Ho Hum. It’s raining outside, you’ve just polished your array of skull drinking cups, nobody wants to go down the tavern with you, and all the princesses in the neighbourhood think you’re a total jerk. Nothing for it but to don the old armour and go on a crusading rampage, save up a load of money looted from the corpses of your fallen foes and buy a huge army with it, falling upon the next hapless nation like a tsunami of barbed steel, to smell the blood of a your vanquished adversaries, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
This has got to be some form of copyright violation. Imagine if Halo was orange juice. This is Sunny Delight. I should think it’s horrible and tasteless and not like it at all. But I actually did. It might be tedious, it might be one paced. It might have a near identical progression of levels, no variation in enemies, and a plot, characters, weapons and generally everything else lifted wholesale from another game, but it reminded me of Gauntlet, and that is enough. Play it, disagree with me, and go back to www.1980s-games.com and play some more ripped off arcade emulations. I particularly recommend Black Tiger, for what would be a hideously frustrating experience were it not for the fact that credits are free these days. I remember putting two weeks pocket money in to the RoboCop arcade machine, and getting killed by the third incarnation of ED-209, the last phase of the last boss. Bastards. Speaking of which – I still need more robots for my top trumps game. Suggestions in the comments please; we already have Johnny 5, ED-209 and some frightening real-doll type android in a french maid’s outfit…
Cause, um, I heard there’s like, monsters down there or something?
The blank look you’re giving me is probably due to the fact that you didn’t grow up in the UK during the 1980′s, and have no idea who Berk is, or of the whereabouts of my dinner, OR what Globbits are. This may go some way to rectifying this lacuna in your knowledge.
Right. So Now you should be over the joke, and fully prepared to play a little adventure game. You have to use your imagination a bit, but there are some nice touches – good banter in the item shop, some good bosses and little in jokes. Here it is… the epic D&D adventure that is Monsters Den. There’s no facility for deleting old save games, so if you want to start a new campaign, keep a slot free.
Clear Vision puts you behind the lens of yet another high powered gun, popping the heads of the subjectively naughty. I’ve never been one of the alarmists who think that violence in movies and sex on TV are ruining the minds of the nation, but there does seem to be an inordinate amount of self righteous stick-figure glee collected around consequence-free death. Are we so pent up that this kind of hedonism is a release for us? Time for a jog around the block… +Continue Reading
Yeah. Sorry about that. Sometimes the puns just happen by themselves.
Anyway, the game’s pretty good – it’s a slowly animated card-battle game; don’t pretend that you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ve noticed you looking wistfully at the Live Action Roleplay messageboards, you don’t need to pretend to me… At least with this you can be nerdy all by yourself and no-one else ever needs to know. It can be our little secret. Just like the dodgy embed frame. Shhhhh.
Double the game for your money this April Fool’s Day, two games based on roughly the same premise; aliens come to visit. They take over our minds and bodies, and for some reason embark on a massive bloody killing spree. Presumably this is some kind of inter-stellar tourist package holiday; five nights in the Sol system, all the blood you can spill, and an economy class ride home on next week’s Vogon freighter back to Sirius. I feel an epic space-exile backstory coming on…
I am secure. I am content, happy, and even smug. Here is a flash game of such startling excellence that no-one will be able to deny it. If you can’t finish it now, you will come back, if you can’t come back you will weep hot, salty tears at the thought that you have missed out on the glorious satisfaction of shooting the last, laser toting, brain-in-a-jar-in-a-spaceship boss out into the unforgiving vacuum.
Pick either the ginger one or the black one of the presumably adopted Gamma Brothers, let the little worm guys launch your personalised flying saucer from the mothership (why they can’t use the mothership to fight the horde I don’t know), and battle with a swarm of tricky, varied, rewarding enemies. This game has seriously got it all, powerups, boss fights, a great soundtrack, acid-vivid 16 bit colours, and a happy ending: you can even bring your mates back from the dead.
If you needed any confirmation that your knowledge of global geography is embarrasingly inadequate, here it is in a fun point and click style. Expose your ignorance of the location of world cities and countries where hundreds of millions of people live, realise that you never payed attention in Geography at school, and that people are essentially selfish and unaware of anything that doesn’t directly affect their daily life! Have a cry! Get a sense of perspective and change your life forever – all thanks to Globetrotter XL.
Having had a little negative feedback on ‘The Majesty of Colors’ (you know who you are, you philistines) I’ve got a more traditional offering for you to start the week’s distraction. Angelico looks like it’s been ported straight from the Neo Geo – the cartoony graphics and exotic-cheroot vividity of the colours fairly make my palms itch for the feel of a joystick; I hear the tinkle of copper into the tray of the Penny Falls and wonder when I’ll have the courage to face the zombies in Altered Beast again…
Ahem. Where was I? Oh yes – so you’re Eros, or Cupid running your little winged butt off to get everybody together and making a little love before the sun goes down, by shooting them with arrows from your little bow. I was almost convinced by making the mad doctor fall in love with the jiggling nurse, but as so often before, it was the goat that clinched it for me.
Description: Take to the road with your super-cool, leaping Lambo – Jumpin Ride!! You’ll need quick fingers and quick reflexes to get anywhere in this game. Go as fast as you can and jump over of those feeble hatchbacks that are in your way. You may need to slow down if your path is blocked by rows of cars. so use your head too!
