Just over a month ago I reviewed a game called Crusader Tank. The game was fun but had a few flaws, and didn’t really have much in the way of visual variety.

Gametop (the creators of Crusader Tank) has just released a new game, and it seems they have made a lot of improvements in “Holy War: Invasion”.

But were they enough?

First, let’s just get the fact out of the way that this is pretty much the exact same game as Crusader Tank.

The graphics are the same bitmap rendered stuff you saw in C.T., only with a few new objects… oh and the ground is green instead of brown now.

You obviously don’t play as a tank in this game, rather as an armor-clad engineer with a big gun. Still, it’s the same top-view, run and gun play you experienced in C.T.

While this game is pretty much 90% recycled, it does have a lot of small improvements I feel I should point out.

First, the health, weapon and progress displays have been completely redesigned to fit vertically on the screen. This makes them easier to read during gameplay, and the visual quality of the guages are much nicer.

You can also toggle weapons as you get them. The weapon upgrades in each level are still present , but now you can jump from your gun to missiles on the fly when you need to take out a heavy tank quickly.

The sounds are about the same, although the music isn’t quite as annoying this time around.

A nice new touch is that the level scrolls slower when your character is at the bottom of the screen, giving you a way to change the pace when you get swarmed.

Perhaps the best change to the game is the inclusion of W,A,S & D being able to control your movement. This makes it much easier to move around and fire with the mouse for laptop users.

The difficulty of the game has been pushed up just a bit, so there is a little more challenge in this game, which would have made the game more interesting had I not gotten bored with this game style playing Crusader Tank for 20+ minutes a mere month ago.

If you are like me and you played Crusader Tank to the point of boredom, you probably will find this game lacking in any relevant improvement to the core gameplay. However, if you missed C.T., I would highly recommend playing this game instead. It’s addressed all the flaws C.T. had, except repetitive gameplay.

I’ve never had a problem with people rehashing a game engine. Sonic the Hedgehog had like 4 good games on the Genesis with pretty much the same game. SEGA just made sure to make compelling changes to each sequel to keep things fresh.
If it don’t FEEL like a new game, it ain’t a new game.

[ Play Crusader Tank... err ... Holy War: Invasion ]

I can’t believe I forgot about this golden old school gadget when my friend linked this to me the other day. I Know Where Bruce Lee Lives by Skop.com is an interactive kung-fu cinematic remixer that to my joy has been updated over the years to make what was an epic idea epicerererer.

This is no mere “add some text to some premade scenes”. With almost 150 combos to use AND record them with this will have you going for hours. Unfortunately, unlike most of scene remixers that are out, this has no save at the time, although the authors say “Soon, we will add a database in which users can store their results and share it with others, thereby giving Bruce a small virtual home.”

None the less, is there no better time to waste then with Bruce Lee? Give it a go.

[ Play I Know Where Bruce Lee Lives ]

The cross-site promotion between us and quadradius is officially live as of today, and I had a chance to try out the special WGM version of the game this morning.

While the core game isn’t any different than the guest version we reviewed back in January, there is a lot of little additions that made it a lot of fun.

The first thing i noticed was all the WGM branding, because I am a shameless promotion whore. Everything from my username to my game piices had WGM branding on them, so the graphics in this game are now SUPER AWESOME!

The sound is all the same, but only because WGM hasn’t gotten around to writing it’s official anthem yet. Maybe next time…

The gameplay is the real attraction to this promotion. You get all the strategy and such you did in the guest version, but now you get ALL THE POWERUPS. Nothing more satisfying than bombing the hell out of the entire map or shaping the arena in new ways.

This promotion is only available for 3 days, so you better hurry and check out what the unrestricted version of quadradius has to offer. If you really like it, you can keep all those powers by becoming a member.

The super awesome WGM branded won’t be around forever, so you might want to take a picture of yourself standing in front of this monumental event!

[ Play Quadradius ]

Awww man, I loves me some side scrolling shooters, and Agent Wing Defenders (final) by Lan is a great addition to the many that are out there.

Graphics are very well done and I’d suggest trying it out on high quality as I encountered no slow down on my lil comp. While everything looks prerendered, I like the pixelish looks to it, making it seem ever more like a classic scroller. Good cut scenes and thank god you can skip them. After playing several times you already know what’s going on and don’t need the tips or the story line so much.

From the main loop to the explosions, the sound comes through all around. A “turn off sounds” button would have fleshed it out completely but no other real complaints.

What makes a great 2d side scrolling shooter? Play the game and you’ll see. The gameplay is top notch with a very easy to control plane and a good fire rate. Nice option on being able to use the arrows or WASD to move, with A for shields S to shoot (arrows) and H for shield and J to shoot (WASD) with ENTER to pause. The waves start out easy, so don’t worry about power ups, as they will come and when they come you’ll need them. As you can see in the screen shot, there’s some fun enemies. I won’t give away to much except I’m gonna be late for work from this one. GO GO GO GO GO!

