Some Links You Might Enjoy While I'm Away

My apologies that I've been extremely content-light for the last couple of weeks;  I've had a bunch of things I've been playing and wanting to write about (I still really want to do an iPhone roundup, because that platform continues to surprise me with its quality, especially for the asking price of most of its games), but I've also jumped feet-first back into community theatre, and between that, work, and a wedding my wife and I attended last weekend, my free time has been more or less erased.

However, there are a few things that might interest you that I thought I'd share before leaving town again for the Memorial Day weekend.  Firstly, I had the chance to interview one of the co-founders of Mode 7 Games for Immortal Machines about their upcoming multiplayer tactical strategy game Frozen Synapse, and I link to it both because I think the interview went well - Paul was a pleasure to talk to, and we got some fun and surprising details about their design process - and because Frozen Synapse is really awesome and I want more people to know about it.  It's in beta right now, and pre-ordering will get you two copies, one for yourself and one for a friend.  I've been playing a lot of that, and very pleased with my purchase.  You can stream that interview over here, and there's a discussion thread on Colony of Gamers if you want to provide feedback.

Secondly:  In my virtual absence, Mike Bellmore has started doing a "Best Of" series for our Free and Worth Every Penny column, and he's been knocking it out of the park with his choices so far.  To kick off, Battle for Wesnoth, a great turn-based fantasy strategy game that's been in development for a loooong time and is very solid because of it.  Then, switching genres, the hilarious adventure Ben There, Dan That!, which will instantly be familiar and fun for anyone who grew up with either the Sierra or Lucasarts adventure game series (King's Quest, Sam & Max, etc).  It's well-written, challenging in the right ways, and generally a joy to play.  Well done, Mike - I'm going to have to step up my game when I get back.

Aside from all that, I've been putting a surprising amount of time into Red Dead Redemption on the XBox 360.  Well, maybe not that surprising, given how glowing its reviews are, but let me echo them in saying I think this is Rockstar's best open world effort yet.  I also just got Super Mario Galaxy 2 in the mail on Wednesday, and it's fantastic - say what you will about Nintendo using the same basic ideas over and over again, they still make the best platforming experience in videogames, hands down.  Like the original Mario Galaxy and several of my other favorite games from the last few years, it's in no way easy - there are some absolutely devilish challenges in there - but it gives you the tools to master them and encourages you to keep at it until you get it right.  It'll be coming with me this weekend so that I can share it with others and watch them get the hang of inverted gravity and all its other perplexing mechanics.

And on that note, I need to finish packing and get out of here;  as we've done for the last 2 years, my wife and I are hosting a bunch of friends for Memorial Day weekend up in northern PA at her family's cabin for a party we've dubbed Cabin Con - lots of board games, bonfires and creek swimming are all in store.  Maybe I'll take that as an opportunity to write about some non-digital entertainment when I get back.  Have a safe holiday, everybody.

Free and Worth Every Penny - Issue 44: Hero Core

The side-scrolling action adventure genre seems to be a very popular one for freeware game developers to dive into, perhaps because the mechanics are so well understood by so many gamers.  You don't need to spend a lot of time explaining how it works, you just drop your players in and let them explore the world and shoot things.  This may in part explain why several of the best-made (and hence best-known) freeware games are in this category, some of which we've featured - Star Guard and Knytt, for example - and some of which we're still saving for a special day, like Cave Story and Iji.

Today is not that special day.  But today is certainly A special day, because today's game looks and feels like a lost classic more than any game I've featured recently - even Action Fist.  If your childhood ever included holding a Gameboy in your hands (the original monochrome one) and straining your eyes until they couldn't stay open anymore, I think you're really going to have a soft spot for...

Developed by Daniel Remar (who also made the aforementioned and wonderful Iji), Hero Core is, in his words, "a combination of NES, Atari 2600 and C64 games but in pure black and white."  It's actually the 2nd game in a series, the first simply being called Hero, but no knowledge of the first game is required to play or enjoy the second.  To me, largely thanks to the blank and white aesthetics, Hero Core felt like a Gameboy game all the way - albeit quite a bit better than most Gameboy action adventures actually were, if we're being honest about it.

Adhering closely to the classic Metroid style, Hero Core places you in a large, unexplored map and constantly teases you with areas you can't yet reach, gently nudging you in the directions you can go to find the upgrades that will let you further explore the map and conquer the final boss.  The gameplay video below might lead you to think at first that this is a slow-paced game, but keep watching;  Hero Core is no walk in the park.

If this doesn't hit your nostalgia bone, you played the wrong games as a kid.

