As more and more web-game developers start trekking into the land of multiplayer gaming, we are finally starting to see a larger variety of game genres appearing beyond the simplistic turn-based games of yesteryear.

Host, by Caulder Bradford (aka RiftMaster, aka Bubbles) and Edmund McMillen (aka That Gish Dude) presents us with a platform/brawler game in the vein of Super Smash Bros.

Let’s start with the art:

Your characters are essentially blobs of flesh possessed by a host organism and protected by a skull. Each player can customize their skull by giving it different features like horns, markings and hair, and a variety of teeth. Aside from a few interchangeable parts, however, each character is essentially the same.

The level art is very basic and minimal, which makes it very easy to separate the players from the landscape, and the landscapes are nice and moody.

The setup interfaces are fairly pretty as well, if a little confusing at first. You start with with a grid of holes you can drop your host organism into to join existing games, or you can create a new game by popping it into a big sphincter. Once you are in the setup screen you have more holes that seemingly have no purpose. In actuality, these are how you pick which level you will be playing in.

You can look at any part of this game and just know it’s been drawn by Edmund.

The music in the game is nothing short of amazing. The well composed title and menu songs just add to the twisted appearance of the game, and the in-battle music is very atmospheric and not distracting in any way.

The sound effects aren’t anything fancy, but are very fitting for all the beating and squishing and squirting that goes on in the game. Everything just comes together perfectly to keep the game as grotesque as possible.

Of course, at the end of the day, no multiplayer game is worth a damn without quality gameplay.

The gameplay in host is very simple. You roll… you jump… you skull-punch… and if you’re feeling lucky, you may even fire a maggot or 2.

The premise of the game WAS to be a simple beat-em up game that people can just hop into and play, and I think to that extent it has succeeded indefinitely.

That said, there are a few factors that hampered my enjoyment of the game. Getting in to a game without a ‘room exists’ or ‘room is full’ error is a bit of a pain, especially since I just wanna get in as fast as possible and beat some heads.

Of course, when I do get in, the beating of the heads is not so simple. To win a round, you need to rack up 3 kills. This would be a very fun prospect, except for 3 things.

1) When you punch an enemy, a lot of times you hit where they were a few milliseconds ago, and by the time the punch animation is done, they have skipped just enough out of the way you miss.

2) Since they are now behind you, you want to turn around… but unless the animation has played all the way through and you are not touching the attack button, you can’t turn around, and it makes you feel like you have lost control of your character, and thus your connection to the game.

3) Falling too far kills you… so if you happen to have got stuck in the “I can’t turn” situation and you are on a high branch, you immediately may want to jump to safety…. and if you miss the next branch… you die.

I don’t really mind dying in these kinds of games… but when a simple death also takes down your kills, it just frustrates the shit out of you and takes a lot of the fun away form the game.

If you somehow manage to choke down your frustration ling enough and land a kill, you get to eat your victim’s heart, and your organism increases in size. I have yet to see what the full growth does, and so far it doesn’t seem to make you much stronger… but it’s still pretty neat to just… eat people’s hearts after beating them down.

If you get lucky enough to actually win a game, the victory screen lets you, and you alone, roll around and taunt the other players. Every multiplayer game needs this feature…. especially the ones I am good at!

On thing Host excels at is keeping players in sync. I know from personal experience, keeping a fast, multi-user game (especially one made in flash) in sync is a real challenge. The Flash player never runs the same speed on any 2 browsers, let along on any 2 computers, and network latency is always an obstacle. And yet, even the laggiest players still sync up respectably.

I can’t say I really enjoyed this game very much when I just hopped in and played… but I was lucky enough to be involved with a lot of the beta testing, and it was extremely fun to play with actual friends. With so many people playing now, however, it’s hard to get your buddies into one room.

If you like games that let you beat on random strangers, I have no doubt you will love Host. For the rest of you…. try it anyway…. OR ELSE!

[ Play HOST ]

For nearly a decade, Newgrounds.com has provided us with a variety of popular characters, ranging from original gangstas like Pico and Samurai Asshole, to the more modern hit, Alien Hominid.

Two years ago a group of long-time Newgrounds contributers (Mindchamber, NegativeOne & Luis) were sanctioned to bring this motley crew of characters into a single game where they could live togethet in harmony. And by harmony, of course I mean brutal destruction.

Newgrounds Rumble is a side-view arena rumble game in the same vein as the Smash Bros series, with all the action and mayhem one would expect from the ever-popular genre.

Artistically, this game is a beast. With a cast of 10 characters, all hand-drawn, and each having their own special level, it’s very apparent that the near 2-year production time was not wasted. The attacks and combos are all rendered beautifully, and the backgrounds could give any modern console game a run for their money.

The sound is amazingly impressive as well, especially when you consider it’s all backed into 8mb. Every character has distinct effects, and even some minor voice-work that makes it really feel like a classic arcade game. The music keeps the pace up and never gets annoying. It’s like chicken soup for the ears.

The gameplay is what really makes this game stand above the rest. Every character has a very unique fighting style, and the strategy changes dramatically based on which character you play. Each opponent has a certain vulnerability… and even the levels themselves change the way you will play. The way you can mix regular, fierce, ariel and crouch attacks lets you really feel like you are doing more than just mashing buttons over and over.

