Zojoi’s MacVentures Keep You Inside, Snow Outside!

Posted on January 26, 2015 by geelw

Well, well… the MacVenture series is back and in fine nostalgic form, this time as a set of Steam digital downloads. While you can buy each of these four classics for $2.99 a pop, it’s best to go whole hog and bag the bundle for $8.99. For that price, you get the original Macintosh 128k black and white and Apple IIGS 4-bit color versions of the MacVenture Series: Uninvited, Shadowgate, Deja Vu and Deja Vu II: Lost In Las Vegas. Yes, they will run on current Macs (of course!) and any PC that’s using Windows 7 or above.

Even better, since Zojoi Games is happy to get these classics back out in the fresh air, there’s s 20% launch discount on Steam ($2.39 each, $7.19 four pack bundle) until February 2, 2015. Yeah, so now you can’t say you have nothing to do because you’re snowed in with nothing but the cat to look at. Leave that pet on the bookshelf and go play with something a lot more entertaining…

Review: Citizens of Earth

Posted on January 22, 2015 by geelw

Platform: PlayStation Vita (also on PS4, PC, Nintendo Wii U, Nintendo 3DS)

Developer: Eden Industries

Publisher: Atlus

# of Players: 1

ERSB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10+)

Official Site

Score: B+ (85%)

Fans of classic 90’s console RPGs should drop everything (as in, NOW) and grab Eden Industries’ Citizens of Earth for anything they can play it on. The game perfectly captures the spirit of the classic Super Nintendo game Earthbound while adding elements such as a more open world to explore 30+ party members to recruit and too many puns to keep track of. Not everything is flawless, however. A few typos, accumulated loading times and one pesky navigation glitch sometimes kick the good bits in the good bits. Nevertheless, this is one of those fun and funny games that can suck you in for hours at a time. Atlus wisely rescuing this failed crowd-funded game project and saw fit to publish it for a few platforms.

In the game, You’re the Vice President of the World (!) and things are somewhat screwy in the post-election phase. Angry protesters are outside your home, there’s trouble at the local coffee shop and lots more wildness that requires your VP skills. You’ll need to round up and recruit citizens from all walks of life to aid you in your quest, so expect to meet up with a wide cast of odd and amusing party members as the game progresses. This isn’t any sort of emotional powerhouse storyline at all, so going in expecting weep-inducing cut scenes or “powerful” moments is a fool’s errand. On the other hand, if you like pun-heavy puns, goofy-looking enemies and creative uses of coffee, pastry and pharmaceuticals, you’ll love what’s here and then some… Continue reading →

Bundle Stars Brings The Games – You Bring The Wallet!

Posted on January 20, 2015 by geelw

Yikes. TWO bundles a day for a five days over at Bundle Stars? That’s just wacky under “normal” circumstances… but if you’re looking for deals on a ton of titles all at once you may as well dive in both feet first and get your backlogs aching with some fine indie PC games in pretty much every genre. I’m in the middle of writing a review at the moment, so I’ll just play the lazy card and let you click on each pic below to get on over the deals yourselves. Note that these are only available for a LIMITED time (about 72 hours each), so act FAST and grab a bundle (or bundles) and walk away happy that you now have way too many games to get to.

Okay, let’s go!

One!

Two!

Three!

Four!

Okay, my work here seems to be done… but isn’t. I’m poring through my inbox and see other bundles in there from a few sites. Yaaaaaah. Okay, I’ll get those up tomorrow, as I’m still banging away on a game review and some other stuff…

Project CARS’ New Trailer: Stare Into The Skid!

Posted on January 19, 2015 by geelw

Nope, I didn’t forget about you, Project CARS. I’m still holding out hope that the Wii U version is as wonderful to play as it’s promising to be and makes those who only own that console and not an overpriced gaming PC at least happy to have a decent licensed racer. While other consoles and PC have gotten some stellar realistic racers, the amount on Nintendo’s home consoles is embarrassingly low. Well, the amount of GOOD licensed racers, to be precise. Yeah, yeah, I’ll check this out on the PC, and PS4 at some point. But my Wii U needs this game just to shut down the haters who don’t own one who still think it’s “underpowered”. So, Bandai Namco Games… let’s do this! March 2015 is rolling up sooner than you think…

Now Playing: Citizens of Earth

Posted on January 18, 2015 by geelw

I’ll have a full review up something this coming week, but Eden Industries’ indie RPG Citizens of Earth is so far, pretty awesome. They’ve captured the wackiness of certain 90’s Japanese RPGs (some familiar, some not so familiar) perfectly with a fun and amusing game that’s easy to hop into but challenging if you’re willing to crank up the difficulty. Anyway, that’s all for now,as I don’t want to spoil anything. The game may not have made its crowdfunding target, but Atlus picking it up and getting it out on a bunch of platforms (PC, PS4, PS Vita, Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Wii U) via digital distribution was a pretty smart move on their part.

Granted, if you despise digital games, you’ll be missing out on some grand fun. Hopefully, some of the die-hard physical-only/mostly collectors will break that ban and give this game some love. Back in a few with that review…

“Wake Up, Time to BUY!” Indie Royale Gives You Coffee and a Mystery…

Posted on January 17, 2015 by geelw

I forgot to add these two awesome deals from Indie Royale yesterday, so here you go: MORE games to buy for not a lot of money, you ~~cheapskates~~ smart and wise savers of money. First up, the Coffee Bean Bundle, which is a misleading title on the surface as you’re buying games, not coffee (or coffee beans for that matter). That said, you’ll probably need to put on a pot of the strongest java you can handle. Blinking while playing any of the high-octane games in this set of five is pretty much guaranteed to make you lose. Hey, sleep is overrated on some days, right?

