Free Game : Strategy Air Battles

Air battle always to be an amusing game theme!

Average Joes looking for the chance to fly the unfriendly skies of Europe during World War II should enlist with Air Battles: Sky Defender. While this Pilot Entertainment game screams low budget at times and takes a casual approach to aerial combat that won't please hardcore simulation fans, its great looks and easy, breezy design make it a treat for those looking for something relatively light. Only the lack of proper campaigns and online multiplayer keep it from ace status.

Despite the goofy name that would be more appropriate for an old movie serial than a combat flight sim, Sky Defender is actually a dry look at the European air war during WWII. There are no flights of fancy or Crimson Skies-style wackiness here, just a collection of one-off missions where you hop into the cockpits of such famous British and German aircraft as the Spitfire, Stuka, and Me-109 to shoot it out over English farmland, the English Channel, and the rural countryside of occupied France. Rookie pilots can earn their wings before taking on the enemy, thanks to suites of basic, advanced, and military training assignments. These assignments get you up and running with all the basic concepts of flying and fighting, including everything from making a controlled turn and stall recovery to taking off as part of a squadron.

If you get into a real furball, it will feel just about as scripted as the training missions. All of the assignments are purely fictional, and each is geared to illustrate a stereotypical WWII aerial scrap, focusing on a single iconic style of battle. You take part in dive bombing, low-level attacks on airfields, raids on merchant shipping convoys, and dogfighting against everything from a single British aircraft to huge waves of German fighters and bombers blitzing London at dawn. Mission parameters can also be changed, which lets you custom-rig missions in a limited way by flipping back and forth between Axis and Allies. You can choose your plane, as well as set the time of day and weather conditions.

One thing that can't be altered is the pace. Even though Sky Defender is a casual flight sim, missions share very little with action-first arcade fliers. Most battles start with you close to the action, but you can't just race forward and start blasting everything in sight. Engagements are generally drawn out, and a fair amount of time is spent simply turning, chasing, and stalking enemy fighters and bombers. As in real WWII dogfights, tracking the enemy and striking precisely is the goal here. Flying headlong at waves of aircraft or even an airfield will only get you a quick trip to terra firma.

Still, you've got a good chance of staying aloft. In keeping with the "My First Flight Sim" theme, flight characteristics are extremely forgiving. Although the game has novice and realistic settings, neither is very punishing. Bumping up the difficulty to realistic just seems to result in more stalls and more problems with such things as causing self-inflicted damage by cranking up your speed too high for too long. This will seem a bit like flyboy romper room for experienced flight sim fans, but that appears to be the point. The lack of a demanding flight model lets newbies gain Battle of Britain skills in mere minutes. Controls are also fairly simplified, while the keyboard is responsive and easy to use. You're not gaining much, if anything, by going to a stick, which is an impressive accomplishment because so many casual flight sims get grounded by unwieldy keyboard commands.

Visuals are another plus. Unlike so many budget games, Sky Defender looks and sounds good. The menus are hideous, and the air battles online option on the main screen is a fake-out that takes you to the game's official Web site, but the in-game graphics are just shy of gorgeous. Planes look great and are loaded with colorful details, such as pilot insignias. Bullets also create a nifty trail as they cut through the air. The only drawback is static, slightly blurry terrain that makes it tough to tell how high you are above the ground when strafing or dive-bombing airfields. The engine balances beauty and speed in the way it handles battles that feature 100 or more fighters and bombers without a hitch in the frame rate. Audio effects are also impressive, unless you're a music buff because there are no tunes in the game at all. Pilots shout "Shoot! Shoot!" a little too often, but they also have a wide range of comments that make you believe you're in the midst of an actual dogfight. Cries for help and boasts about victories do a lot to increase the tension when things get hairy. The sound of clipped British accents, propellers, bullets whistling through the air, and the wind blowing past your open cockpit also enhance the atmosphere.

It won't win any awards, but Air Battles: Sky Defender does exactly what it intends to do. This is a budget game with some of the issues common to such releases, but it also provides great bang for your buck and serves as a good, solid flight-sim primer for anyone looking to become a virtual aerial ace.

Half-Life in 2D, wow ... Free Now !

Half-Life in 2D, wow ... i can't hardly wait to play it !!

CODENAME: GORDON BEGAN LIFE as a fanmade project in honour of the impending 500lb gaming-gorilla that was going to be Half-Life 2. Well, as you are no doubt aware HL2 has suffered a big delay, and in sympathy (we think) so did Codename: Gordon - which had everyone worried the guys might not get it out before HL2 as they'd promised.