While this game has so many triumphs, it also has a few shortcomings as well. Some are petty nuances, like the letters on P-bot being backwards when facing left, some effect the actual gameplay.
The AI, while challenging, is pretty predictable. If you camp out at a powerup spawn point, they will pretty much keep coming right into whatever attack you have waiting for them, and you will horde all the powerups.

The combo chaining gets a bit annoying at times as well. There is a noticeable delay after each attack where it waits to see if you are going to keep the combo going. Typically this isn’t a big deal unless you find yourself needing to turn around because your opponent has jumped over you or something.

The junk yard level is kind of lame as well… you don’t have to throw a single punch… just stand as bait beside the crusher and it will beat all your opponents for you.

Take the good with the bad though, because in spite these small shortcomings, the game is damn fun. Everything from earning ‘grounds gold’ to unlock characters and levels, to the fact that every single character has an enjoyable story mode, and you have an extremely impressive title here.

I would love to see a sequel to this with even more characters, more power-ups and some of the minor flaws removed and possibly some online play. It could definitely roll with the big dogs of the console world.

[ Let's get ready to RUMBBBLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEE ]

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 ]

Any child of the 80’s needs to play this game, or the ghost of ALF will claim your soul for all eternity.

Ivan Drago: Justice Enforcer, plays, looks and even SOUNDS like an authentic 80’s arcade or NES game.

The pixel art doesn’t look super great by today’s standards, but in trying to recreate the classic look of 80’s gaming, frog-leg enthusiast, french canadian seperatist, and part-time artist Poxpower did a fantastic job.

Rog (of I-Mockery), the pickle toting mastermind behind this game’s concept, composed the ultimate soundtrack borrowing a little from classic games like castlevania, and used plenty of other authentic-sounding music and effects.
And the gameplay, coded by the extremely talented BomToons, is true to 80’s-era beat-em-up games in every way.

The generic enemies you fight are pretty stereotypical… you have your generic punching guy, your crotch stabbers, your mob dude with a gun, and of course, an 80’s staple: DINOSAURS!!!!

I also couldn’t help but laugh at the segway guys and Pauly’s robot. God what an atrocity that robot was.

I played the game all the way through as Ivan Drago, and was a bit bummed at how short it was. That was, until I played with the first character I unlocked, and saw that there was some slight changes in the game worth playing to see.

The second character I unlocked just straight up made me laugh the whole time I played.

Then the 3rd character was even better, completely changing the game, and paying homage to a classic Newgrounds game.

I’m not going to TELL you what the unlockable characters are, because they are the sole replay value in this game, and to spoil that would have wasted any hype I had just given this gem of a game.

Even after unlocking everything, the game was still a bit short. Normally I’m a fan of quick web games, since I don’t get to play for all that long, but this left me wanting more. I guess that’s a testimant to the game, but guys… NOBODY LIKES A COCK TEASE!

I’m hoping they make an extended version with Hulk Hogan and Mr. T, but until then…

[ …I MUST BREAK YOU ]

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 ]

There is no spoon.

Seriously, there are no spoons in this game at all…..

woah……

Much like the star of the Matrix Trilogy, Keanu Reeves, Matrix Rampage is far from profound, lacks depth, and is rather monotonous…. but it sure is pretty.

In the game you play as Neo, battling in a multi-floor building against an endless supply of agents armed with guns, swords, staves and even the plants and furniture found in the building.

The best thing about this game is the level of interactivity you have with the actual level. EVERYTHING takes damage. You can strip the walls down, break the floors, smash the furniture, etc. And anything that isn’t actually PART of the building can be picked up and used as a projectile.

The music is a typical flash-game techno loop, which is forgivable in a Matrix game I think. The sounds are your basic punch and groan brawler effects and really go well with the classic, arcade-style, pixel art.

While the art is very pretty, there’s not a ton of variety. All the agents are the same sprite, all the floors in the building recycle the same wall, door, stairwell graphics, etc…

The gameplay itself is very oldschool brawler, ala Double Dragon. You can walk, run and jump, pick up any weapons or health packs you want, and mash the crap out of the attack button. Like I said… there’s not much depth to it, but with all the different weapons you can grab, and the stuff you can smash you can easily milk a half hour of enjoymeny out of this game. Short-term fun aside, the game really lacks any sense of accomplishment. You don’t get any real sense of urgency or progress aside from tracking how many kills you have, and last time I checked… counting wasn’t that fun. With the mechanics in this game I REALLY hope Gamebrew is planning on expanding it to have a ton of levels with even more stuff for me to smash. I want to feel like a drunk Mel Gibson at a bar mitzvah god damnit!

[ Play Matrix Rampage ]

World Domination Battle is an epically funny fighting game where you get to chose from 13 different parodies of famous world figures to duke it out for dominance.

Each character has their own different powers and finishing moves which makes playing through it, even to lose to see ‘em, much fun. With tour, single player and versus, this game should last you a while.

While the game play is a bit the same through out it makes up alot in great and comical graphics.

With sound, music and graphic options, this is a well rounded out fighter, which could be even better with more moves and possible difficulty settings, cause the AI is fairly good. Overall a great time waster.

[ Play World Domination Battle ]

Coded by Evan (FrostedMuffins) Greenstone with art/animation by mindchamber, Red Baron has the eye candy were use to from Jose with some great coding mixed in to give bloody fun for the whole family. The enemies were designed for a contest held on the mindchamber forums.