I personally don’t play a lot of games on my PC, but when forum regular, Mozgus shared his high praises of a freeware 2D action platformer, I had to look into it.  As the author, Daniel Remar, describes the game, “Iji is an action-packed strategic platform shooter with a detailed story, large levels with multiple paths, powerful bosses and lots of secrets. There are alternate gameplay events, dialogues and scenes depending on what you do, a wealth of extras and bonus features, and seven stats to upgrade through a leveling system. Iji herself has superhuman strength and abilities, and can crack Nanotechnology, use her enemies’ most devastating weapons against them, and be a pacifist or a killer which changes her mood and the fate of those around her.”

What The Game Is Like

Mozgus described Iji as a “Metroidish version of Out of this World” while others have called it a 2D version of System Shock or Deus Ex.  Regardless of what it resembles, if you enjoy 2D action adventures (with RPG elements), you’ll get a kick out of this game.  And of course, since it’s completely free, the only thing you have to lose is your time — and it will most likely be time well spent.

The primary purpose of this post it to simply bring some additional attention to the game and to get everyone’s thoughts on it.  Instead of doing a full review of the game, I’ll simply pass along this existing review at PopMatters.

The Interview

Mozgus was so fascinated with the game that he also wanted to interview Daniel Remar about his creation.  However, before we jump into that discussion, you may want to read this older interview at Planet Freeplay for more information and context.

Mozgus: I see that you gathered quite a few people to lend their voices to the characters. Were they friends and family, or did you find them by other means? Describe the process of assembling and recording the voice talents for a free, indie game. I was particularly impressed by Anna Ashabova. Iji, the character, had some of the most convincing little samples out of any action-centric female lead in a video game.

Daniel Remar: The voices were recorded in a studio at school, and the actors consist of students and teachers. I simply picked people whose voices I thought would fit, and sometimes I was surprised. Half of the cast is female, but many people don’t seem to realize it since I often chose women with heavier voices to suit the theme and mood of the game. Anna is a friend of mine with an interest in videogame voice actors, who promised to do Iji’s voice a few years ago, since I thought it would sound different from the norm and fit the character. And luckily it did, otherwise I couldn’t think of anyone else to cast the role. She has several lines heard in the Sound Test that appear only rarely in the game itself (the same goes for other characters – the Berserker enemy has a voice for a specific situation in the final level). Also, if you’ve played Garden Gnome Carnage, the guy who shouts “Carnage!” there plays the role of Asha in Iji.

Mozgus: I have to admit, I’ve listened to the album 5 times this week. It’s just flawless. The music perfectly portrays the sense of desperation and emotion that the story involves, as well as maintaining a certain retro-gaming sound and flying with the sci-fi groundwork. So, similar to the above question, what led you to choosing Chris Geehan and Dan Byrne McCullough to compose the majority of the soundtrack? How did you know they were capable of this? I can’t find any other music by them.

Daniel: It’s hard to remember. I knew since several years ago what Chris was capable of, but I had other candidates and contributors for the soundtrack as well. Chris and some of his friends did many test tracks and concepts, some of which were heard in early Iji demos, but when we got serious about it he grabbed a friend (McCullough) to produce the final soundtrack.

Mozgus: Will you be putting out a strategy guide soon, like you’ve done with some of your older games? Iji is ripe with secrets, if my two play-throughs are any indication. I’m very eager to experience all the content I have missed, but short of a few youtube videos, there’s very little online assistance to be found.

Daniel: It’s going to take at least half a year before I put up a guide, since although it only takes a week or so to make one for Iji, I feel a lot of players are too eager to get everything handed to them. It may be mean to impose the concept of “a secret isn’t a secret if it’s well known” on modern gamers with Internet access, but people usually have little trouble finding them on their own with a bit of exploration. I didn’t actually think the game would be popular enough that anyone would find Sector Z, for instance. So far no-one has found every secret in the game to my knowledge – some lesser ones are quite far-fetched though. So there will be a guide, eventually.

Mozgus: Is there any content that didn’t make it into the public versions that you could talk about? Any lost cutscenes, weapons, or other abilities? At the very end of the official trailer, I notice Iji performing some kind of full body explosion. I don’t remember anything that looked quite like that from the game. Perhaps that was an early version of the “Nuke” weapon combination?

Everything in the trailer is in the game, otherwise I’d feel like I was cheating people. :p It clearly shows two of the hidden skills actually, and how to reach one of the Posters. But yes, there was one weapon called “Doublestrike” which was later replaced by the Resonance reflector. It just fired the Shotgun immediately followed by the Resonance detonator, which was pretty useless. The Assimilate stat also reduced knockback, but prevented the player from reaching some secrets, and maxing the Strength stat gave a 20% chance of not being sent flying from heavy blows, again messing with reaching some areas. Apart from that, nothing comes to mind – I made all the cutscenes in one go near the end of production, but any alpha test levels were naturally deleted. When it comes to gameplay and story ideas, it was all sorted out on the planning stages as I was working on the game.

Mozgus: Do you have any plans on continuing to update the game past v1.2? With the recent attention, would any suggestions from the fans have a chance at being implemented?

Daniel: I’m going to continue fixing bugs and mistakes, but at this point I’m not adding anything major. I feel the game is complete, despite its flaws in graphics and writing, and I want to move on to something else so I don’t get stuck in it.

Mozgus:You’ve mentioned that Another World was an inspiration to the game’s overall visual style, but you also display unrelated sketches and other works on your site. After looking at them, it’s easy to see your own established style coming through in the character designs. Did you have any earlier artistic inspirations that took hold in the years prior to Iji’s development?

Daniel: My artistic inspirations come from all over the place, especially western games, eventually resulting in a comic called “Ultimortal” which no longer exists. Iji takes considerable inspiration from that comic eventhough it didn’t feature many humans – a common theme is the clunky, stylized geometry and characters. Some call Iji’s style “anime” though, which is oversimplifying things. I strived to make the characters look realistic and every scene unique, and move the camera around as much as possible. Unfortunately this also resulted in the difficulty of portraying the same face from many different angles and distances, which leads to making them look slightly different from panel to panel. I’ve never been a good artist, but I once wanted to be one, which is noticable in Iji’s amateur artwork.

Mozgus: Forgive this obligatory final question: What are your plans now?