As shown in the video, the eponymous "Flip Hero" of Hero Core is not bound by gravity, and the game is in no way a platformer, though some of the rooms certainly do have navigation puzzles that bear resemblance to platformers.  The combat design, though, draws much more inspiration from the side-scrolling space shooter, with an emphasis on dodging fire and positioning your shots to hit the weak spots of your opponents.  As the game progresses you'll be taxed by increasingly powerful and difficult opponents, some of which can only take damage in certain locations, and being struck yourself not only lowers your health, but also renders you incapable of shooting for a period of time.  Especially in the game's many memorable boss battles, this can get extremely challenging - not to the point of feeling unfair, but you probably won't be making it through this one without dying a few times.

Luckily, the game includes a very forgiving checkpoint system.  Also seen in the video above is the overworld map, which is littered (as in most Metroid-style games) with save points.  Death will simply respawn you at the nearest one, and in a lovely update to the classic formula, Flip Hero is allowed to warp at any time to any save point he's discovered.  As was the case with another recent favorite of mine, VVVVVV, Hero Core wants you to work hard, but not to be driven away.  Retrying a failed challenge never takes a minute more of your time than it needs to.

One of Hero Core's many excellent bosses.

It's little touches like the combined save/warp system that make Hero Core such an unqualified pleasure to play.  This feature is getting posted later than I intended, and it's because I stopped halfway through writing it to play through the entire game again.  That's not a quick task, either - my first playthrough took me well over an hour, and when you're done there are bonus modes and advanced difficulty levels waiting for you if you're ready for more.

This is the spot where I'd nitpick about the game's most notable flaws if I could think of some, but honestly, I'm coming up empty.  Obviously it's not a perfect game, and having played through it twice tonight I'm a little too close to it for much objectivity.  The graphics are spartan, yes, but they pull a lot more weight than I thought they would, with some great effects and distinctive enemy and level design.  The controls are tight as hell, and native gamepad support is included - I used my XBox 360 pad and it controlled as well as I could possibly ask it to.  (If you end up doing the same, left bumper is auto-fire.  Very useful.)  The boss battles are plentiful and genuinely inventive.  And I haven't found nearly all the secrets the game has to offer;  from what I've read, you can "sequence break" the game, and there are even multiple endings.

Bottom line:  You should play this game.

Hero Core is...

• a great throwback to the 2D "Metroidvania" formula with a few welcome enhancements.
• very challenging in spots, but never unfair.
• a remarkable amount of game for a freeware title.
• deserving of a spot on every machine I own.

The game is Windows only, and comes in a less-than-5MB zipfile you can get right here.

"Free And Worth Every Penny" is a column I collaborate on with Mike Bellmore at Colony of Gamers.  This piece also appears there.

Free and Worth Every Penny - Issue 43: Zombie Movie

I know, zombies are a bit played out.  You've done your Left 4 Dead, you've done your Resident Evil and your CoD: World at War zombie mode, you've done your Dead Rising and your Nation Red and your Zombie Apocalypse.  You're a little tired of it, I get it.  But could you just do one more?  Just for me?  There you go, that's a good chap.  Oh, and move a little to your left, so you're more in the shot, okay?  Perfect.  Don't mind that pallid looking guy, he just wants to be your friend.

Tom!  It looks too easy down there, we need more zombies!  ...What?  Oh, nothin', I'm just talking to Tom.  Don't you worry.  You're gonna be just fine.

Zombie Movie, made by Miguel Paquette Gaulin and Maxime Binette of EdM Games (listed as "NextDoorGames" on GameJolt) is for the most part a very straightforward top-down zombie shooter.  You've played this before - you'll be swarmed from all sides, you'll run frantically, searching for cover, you'll run low on ammo, you'll make a desperate last stand, you'll finally be overwhelmed.  The difference this time is that you'll look fantastic on film while you do it.

You have a partner in Zombie Movie, you see - floating above you, circling in his helicopter, making sure that every moment is captured for posterity.  But you'll notice I call him a "partner", not a "friend", because he doesn't care about you.  Sure, he'll drop health packs and ammo from time to time, and he'll even shoot some of the zombies from the safety of his whirlybird, but all he cares about is the quality of his footage.  Get too far from his camera range (denoted by the chopper's shadow), and it'll cost you.  Make it look too easy, and he'll actually summon tougher zombies to come after you.  Die, and -- well, actually, you're expected to die.  But make it look good, okay?

Things really could be going better here.

This is a high score chase, with points being awarded for not just killing the most zombies, but for doing so stylishly - which is to say, getting kill streaks and doing it as close to the shadow of the helicopter as possible.  You'll want to stay close to the chopper anyhow, since that's where all your supplies are coming from, but it quickly gets harder than you might think.  In the end - most likely, your end - your film will be ranked with a slew of statistics and a handful of critical reviews.  Do try to make the critics happy.  Theoretically, if you survive for six and a half minutes, they'll even pull you out of there, but let me tell you going in:  the odds aren't good.