The good news is that during their hiatus Valve picked the game up and now, with the 2-person dev team going under the name Nuclearvision, CG was put back on track and now it is available for free download via Valve's propriety Steam system (or as a standalone download if you know what rocks to look under on the that thar interweb thingy). It's about 39MB in size. Which is a huge given the type of game that it is, but what you have to realise is that it's all been written in Macromedia Flash... 'whatever tools come to hand' being the operative phrase here.

What can you expect? Well it's a 2D switchscreen platform hopper featuring Half-Life's very own Gordon Freeman who's struggling to save the world from the sudden loss of the third dimension. 'Nuff said. As you wade through the levels you come across all sorts of familiar objects from Half-Life: crates, pistols, submachine guns, grenades, zombies, headcrabs, HEV and health stations, etc. But you also get a shoot at or use a few of the new features and enemies promised in HL2, such as dune buggies, manhacks, combine guards, alien gunships, striders, and the manipulator gun - which works as advertised, and is indeed, pretty k3wl.

Needless to say it doesn't take itself very seriously at all. Some of the dialogue with the other characters in the game like Dr. Kliener, Alyx and Barney is very funny and just drips with rampant HL2 insider fanboyism - especially when, as Gordon, all you can do is reply with various kinds of smilies: :D :) :/ etc...
The controls have obviously been designed to be instantly recognisable by Half-Lifers and 3D shooter fans in general: being of the traditional WASD + Mouse layout - they even map back to their usual FPS functions with something approaching familiarity. The movement keys are fairly explanatory, and the mouse controls the aim of the bullets/flashlight in a manner reminiscent of the old sidescrolling Abuse game.

The graphics aren't too bad; with everything firing and exploding in a fine manner. The action can get a little hectic at times and some of the bosses can be quite tricky. Though as with most console-ish arcade action games it's just a matter of keeping your finger down on the fire button as you dodge the incoming shots. The one thing is does lack is a savegame feature; but then as it only takes 15-20min to complete the whole thing there's not much of a problem there.

Overall if what you are looking for a quick 20min, 10 level blaster this is the game for you. Like Tomby said on the HL2 forums, all it needs now is for Counter-Strike to be modded to it...

FREE : TROPICO GOLD edition

FLASHBACK !!

PC game : Aladdin Magic Carpet Racing

Aladdin Magic Carpet Racing is a heart-pumping, fast-paced racing game set in the magical land of Agrabah. Race as Aladdin or Princess Jasmine on four exciting and unique race courses. Become the ultimate magic carpet racing champion when you defeat Jafar to win the Agrabah Cup.

Now Free : Virtual Villagers 2 - The Lost Children

Somewhere in the Pacific, there was a beautiful island, called Isola, where lost villagers made their home. The castaways explored their small part of the island and knew every corner. Only a mysterious cave had not been carefully explored. One day, two intrepid villagers ventured into the dark recesses and discovered an opening behind thick vines. Curious, they pressed through and after falling down slippery rocks and a steep waterfall, they landed on a new part of the island: the west side! They emerged to find they were not alone... children ... dirty, hungry-looking children. Who are they and where are their parents? Uncover more answers about the mysterious native inhabitants of the island. Explore the west shore of Isola!

Game for PC : Asterix and Obelix XXL

Action game based on the famous French comic book series by Les Edition Albert René/Goscinny-Uderzo. Players control both heroes at once, similar to Nintendo's Mario & Luigi roleplaying game -- but the game is completely action-focused. By utilizing the special powers of both Asterix and Obelix at once, players can execute elaborate combo moves between the two main heroes, using such functions as the twister fusion, earthquake, and atomic magic potion. Features include huge battles inspired by the comics, with more than 70 Romans at once, spanning 40 different levels. Instead of going for a cel-shaded cartoon look, the game portrays Goscinny/Uderzo's world of 50 B.C. in a detailed 3D style, with plenty of humorous animations and special effects.

Free PC Game : 3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures

Grab your putter and head to the links for some of the most bizarre rounds of golf you'll see for a while -- you'll knock your ball through a Wild-West Saloon brawl, send it careening through Carnival bumper cars, and maybe even send it into orbit! With Mini Golf Adventures, you never know what the next course will bring!

