I never really got into model trains as a kid. I’ve never been the biggest fan of click and shoot survival games. I find drawn out growth and level building stuff to be tedious. I very much prefer free movement to locked paths. With all of these elements present, I should theoretically hate Rail of War. But you need to remember, to a degree, I am a math guy, and four negatives multiplied together yeaild a very large positive!

This game is nothing short of awesome. It’s hard to explain the parallel, but playing this felt a lot like playing Mechwarrior 2 and 3 back in the glory days of PC gaming.

The artwork, terrains and explosions are all rendered with high detail and have plenty of variety, even when a straight single-texture background probably would have been forgiven. The enemies are re-used a lot, but not because there is a lack of unique sprites, rather there is just a metric shit-ton of enemies. And when you start getting surrounded and swarmed the firefights are just insane.

The sound and music really help draw you in, making it feel like a real war game, in spite the fact you are playing from a distant top-down perspective.

The gameplay is great. While you are limited to movement via railway tracks, there are plenty of railway switches. So even though your base path is pre-defined, it’s not just one straight trail, you can mix it up and get some extra bonuses by taking different branches.

The train itself is easy to drive, you just click a throttle guage and it starts rolling up to your desired speed. You don’t need to worry about moving and shooting at the same time, so you can really focus most of your attention on what counts: BLOWING SHIT TO HIGH HELL.

The gameplay alone isn’t enough to make this fun for more than a level or 2, but as you progress you do get more money and you have a very nice selection of upgrades you can buy. More train cars… guns for said cars… bigger and badder engines, and so on.

The levels are also a bit deeper than just getting from point A to point B, so you have to think from time to time. Plan your direction, scout the rail branches, and find fuel on the way. It’s not a fantastic storyline by any means, but all the small elements really do add up to make each level feel unique, rather then the repetitiveness found in other games of this style.

And if that’s not enough to keep you playing, you can also dive in and make your own levels with a very simple level editing tool.

The amazing thing is that this web game is pretty much just a demo for the full downloadable game. It’s so good I may even go ahead and get myself the full version!

But for now, I’m still blowing shit up in my browser and loving every minute of it!

[ Play Rail of War ]

“I’M IN UR TANK KILLIN UR GUYS!!!!”

Hovertanks is a Battlezone style first person tank game that lets you zoom around a (and I use the term loosely) 3d environment, similar to old snes games that attempted 3d areas without the use of the mode 7 capabilities.Considering that this is not true 3d and that all the sprites had to be rendered at multiple perspectives, the artwork in this game isn’t too bad, but not as pretty as other modern web games by any means.

The sound is pretty weak and doesn’t help to immerse you in any way, but it’s not terrible or completely unfitting.

The gameplay is pretty standard for any first person game, arrows or WASD to drive, mouse to aim/shoot/change weapons. The fun is in the way the tanks handle. Being over tanks you never just stop or turn you always have momentum and drift so you can do some pretty cool evasive maneuvers when you are in a firefight with enemy tanks. I had the most fun charging the tank’s cannon and doing 180’s to take out guys on my six.

Where this game suffers is the framerate. Because of all the 3d calculations it has running, and possible due to some inefficient programming, the game runs a bit slow as it is, wich is made even more apparent by the extremely low framerate the game is running at to begin with. I’m pretty sure most older PCs would choke on this game, but if you got a powerhouse it’s still a fun game…. for about 10 minutes.

Still, it’s nice to see people pushing flash games beyond the 2d and single perspective 3d we’ve been seeing. Maybe other programmers will find inspiration and take this concept to the next level and give us a much cooler game to review.

[ Play Hovertanks ]

Go., drawn/animated by Buzzwerd , coded by TrueDarkeness and sponsored by Armor Games is a purdy side scrolling snowboarding game with great game play and way to many high scores tables to try and get on.

The controls are fairly easy, with the right and left arrows to adjust speed, space to power up to jump and A S D to do tricks in the air. Takes a sec to get the jump timing down but besides that controls are well done.

The levels are well thought out and very much increase in difficulty. The added bonus of jumping off the snowmen is a nice touch too. I would’ve liked to see them exploding but you can’t have everything I guess.

Overall you SHOULD end up trying the harder difficulties, which with the above mentioned high scores makes this very re playable. Music and effects were non annoying and went well with it. STOP READING ME BABBLE AND PLAY!

