Check out this mod of the superb Freespace 2 engine (thank you thank you thank you for releasing it as open source Volition!). It’s a three level demo and man is it great – they’ve done a fantastic job with the voicework and they’ve made enough tweaks to the engine that it feels greatly different from the default Freespace 2 combat. Right now only the PC version is out but Linux and OSX are coming soon, and here’s hoping the full game is as well. This is free, open source, and a self-standing installer.

Lords of Midnight is one of those cult games from the 80’s that people my age talk about in reverant and glowing terms. It was originally released for the Amstrad so it didn’t achieve quite the same following in the US that it did in Europe and elsewhere, and I’ll confess I didn’t run into it in my youth despite having an enormous collection of C64 games. I did play it years later when C64 emulation became viable though, and I mention it today because I happened across a great windows port of the original game. The graphics have been spruced up a bit from the original, but the core gameplay remains. It’s aged pretty well considering how long ago it was originally released, and the central theme is strongly reminscent of the lord of the rings, featuring an epic quest, an ultimate evil, and a diverse roster of characters to encounter, ally with, or fight with. This is free for the download for Windows folk and worth a look for a friday diversion.

Slash’em is my favorite roguelike, though T.O.M.E. is a close second. They’re sort of two opposites of a spectrum. Slash’em is a roguelike distilled down to tactical dungeon crawling RPG combat in its purest form, whereas T.O.M.E. layers in the mythology of Tolkein’s Middle Earth, adds an overworld, various kinds of quests, and more. They’re both excellent in their own right. Slash’em recently got the graphical overhaul and features that Falcon’s Eye introduced, so if the bare bones graphics put you off in the past, give the enhanced version a look and see if it works better for you. I actually still prefer the tiny tiled version but it’s not for everyone, and maybe the enhanced version is for you. This will run across all platforms, though the mac and linux versions take a little unix-foo to get running.

Got a laugh today when I happened across this photo on flickr. Of course there are innumerable reasons why girls and gaming haven’t yet completely mixed, but in a superficial way this photo pretty much says it all.

A fan group has been maintaining Bungie’s Myth and Myth II engine ever since the series experienced an unfortunate commercial demise shortly after the release of the (at best) mediocre Myth III. I loved the original Myth and Myth II, and spent untold hours playing the solo campaigns, playing coop with friends, and playing online on Bungie.net. Myth was the first game I joined a clan for (I specialized in the the soulless in clan matches), it convinced me I needed real speakers for my computer for the first time, and to this day it remains one of the few RTS style games I’ve truly loved.

I noticed there was a recent upgrade release for the engine and decided to check it out. I also noticed you can score the complete game in the form of the Myth II Worlds package for under $5 + shipping on ebay, so I grabbed a copy and have been playing it.

It’s still as fantastic as it ever was and has aged surprisingly well. The animation looks stiff, the textures are utterly low rez by today’s standards, and the complete lack of lighting effects makes it all look a little flat, but the core gameplay and wonderfully dark fantasy plot both shine through all this, plus the updates to the engine to accommodate large screens helps tremendously. Additionally time has been kind in the form of performance: anyone who remembers waiting 5 minutes or more for a savegame to load will smile the first time they load one and it takes less than an eyeblink to open.

If you’re not familiar with the series I encourage you to give it a look. You can score free demos of the game and apply the modern patches to it to get a feel for what it’s all about. In a nutshell it’s a fantasy tactical real time strategy game with a strong story, great sound, wonderful writing, and fantastic netplay. The engine modernizations are for both mac and pc, including intel compatible binaries on the mac side of things. The Myth II worlds pak I bought includes a number of massive fan created content paks and mods, and you can freely download translations of the original Myth campaign which will run under the new engine. It’s hard to imagine a better gaming bargain than this.

Plus I’d love to find someone to play coop with through some of this content. Any takers?

Gravitar was one of those arcade games that never got as large of a following as it deserved. Possibly it was because unlike some of the greatest games of its era, it had a limited set of levels that just started repeating, and there weren’t all that many of them. I loved it back in the day despite this. Anyway I happened across an excellent modern take on it this week – check out blackened interactive’s Gravitar remake, Gravitron. Great vector graphics, a tiny download, and a level editor is included. If you’re unfamiliar with Gravitar, the basic gameplay involves piloting a spaceship with asteroids-like controls in an environment with gravity. Your task is to destroy the generators on each level while avoiding the fire of their defenses, rescuing any stranded astronauts you can manage, and making sure not to run out of fuel while you’re at it. Simple but fun.

The author promises to consider any fan-created levels for inclusion with further releases of the game, so if you feel like exercising your creative side here’s your chance to shine. I should also mention this is windows only and as usual a tiny download.

[Originally via

The original Empire Builder game, a train-themed boardgame that used an erasable map and crayons, has spawned a series of followup games with maps for different regions. Some are better than others. My personal favorite is Eurorails, though Iron Dragon has some interesting features (notably the rules for engineers). Anyway, I mention them because someone in Germanyh has released free maps you can use with any of the Empire Builder series games. They’re available in both English and German, and so far he’s release a map of Africa and one for Germany. These are definitely worth grabbing if you’re a fan of the Empire Builder series of games.

If you disagree with that statement, you didn’t spend enough time playing arcade games in the 80’s and thus you speak from insufficient experience 🙂

Anyway I mention this because I’ve been playing with a pretty decent riff on the Missile Command theme this week, Strategic Oil Reserve.

You have to thank Geometry Wars for almost single handedly reviving the 8-way shooter genre. Granted, games like Crimsonland had come out before its release, but suddenly it seems like there are a wealth of decent Robotron-likes, and I have to believe its at least in part because of Geometry Wars (which, as an aside, you can now get for PC if you run Vista. From most accounts its pretty buggy though so it may not be worth it). Anyway, today’s example is called Naac, and it’s most similar to the old arcade game SmashTV. Free, windows only, and well worth checking out if you grew up on a healthy diet of arcade games in the 80’s. Note that I had to play with the Windows Data Execution Prevention settings to get this to run. Also note that unlike most games of this type you don’t need a joypad to play – you move using the keyboard and shoot using the Mouse. It works really well.

[Originally via jayisgames.com]

Puzzle Quest, a wonderfully addictive mashup of bejeweled and an RPG, from some of the folks who brought us the Warlords series of strategy games. This is PC only, though it will also ship for the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. There’s more gameplay in the demo than you find in many commercial releases, and anyone who enjoys puzzle games or likes Bejeweled should definitely check it out, it’s an absolutely brilliant design. I preordered a copy of the DS version within 20 minutes of checking out the demo, it’s that good. The basic gameplay revolves around battles between your character and various opponents, fought over a bejeweled like screen where you take turns sliding gems around on the board. Making a combination of 3 or more gems causes the gems to disappear and various events to happen. The events vary by gem color and type and can be harmful or helpful. There’s a bit more luck than I generally luck but losing is relatively painless and the gameplay is so quick and engaging that a loss is just an excuse to play another round. My biggest problem is I always played Bejeweled on timed mode, meaning I’m habituated to trying to find combos as quickly as possible instead of trying to think what the smartest move would be, which is causing me no end of trouble against the computer opponents.

Anyway check it out, the release version will even have netplay included as well as a bunch of modes not included in the demo. If you don’t want to wander over to the Kotaku site to get this you can download it directly using this link.