[ Play Agent Wing Defenders ]

This is perhaps the hardest review I’ve had to write in a long time. It’s not that there is really any challenge, rather, I’m still not quite sure what the hell I think about this game…

Crazy Flasher 3 by Andy Law is a horrible, and yet, fantastic game all at the same time. The art is very stylized and it looks good; but it also looks a bit half-assed at times. Yet, the half-assed look is almost a part of this game’s charm. The characters aren’t drawn with a lot of detail, but they are fairly well animated, and at times they look like classic Double Dragon baddies, as drawn by Salvador Dali.

The backgrounds are all great, and are definite homages to games like Double Dragon and Street Fighter 2. The interface and cut-scene art is also pretty sharp, but not too sharp to be in total contrast to the stylized in-game art.

I think it’s all growing on me… I think I do, in fact, like the way this game looks… I think…
The sound is a bit of a mish-mash of arcade-quality fighter sounds, and lame sound recordings, presumably of Andy Law himself. The fact that the sounds aren’t 100% polished almost compliments the weird look of the game rather than detracting from it.

The music isn’t too bad; a classic street fighter song, some metal loops, some ambient electronica. It all works well and makes the game feel that much more like a classic arcade fighter game.

The gameplay is where I really loved/hated this game the most.

The actual fighting in this game is really simple and fun. You get your standard attack/jump/super-move buttons and you face off against a group of baddies all competing to win a cash prize. When you get into the fighting you quickly learn that, with a few direction changes, you can do cool stuf like grabbing your opponents for a nice punch-to-the-face combo, or hurl them at other enemies. While there isn’t a ton of combos you can preform, there is enough to let you fight strategically and feel like you are doing a bit more than mashing buttons.

What ruined this fun combat system for me was the control layout.

Pretty much every keyboard game uses the arrow keys for movement, and keys to the left for other actions. This game uses W, A,S & D for movement, and B, N, M & Space for the actions. The result of this layout is that your hands are crammed closer together than what is considered a comfortable position for keyboard gaming. To make matters worse, all the action keys are directly above the touch-pad on my laptop, so I ended up accidentally bumping that with the bottom of my hand a few times and losing focus on the game window.

The other thing that bugged me a bit about this game was the rate the difficulty increases. You go from matches that are quite easy, to matches that require you to upgrade your weapons to get anywhere.

While the premise of upgrading to proceed is a great idea, the fact that the good upgrades cost more than you can make in the starting matches means you have to replay the same fights over and over a few times to get rolling.  I got the sword pretty fast, but given how slow the attack rate was with it, it was more of a burden than anything.
The story mode in this game is pretty much generic. The extremely bad dialect and poor english translation is just another instance where poor quality actually adds to the overall quirkiness of the game. It almost becomes a good thing… (It worked for Zero Wing, right?)

Fans of oldschool beat-em-ups will really enjoy this game. It’s definitely worth trying, even for non-fans of the genre, just to enjoy all the quirks that make this game lovable.

If you use a laptop, you might need to disable your touch-pad though… unless you really want that “Free Apple I-Pod”…

[ Play Crazy Flasher 3 ]

Solarsarus by The Super Flash Bros is an oddly nifty dinosaur flinger bounce off planets get high scores and blow up said dinosaurs, um, game.

While the art is as good as you would expect from them I do wish more was added, as in effects and maybe even having the dinos bite chunks out of the planets or something. While it is all well done, looks wise it is missing a little zazz .

Good loop and who knew planets colliding with themselves and dinosaurs sounded just like playing croquet.

An easy game to play and even easier to get hook on, use your mouse to left click, drag and release the dinosaur into the planets and watch them all bounce around. Myself, I find it good to bounce the dinos off each other, getting lucky and have them fall back below the line, then you get to use them again. While not a terribly in depth and psychological thriller it is an awesome waste of time complete with hi scores and exploding dinosaurs. It really can not get much better unless there is a sequel .

[ Play Solarsarus ]

I while back I reviewed a great multiplayer strategy game called Quadradius, and I really enjoyed it.

Apparently, everyone who read the review also enjoyed the game. That review it continues to get new players into the Quadradius arena every day, and the attention from our readers has not gone unnoticed.

To thank our readers for their continued support, Jimmi Heiserman (the creator of Quadradius) has orchestrated a special 3-day event for WGM readers.

From April 18th to April 20th, players who access the game through Web-Game Magazine will be able to play Quadradius with all the member-only features unlocked. It’s 100% free, and it’s all for you guys!

Jimmi is also hooking up some plugs for our humble publication in the hopes that our reader base will grow ever-stronger, and has included some nice subtle WGM branding in the game that you can look for when you are pwning each other in the arena.

In regards to these member-only features, and why you would want to play with them, Jimmi has this to say:

“One of our subscription based selling points is that only members can choose to play with advanced settings, like Arena Size, Squadron Size, direction of game play, color of your team, timed matches and such. We want to open this up for a limited time to Guests also.

The bigger reason people become members, is because there a nice amount of extra powers, combos, and strategies that Guests never get to see or experience, only hear about in our game lobby and message board. These are dubbed Member vs. Member Only Powers. We release a new one each first Tuesday of the month, and this day we promote as New Power Tuesday (NPT).”