Free Strategy Game : ZOO TYCOON

By now I can honestly say that the DS has taken a commanding lead in the next Generation handheld video-game race. Most games released for the DS have been pretty quality runs and even more surprisingly, there have been several top-tier titles (Castlevania, Nintendogs, Advance Wars). Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later to this reviewer, I got DS title for review that really kind of fell apart on me. By that, I mean it really doesn't have much going on for it. To say that the Tycoon series hasn't been successful would be an out-right lie. The PC was originally blessed by this series and using the same formula there has been all sorts of tycoon games; Roller Coaster Tycoon, Deep Sea Tycoon, Hell Tycoon, etc, etc. The interface is fairly simple, create a theme-park style location and build it using the appropriate items provided. Try and draw in people to make money and eventually build up to creating extravagant exhibits. Now of course this is very generalized, some of the different titles involve all sorts of unique problems and solutions, thus making the title different as compared to the others. But in this title, the player is challenged with selecting animals for a zoo, building and maintaining habitats for them that will keep them happy and healthy. However, the problems pop up quite quickly with this one. The game screen is incredibly pixilated to the point where it actually becomes a hindrance to play. The little sprites are blurred together and there is a little "happy" icon that pops up whenever you do something to an animal's pen that makes it happy. I just don't see how it's a "happy" icon, my wife says it is, but to me it looks like a little green balloon. But whatever it is, it doesn't look good. Plus, the graphics of all of the different terrain and items that you must fill your exhibits with just don't do a title like this justice. Which, by the way, is done by navigating through the screen using the stylus and then tapping the area you want effected. Of course to do all of this and see the entire 3/4 view angled screen, you must use the trigger buttons to spin around the entire exhibit. If you don't you won't be able to remove the rock that's behind the little building that is really upsetting the cheetah. Cause cheetahs don't care for phosphorus rock, they like dessert rock. Hmmpff, either way, the little game clock goes by and you must complete certain exhibits, get the animals into them and then assign a zoo keeper to take care of the animal all while maintaining a strict budget and time table. It would be fun if the game didn't make such a challenge out of building the actual exhibits when clearly the fun should be figuring out the problems each animal has and designing cages that suit them, but instead building them becomes more of a hassle. For example, the fences that are used to enclose the animals must be placed and sized in a specific area, but the clunky controls that are within this game make it more painful then anything, I just can't get over how much of a failure the controls on this title are. Now, I realize that half the fun of the DS is finding new and creative ways to utilize the touch screen, but this is a port from a PC title, and it maintained a certain amount of success without any sort of touch screen. I think that a "less is more" kind of approach was needed here in order to pull this title out of the depths. It would also help if the game did look better. The shading is sub-par and the different textures don't seem all that different. Sure there are different colors used for the different terrain but look as the demo screenshots above. The game contains too many different items for such a small screen, it becomes overly cluttered and runs together. Plus, once you finally get your animals in the cages, if you aren't the one building the zoo, you won't know what the heck kind of animal is in there. My wife was playing the game and I came up behind her and asked if she had placed an animal in the pen yet. She looked at me as if I was crazy, stating that this was her best exhibit and was the first animal placed. I walked away still trying to figure out what creature was in there, I simply could not see anything. The sound the game features is absolutely a non-factor. It's as if the game would be fine completely silent.

Racing Game's Babe Trivia

Do you know who's the REAL name of this Need for Speed Underground 2 babe? Off course, I know it ! :^D

Free Game : FallOut Tactics

"One Of The Best Games Ever!!!" This game is one of the best tactical games ever made, it combines rpg, turnbased, shooter, strategy, all into one perfect game, okay maybe not perfect, but it's a good game. Enjoy reading this review, and hope you decide to buy it.

Story-Line: You are working for The Brotherhood, your job is to go around, and try to influence people to join, but to do that you will have to fight some fearsome opponents, bosses, and other mysterious creatures that lurk around. Overall Story-Line Rating: 10/10

Graphics: Oh man, what can I say, this game has one of the best graphics out there, the guns, the people, the animals, the creatures, the environment, the vehicles, etc., they all look pretty real, and feels like your there. The blood and gore also looks real, that's why it's rated M. Overall Graphics Rating: 10/10

Gameplay: The Gameplay is superb, like I said earlier, everything is realistic, with numerous of things you can acquire, like guns, bombs, repair kits, food, and tons of more stuff, you can usually get these things off of the people you kill. You can even gain levels, and can choose skills to learn to make an ultimate warrior, just hope you choose the right one. You can also trade with The Brotherhood, or go find merchants to get stuff even cheaper. There are numerous of places you go, and challenging jobs that need to be performed, and you even get to drive vehicles in later missions, and there pretty fun. There are also secret areas that will have...oh wait, you'll have to buy the game to find out. I almost forgot about internet play. Oh, the possibilities, interact with fellow players, and learn to perfect your skills. Overall Gameplay Rating: 10/10

Sound/Music: The sound is amazing just like every other aspect of this game. When you start up the ''Vehicles'' they sound just like the real thing, you'd think you were really driving. The weapon sounds are as realistic as it can get, and when you shoot something thats alive and you listen closely enough, you can even hear some blood splatter. Now thats what I call sound. Sound/Music Rating: 10/10