freeware posts

Streets of Rage is one of those classic games that just about everyone with access to a Sega Genesis played at one point. The indie remake project, Streets of Rage Remake, has finally released the final version of their sprawling, PC-oriented remake of the classic franchise. Characters, stages, music, and objects from every game in the core series have been included and remastered, making this one of the most impressive remake projects we've ever seen. On top of that, it includes tons of goodies, such as editors and concept images.

[Via TIGsource]
[Image via Rock Paper Shotgun]

Sometimes, the best game is the one that is so incredibly simple that you wish you had thought of it yourself. Rocky Memphis is such a game. It has plenty in common with gravity-defying platform VVVVVV, but not because it follows the same mechanics. Rather, Rocky Memphis follows strict platforming rules almost to the letter. What makes it great is the plethora of areas to explore, the excellently-done retro sprites, and the perfectly tuned difficulty that keeps you playing for just one more room. It's not exactly the most replayable game, but it doesn't have to be, and it knows it.

You're living at home with your loving wife and two children: a little boy and a little girl. The wife does groceries and cooks you dinner, the little boy loves sports and being mischevious, and the little girl loves her plushies and bedtime stories. It's like a sitcom from the 50s. However, you are being stalked by a Japanese chef who wishes to turn you into sushi. In most cases, this would be the plot to a horror flick (Sushi Slashers 2: Return of Sushi Chef). Here it is different, though: you are actually an octopus pretending to be a human. Thus the plot of Octodad is revealed, and both the story and gameplay lead to it being an incredibly hilarious, albeit short, freeware game.

Most indie games has a semblance of normality about them. The ones that don't, like the games from Cactus, are usually done in such a way that they have their own internal, game-like logic. Dadaists Gone Wild takes this notion and throws it clear out the window. Combining surreal, disturbing imagery with a pastiche of amateur game making, it's a hilarious (and ultimately very playable) game that pokes fun at the sort of art games that the indie community has come to love.

You play as a photographer sent to an island in order to photograph beautiful girls. Unfortunately, rather than being girls gone wild, this happened to be dadists gone wild, and as such he is subjected to a strange, frightening, and ultimately funny world. The rules of logic and physics are bent and broken regularly, floating eyes judge his every move, and he comes into contact with everything from floating static to the personification of Death. All in all, though, it's mostly just a platformer that satirizes the art house crowd, and it does a good job while still maintaining playability. You can download it from the developer's website, and beating it takes approximately 10-15 minutes.

There are a lot of rough games that, despite fiddly graphics or controls, end up being classics due to their excellent concepts. Chess With Blood is one of those games, and despite being quite rough around the edges, it has an interesting mechanic that is played with to excellent effect. It was created for the A Game By Its Cover competition, and while it's hardly the best game of the lot, it's worth trying out.

Chess With Blood has a very simple concept at its core: what if chess was more of a tactical RPG than chess? The result is A strange mixture of things such as attack and defense values, positioning, and using different actions at the right time. All chess pieces behave as the would in a normal game of chess, only they have hit points, deal damage, and protect themselves. The game includes tweaks to classic rules and strategies as well, such as promotion and forking. Overall, it's rough, but excellent. You can give it a try on the developer's website.

A Game By Its Cover has inspired some thoroughly funny games, and this one is definitely one of the most interesting we've played. Burp 'n Shoot is a send-up of the current political climate in the United States, and it's a hilarious take on conspiracies. You play as a stereotypical redneck, enjoying one last day (July 4th, to be exact) before the start of the "anti-christ Obama era." Granted, it's really in the game proper (besides the TV channels) but this is definitely the meaning of the game, as the developer came out and said it.

The gameplay rests somewhere between Puzzle Bobble and pinball. You must bounce your shots along bumpers and walls to try and take out beer cans, bottles, and rockets that your buddies keep putting up into the air. The more times your shot bounces before hitting its target, the higher the multiplier and the the higher your score. As you only have a limited number of shots, careful shot placement is important. There are also different bumpers besides the standard bouncing ones, but we'll let you figure out the nuances. Burp 'n Shoot can be downloaded from the developer's thread on TIGsource.

There's lots of things to do on a rainy day. Reading a book, playing a game (assuming it's not a thunderstorm), or doing something creative such as writing are all great options. A more unusual one would be to find all your cats and poke them in the ass. This is the premise of Jason Boyer's (JaJitsu) Cat Poke, and despite its thoroughly weird goal, it's a fun adventure game to spend some time on. It can be finished in only a few minutes if you know what you are doing, but it will probably take a while to figure out the puzzles!

The graphics in Cat Poke are incredible, but Jason Boyer is known for his excellent art style, thus it is not really a surprise. The music is alright, as are the sound effects, although the music does get irritatingly dissonant at times. The puzzles themselves are fairly straightforward if you pay attention, but there are a few that might stump you. There's also a bit of fiddly nature to the controls, which makes luring some cats out difficult. Overall, it's an interesting game with a sickeningly cute style. You can download the game from the forum thread.

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

Grand Theft Auto 2 is one of our favorite games. We've covered it here before on Freeware Friday (thanks to those generous folk at Rockstar) but we really can't emphasize enough just how fun it is. It seems we're not the only ones who seriously adore it, however, as an excellent multiplayer game bearing a striking resemblance to GTA2 was released recently. Subvein takes the top-down gameplay of the early Grand Theft Auto games, sticks it in a purely multiplayer environment, and sets it free. The result is a thoroughly enjoyable multiplayer experience that should be overlooked by absolutely nobody. If you enjoy multiplayer games whatsoever, you owe it to yourself to download and play Subvein.

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

One of the first games we ever covered on Freeware Friday was the incredibly detailed Dwarf Fortress. Despite having been absent for a while, we've still been keeping track of the best freeware games around, and one of them is a game which acts almost as a tribute to Dwarf Fortress' incredible complexity. Goblin Camp may appear to be a clone, but it's much more simple. It takes the incredible simulation of Dwarf Fortress and distills it to its core essence, removing a lot of the barriers to entry that have built up in eight years of development. Plus, and this is a big plus, the interface is much better!

Survival games seem to be all the rage in the indie community nowadays, and for good reason. The success of games like Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress show that people really want games that, while without traditional goals, still stimulates them. It pushes players to explore both their environment and their relation to the things around them. Under The Garden is an entry into TIGsource's A Game By Its Cover competition, and it falls squarely into the realm of these pseudo-simulations.

There's no explicit goal in Under The Garden other than "survive," and the game makes this abundantly clear at every opportunity. You must chop wood, shoot rabbits, and rearrange furniture all to keep your stamina up in the harsh wilderness weather. It's an interesting take on the survival genre, especially given the beautiful side-view perspective and excellent sounds. One of the best games from the competition, for sure.