Islander Boys by GodliMations is a fun furiously mouse clicker where you must get back the golden pig for the feast tonight.

My god, the hilarity of them singing in the boat is gold. To quote the author:
“All I ask is that this game puts a smile on your face, and if you don’t laugh, you need a personality : ) ” 100% agree on that one and yes I was grinning the whole time, when my finger wasn’t bleeding from clicking so much. The animation of everyone in the boat was great and well drawn through out the game. I just wish the same attention was spent with the enemies. While they’re still good it was just your basic wave after wave.

I love how the sound changes around on you and thank god there was no effect for the spear throwing. While it’s still just a short game the audio went on a long ways for me.

At first I thought I’d have to defend the boat 360 degrees but it’s pretty much head on, with a bit more, for the bosses. Short game or not it definitely needed a pause button. My fingers aren’t getting any younger damn it. The camera moving with the mouse while left clicking to shoot played in well with each other. Without the animation and the audio this would barely warrant a review but the concept is top notch. I’d love to see more games with the “Islander Boys”. I think there’s a lot of potential for an ongoing series with them.

[ Play Islander Boys ]

UFO Mania, developed by Juan Ramon Alvarez de Lara Sieder (that must suck writing out a check) is a pretty cool abduction type game, but the aliens are doing it for the betterment of man, SO THEY SAY.

Very smooth animation and good color usage makes this easy to play. When you have to rescue so many lil bastards and concentrate on not getting hit, eye pain is a no no. Could’ve used some blood or atleast a good splat noise/animation, but other then that visually it’s well done.

Besides no splat sounds, there’s really no other effects what to talk of. Some in the menu here and there, but not much else. Keeps the file size down and makes it non annoying but also semi-dull. The audio loop for the main music is pretty good and pleasing while you’re abducting people.

The game play is what gives this a good score from me. Easy to use controls, just move with the mouse and left click to start your abduction ray. Sounds easy but with fast aircraft and helicopters all over the place it’s more then enough of a challenge. Also add to it that you can carry only so many people or your handling will start getting screwy and you got a decent hair puller game going, the type I love best.

With several levels, high scores (check them out in game) , and easy medium and hard settings this’ll keep you playing for a bit.

[ Play UFO Mania ]

Back in the early 80’s when PC gaming was still finding it’s place in the world, there were a slew of amazingly fun and clever games that somehow never made the transition to consoles like the NES. Some of my favorite games from this era were Jumpman and the Ultimate Wizard.

Space Runner 2 is one of these types of games. Sure it’s far from being a fantastic game, but after playing it I knew I had to shine a light on it for several reasons (which I will get into momentarily).

The graphics in this game are very plain… nothing fancy at all… but they vector-line style art is almost as much a throwback to classic pc gaming as the gameplay itself is.

There’s no sound at all in this game which really hurts the overall experience… but you can always make your own ‘BOING’ and ‘BEEW‘ noises if you’re that hard up for effects.

The gameplay is where this game shows a spark that could have burst into a bright shining star of awesomeness and pudding cups.

Like the long buried pc games of yesteryear this game presents you with the entire level in one screen, and a bunch of tiny hazards and moving…things… that move around hoping to kill your tiny little space man.

The object of most of these types of games is simple item collection, which unlocks an exit. Sound familiar? A lot of more modern games like Sling and Bumper Craft have applied this. Space Runner, however, keeps it real by presenting this with classic platformer gameplay.

The actual game engine isn’t as polished as the classic games were. The collision and motion are very basic… almost half-assed, but they aren’t so bad that they make the game unplayable.

Like all of these types of games, the real challenge and variety comes in the level design. These are simple games, so the levels need to be well constructed to be any fun, and Space Runner 2 has some pretty well laid-out levels.

So what if it’s not the best game, or made with as much skill as what we’ve come to expect, IT’S FRIKKEN FUN!

I’m just glad SOMEBODY is showing some love for a genre that is in need of a serious resurrection. Oh how I long for a great game that gives me the action of a platformer, and the casual playability of a puzzle game. Oh how I long for pudding cups….

[ Play Space Runner 2 ]

Cereus Peashy is finally out, and they guys from Divirge really delivered with the finesse and polish they said they were working on. If you read our preview of this game, you’ll already know how amazing I though this game was.

The art is fantastic. Once again the world of the badlands is brought vividly to life, with twisted characters, which Edmund has told me were originally inspired by roadkills he had to clean up in an old service job he used to work.

The sound is dead on for a platformer like this, and the ambience that mixes with the subtle (but amazingly well composed) music only servers to further draw you into the game.

The gameplay is solid oldschool platforming taken up a notch. There are elements from Sonic (rolling as a spikey ball… building speed as you run,etc…) and Mario (collecting coins for 1-up, super stomping baddies and powerup containers…) as well as some fun additions like the bloodlust you go into after killing so many baddies.

After playing the older, preview version as much as I did, I was quite sad that they changed what happens when you die.

In the demo, if you died, you would lose a life and drop back down from the sky ready to keep on trucking. In the final version, if you die…you end up at square one and have to start over.

The final game also has a lot of performance slow-down due to all the extra effects that got added to polish the game up. It looks amazing on the highest setting, but even on my Dell XPS, I had to drop all the quality settings down to get it to an enjoyable splay speed.