If you are unfamiliar with Quadradius, go read our original review…. or better yet, just go play the damn thing because it kicks more ass then a 6-legged ninja in a butt-factory.

So yesterday I get this email asking me to review some indie game, and all I can think is… “Oh boy, another lame game hoping for promotion, This will be fun to rip on!”

I couldn’t have been more wrong… and boy I am disappointed, I was really hoping to be an asshole today.

Something Amiss is a testament to what a passionate indie developer can really do.  Sure it has a few small quirks, but everything that has gone into it is just so impressive that it’s easy to ignore them.

The first thing that stands out is that this game is the graphics.  In the first chapter, everything is nicely rendered in 3d, including Alice, the main character.  But where the game gets REALLY impressive is in chapter 2.

Tucker Bowen, the game’s creator, actually ventured out into the rainforests of Kauai to photograph the perfect background images for the game’s dense jungle. The Hawaiian island was one of the locations where Jurassic Park, and several other films, were shot.

While the scenery is well rendered, and the photographic imagery is breathtaking, there are several areas where things seem a little stiff in opposition to other areas that feel much livelier.  Still, even these scenes have a Myst type feel to them.

The sounds in this game are fantastic.  The mood and settings are not tainted by unnecessary music, rather, they all use atmospheric ambiences that just fit perfectly with the imagery.
The gameplay is about the only thing I had any issues with.  The interface, at times, is mildly unresponsive, so clicking an item or command may not actually do anything. This only happens on rare occasions, and is merely a minor nuisance.

The puzzles are the real guts of this game.  Chapter 1 was pretty simple and short, but again, chapter 2 just takes and raises the bar with a much broader playing area, and far more challenging puzzles.

The story is also quiet compelling. You wake up after what was supposed to be a routine MRI, only to find the MRI room abandoned, and you have been locked in.  Some simple investigation points to some kind of experiment, and you need to escape.  From there, it turns into a bit of a mind-bender, and the end of chapter 2 leaves you wanting more.

This game is far from complete, but Tucker keeps everyone up to date via the Something Amiss blog. Unlike most blogs (present company excluded of course), it’s actually worth reading!

Please hurry and finish this game Tucker… PLEASE!

[ Play Something Amiss ]

Fans of Wii-compatible games, rejoice!  Extra-Toxic has partnered with Nintendo to deliver an amazingly addictive and original experience.

Chick Chick Boom pits you against the maniacal Poster Bunny who is hording a collection of official Nintendo desktop wallpapers.

In typical Nintendo fashion, you will be pitting cute little critters (in this case, orb-shaped chicks) against each other in an arena setting.

The art is really stylized and cutesy, but not overly impressive but it does have a kind of ‘Loco Roco‘ thing going on.
The sounds in the game are great and match the look of the game, as does the music, which does get annoying after a while, but doesn’t quite make you want to shove a bic pen in your ear until your eyes turn blue (or red if you are auditing taxes at the moment).

What makes this game such a pleasant experience is the interface.  In order to win you have to select an attack, and then you need to trace a symbol to execute it.  Based on how well you trace, your attacks have more impact.  This sounds simple, but you also have to trace symbols to get your chicks to avoid oncoming attacks, so the amount of time you have to trace a symbol can be quite brief when reacting to things.

Even with my Wacom tablet, this game was pretty challenging in later levels.  I can only imagine how hectic it would be with a WiiMote.

Each level you beat unlocks an official Nintendo desktop image you can download, which is a very cool reward system for this game, but once you have unlocked them all, the single player gameplay doesn’t leave much replay value.  Still, for a free game… it’s pretty damn good.
This game would be awesome as either an online multiplayer game, or a 2 player Wii game, so let’s hope there is a follow up title in the near future!

[ Play Chick Chick BOOM ]

It’s not an uncommon thing for me to ask for things only to be left with nothing, withering away in a pool of liquor and disappointment. But when I reviewed an amazing game called Gateway and asked for more, I was granted my request!

Okay, so maybe Gateway 2 wasn’t made just for me, but that doesn’t change the fact I am a happy camper.  The follow up game was almost everything I could hope for.

The minimalistic/stylized style from the first game is still as sharp as ever, and yet, this one has even more polish.

The visual beauty of the game is only ENHANCED by the moody background sounds and musical tracks.  You can’t help but get immersed in this game.

And the story… wow.  The first game was definitely interesting, but this one actually puts you into a strange, mind-bending tale that makes you really want to explore and see what happens next.
The nitpicky controls haven’t had much of an upgrade, your blockman still gets stuck a lot which at times is rather annoying, but not so bad as to make the game unplayable by any means. Just pretend your blockman is a special needs student and getting him from point A to point B will make you feel like a social worker with a heart of gold.
This game didn’t seem as long as the last one, but with the extra degree of immersion you feel it doesn’t come up lacking.

I’m going to push my luck and ask for even more of this franchise!

[ Play Gateway 2 ]