The aesthetics are spartan but effective, spawning you into either a desert wasteland or a sleepy, suburban town before throwing the hordes your way.  Some environmental interactivity is present as well;  cars behave the way you expect them to in a movie when shot, for example, so you might want to take advantage of that.  The longer you live, the better guns you get to help you deal with the tougher enemies you'll face.  You're going to need them.

In this one, you actually do want to shoot the cars.

Zombie Movie has a neat hook, neat enough to largely take it past the "been there, done that" feeling most zombie games instill in me these days.  There's something appealingly dystopian about the idea that when the zombie apocalypse finally comes, as humanity tries desperately to survive there'll be some jackass there with a camera trying to make a profit off it (as opposed to trying to expose it, Frank West-style), and while such concepts have certainly made their way into zombie fiction and film, it was cool to see it in a game.  I had no problem with the simple graphics - they do the job - and the progression of the gameplay feels good.

If the game has a serious flaw, I think it's the controls - this begs to be a WASD+mouse controlled title, but instead it controls like every flash game ever, even though it isn't one - arrow keys to move, Z to shoot.  You can only shoot in the direction you're facing, and the nature of using the arrow keys makes keeping a diagonal aim a real pain.  Things get a little better with a gamepad and mapped keys, but not much.  Also, a tip:  as often as possible, shoot horizontally, because the zombie hitboxes are taller than they are wide.

Still, even with the shortcomings of the control scheme, I think Zombie Movie is worth downloading and spending some time with.  I never made it longer than about 3 and a half minutes of the 6 and a half before they hypothetically save you;  maybe you'll do better.  I doubt the game will stay on your hard drive forever, but it's a fun diversion and a neat take on the zombie genre that I'd like to see expanded on in the future.

Zombie Movie is...

• a clever idea developed just enough to justify another zombie game.
• difficult even without taking the controls into account.
• occasionally really frustrating because of those controls.
• nevertheless, straightforwardly fun and addictive in short bursts.

The game is Windows only, and can be played online through the GameJolt plugin, or downloaded at a size just under 10MB - both things may be done here.

"Free And Worth Every Penny" is a column I collaborate on with Mike Bellmore at Colony of Gamers.  This piece also appears there.

Hey Look, Frozen Synapse is 20% Off.

I promise the entire content of this site isn't going to turn into attempts to get you to buy stuff (though honestly, how much game journalism isn't centered on either trying to get you to either buy something or not buy something, really? ...anyhow), but there's a one-day-only sale going on right now that might interest you.

Frozen Synapse, a really unique turn-based tactical game by Mode 7 Games, is on sale for today only in recognition of the UK election.  If you enter the code "WELLHUNG" (...don't look at me, I didn't pick it) when pre-ordering, you'll receive 20% off the price, which means that you'll pay about $20USD for two copies of the game instead of $26.  If you can convince somebody to go in on it with you, $10 apiece for this game is a steal, in my opinion.

I'll probably write more about Frozen Synapse here soon, as I'm really enjoying my time in the beta and we're trying to line up the developer for an interview on Immortal Machines, but for now, if you want more information feel free to read Kieron Gillen's take on it over at RockPaperShotgun, and watch the following trailer to see if it appeals to you:

In terms of quick-playing but very detailed turn-based combat, it's not quite like anything I've played before (though certainly it has similarities to X-Com, Laser Squad Nemesis, Jagged Alliance, and many of the other games it visually resembles).  It's certainly the most fun I've had micromanaging in awhile.  If you pick it up, leave me a comment and let me know.  I can always use more people to play against.

Oh Wow. Five Indie Games, Pay What You Want.

I sadly don't have time just now to go in-depth and explain why these games are great - well, I know why four of them are great, I haven't actually played Penumbra - but right now a crew of excellent indie developers have teamed up with Wolfire Games to offer their extremely popular and well received games (World of Goo, Gish, Aquaria, Lugaru HD, and Penumbra) in a bundle for whatever price you want to pay, in the Humble Indie Bundle.

Better than that, you can decide exactly where the money goes.  Give some of it to each developer, or all of it to your favorite, or - best of all in my opinion - give some or all of it to charity.  They're allowing you to allocate your money to Child's Play or the EFF, both extremely worthy causes.

Here, I'll just let them pseudo-rap about it:

I can vouch for Aquaria, Gish, World of Goo and Lugaru as very high quality, really entertaining titles, any one of which would probably be worth whatever number you're going to put in that box (and most of which probably cost more than that number, too, on a normal day).  I can't speak to the merits of Penumbra, but if it's keeping company with the other four it's probably got something going for it.  Bottom line:  This is a great deal, getting you a ton of gaming while supporting the good cause(s) of your choice, so if you're even a little interested you should take advantage of it.  The sale runs all week.