Daniel: In terms of hobby games, Iji itself hints at both a sequel to Hero and another little game about a rectangular strawberry. It’s going to take a while before I start working on either of them, but that’s what I’d like to do next. They’d require about the same time investment as Retrobattle and Castle of Elite, that is two months each at most. Plans for Iji 2 are there, but it will likely never happen, and even
then it’d take another four years. :p

Where To Get It

You can download this gem of a game at the author’s site.  Make sure to let us know what you think of it.

Presented by: Mozgus, Ivo, and Racketboy
New To Together Retro? Check out the introduction to the club

What’s The Deal With This “Special Weekend Edition”?

Motivated by Blizzard’s announcement of Diablo 3 (and the rather enticing gameplay video), forum regular Mozgus suggested a revival of playing Diablo 2 on Battle.net (most likely, playing with the expansion, Lord of Destruction which noticeably improves the original). Also, Blizzard recently released patch 1.12, which conveniently lets you play without the CDs (you obviously still need to have legit CD-keys!)

The idea was basically to play with other members of our community rather than with unknown people. Anyone interested in this is welcome to join channel “racketboy” on Battle.net’s US East. Other members will hopefully gather in that channel before / between games, or try directly joining games named “racketboy”, (or, if there’s need for it “racketboy1″ etc), with password “retro”.

Although anyone is obviously free to join whenever and create their “racketboy” games, without set times and dates it is relatively unlikely that many people will be online to play together – for this reason we decided to make this blog post to give the idea more notoriety, and also to suggest weekend “official” sessions, which I decided dub with a silly name to help people remember it: ORDERS (”Official” Racketboy Diablo 2 East Revival Sessions).

The Goal

The idea is to play D2+LoD from start to finish with the same party of seven players, one with each class (details: normal difficulty only, Ladder characters on Battle.net’s realm US East. Those characters are meant to only be used in the group sessions, until it is finished when you can then use them for anything else)

When To Play

I’m counting on two Sundays. I want to start on the Sunday 13th, and conclude on Sunday 20th (we might have to play a bit more to complete Act 5 on the 20th).

Starting Time of First Session

9:30 EST = 15:30 BST = 14:30 GMT

(then after finishing Act 1 on the session 1 (13th) we decide together how much time we need for a break and reconvene for Act 2;
the session 3 (20th) starts again at 9:30 EST, and we decide how much time until we reconvene for Act 4, and Act 5.
Depending on how long each Act takes us, we don’t need to be too strict in this other than everyone showing up on the STARTING TIME)

Further Details

This concept was kinda a spontaneous idea, so not all the information has been finalized for this post.  Check these forum threads for more discussion of times, teams, and other details…

• Diablo 2 Weekly Weekend Get-Together Thread
• Diablo 2 “7 Player Team” Thread

Obtaining Diablo II from Blizzard

Mozgus writes, “I suggest also mentioning that people with legit keys can register them at http://blizzard.com/store/, after registering for an account. This lists the game as legally owned and gives you access to the new digital download version of Diablo 2 and Lord of Destruction. This disc-less installer is much more modern and slick, installs much faster thanks to it not asking you to swap multiple discs during the process, and it also installs pre-patched to 1.12, which obviously will never ask you for a disc. When you register your CDkey, there will be a link that says Show Key, which actually shows a new 26 digit key, which replaces your old 16 digit CDkey.

I followed this process with Warcraft 3, Frozen Throne, StarCraft, and Brood War. All 6 games nicely fit on one DVD-R, if you remove the Direct X installers. You can always use the 300KB DX web update exe from Microsoft. Some installers will mention the DX portion is missing, but just proceed anyway.
Another tip: All my machines run Diablo 2 poorly in Direct3D mode, so run the Vid Test from the Start menu, then select DirectDraw instead. Runs much better, and looks the same aside from D3D’s “perspective” mode being enabled, which just makes me go cross-eyed anyway.”

Finding Diablo II In Retail

Even though the game has been around for a while, you should be able to find it in just about any major retailer that sells games.  This includes the likes of Wal-Mart, Target, and GameStop.  You will probably be most likely to find the Diablo II Battle Chest.

How To Play Diablo II

Instead of spending too much time trying to explain the games, check out these guides at the useful StrategyWiki

• Diablo II
• Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

Pac-Man is one of the most popular video games of all time and it was no surprise that many companies tried cloning the game in order to make a quick buck. However, many of those clones didn’t really add much or even capture much of the original charm. Even many of Namco’s own Pac-Man spinoffs were only worthy of a yawn.

Over the last twenty-five years, there have been quite a few Pac-Man clones and official spinoffs that are still worth playing today, and possibly even worth getting excited about. This feature takes a look at the best games that either added something new to the formula or modernized the experience on newer platforms. (And before anyone complains, I realize that Ms. Pac-Man is not on the list)

Credits: Since there was a lot of ground to cover in digging up all these gems, this article was actually a team effort. RadarScope1 shared his experiences with the new XBLA Pac-Man release, Ivo scoured the Interwebs to find and test all of the obscure clones on an array of platforms, and I (racketboy) contributed my thoughts on my favorite console and handheld spinoffs.  I also used Wikipedia to detail some of the specifics of gameplay for some of the games. I hope you enjoy seeing all the best that Pac-Man has inspired.

Pac-Man Championship Edition (XBox Live Arcade)

With Namco’s penchant for rehashing Pac-Man over the years it might be easy to dismiss Pac-Man Championship Edition for Xbox Live Arcade as just such another ill-conceived idea best left on the drawing room table. But Namco didn’t simply retool a classic game with PMCE. Instead, they rethought it almost entirely.

With original Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani at the project’s helm (his first time working on a Pac-Man title since the 1980 original), PMCE could be considered a true “championship edition” in that getting the most out of the game will require some decidedly well-honed Pac skills. The goal is the same as it ever was: score the most points possible. But there’s a catch: PMCE is timed. There are six gameplay modes in all. The main draw, Championship Mode is five minutes long. Most but not all of the other modes are 10 minutes long. The other major changes (besides the mazes — more on that in a minute) are that power pellets can be chained indefinitely for successive ghost-munching bonuses of up to 3200 points per ghost, eating regular dots without dying builds up a score multiplier, and that Pac-Man respawns in the same place he died after losing a life.