Between having to play in low quality, and the starting at the beginning when dying thing, I actually got too frustrated to play this game for more than 10 minutes. If this was an NES game and I was still 12 years old, my gamepad would have been thrown at the tv at least 6 or 7 times.

This game is probably not going to appeal to the casual player as much as the older demos would have, but if you are more of a hardcore gamer and you are looking for a fun, and extremely challenging game…. Peashy is the game you’ve been waiting for.

[ Play Cereus Peashy ]

Orbis Impetus (Latin for “circle attack”) by Kabomb is a cool “snake” type game that isn’t quite like snake.

Using the arrows to move, you guide your bubbley snake thingy to get more bubbles, while avoiding the stars. The great challenge here is that it’s harder to get the bubbles then the stars haha. Very elusive lil @$@W#$s.

With some good graphics and sound it’ll be a nice time waster for those into these type of games, complete with high scores, even with it borrowing from some old concepts.

[ Play Orbis Impetus ]

As I’ve stated so many times before, I LOVE it when oldschool gameplay gets a big overhaul and is expanded into something fun and new. Bumper Craft is definately one of those games. It takes the control and motion of the classic game, Asteroids, and applies it to a level based adventure game.

This is a pretty simple game at heart, but in-spite of that, the art is quite well done and there’s a good deal of variety across all the levels.

The sound is very fitting, but nothing spectacular. There’s only one music track in this game, and while it’s not a bad track, it quickly gets old.

The gameplay is great momentum-based fun. Like Asteroids, you have a small flying craft that you can spin in any direction, and a throttle that propels you along. Since you are flying, your ship follows it’s momentum so steering poses a little challenge..but is a ton of fun.

There’s a ton of different obstacles and creatures that impede your progress, and you really have to mix aim and timing to get through most of the levels. At certain junctures you get to fight some boss type creatures that must be destroyed before your exit warp appears. These bosses are also a big throwback to Asteroids, since they break up into multiple, smaller creatures as you shoot them.

In the later levels, as more obstacles appear, I did note the game started to lag a bit, and I have a pretty powerful pc. Users with older computers may find this a lot more frustrating than I did.

If you have a solid computer, then you will definitely get some quality fun-time out of this elegantly simple game.

If you’ve played any other games made by Nicolay Edin and Axel Hammarback, you are probably familiar with the Bump-Copter games. I merely mention these games because these guys have done a few level-based fllying games already with a very similar game engine that are worth checking out as well.

Now go get your bump on!

[ Play Bumper Craft ]

Care The Monster by Free Creation Games is a great little puzzle game. I like the author’s comments and I’m not feeling well at the moment, so I’ll just quote them:

“Your goal in the game is to guide the monster to reach the exit door of the labyrinth. But it won’t be so easy, because the monster is really hungry and the player is it’s favorite food, so try to keep away from its range.
Finally, a new actor will enter in this party, the hunter. He will try to catch the monster if he is able to catch it.
You are part of a curious love triangle, would you like to become part of it?”

Great graphics, sound and level design makes this one a winner. Definitely go through the help section. Takes a sec to get a handle on how to drop the boulders. With 50 levels you’ll be playing this one for a bit.
[ Play Care The Monster ]

Rolley-Ball by Jiggmin is a cool 3dish dealio where you’re in control of the playing field, guiding the ball to victory and what have you. While in no way is this a new idea, it’s pulled off exceptionally well.

A nice feature is being able to use either the mouse or arrows for control. Also the walls moving with the tilt to show perspective helps with the curve on learning how to play.

With high scores , a nice audio track and effects this is (insert ball joke here), very much so.

[ Play Rolley-Ball ]

Cosmic Crush by Bill Northcott is a great “big fish little fish” type game, but with planets.

Using the arrow keys, you start out as a lil piece of space rock, looking for slightly smaller rocks, untill you start to get to unicron size and go after planets haha. A great feature is the gravity the other planets use to effect your course, adding a nice challenge.

With 2 modes and a bunch of levels, the only thing that is really lacking would be some audio loops, but the effects were ok and able to be turned off, which is always nice. Oh, and as you can tell by the screen shot, some pretty graphics =) . SO GO PLAY.

[ Play Cosmic Crush ]

Such a peaceful looking little town. What better place to commit the Seven Deadly Sins. By Dissolute Productions, this adventure game is packed with humor and great gameplay, not to mention minigames!

You play as Ed, searching the small town for ways to commit the sins. Like many adventure games, comes with the standard office, bar, gym, and place to get food. What’s genius is the way you have to twist your mind into not just mind numbingly pressing buttons to get money and strength but to commit the sins.

As in the office, the minigame MyFire could almost be a stand alone game, with a few add ons. I found the DDR mini game to be lacking a bit in the art department and sound (as of this moment the sound doesn’t loop) but well playable.

The gym has the nice feature of getting hurt if you lift to much. It’s little stuff like that that really fleshes out a game from just a game into a great game.

Alot of thought went into this one, so play every little part of it. The music and the voice acting were great and the graphics were good, even at the default medium quality. PLAY ITTTTT!

[ Play Seven Deadly Sins ]