Free Month of Gamefly.

Hi Guys,

Long time no write.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that Gamefly is giving a way a free month of its service.

Just click my refferal link below to redeem it.

Free Month of Gamefly!

FreePlay: Phyta

Hello and Welcome.

Today I wanted to talk about a beautiful non-game called Phyta.

 

 Phyta is the latest creation from Cambrian Games.  On the most superficial level it is a 'game' where you control a small sun which coaxes a black vine to grow.  Using this vine you attempt to capture  golden 'angels'.  Once captured, the angels empower your sun.  This allows for your fine to grow faster, and more tendrils.  After 5 or so captured angels, you progress to the next 'level' which has a different type of angel.  Check out the video below to see how the game plays.

The ascetic of this game is so simple, yet so beautiful.  That combined with the beautiful (and repeating) guitar/violin track have had me playing this game for hours.

On a higher level, I think this game is really about desire. The vine desires the sun, and to capture the beautiful angels.  I also can't help but feel that you, as the vine, are not necessarily the good entitiy in this presentation.  It actually cursorily reminds me of Shadow of the Collosus. 

Anyway, I highly recommend you check the game out.  It is available to download for Windows and Linux.

And since there is no Readme or instructions with the game, I will give you a little hint:  The Vine follows your sun which is moved by moving the mouse pointer.  However, if you hold the left mouse button, the vine will grow faster, but thinner.  This is good for catching up to some of the later Angels.  Also, holding the right mouse button will cause your vine to sprout leaves.  These are good for capturing some of the later angels that can pass through thin vines.

 

Enjoy!

~k

Free Dawn of War 2 Soundtrack!

Hello and Welcome,

Just wanted to post a quick note, that Relic is giving away the Dawn of War 2 Soundtrack free.

I Downloaded it and checked it out.  It sounds pretty epic.

You can get it on Steam or from here.

Grab it while it is free.  Heck, grab the game while you are at it, it is pretty awesome.

~K

Free Play Friday: Fable 2 Webgames

You want free stuff for your Hero in Fable 2, you say? Well that's easy, just head on over to Fable2.com and you can enjoy a couple quick games that will be pretty rewarding in the long run.

The first one isn't so much a game as it is an interactive play. As you work your way through, the little puppet gets to make a few good/evil choices that affect which prizes you wind up getting. I went through and did all the good choices and got a doll and some tattoos waiting for me when I went to a specific treasure chest in-game (the one in the Guild Hall, for those wondering). Outside of the fact that you get free prizes for your Hero, the play is actually really cool and looks exactly like it belongs within the world of Fable.

The second game, Chicken Kickin', is a pain in the ass. Maybe its just my stupid computer, but every time I try to do the game, either the meter loads funkily or I can't aim the chicken right, so I haven't won anything yet. I do know that if you can complete it (or get the target score anyway), you win a nice chicken suit and you can get the title of Chicken Chaser from the town crier for free as well. I'm going to keep trying every once in a while to get the suit from this game, but I won't put too much effort into it, it just winds up being way too frustrating I think.

The total items you can get from the website are: a book with the Feign Attack expression, a vial of pink dye, a 3 piece chicken suit, 2 Lionhead tattoos (one for face and one for body), and one Hero Doll.

Finally, even though you don't have to play a webgame for this one, according to Joystiq you can get the free Halo armor for your Hero that was supposed to be exclusive to the Collector's Edition of the game. Joystiq has the information on how to pick yours up here. I signed up, but it says it could take up to 10 days for it to come through, so mine hasn't arrived yet. Although, I did see it on my brother's Hero and I must say it looks pretty cool. However, my Hero will never wear it, because she just looks so awesome in her hot pants and rich woman's shirt.

Freeplay Friday - Sonny

Hello and Welcome.

The rate at which flash games are developing now astounds me.  Previously flash games where relegated to puzzle games like Chuzzle, or word games like Text Twist.  But now you can play full on FPS games or RPGs, and some of them are actually good!

Which brings us to our freeplay game of the week: Sonny.

Sonny is a Tactical RPG on the Kongregate site.  Kongregate is a collection of Flash games and a place for flash game developers to, well, congregate and share there stuff.   Kongregate also offers achievements(for you achievement whores)  and a slew of other features.  Plus it is free.

Sonny is bassically a loot whore game ala Diablo, but with turnbased RPG gameplay.  Sonny wakes up on a ship after a blind man resucitates him.  What Sonny doesn't even know about himself is, he is a zombie.  Nevertheless he proceeds to irradicate zombies, and zombie hunters alike.

Utilizing skill trees and attributes very similar again to Diablo, Sonny eventually learns a vast repitoire of skills that he can use in his skill loadout.

The main (simple) reason I like Sonny, is each piece of armor/weapon you find is clearly visible on your characters.

Sonny Battles

Despite being a flash game, sunny is fairly deep and offers many hours of game play.  Can't play it for many hours?  Well, like all good RPGs sunny utilizes a save game feature.  As long as you play from the same computer that is.