The crux of PMCE’s gameplay is the tried and true arcade formula of balancing risk versus reward. The original Pac-Man had an element of this: should you eat the blue ghosts after getting a power pellet or simply clear the rest of the dots and move to the next board? In PMCE, the answer is: you do both, but you do it by setting up a chains of power-pellet-fueled ghost combos over the paths of the dots in the maze. Unlike the static mazes of old, however, the mazes in PMCE are constantly shifting. The screen is divided into two halves. Clearing one side of dots will bring up a bonus item (cherries, Galaga ships, keys, etc.) which will then open up a new pattern of walls and dots on the other side when eaten. The process repeats with each new side getting more complex, filled with more and more dots and power pellets. The first few patterns set up paths of dots that are ideal for combos if you play them correctly, but as the game progresses those paths aren’t as clear-cut. Setting up strategies for your paths in real time is essential because every second spent traveling over black space instead of munching dots or ghosts is time wasted. In a way you’re playing against the maze itself as much as against the ghosts or the clock — and that’s where Iwatani and Namco have captured the essence of the original game and taken it to a twitch-inducing extreme.

The atmosphere is enhanced by a pace that speeds up as the clock winds down, complete with music that goes from subtle to heart-pounding in the final 30 seconds or so. The visuals have been updated for hi-def screens and though the graphics are more crisp and somewhat more colorful, the look and sound effects are total throw-backs to the feel of the arcade original. It’s easy to be cynical about “Pac-Man with lights and a techno beat,” but those elements melt away once you’re sucked into the gameplay. Like many XBLA titles, PMCE has a world-wide leader board, which is another nice throw back to the days when high scores were all that mattered. Achievements mostly consist of getting certain scores and beating all of the six modes.

The two Challenge Modes and three Extra Modes mix up the formula with different types of mazes or by reducing visibility in the maze, but it’s the Championship Mode where this re-thinking of Pac-Man really shines. The only gripes I have are minor: I wish there was a way to save the replays of my best runs and I wish I could control Pac with the right thumbstick as well as the left. Though some might hesitate at the price of 800 Microsoft points ($10), the game’s playability and depth make it one of the few must-have titles on XBLA, especially for retro gamers and arcade junkies.
Get The Game: Pac-Man CE’s Official XBLA Page

Pac-Man VS. (Gamecube / Nintendo DS)

Never before has Pac-Man been viewed as a party game, but Pac-Man VS. turned the arcade classic into one of the best casual multiplayer games you will find. The game was originally a bonus pack-in game with Pac World 2, R Racing, and I-Ninja on the Gamecube and was later included on the Namco Museum DS compilation.

Pac-Man Vs’s gameplay is very similar to the original game, however, this time one person controlls Pac-Man, while the other three people play as the ghosts. Pac-Man tries to get points by eating fruit, pellets, and power pellets(which turn the ghosts blue and Pac-Man can then eat them), while avoiding the three ghosts.

The ghost that captures Pac-Man will get to play as Pac-Man, and the two people will have to switch the GBA and controller around. Now the new person will try to get as many points as possible before getting caught and give up the GBA. This whole thing works quite well, and it’s pretty easy to understand once you start playing it.

Since 3-on-1 is obviously too much of an advantage for the ghosts, the GBA connectivity comes to the rescue on the Gamecube (and DS owners each have their own screen). The person playing Pac-Man sees the entire gamescreen just like they are playing a normal game of Pac-Man. The ghosts, on the other hand, only see a very limited part of the map that contains a small radius around their own location.

The fruits give Pac-Man points if eaten, but ghosts can also eat the fruits as well, giving them points in addition to an expanded viewing range for a limited time, briefly giving them a better chance to catch Pac-Man. When Pac-Man is caught, the ghost who caught him gets to play as Pac-Man in the next round, and the battle continues. As soon as one player earns the pre-selected point value required for victory, the game ends. The higher the point value you choose, the longer the game.

The players in the role of ghosts must coordinate their efforts to track down Pac-Man. The only helpful hint is the color trail that briefly appears in Pac-Man’s wake. Cooperation among the ghosts is crucial and can create a great sense of cooperation and teamwork as one ghost player may figure out where Pac-Man is and yell over to the other ghosts to urge them to team up on him.

The twist is that as soon as Pac-Man is captured, the team of ghosts changes and then two of the ghosts are trying to hunt down a player that they were just cooperating with a minute ago. This goes on until the end of the game, so it is a great roller coaster of gameplay emotions. Usually there is one player that is a little more skilled than the others. So there can be quite a bond between the lesser players to take the dominant player down. Such love fills the room at this point.

Even though on the surface the game is not very complex, there are a number of techniques that can give the game depth. Some examples are ghosts guarding the last few dots on the map and Pac-Man hovering over a power pellet until the ghosts get close. Tactics that are dependent on the people you are playing with, and how they react in each situation. No game is going to be the same, reducing the possibility for boredom. This is an incredible improvement over the limited AI in the original Pac-Man arcade game. In the end, Pacman VS is a great example of an old, established game being given a new makeover for the current generation. It’s classic Pac-Man with a competitive, multiplayer edge.
Get The Game:

• Find Pac-Man VS on eBay / Amazon.com
• Find Namco Museum DS on eBay / Amazon.com

Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness (PS1, N64, Dreamcast, GBA)

On the surface, Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness looks like another one of those stick Pac-Man in a platformer game like Pac-World or Pac-Land. However, if you spend some time on the game, you realize it isn’t really a platformer at all, but instead focuses more on the original Pac-Man maze and ghost mechanics that made the original games great.

Even though most of the game does involve mazes, it’s the puzzles that will stop your progress. Most of the puzzles aren’t that hard, but a few will stump you for a bit. There are blocks to push, TNT to explode, and springboards that propel you upward. It is usually crucial that you solve these puzzles to progress through the game. The difficulty level of these puzzle progress nicely through the game and eventually will challenge more experienced gamers.

It is often important to also grab as many pellets as you can throughout the mazes. At certain points you will encounter a gate that requires you are in possession of a certain number of pellets. If you don’t have enough, you’ll have to go back and search for the ones you missed. Players are awarded stars for completing different tasks, such as finding all the fruit in a level, munching all the pellets in a level, or beating the level in time-trial mode. Initially, earning one star per level will get you to the next stage, but you must go back and earn more stars to unlock later levels.

One of the most compelling modes is Time Trial. You have to know the maze and puzzles by heart and blaze through them in lightning speed in order to finish in the given time. As opposed to the Quest mode, you aren’t trying to gain points with pellets and fruit. Rather you can pick up stopwatches along the way to increase your available time. And you’ll need it, because you have to be quick and know the levels well. You still have to solve puzzles on the way and do much of what you had to do in the normal mode. While you don’t have to worry about pellets, you still have to worry about enemies. If they hit you you’ll lose time — anywhere from two to 10 seconds.