[ Play Go. ]

Cereus Peashy is the next game in the popular badlands series from Award winning designer Edmund McMillen (of Gish and Triachnid fame), and programmer, Riftmaster (my partner in crime from Bat Outta Hell). Like most of the badlands games, you play as a twisted looking little dessert critter (this one is pretty much a walking cactus in a mask) combating your way through the trials of the badlands and its other inhabitants.

At heart, Peashy is a platforming game and has a lot of elements from games like Sonic the Hedgehog, like speedy running, spiny ball attacks and rolls. Given the nature of the character it’s a natural direction to take, but Peashy is so much more then a Sonic wannabe. You can pick up spikes that give you limited range attacks, and if you splatter enough baddies you go into a complete bloodlust where you turn red and can throw bouncy, explosive hearts.

The cartoony gore in this game isn’t used as a crutch to attract 12 year old players that think blood makes games cool, rather it’s more of an effect to flush out the fleshiness and volatility of the creatures you face. Plus it’s really funny.

This early demo wasn’t quite finished on the audio end and was missing music, but the sounds that were present were quite fitting and had all the gooey body splatting effects you would expect.

The story mode looks like it will have plenty of levels to keep hardcore players going for hours, and for my fellow casual players there is a survival mode!

With extremely fun gameplay, and insanely hot graphics, Cereus Peashy is poised to turn a ton of heads when it launches in the very near future. Check back with us for our official review when the full game is available.

Chompy’s Winter Rescue by http://www.stroutsink.com/ is a cutsey winter happy fun time game where you must help out elementals, plant and a silly looking bird BUT IT DOES NOT STOP THERE! You must also go out and sled around and find more of the above mentioned, and coins and jumps to get more coins to upgrade your sled and yeah. Not really that involved and way easy to get hooked on. I SHALL EXPLAIN.

The “feeding” level starts off quite easy. it’s fairly easy to understand what needs what. You guide Chompy with your mouse, grabbing what comes off the belt with a mouse click then dropping with the spacebar. Myself, I would’ve liked dropping with a mouse click, but it still works. Anyways, after you’ve feed the patients, IT’S TIME TO GO A SLEDDING!

I really like games with different types of game play added and with the sled upgrades you can get this game does a great job of giving it that little extra unf to make wanting to go better faster stronger meaningful. Or something.

Sled controls are your basic arrows, with up and down being faster/slower, respectively. Going for the jumps gets you more bling then the single coins. I got to the point where I wanted to see how fast it could go and damn me but if it isn’t coded where I saw no slowdown what so ever.

Even with the game steadily getting faster each level, there are several things I’d of liked to see, such as maybe spinning in the air off of jumps or exploding snowmen, when you run into them. I love seeing little touches added to that in games. Overall, while some may get bored after awhile, I got addicted through trying to get better and go faster, through each type of game play, and with Crazy Monkey Games hooking up the hi-scores you’ll be having a nice run trying to get tops.

SAFSDTGSDF. I forgot about the graphics. Well done and with the game makes it playable for all ages. I like seeing trees splattered with blood when you run into them but I GUESS this game is still ok ;).

[ Play Chompy's Winter Rescue ]

I’m sure you’ve seen news reports and other articles regarding the sudden boom in casual gaming, and how this new genre of games is taking the web by storm. As a big casual gamer myself, I feel I must stress that this is FAR from a new market. Casual games were the original market, with games like Pac-man and Qix, so when I see a game like Pac-Xon that is a complete throwback to the roots of casual games, I feel I need to give it some love.

Pac-Xon uses classic arcade sprites from the pacman games, and uses some pac elements like power pellets and fruit, but for the most part, this game is all about drawing boxes and trapping things, just like the gameplay of Qix. There is nothing fancy about this game at all, just pure timeless gameplay. It’s f*ing fun!

The art isn’t pretty (unless you are from 1981), but if you are playing a game with classic pacman characters, it looks exactly like it should.

The sound is also sub-par by today’s standards, but keeps the game feeling like a long lost 80’s arcade title.

The gameplay is all that matters. If you’ve played any box and trap game like this, you will pick it up right away. What makes it a bit different is the degree to wich they tied in pacman game elements.

