crumbling, post-apocalyptic Boston, Massachusetts yields many surprising moments.
What I love most about Fallout 4 is the world itself. And the atmospherics. The effort Bethesda has made to create a believable, destroyed world is remarkable. The use of light/dark; coloured lighting; weather effects; music and sound effects all combine to make something really worth experiencing. On normal difficulty Fallout 4 is a challenging game – that I like too. At times the enemies in the game can be utterly ruthless and punishing (try meeting an Assaultron Demon and its friends when you’re lower levelled and see what you think of that experience…), and there are many unique monsters in the game that are way beyond your initial capabilities and who will mince you for dinner without warning if you make a mis-step. Which is all part of the Fallout RPG experience – fear, followed by eventual domination (when you go back to get your revenge later). And – there being no real level cap this time – you could in theory just keep on surviving indefinitely.
At times Fallout 4 can be frustrating. A game this big and complex is going to have some bugs, and I did experience a couple that broke my game (which I had to use to the console to fix), which nobody wants to do, but at least a fix was available, saving hours of gameplay that I’d otherwise have to re-do. I also think that the item management is still not quite as good as I’ve seen in other games. Organising items can be quite tiring in Fallout 4 and a few tweaks to the menu system might have made it a lot easier. But overall: I don’t want to complain about it too much, because I really enjoyed playing Fallout 4.
Where would I put Fallout 4 in my list of best Fallout games? Is it better than Fallout: New Vegas? Mmm. I would probably put it joint top with Fallout: New Vegas. In some respects, Fallout 4 is better, but in other respects: not. The story/characterisation and world-building in Fallout 4 are outstanding. There’s no doubting that.
More: Fallout 4 on Wikipedia
Steam: Fallout 4 on Steam
Now this is a game I never thought I’d ever get to play… A game based on arguably the worst film of all time. A film called Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966), and a film that is so bad that it has been known to reduce grown men to tears… And – believe it or not – I’ve sat though it twice. Yes: twice. Anyone who’s seen Manos: The Hands of Fate might want to congratulate me on that feat since sitting through the film twice requires a special kind of skill… Thankfully – as a lover and connoisseur of bad films – I have developed an immunity to [most of] them over the years, and it was with some excitement that I purchased this game on Steam and installed it…
Manos: The Hands of Fate (the film) – as bad as it is – does have a wonderful, naive charm to it that only old movies shot on film have. It also has a strange, almost nonsensical story and plot, about a family who become lost in the desert and stumble upon a sinister Paganistic cult – led by The Master.
This “naive charm” is replicated in the game, using simple sprites and 8-bit style graphics. In many ways it looks like an NES game, which I believe was the intention of the developers. Gameplay is mostly platform-based, although you do have weapons at your disposal and can even upgrade them as you go. The basic aim is to jump your way to the end of a level. Some levels scroll continuously, and other don’t. With each life you have a limited number of hearts. Hitting enemies depletes them. Falling into pits kills you instantaneously. If I had to pigeonhole Manos I would probably call it a ‘run and gun’ game because you can’t really complete the levels without shooting.
All the major characters in the film are represented in the game – including the almost legendary Torgo; The Master’s ‘Satyr’ (ie. servant). In the film Torgo is played by the tragic John Reynolds. I call him “tragic” because… well, Reynolds sadly killed himself not long after the film was completed, due to depression. And it has been well-documented that Reynolds was high on acid when they shot all of his scenes, which goes some way to explaining just how weird they are. The film; the story behind the making of the film; the film’s life now, in the modern age – all these things I believe inform the game in some way…
I wouldn’t call Manos a ‘must-have’ game – unless you’ve seen the original film. If you have seen the original film: I would definitely recommend it. It does have some surprisingly good moments (including tributes to other famous ‘bad’ films), as well as some extremely annoying ones too!
Note: these grabs are from the so-called Director’s Cut, which has enhanced lighting effects (that have the adverse effect of making some of the levels ten times harder!), and is also much more difficult than earlier versions. If you look on YouTube you’ll see play-throughs of both versions.
More: Manos: The Hands of Fate on Wikipedia
Steam: MANOS on Steam
Wizardry 8 is a level-grinding RPG with turn-based combat, developed by Sir-Tech Canada and first released in 2001.
It’s a first-person adventure story, with real-time exploration and random battles that kick in when you discover monsters. Which is: all the blummin’ time!
You start off on a beach underneath a clifftop monastery. After killing some hostile crabs and snagging some nearby weapons you take the door into the building. What then unfolds is a relentless battle through monster-infested corridors as your party of six struggle to survive and make it to the next town.
Combat, healing, spells, inventories – and all that stuff – are taken care of via a number of neat menus. Stats and skills all have similar menu screens. In terms of design, layout, and usability, Wizardy 8 is very user-friendly and easy to get to grips with. All the numbers and details are welcomed, although constant pop-up messages do get in the way of moving around sometimes.
There’s even a story to it, although it’s not a particularly memorable one. Wizardry 8 is a very enjoyable game to play, though. Mostly because the combat is so good. The random nature of the battles does often put a very difficult one in front of you, every now and then, although thankfully the save system is good so you’ll spend a lot of time saving and re-loading.
Wizardry 8 is a rewarding and challenging fantasy action game, for those willing to put the time into it. It’s not the best of its kind, but it is beautifully designed and will appeal to RPG fans who love stats and old school dice-rolling.
More: Wizardry 8 on Wikipedia
Steam: Wizardry 8 on Steam
GOG.com: Wizardry 8 on GOG.com