Multiplayer mode supports up to four players, has numerous levels, and has three different game types: Dot Mania, Ghost Tag, and Da Bomb. In Dot Mania you must collect 80 pellets to win, while at the same time defending yourself against ghosts and sabotaging your opponents progress. Ghost Tag is just like it sounds. As a ghost you have to tag a Pac-Person to turn into one. This way you can collect the pellets as a Pac-being, and whoever eats 50 first wins. (Somewhat similar concept to Pac-Man VS) And finally, “Da Bomb” mode is a lot like a game of hot potato.

You can usually find a copy of Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness on its variety of platforms quite affordably, so it’s well worth the small investment if you was some simple but fulfilling Pac-Man-inspired gameplay.
Get The Game: Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness (All Platforms) on eBay / Amazon.com

Pac-Mania (Arcade, Amiga, C64, NES, SMS, Genesis, GBA)

Pac-mania has an isometric viewpoint, the ability to jump, and a turbo power-up (although it is not very frequent, I consider it a significant addition). With this new graphical presentation, Pac-Man always occupies the center of the screen and a virtual camera moves around the level to follow him. All of this is delivered with a high level of polish, by Namco themselves.

There are a few ‘’special” items throughout Pac-Mania that appear along with the fruit beneath the ghost box. Some of them are just things like candy, coffee, and other non-fruit that are simply worth thousands of points. Then, there’s also a large green dot that could appear, which makes Pac-Man go faster. However, it wears off once Pac-Man consumes a power pill and the power pill wears off.

Last, but certainly not least, a large red dot. If Pac-Man is lucky enough to eat one of those, the ghosts turn blue for a VERY short time. Though it doesn’t last long as a power pill, what it DOES do well is increase the points for eating a ghost–400, 1600, 7650, 7650, etc. until you lose a life! Great help in getting the 100,000 points needed for an extra life!

In Pac-Mania, there are more than just four ghosts. In the first level, in addition to Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde, is Sue, a purple ghost that is VERY aggressive. There are also two other new ghosts, Funky and Spunky (green and steel grey), that jump whenever Pac-Man jumps. In later stages, larger numbers of ghosts appear in a single stage. Also, bonus objects in this game not only include traditional point-scoring fruits, but also power-up items that can have random effects, such as doubling the point values of ghosts or causing Pac-Man to move much faster than normal.

Having described the features of Pac-mania, I’d like to discuss versions… I tried the arcade version (and the GBA port, which is based directly on the arcade version) – I can’t really get used to it, it feels way too cramped for me (I can see that the game is still good that way, but I’m just spoiled). The arcade version has more colors, but the Amiga version has more “resolution” (you see more of your surroundings) – it makes the game easier (which you may or may not like) but I think it’s much more enjoyable. In terms of music they are about on par, as the Amiga is no slouch in the sound department.
I want to be clear: I recommend Pac-mania regardless of version. If you play the arcade version, you are bound to enjoy the game greatly, but you probably will find yourself wishing that you could see further – trust me on this and do try the Amiga port (see how to emulate Amiga games here). Even if you think that the difference in Pac-mania versions is not worth getting into Amiga emulation, there are other nice games that an emulated Amiga will allow you to play, games that more than make it worth the trouble.

If you would like a portable version, look for the Pac-Man Collection for the Gameboy Advance, not only does it include a nice port of Pac-Mania, but a number of other great Pac-Man games including Pac-Man Arrangement, which we will cover next.
Get The Game:

• Find Pac-Mania on eBay: PS2 / XBox / Gamecube / GBA
• Find Pac-Mania on Amazon.com: PS2 / XBox / Gamecube / GBA>

Pac-Man Arrangement (Arcade, GBA, Gamecube, XBox, PS2)

Back in the mid 1990’s Namco released a couple of “Namco Arcade Classics” arcade cabinets that had a number of their classic games on them, but as modernized versions called “Arrangements”. Pac-Man Arrangement, in particular was part of the Volume 2 release in 1996.

As opposed to the isometric view of Pac-Mania, Pac-Man Arrangement stayed closer to the original look and feel of Pac-Man. Of course, the graphics looked more like a Neo-Geo game and the actual gameplay had some subtitle enhancements to spice things up.

In Pac-Man Arrangement, our pellet-chompin’ hero actually has a little more speed, making it easier to catch up to the ghosts. There are also “Dash” arrows throughout many of the levels that will shoot Pac-Man down a straightaway. These can act as both a way to get around and evade quicker, but if you cross the path of a ghost while “dashing”, it will make the ghosts dizzy and temporarily motionless.

Since Pac-Man has some extra abilities, the ghosts also get an upgrade in this installment to level the playing field. Each ghost has characteristics similar to those displayed by their counterparts in the original arcade game. There is also a new yellow ghost named Kinky. While the four main ghosts are only edible for a brief period after Pac-Man eats an energizer, Kinky is always vulnerable to attack, and thus is always blue except for when Pac-Man loses a life. If he is eaten by Pac-Man, he acts as an energizer, making the other ghosts vulnerable to attack as well for a brief time.
Kinky’s only means of defense is to merge with another ghost and create a Big Ghost with special abilities (depending on with which ghost he merges). The special ghost powers can either make it easier to the ghost to attack Pac-Man or make his job harder by throwing extra pellets in the maze.

Overall, Pac-Man Arrangement is one of the most polished modern Pac-Man game that balances keeping the original look and feel while adding the right balance of modernizations to make it engaging and addicting. There is even a final boss level with a large robot ghost – a nice little touch, if you ask me.
Even though Pac-Man Arrangement was originally an arcade game, it wasn’t very common. Of course, you could emulate it on MAME, but there are also some excellent console versions included in the PS2, XBox, and Gamecube versions of Namco Museum. A high-quality portable version is also included in the Gameboy Advance’s Pac-Man Collection. (Which I still deem worthy of playing on a DS). There is also a Pac-Man game by the name of “Pac-Man Arrangement” on the PSP’s Namco Museum, but it is not the same game, but rather just a pure graphical upgrade of the original Pac-Man game.
Get The Game:

• Find Pac-Man Arrangement on eBay: PS2 / XBox / Gamecube / GBA
• Find Pac-Man Arrangement on Amazon.com: PS2 / XBox / Gamecube / GBA

Crush Roller (Arcade, Famicom, Neo-Geo Pocket)

Crush Roller (also know as Make Trax in American arcades) bears a certain resemblance to Pac-Man, but is a unique entry. You go through a maze, just like in Pac-Man, however, in Crush Roller, you control a brush and you need to paint the streets instead of eating pellets. But just like Pac-Man, there’s plenty of baddies you’ll have to avoid while doing accomplishing your goal.