MOST of the ghosts in the level float freely in the black space, and if they hit you or any unconnected line you are making you die. Other ghosts cling to the edge of your boxes and are able to kill you even if you are on the ’safe-zone’ boxes. There are also ghosts that ONLY travel in the safe-zone boxes, and larger ghosts that eat away at the boxes as they touch them.

The tie-in to classic pacman games is that if you eat a power pellet, all the ghosts turn blue and can’t hurt you. You can even ‘eat’ them, but they respawn almost instantly. Additional pac-items are bonus fruits that pop up from time to time that actually give you a bit of a speed boost.

The overall goal is to fill at least 80% of the screen with blue boxes, trapping the ghosts in small spaces. If you can fill more than the 80% you get bonus points, and so on and so fourth.

This modern game is definitely appealing to the web’s casual gamers, but it also represents the old school and reminds us that, new or old, gameplay is all that matters.

[ Play Pac-Xon ]

Dragon Fist 3 by Ben Olding. I can’t say much more then what Ben said, in his author comments on NG:

“32 playable characters (42 in total), 14 weapons, 14 kungfu fighting styles, character editor, 1 vs 2 fights, 2 player fights, 4 single player modes”

Actually, I will say more. MUST PLAY GOGOGOGOGO! Where to start? Graphic wise, pretty damn good, for the amount of different characters involved and all the different moves with each character. Sound and sound effects are well placed and not annoying.

Controls are easy to learn but the AI will give you a good fight for victory. All the different modes will definitely keep you playing this one for awhile. Overall, a must play and a great upgrade to the series.
[ Play Dragon Fist 3 ]

(Spin Doctor) by JMTB02 is a mouse and or mouse and space bar dealio where you’re in control of a ship THAT MUST BATTLE OTHER SHIPS. Breath taking concept, I know, but the game play and great graphics make up for the lack of an original game idea.

What makes me keep playing it is the strat you must think about while progressing through the many levels. The AI is out to get ya, and in a bad way. Myself I found it easier to go with controlling with the mouse while hitting the baddys with the space bar. The curve for learning the game isn’t to bad but you’ll die several times right off. Don’t let it discourage you. THE BAD DISKS MUST DIE!!!
Again, great graphics and game play makes this a great time waster . Also make sure and check out his other games. Parachute Retrospect had me giggling for hours.

[ Play (Spin Doctor) ]

Tis the season to be jolly fa la la la laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa……..

At least that was the case before an army of shadey characters showed up at the north pole and stole all the holiday cheer. Now Santa has to take them all out with his trusty water pistol and get X-mas back on track.

Fans of games like the original Mario Bros. and Bubble Bobble will appreciate this game as a kickback to classic arcade gameplay.

The art in the game is very well rendered (as is the case for most MiniClip games) all the way from the characters to the backgrounds. The music is festive without being TOO x-massy, and the sounds, just like the art, are very fitting for the whole classic arcade presentation of this game.

The gameplay isn’t very complicated and you can pick it up pretty quick: Use the arrows to walk, jump and drop through floors. You need to get within range of the baddies, without getting hit yourself, and soak them with water (using SPACE). This freezes them bit by bit until they are fully encased in ice. Once you have an enemy trapped you can kick the ice-ball like a padded man at a women’s self defense class to take out other baddies. Each enemy you take out drops a present, decoration, or holiday treat that you can grab to boost your score.

After a few levels I started thinking the game was bound to get pretty repetitive, but I was pleased to see that wasn’t the case. Every few levels you run into a boss who you have to beat in some special way. If you are like _altr_ and have to take frequent piss breaks because you just finished your second six pack at breakfast, there is a pause feature, which is finally become much more standard in flash games.

So yeah, this game doesn’t have a ton of depth to it, and there’s not a lot to see, but older gamers like myself who grew up playing these type of arcade style games will get some enjoyable play time out of Deep Freeze. And even if you don’t care about that style of play, it’s still an x-mas game. Go play it and get with the holiday spirit and all that rot.

[ Play Deep Freeze ]

In order to broaden the horizons of WGM, I will be hosting a weekly broadcast on Radiogrounds, Fridays at 4PM EST, to discuss the games we reviewed each week and get some live interaction with our readers and game developers

This week I’m hoping to get an interview together with Tom and Dim, the Super Flash Bros.

If you have any questions you would like me to ask, or just have any comments on the show, you can leave a post on OUR forums, the Newgrounds BBS or the Radiogrounds BBS.