Franchise Hockey Manager 3 - (PC - 2016)

Out of the Park Baseball 18 (PC/Steam)

Early Access Review: Polynomial II

Microsoft 3d Movie Maker (Jam Enslaver Reviews)

Jam Enslaver recently posted a review about a piece of software I have fond memories of. Here is his review followed by some discussion of the software.



I came across Microsoft 3d Movie Maker two different times in life. My friend had a demo version on an old Hewlett Packard machine which had only a small handful of the items usable, and I picked up a copy of the CD much later in life for a dollar in a bargain bin of a thrift store.

One thing that was very different from my experience and those described in this video from Jam Enslaver was

Rockman Exile

The old Cartoon Blob from the origins of Tiger Claw TV returns for a look at my favorite rom hack.

Games Before Work - Nimble Quest

Steam Greenlight Review: Ilamentia

Review copy provided by the developer. You can vote for this on greenlight here, or go pick it up now from the developers website.

Hope your game makes it to Steam bro. Good luck with your career!

Discussing Five Nights at Freddy's

Five Nights at Freddy’s is a new horror game from Scott Cawthon which has become very popular in a very short period of time. The player sits in a security booth at a children’s themed restaurant at night. All through the night animatronic mascots roam the hallways and at times, come to kill the player. The only controls the player has to defend himself are a couple of doors on either side, lights to light up outside the doors, and a few security cameras. Power is limited so the players different tools can only be used for a very very short period of time.

To me, the gameplay boils down to sitting in a room, waiting for death and hoping you...

Sim City 4 Review

This was my user review of Sim City 4 written for GOG.com. While I was writing it out, I started to get a little sentimental about this one so I thought I would paste it here for your viewing pleasure. (Since no one will proboboly get around to reading the reviews at the bottom of the stack on GOG.com)

In the long history of Sim City, this game hit the balance of complexity and fun better than any other version. It is complex enough that players will continue to learn about the game long after purchasing, but accessible enough that anyone can

Duck Hunt on MS-DOS

Time for a trip into the stranger parts of the MS-DOS library. This game is not licensed by Nintendo. It's a very early fan game which was distributed on a BSS which was common in the early days of the internet. Hurray for software preservation! Brace yourselves everyone. Here is Duck Hunt.

Atari Combat

Combat is an awesome Atari game.

The Castle Doctrine's 'No Sale' Declaration.

On Steam, The Castle Doctrine’s normal price is 15.99. At launch, it was sold for 12.99 at a special launch discount. The developer has made a firm declaration that after the launch discount, this game will never go on sale.

“This plan (where the price rises slowly over time instead of starting high and getting deeply discounted later) was widely discussed. For people who might want to buy the game, there are no surprises on the horizon.” –Jason Rohrer

Jason goes on to talk about how putting games on sale screws the fans. The problem is that we have a 10mb game that costs 16 bucks. If, as a dev, your game is never going to go on sale, you need to come down in your normal price in order to compensate.

Sales don’t screw fans. They screw devs out of launch sales. My problem with this move is that Mr. Rohrer has done something for himself and tried to tell us it’s for our own good.

What a bunch of crap. Screw you Jason. I’m sorry I bought your game.

Syder Arcade (PC/Android)

Samurai Jazz review (BlazeEpic)

So I finally bought a game from Desura that didn't come from a bundle or from IndieGameStand.com. I must say, samurai_jazz is a neat game for three bucks, but it's unfortunetly getting overshadowed for me since I bought it the same morning as Wizardry 6 & 7 off of GOG.com. I have been waiting a couple weeks to play those games.

So what do I think of samurai_jazz so far?

Android Review: Combo Crew (The Game Bakers)

Brawlers are a good time. Even bad brawlers are a little fun. The worst brawler I can think of is Pit Fighter for the SNES and even that was somewhat entertaining. Combo Crew is a brawler for iOS and Android that I was lucky enough to try recently. The big draw here is that there is no on-screen controller involved. Fighting is accomplished by swiping over the enemies, and the character will run over and execute an attack. Two finger swipes execute a combo and a swipe+holding the end motion executes a charged attack.

Indie Review: Deadly 30 (Headup Games)

Wow. I really like this game. Deadly 30 is a tower defense game for the most part. For 30 days and 30 nights, the player travels around looking for materials during the day and defending their base camp at night. Scrap metal can be found to build better gear and defenses. The art work is okay. It looks a little campy at times but it does the job. The voice acting sounds like it was done in-house. At first glance, it’s a pretty run of the mill indie tower defense production with zombies.

So what’s so good about this game? Honest to goodness difficulty. The press materials commonly show a party of three members, but the other two characters are met seemingly at random. One time I went to day six without meeting anyone, another time I had a full party by day 5. One brilliant part of the game design is that the set up makes the player feel danger when outside base camp at night but the reality is that the only way to be successful at the game is to leave the safety of the base and explore for materials deep into the dangerous zombie infested night. If you want to live, you’re going to have to brave it out there. At least a little.

Indie Review: Adventure Apes and the Mayan Mystery (ScaryPotato)

I hate it when people misuse the term “Metroidvania”. That term was coined to express a cross between the explorative non-liner platforming action of Metroid and the whip action of Castlevania. However these days “Metroidvania” tends to applied to any sidescroller where you do anything besides strict travel to the right hand side of the screen.

Adventure Apes and the Mayan Mystery is NOT a Metroidvania game. More accurately, it’s a Metroid style game with Monkeys. As far as gameplay is concerned, this is a side scrolling exploration game. Jump, shoot, find the next component to increase your abilities and thus open more areas. (I.E. jump higher etc etc)

Ace of Spades Sucks

I would like to voice my dissatisfaction with this game.

I have a few complaints about this game that several of my fellow Steam users have also taken issue with. I feel they should be logged somewhere so here is the deal.

1) Poor Optimization.
I know that the system requirements are listed in detail on the store page. However this is an ugly game. There are absolutely no textures. There is no reason why it should not run on my i5 laptop. At 10 bucks, This is a budget game. THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED. If that means overhauling the engine, than that’s what they have to do.

2) No level building.
The concept of spending 3 hours building a map to have a 3 minute shootout is what attracted me to

Dungeons of Dredmore - Gaslamp Games - Indie Spotlight

     I remember playing Rogue on my pop's IBM 386 way back in 1989. My Dad didn't have windows then. He used a DOS based menu program called Menu Works. I can't even find screenshots of that on Google image search. Gaming on a PC was completely different in those days. Rogue, back in 1989 on my Dads PC, was the most in depth and complex game I had yet experienced. I played the hell out of it, and I still go back every couple of years to give it a spin for old time sake. Those warm memories set me up to really get into Dungeons of Dredmor in a big way.

     Dungeons of Dredmor is more of a Rogue-clone rather than a Rogue-like. The dungeons are randomly generated, everything is turn based, equipment is found on the fly, and the high score board is based on how much gold the player is holding. I have a problem with that because unlike Rogue, you can actually buy things

Flotilla - Blendo Games - Indie Spotlight

     Flotilla is a turn based, space combat game. Combat operates a little bit like Frozen Synapse in space. Players lay in waypoints for thier squad and submit them to be executed simultaniusly with the computer's actions. The ships automatically shoot when they are in range unless ordered not to. So It's really a matter of ship movement.

     The player controls a terminally ill commodore of a space fleet embarking on his final mission. There is seven months left to live. Time to make the most of it. Gameplay is simple, which is something you don't often hear about a turn based stratefy game, but it is also difficult. Get ready to die alot. But then, your terminally ill in this game. At best, your going to die.