In addition to this basic gameplay mechanic, there are a few other differences between the standard Pac-Man games and Crush Roller. First of all, you actually have to cover all the area of the level in order to clear it. Remember, in the original game, you can turn back to get pellets can avoid covering the region between pellets. You may need to pass the same spot twice because turning might leave a spot unpainted.

There also some enemies (that you can eliminate on touch) that will mess up the paint (a cat leaving footprints, for example) so that you need to cover it again. There are also “bridges” throughout Crush Roller’s levels that you can circulate on, but also go under, allowing for interesting level designs.

And finally, Instead of grabbing “power pellets” to make your enemies vulnerable, you can crush the enemies in some segments of the level, by turning into a roller brush (hence “Crush roller”).

A Neo Geo Pocket Color update of the game was released and some consider it to be the superior version of the game. Additionally, it was ported as an unlicensed release to the Nintendo Famicom as Brush Roller.

3-Demon (DOS)

Considering that Pac-Man was by far the biggest thing that happened to the video game industry in the early 1980’s it should come as no surprise that there were a number of Pac-Man clones in the arcades, consoles, and personal computers soon after its initial success. However, unlike most of the Pac-clones out there, 3-Demon puts a completely different (and, at the time, revolutionary) spin on the classic arcade game.

Back in 1983, 3-Demon was a game that somebody would describe as “3-D Pac-Man!”, but you wouldn’t believe them until you tried it. Back then, it was really a sight to behold. 3-Demon uses wire frame graphics to create what is essentially a first-person, 3D Pac-Man game. Considering its 1983 vintage, 3-Demon looks pretty nice, but of course, it looks pretty bare-bones compared to games like DOOM.

Of course, the main concept of 3-Demon is exactly the same as a normal game of Pac-Man. The main difference is that you are limited to a first person perspective instead of a complete top-down view of the maze. Since it would be very difficult to know if ghosts are around with only being able to see right in front of you, you have a “ghost radar” in the corner of the screen.

One of the most interesting features of 3-Demon was the ability to optionally drop down to the next level once a certain number of dots were eaten by hitting the down-arrow key. At first glance, this seemed silly. After all, wouldn’t you rather get the end-level? However, if you were in a tight situation and had no way out, you could drop down and live to fight another day. Of course, the ghosts on the next level were even faster and tougher, so this was not a decision to be made lightly.

You don’t know about the hesitation between fear and courage you can feel until you turn a corner while pursued by a ghost, only to see another ghost heading toward you from the far end of a corridor. You don’t really think about this in a top-down Pac-Man games, but it’s a whole different situation in first-person.

I’m rather surprised that there isn’t a newer version of this game floating around (perhaps there is, and I’m just not aware of it). I would have though some freeware developer out there could easily use a FPS engine or something to make a remake.

Since, it is considered abandonware, it should be ok to distribute. If you have a PC that can run DOS or a DOS emulator, I encourage your to give it a try.
Get The Game: Download 3-Demon

Pac The Man X (Max OS X)

It isn’t too difficult to find elegant software solutions for the Mac, and in this case, the same can be said for Pac-Man clones. Pac The Man X is a straightforward Pac-Man clone that oozes the slick elegance of a polished Mac OS X application.

There aren’t any gimmicks to be found like in most other clones or spinoffs, but it offers both a mode for two simultaneous players, OpenGL-accelerated graphics, online score, and a level editor.

There are 50 official levels included with the game, but there are also another 90 user-created levels that were interesting enough to be included as well. There are also four different diffiuclty levels, including a “Master” level that only lets you see a small radius of the area around Pac-Man. (Imagine Pac-Man running around in the dark with only a small lantern as high light source)

Unfortunately, I don’t have a Mac to try Pac The Man X out on, but if you do, the game is completely free so you have nothing to lose. I have heard many good things about this game and the screenshots look good enough to eat, so I’m sure you won’t be dissapointed.
Get The Game: Download Pac The Man X

Mad Mix Game (PC, Spectrum, Amstrad, C64, Atari ST, MSX)

Mad Mix Game (yes, the actual name of it includes “game”) is a Pac-man clone made by a spanish software company called Topo Soft (if you can read spanish, here is the wikipedia entry ). It was also released in the UK as Mad Mix Game: The Pepsi Challenge.

It introduced some interesting elements to the Pac-man formula that make it quite worthwhile to play (and may have been historically the first to have thought up some of them – although I am no historian of Pac-man ideas by any means!):

• Power pellets are replaced by special tiles, you don’t need to gobble them to clear the level, and you don’t gobble them if you are still under the effect of another status changing power-up.
• There is a specific power-up that lets you destroy enemies, but doesn’t let you clear pellets (turns you into an hippo).
• There are lanes (that you need to clear) that once entered will lead you along them without being able to exit midway.
• One specific type of enemy (a ladybug) replenishes pellets where you have cleared them already, similar to the enemies that mess up the paint in Crush Roller (and like in their Crush roller equivalent, the ladybug won’t kill you either – however it is only temporarily eliminated and you must use a power-up to kill it)
• Another specific type of enemy (that does kill you) transforms the pellets so that you can’t clear them, requiring you to clear them twice (first with a specific re-usable power-up to return them to normal).
• There are lanes where you turn into a space-ship or a tank, becoming invulnerable and able to shoot the ghosts (if they are in your line of fire).

These innovations would mean near to nothing if the game was crap, but the level design doesn’t let the ideas down. You can try the game on an emulator of one of the original versions (possibly the Atari ST is the best). You can also try the game on the PC remake, which I recommend.
Get The Game: Download Mad Mix Game Remake

Mad Mix 2 (PC, Amstrad, Spectrum, MSX)

This is a sequel to Mad Mix Game, also by Topo Soft. Instead of making another spin-off of Pac-man, they created a spin-off of Pac-mania (a spin-off of a spin-off). If you are like me and prefer Pac-mania, this comes as good news.