Sonny, and all the games on Kongregate, are free to play.  So what are you waiting for?

~K

Freeplay Friday - Mega Man: The Power Battle

Hello and Welcome.

This FreePlay Friday is going to give relief to all of you stressing about Mega Man 9.  Get ready for some Mega Man : The Power Battle.

The Power Battle was originally released as an arcade game in Japan.  It was packaged as part of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection (along with its sequel) on the PS2 and GCN.

And now you can play it FREE on gametap.   It requires the Gametap client and a small download, but it is completely free once you get that set up.  And it runs on crappy machines like my laptop.

The Game itself is pretty simple.  Rather than progress through a long (sometimes frustrating) stage to fight the boss, you immediately fight the boss.  Plus you get unlimited continues and ressurect in battle with the boss at the same level of health, so it is pretty easy.  Think of it like an Anti-Mega Man 9.  If you get frustrated with MM9, boot it up and woop up on some Master Robots.

You can play as Mega Man, Proto Man, or Bass.   The style of the game looks just like Mega Man 7, and you can play 3 different worlds.  Mega Man 1-3, 4-6, and 7.  Each World has 6 Robot Masters from the Various games and  a Dr. Wiley stage at the end.

You still get the bosses power after a battle, and they can be used to defeat other bosses more easily.

I highly recommend a controller for this, as it is very difficult on the keyboard (carpal tunnel?).

So, give it a try and show those robot masters that you aren't afraid of them (just their hideouts....)

~K

Free Play Friday: Rayhound.

Hello and Welcome.

Ok, Ok, I know it is a little late, I was sick and at the airport, cut me some slack.

Today we are going to talk about a fun, free shooter for the PC: Rayhound.

As many of you know, I am secretly the world's biggest shooter fan(little joke there for 1up readers and listeners). Seriously though, I do really like shooters, especially those that take a unique approach on the whole shooter genre. Of course, it might be a stretch to classify Rayhound as a shooter. You never actually fire a shot in this game.

Rayhound's play mechanic is simple. Use your gravitational field to redirect enemy fire back at the enemy.

Deflecting bullets in Rayhound.

There is a little more to it than that; enemies appear on the screen in clusters and fire shots at you en masse. As the shots get close to you clicking your mouse emits a gravitational field that, depending on how long you hold the mouse, will be redirected at your foes. You can also use your captured shots to sort of slingshot fire towards your enemies my moving your ship as the shots rotate around you. Additionally, you can boost (by moving your mouse quickly in one direction) to deflect shots back at your enemies. Only with careful use of both the boost and your gravity field will you reach the higher levels of the game. Your life is measured in time. Each level you complete awards you more time, and each shot you take subtracts 10 seconds.

Gameplay

Despite what you see in the above video, Rayhound doesn't have (at least as of the version I have) any sound effects or music. This game would be perfect if it had something retro-techno like the video shows.

My favorite thing about Rayhound is its size. Coming in at .5mb Rayhound can fit on any device (pendrive, iPod, FLOPPY DISC for goodness sake) so you can take it with you anywhere for a quick game.

Rayhound was created by a Japanese individual named Hikoza Okubo. You can download it here.

Rayhound is a great game that, though lacking any sound, is great for quick on the go gaming.

~K

Free Play Friday: ThinkTanks.

Hello and Welcome to our first Free Play Friday.

This week, I am going to talk briefly about a game from the InstantAction website. A little BackGround for you: InstantAction is a website that allows you to play free, browser-based 3d games. It is the product of game developers Gargage Games. All that is required, is an internet connection, a plugin, and a one time download for each game.

The game I want to talk about breifly is called ThinkTanks. In ThinkTanks you pilot a small SD(super deformed) tank... with a brain on top (get it? :) ).

Loosing my mind in ThinkTanks

Think Tanks is pretty simple. Essentially, you just drive you tank around, shooting tanks on the opposing team. ThinkTanks has two modes. DeathMatch, and Scrum(Capture the Flag). Each level has some power-ups (Area Of Affect weapons, rapid fire, etc). The action, is pretty fast paced, but nothing revolutionary.

The most amazing thing for this game (and all of InstantAction) is the fact that they are fully 3D Games that run in your browser, with out the need to install a full game. ThinkTanks was orginally a PC/Mac game with a single player adventure mode as well as the multiplayer modes you see in the InstantAction versions.

A Lot is going on in this 3d Browser Game

So far, I really enjoy ThinkTanks, and the rest of instant action. Its still in Beta, so their are some bugs, but I think it definitely will expand as more people use it.

InstantAction uses a revenue model that we are seeing more often free online games these days: Free to play, extras you pay. This appears to be a more and more viable model for online games, and works out well for people like me who just want to casually play some new games every now and then. So, Come and join me in a game of ThinkTanks!

Thats it for the first week of Nerd's Natterings! I hope you all enjoyed it. Come Back, tell your friends, tell THEIR friends. See you all next week.

~K