Do you love mysteries? Good. Have you got a digital dollar? Great! The Mystery 3 Bundle is calling out to you and you know you can’t resist. Three of the games are revealed (a retro JRPG and two intriguing deep water diving/hidden object hybrids) and the other seven are hidden until later. Take a chance, folks. No, you probably won’t get some system-taxing AAA game at all. But surprises are underrated on some days, right? Okay, get to it then. Your backlog isn’t a backlog unless it’s got some games in it!

Since I Missed Some Bundles, You Get All Of Them To Buy At Once!

Posted on January 16, 2015 by geelw

Yes, I’ve been busy elsewhere and here and over there, too. So I haven’t been letting you all know of too many bundles to keep you warm this winter. Or something like that. Anyway, keeping up with all of these deals is a fool’s errand, I know. But I’m a fan of spending as little money as possible on some games and feel you should be as well. Let’s get to it, shall we?

First up, IndieGala is re-running its Hostile Reaction and last Friday’s Friday Special Bundle, both with Happy Hour status in full effect. “What’s Happy Hour?” you ask? Well, it’s FREE gifts (more games!) if you buy a bundle at a higher than average price. All that PLUS there’s a FREE Steam game waiting for YOU in the IndieGala store if you have a Steam account. All you need to do is pass them your email and Flump Studios‘ arcade shooter Super Killer Hornet Resurrection is all yours!

Meanwhile, Bundle Stars has a couple of cool deals this week. If you love racing games, tons of destruction and even mini-games where your poor driver gets used as a projectile in faux “sports” events, get the FlatOut Complete Bundle NOW. $5.99 gets you all four games in the series, and while FlatOut 3 is the black sheep of the lot, it’s still interesting to compare it to the three other games to see where it went off the rails. I blame the different dev team (as did everyone else who played the game, it seems), but once you spend some time with it, it’s not the worst racer ever made. Don’t forget to poke around the site for still hot deals on the Bloodshed Bundle, the Abstract Bundle and more!

Over at the Humble Store, this weekend, you can score some awesome Games Workshop titles for a song or two. Also, this week’s Humble Weekly Bundle is all BRAWLERS, with seven games for eight bucks (or five games for a lot less if you’re a total cheapskate). There’s also some cool Humble Book Bundle deals on digital comics (and a free daily digital comic just for dropping by the site). Let me cease here and post this. There are a few other deals in my inbox, but I’ll let you digest these and add dessert at some point tomorrow.

IndieGala Wants To Scare Your Pants Off Today. Let Them!

Posted on January 12, 2015 by geelw

But make sure to take your wallet out of your pocket first if you keep it there. This week’s IndieGala Every Monday Bundle is a smaller one than usual, but that’s because Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 will most likely scare you to death before you get to the other games in the bundle. To wit:

The other games aren’t horror-themed at all, but you do get some nice indie RPGs and strategy games to keep your heart rate calmer. Still, $1.89 is a fine deal for these five games and if you’ve never played the first Five Nights at Freddy’s, fear not (or perhaps fear a lot!). That one’s still on sale in last week’s Friday Special Bundle which has ten total games for a mere $2.89.

I’ll leave you to it to decide what you want to do, as usual. If anything getting both bundles will keep you warm because of all that jumping out of your seat you’ll be doing in the two games noted above…

Archive.org Adds 2300+ MS-DOS Games: So Much For Productivity (Again!)…

Posted on January 10, 2015 by geelw

Oh, good gravy. If the Internet Arcade wasn’t a bad enough way to lose too many hours, Archive.org has just killed off the chances some of you will ever see the light of day ever again. Once again, you can blame Jason Scott and a bunch of other people with too much time on their hands who have very wisely decided to keep videogame history alive and strong for the masses.

All you need to do is point your browser here and hope you aren’t swept away for too long trying out a bunch of classic MS-DOS games. While most are emulated in your browser, you can download some titles and run them on your PC using a decent DOS emulator such as DOSBOX or FreeDOS. I’ll “warn” you in advance that many of these game are really awesome and you may find yourself neglecting basic needs. I’d write more, but a bunch of oldies are calling me to come spend some time with them…

Robot Roller-Derby Disco Dodgeball: Welcome to the Hype-erdome!

Posted on January 10, 2015 by geelw

I tend to avoid promoting many Early Access games because you never know if they’ll actually be completed and there’s nothing worse that getting thrilled over vaporware. Still, after my eyes rolled back in my head when my inbox showed me an email about Robot Roller-Derby Disco Dodgeball, I checked out the YouTube video and nearly fell off my chair laughing. But that’s actually a good thing in this case…

This one’s an instant classic because it’s pure insanity made by ONE guy and seems to have taken Steam by storm. This is what happens when you have time and talent to spare plus a great deal of focus on getting things right. I still dislike multiplayer gaming for a number of good reasons, but I’ll now need to try this out just for the new Arcade mode that’s just been added. The game is being constantly tweaked and according to the press release I got yesterday, has dethroned the mighty Counter-Strike as as the best rated multiplayer game on all of Steam.

Of course, I also have too many painful memories of playing dodgeball in grade school and junior high, so I’d gather my initial hesitation was warranted. I’m not averse to disco, although when it’s in a videogame, I get really awful flashbacks of Cyberdillo, an atrocious wreck of a game for the late, lamented 3DO. Fortunately, Disco Dodgeball plays like a faster-paced version of BattleSport mixed with multiplayer Quake set to some danceable tunes. If you’re bouncing up and down in your seat to the beat of those beats, ten bucks gets you in the door, there’s a no drink minimum and you can hang out as long as you like. If you do decide to grab this one, you may or may not run into yours truly. I still dislike playing online games, but this is one that may make me change my mind for a few minutes at least…