Like in Pac-mania, you can jump as much as you want, and there is a turbo power-up (that you get if you catch a pellet that decided to run away from you!). The enemies are more varied than in Pac-mania: on top of regular ghosts, there are skulls that mess up your trajectory (without killing you), mummies that jump when you do and kill you by squeezing you against a wall (they won’t kill you by touching – usually), and vampires that on top of killing you, sometimes drop a poisoned green pellet that will make you crap out pellets wherever you go through (instead of gobbling them)! There are also traps, and other objects like large black balls you can roll over enemies to kill them (or get rolled yourself).

Despite all the nice ideas, the gameplay doesn’t gel as much as it does in Mad mix game (I’ll say it this way: I personally prefer Mad mix game over Pac-man, but I prefer Pac-mania over Mad mix 2). The isometric view isn’t as kind on the less linear level design of Mad mix 2, and sometimes it even looks like you can go to a square and you actually can’t. The turbo power-up is very hard to use even under the effect of a power pellet (as you will often run into a trap), and winds up getting you killed so many times due to the excessive speed that you start to think whether you are better off avoiding it. Finally, each level is too large and this usually leads you to be hunting for the last stray dots as a chore, unless you are always very methodical about it (hard to do with all the enemies, traps and level design).

Despite all its flaws, I find the game to be quite good, and definitively good enough for me to believe I should feature it – and recommend it, particularly if you like Pac-mania.

I have played the DOS version of Mad mix 2, which is probably the best version. The Amstrad CPC version may be close in graphics, but there is the extra trouble of emulating it; if you fancy graphics that are practically black & white for an even more retro feel, you can have a go at either the Spectrum or MSX version.

Pac Maniac (PC)

Pac Maniac is a remake of Pac-Mania that sticks very close to the original in look and feel. There are some differences, as for one (except in easy difficulty) you have limited jumps, and the turbo power-up (likewise limited except in easy) is a short burst of speed activated on demand (rather than by collecting the infrequent green pellet of Pac-mania, which gives a longer duration).

The graphics are competent (although personally I don’t like the 3D style so much). In some instances the perspective obscures some pellets behind the walls. In other instances, the “close” viewpoint doesn’t leave you much time to react in time and gets you killed – this happens in the arcade version of Pac-mania as well (which is why I favor the Amiga version), but in Pac maniac the problem is compounded because of the perspective having markedly preferred directions (so for example, moving down is much more dangerous than going up, as you can see further upwards then downwads).The level design provides a good balance of challenge, neither being too generous nor skimpy with the power pellets. There are also special level specific elements thrown in (like patches of vegetation that slow you down on a forest level, or a speed-up square in an industrial setting).

The first few times I played the game the collision detection felt a bit odd, and it still feels a bit too strict but I don’t think I ever got killed unfairly – maybe it’s just the other games that are more forgiving and I’m used to that. So it’s better to play it safe rather than relying on the jump to pull you out of most tight spots, as that tactic will backfire often (and besides, you don’t have unlimited jumps unless you are playing on Easy). It is often better to rely on the speed bursts to avoid ghosts (by a decent safe margin).

Without a doubt that Pac maniac is a good effort. The extras (particularly the controllable speed burst) make it a very interesting remake of Pac-mania, but I think the original has more charm (in graphics and gameplay as well). Fans of Pac-man and/or Pac-mania should definitively try Pac-maniac, and I recommend it.
Get The Game: Download Pac Maniac

Pacz! (PC)

Pacz!, by Danny Boyd, is a later version of Pacman worlds (no hyphen) – it isn’t really a sequel as it’s basically the same game with further polish. Pacman worlds was already an extremely polished remake of Pac-man with lots and lots of bells and whistles. The graphics and music are quite good, for a start (particularly as this is now a freeware title).It is perhaps accurate to say it is a remake of Pac-mania, as you can jump when in a pinch, although only a small limited number of jumps are available per stage (much more limited than in the other remake I feature, Pac maniac). Pacz! also includes the popular turbo power-up which is triggered relatively frequent and by collecting 5 pieces of bonus fruit that appear behind you when you clear pellets that shine.

Pacz! strays further from the classic in look and feel than Pac maniac. In Pacz! you can use bombs (like jumps, a very small limited number of them). The bomb blast is somewhat Bomberman style, so this addition was perhaps inspired by Hyper Pacman. There is also a store where you can upgrade your number of jumps, bombs, get extra lives and acquire other interesting power ups (like my favorite, permanent turbo until you lose a life).

The four basic ghosts are aligned with the four classical elements, and have respective different powers to hinder you (except the Water ghost’s ability, which helps – and I guess the Fire ghost can also help you out by burning pellets, as long as you don’t die to the fire outbreak).

The maps are well designed and typically have something special according to the set (examples are cars going in roads in the city level, secret tunnels to treasures in the Pirate level, or patches of ice that you skid on in the ice levels). In many levels there are speed limit zones, and if you go through them in turbo mode, a Police ghost spawns to come after you, sirens on. In others, another special ghost spoils pellets green forcing you to clear them twice (unless you have active another store purchased power up).

Some of the levels are “boss” levels where you have additional scenery specific things hindering (a ghost Pirate ship shooting cannon balls at you is a good example). You can also enter bonus level mini-games for extra points – and extra fun (for example, there is a platform game where you have to jump from platform to platform to get to the highest point, and there is a Space invaders like shooter mini-game).

To top it all off, you can also play a version of original, no-frills, Pac-man – with updated graphics conspicuously similar to Pac-man arrangement in looks (this remake may have been made before Namco started putting Pac-man arrangement in their compilations – although I didn’t check). If that wasn’t enough, you can also unlock further classic games (like Asteroids)! This doesn’t mean much in PC, as it’s not like you can’t get dozens of clones of any classic games, but it is a classy extra that gives you something extra to strive for during play sessions as an achievement (something that Live Arcade has shown to be popular).

Simply put, if you like Pac-man, you must try this freeware gem – it is arguably the best game I’m featuring – highly recommended!
Get The Game: Download Pacz!

Shareware PC Games Worth A Try…

Ivo tried a bunch of shareware titles for this article, hoping to find something exceptionally good. He didn’t, and although he found plenty that were exceptionally bad, there were actually some good ones that may be worth the registration fee for the full version. The beauty of shareware is that you can decide for yourself after playing the free trial (and I already saved you the trouble of wading through the worse stuff). All three involve one of the best ideas to tweak the Pac-man formula: weaponry (I couldn’t find any nice shareware Pac-man spin-off that didn’t involve shooting – go figure).

• Munch-a-Bunch has high production values, and if it wasn’t too easy (at least it was in the trial version) it would make a compelling case towards justifying the registration fee. As it is, definitively worth a try and you can see if you like it.
• Pac-Doom isn’t even a proper arcade game in the usual meaning. It has some elements, and there is pellet gobbling going on (they count as your ammo). It is a significant departure from Pac-man, you don’t even need to clear the level to continue – but it is a decent game that may be worth the registration fee if you like it more than I did.
• Pacshooter 3D has decent production values and is well balanced difficulty wise – something which seems tricky when shooting the enemies is allowed in a Pac-man spin-off (they allowed the enemies to shoot as well – seems to work). Possibly the best of the shareware games I tried, definitively worth your time to try it, and maybe even worth your money to have the full version.

Xpadder is a small and simple Windows application that lets you make the most of your gamepad – and it is free!Xpadder has several features. The most basic is that it lets you map keys to your gamepad buttons. I decided to make a tutorial here to connect with the emulator guides. Some obvious uses of Xpadder in this context:

• Some emulators that don’t support gamepads natively
• Some emulators that don’t let you redefine the gamepad commands freely (use keys, and remap them any way you want)
• Use it to map function keys from emulators to extra buttons (e.g. you can map load and save state to shoulder buttons in Genesis games for “quick load” and “quick save”)

Xpadder also lets you map mouse commands to your pad, or map sequences of keys to a single button press. I leave it to you to devise your own uses for these. Personally I’ve been happy to use solely the basic feature; I have used it a lot with freeware windows games that typically don’t support pads natively, and with WinUAE, the Amiga emulator – many Amiga games use keys as the standard joysticks only had one button, and it’s very inconvenient to access these keys when using gamepads (Amiga joysticks were often 1-handed, while pads are 2-handed).

The tutorial

Step 1: Download Xpadder

Go to the official site in the download section, or click here [if we host it] to get it instantly.

Step 2: Extract Xpadder

It’s very simple. Just unzip it where you want to keep the program. It is a single, small file, no installation required. I advise you to make a folder for it though, so you can easily keep your saved profiles.

Step 3: Setup your gamepad(s) – the layout

Run Xpadder by double clicking on it.

You need to configure your gamepad first. Click “New” to do so; you are taken to the Controller editor:

If you want, you can add a picture in the profile – in the “Image” tab, click open and choose what you want:

There are some such images already prepared in Xpadder’s official site, in the Images section (you might want to check if your gamepad is already there – apparently Xpadder treats that pink color as transparent).

Go into the next tabs to configure the thumbsticks. Unfortunately I cannot test this as my gamepad is digital only. It should be almost as easy as doing the d-pad buttons, in the “Direction pad” tab:

Just check the “Enabled” box (as in the image) and the program will detect and prompt you to press the directions in turn.

You may want to move the directional pad to another location (particularly if you have used an image) – just drag and drop:

Adding buttons is also very simple. Pressing the buttons on your gamepad makes them appear in the layout:

This should make it clear why it is helpful to reproduce the layout of your pad – although you can remind yourself what corresponds to each pad button by pressing it on the pad (this is why the last button on the right is different in the image above). Like with the d-pad, you can drag and drop each “button” in the layout at your will:

If your pad has analog trigger buttons, the last tab is for that. My pad only has digital triggers, so I needed to add them already (the two top squares).

You can repeat the process for other pads, if you have them, and save to separate controller profiles, switching between them as desired.

Step 4: Setup your profile(s)

With a layout open (See Step 3), assign keys to your pad’s buttons by clicking the corresponding “button” in the profile (e.g. the “up” of the d-pad); an on-screen keyboard pops up:

Then, just press the desired key (e.g. the “up” cursor key) on the on-screen keyboard:

You can remove assignments by clicking the large “NONE” key of the on-screen keyboard:

The right-most part of the on-screen “keyboard” serves to assign mouse movements to your gamepad – in exactly the same way.

Step 5: Save the assignments for ease of use

Done with all the assignments for a particular profile? Save the profile so you don’t have to do it next time:

To access them again you can go to “Open” in the menu shown above. You can also quickly and easily swap between profiles you have prepared by clicking the profile line:

That is pretty much all I wanted to cover with this tutorial. Go download and try this wonderful application (if you really like it, you can drop an e-mail thanking the creator at the official website).

As usual, share your opinions or ask questions in the comments section, or in the forums.

Ivo.

The 3D Rail Shooter genre seems like a natural fit for the Wii and the Wii-mote’s lightgun-like capabilties. And what better series from the rails shooter genre than Panzer Dragoon (and Rez, but I’m trying to stay on topic)

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At this point, we’ll be pretty lucky if we see a Panzer Dragoon game on the Wii anytime soon, but until that day comes, you maybe be able to experience the next best thing by putting together a little hack on your PC. Since the keyboard can be a bit cumbersome for Panzer Dragoon, the Wii-mote may be quite an improvement.

See Panzer Dragoon in Action Wii-Style

• Panzer Dragoon Video 1
• Panzer Dragoon Video 2

Tiger from Global Domination wrote a custom control script (more detail later) to adapt the Wiimote to Panzer Dragoon’s controls. He writes… “In this version of the script, the motion controls demand a lot of movement and rotation of the wrist, but that will be addressed in future revisions. Being based entirely on digital commands and emulation of keyboard commands makes the motion less smooth than it would be in a game natively designed around the Wii Remote’s motion sensing. The GlovePIE scripting community has come up with some inventive ways of getting a more analog feeling out of such controls, and I’ll also look into adopting some of those techniques in future revisions.”

What You Need

• A Windows PC
• A compatible Bluetooth Adapter
• A Nintendo Wii Remote
• GlovePie Input Adapter Software
• The Panzer Dragoon GlovePie script
• A PC Version of Panzer Dragoon

Connecting the Wii Remote

• Make sure you have a Bluetooth adapter for your PC.
• Go to Control Panel –> Bluetooth Devices and click “Add” a new Bluetooth Device
• Hold down 1 + 2 on the Wii remote to begin the syncing process.
• Check the box next to “My device is set up and ready to be found”, then “Next”
• Click on “Nintendo RVL-CNT-01″, then click “Next”
• Select “Don’t use a passkey”, then click “Next”. You may need to hold down 1+2 on the Wii remote again here. If you’re successful, three LEDs will be flashing on the Wii remote.

Using GlovePIE Wiimote Driver

• Download and extract GlovePIE to a directory, then open “GlovePIE.exe”
• Open “TestWiimote.PIE” from the File menu (It should be in the default displayed folder).
• Hopefully your Wii remote is still blinking. Click “Run” near the top of the GlovePIE window.
• Push on the D-Pad with GloverPIE being the active window. You should see values changing in the toolbar on the bottom-left corner.
• Change to the Panzer Dragoon Wiimote Script
• Leave the script running and open up the game

Unfortunately, I don’t have a Wii-mote, nor do I have an extra $40 to buy one for this purpose. But I could see this being a very attractive hack on my Media PC. If you are interested in some other games to try, you can see similar hacks from Tiger for playing House of the Dead 3 and Alien Hominid with the Wiimote on the PC.

There are a number of excellent freeware games available for the PC, and Warning Forever is certainly one of those. You can download it from the creator’s website (which also has other good freeware games). The self extractor file is so small you could fit it twice in a single floppy, so there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t just try it (even if you are on dial-up!).

Basically, the game is a shoot ‘em up with a number of interesting twists:

1. What explains the name, and the most noticeable of which is that the game consists solely of “boss” battles, the bosses growing larger and larger in each subsequent stage.
2. The other main innovation – and one which might not be readily apparent the first times you play – is that the evolution of the enemy ship is dictated by the way you have destroyed it in previous rounds: basically, “learning” from the way you defeat it and trying to counter that. As a simple example, if you simply blast away at the front of it, the ship will grow more and more pieces in the front to protect the core from such a frontal attack. It also learns from the ways it manages to destroy you – if one type of weapon managed to hit you,the next ship is bound to have more of that type of weapon.
3. Another important twist from the usual shooter formula is that in the “normal” mode of play you’re going against a timer rather than having a limited number of lives (although you can choose the more traditional style of play in the options) -when you’re destroyed you lose 20 seconds, and when you defeat a boss you gain 30 seconds.
4. There are no power-ups in this game (at least, not for your ship; the enemy is consistently getting upgraded!). You have a basic spread shot gun which fires upwards, and you can toggle in game into the alternate firing mode (something I heartily advise) that allows you to control the direction and spread of your fire by the movement of the ship.

Graphics/Presentation: 8
The game’s (vector) graphics are rather simple, and they definitively perform their role. As you can readily see from the screenshots, the graphics won’t distract you from the action, and you are able to keep track of what is going on: which pieces of the ship you are hitting and so on. I personally am fond of the particular graphic style, although this is subjective; I find them to have a certain artistry to them. They’re not gorgeous (like Ikaruga, for example), but they don’t need to be.

Sound/Music: 6
The weakest point of the game, but one that doesn’t really affect things much either. The sound is rather basic, and I personally dislike the warning klaxons at the start of each level. I understand why they are there and they communicate the constant boss fight feel of the game well, but I find them to be very annoying. That sort of stuff works better in a regular shooter as you only have a boss every once in a while. The music is o.k., but nothing to praise.

Gameplay: 9
The gameplay is really excellent, much better than many commercial games.
In my opinion, you should think of this game as a combination of a score attack and a time attack game. You can use the options to set different types of game, all of which have quite significant dynamics. The “normal mode” I already discussed, is essentially a time attack where you lose time each time you’re destroyed and get bonus time each time you destroy a boss. There is also a standard mode where you just play with finite lives and get extra lives each 100 pieces of boss destroyed, a “sudden death” mode with 1 life and no extras, and a pure 5 min time attack mode where you don’t lose time when you are destroyed but you also don’t get bonuses. And you can also build your own mix & match mode if you want.

Independently of the mode you play in, there’s still huge replayability as the evolution of the enemy is dictated by the way you play. You can essentially explore different strategies, and in fact in the first half-dozen of stages you can determine the evolution pattern of the top and bottom half of the enemy independently, each of them taking one of 3 “attributes” (Attack, Wide, or Armor), up to 9 globally different evolutions and behavior of the enemy.

You can explore that on your own, read more about it in the wikipedia entry, or perhaps venture into the forums here to discuss it – it’s intuitive how you trigger Attack and Wide, but the Armor attribute is a bit dodgy (so I guess it could have been better implemented) and it took me ages and some internet help to figure it out (strangely, I couldn’t find the explicit explanation of how to do it anywhere, but pieced it together from the tidbits I could find).

Oh, and the game has a replay feature that you can have record the different evolutions of bosses you fight and/or a stage by stage replay (and the files of this are very small as well).
You can check out a video of the action in youtube.

Controls: 8 (if you have a gamepad)
The game allows you to use a gamepad, which I recommend. If you don’t have a gamepad, you’re stuck using the keys – the default setting is good and you can map them any way you want to your keys, but it remains worse than using a gamepad (at least for me).

You can move in 4 directions, and there are 3 actions and the pause game function. By keeping the “slow” depressed you move slower, so you can dodge bullets with precision or keep the fire on a specific section of the enemy ship while it moves. There is a toggle between firing modes, from the straight vertical spread into the adjustable direction mode you will find yourself playing in the majority of the time. And of course there is the fire button/key.

You will never get as much out of the game if you don’t use the alternate the firing mode – and it does take some getting used to it. In this mode, if you aren’t firing and move, the direction and spread of the fire changes (if you move to the left the fire will point to the right; if you move into the direction of the fire, the spread increases, and if you move away from the direction of the fire it gets focused). There is no way to adjust the direction and spread without moving your ship, although you lock in that direction and spread after setting it simply by keeping the fire button pressed. You will get used to it after a while, and it’s actually a clever way of doing things while keeping the controls simple, but it has limitations (you need to stop firing to readjust it, you can’t re-adjust it without moving, and you can’t lock it in a direction without constantly firing – all things you might want to do at certain times).

Affordability: 10 (because I can’t give it more!)
It’s free. A great freeware game. And it’s tiny (under 1 MB to download, under 1MB after installation), and individual game sessions won’t take long either, so it’s “affordable” any way you look at it.

Overall: 9
It’s free, simple to install and in principle no trouble getting it to run (it runs on my 4 year old laptop). No reason not to try it.

If you like shoot ‘em ups you simply have to try this- I can’t stress this enough, give it a go.

Even if you don’t like shoot ‘em ups, you should still try it. It’s different enough from the main formula (and highly customizable) that you might like this one. If indeed you don’t like shooters at all, it’s very possible you won’t like this one either, but if there’s one shooter you might like this might be it.