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Category: Gaming (Page 3 of 4)

Digital pack DEMON COLLECTION review

2019-12-21 / / 0 Comments

This week I’m reviewing not one, but four games! It’s a digital pack made by indy developer studio “DemonGames” and it’s available for purchase.  I had the pleasure of owning the pack and I’ll be reviewing all the games here.

I’ll be talking about the games then say how to get this awesome pack, so let’s start with the first game.

Demonia

In this side scrolling shooter game you are fighting in an evil cemetery that is the gate to hell and your job is to stop the evil. You only have your gun and one shot to get this mission done. It’s a classic remake that is really hard to play and master!
Everything about this game speaks eerie: The sound effects, the colors and the general atmosphere.

 

Gazzel Quest

This game takes us to ancient Egypt where you assume the role of a mighty warrior named Gazzel who is tired of fighting and wants to live a peaceful life. Much to the anger of the pharaoh who lost his best fighter so he kidnaps his lover “Salama” and puts her under lock and key. Your mission is to collect all five jewels to open the gate and free your true love. Each jewel is guarded by a demon.
It’s very similar to Knightmare yet has a unique vibe to it. For instance you get “hits” before dying while Knightmare is one hit one kill sort of game. Also the number of levels is different, and a lot of little differences for you to discover 😉

 

Knightmare

I’ve dedicated an entire blog post to this master piece, needless to say it’s the Deluxe version that has 5 playable characters including a penguin and a link like character (from the legend of Zelda series!).
Also you get more weapons than the original game like a Ninja Shuriken!
You can read my full review from here of the “Golden version”, 
All cheats work just fine in this version..

Project Xinatra

The last but not least game of the bundle. In fact I think it’s the best game. It’s a side scrolling shooter where you fight aliens as a part of a resistance movement. The graphics and overall mood of the game is very good.

 

Art and manuals

All games are shipped with game art, manuals, maps and hints, adding value to the pack and making it a collector’s item.

Promo video for the pack

 

How to acquire this pack?

All you have to do is to e-mail [email protected] and they will give you the instructions on how to get this awesome pack. From my experience it’s very easy and fluid process.

Final words

If you are a retro gamer looking for remakes with a modern twist, this pack is calling your name. I recommend getting it.

Top ten picks out of the pirate bay bundle

2019-08-23 / / 0 Comments
In the year 2014 Australian artist trashymctrashboy created a bundle that consisted of 101 indy games and offered it for free download.

At the time it seemed like a bargain for two main reasons:

    1. All the games are for free.
    2. There are 101 games to choose from.
It was a lot like the knockoff NES cartridges you pick up at flee markets. It says 101 or 999999999 or 356 games but actually it has 4 games!


I’ve taken the time to play all the games and filter out the 10 I think that are worth your time.

 Please put in consideration these two points:

    1. The list is subjective, it’s the games I like or found playable.
    2. A lot of the flash games didn’t work on my computer, despite having a flash player installed “Gnash”.
With that being said, lets list out the games. I’ll upload my pack and drop a link at the end of the post. If you are interested in the whole thing, it’s on web archive [dot] com.

But before we look at the good games (in comparison) let’s try to understand the purpose behind this bundle and what kind of games it has?

The bundle was created as an attempt to shine a light on the less known indy developers and share their works as a work of art.

  • Some games are made as homage to the Atari 2600, meaning that the graphics and sounds are non-existent.

  • Other games are similar to creepy pastas, generally scary and creepy.

  • And some are unplayable mash of pixels and horrid noises.

While reviewing this bundle AVGN (the angry video game nerd) came to mind, I found myself shouting some of his catch phrases at the screen.

The games from [A-Z]

1. Abandoned
 
The game has a dark atmosphere to it and seems really interesting.

2. Blockman gets more

 
This game is very similar to Pacman, only that he doesn’t eat ghosts, he eats pallets and can’t backtrack an empty trail. Has an interesting puzzle mechanisms to it.

3. Bunnies back into your cage
A simple puzzle game where you try to put bunnies back into their cage using carrots. The trick is to use as little moves as possible. 

4. Connect
A numeric puzzle game.
5. CrissCross
An interesting game similar to battle tank and chip’s adventure. You need to collect keys to get out of dungeons. The keys are inside enemies that you shoot. 
6. Ghost Witch
 
In this game you play as a witch and flight ghosts. The interesting concept in this game is that you play as the witch and her “ghost” to solve puzzles and advance in the game.
7. Konky Dong
 
In this game you play as Donkey Kong and stop the Mario brothers from saving Pauline. It has a good game play and some backhand humor to it. 
8. Nitro butts
 
A fast paced shooter game. Similar to Atari 2600 games.
9. Old Man Johnson
 
A puzzle game where you save old Man Johnson from falling to his doom.
10. Snowball
 
A platform game where you generate a snowball and toss it around, the bigger the ball the better the boom!

Download

Those were the top 10 picks from the pirate bay bundle. To download this pack click on this link.
It’s compressed in .7z for optimal compression.

Did you download the file? Which games did you like better? Let me know what you think in the comments section below.

My second wind gaming

2019-07-12 / / 0 Comments
For many years I’ve hit a wall with games, I thought I’d never be able to enjoy video games again. I’ve even took to Reddit to complain that buying a gaming keyboard and mouse didn’t enhance my gaming experience.  Here is a classical example of me ranting not being able to play as much games as I want to.
But alas! I’ve found my second wind and I’m back to enjoying video games regularly!
 

It felt like an AA meeting. The movie is called wreck it Ralph

Gaming on Linux

Gaming on Linux is a clunky experience to say the least. It feels off, like it’s not supposed to happen. The games are odd and some are unplayable. For the longest time using Linux only meant dropping my entire game library (except for those who were cross-platform).

Having a dual boot or a second device just for gaming was out of the question, and a virtual machine is simply an overkill.

An obvious solution

Wine! It can help run many games and programs on Linux. It expanded my options and brought back games that I thought I’ve abandoned forever.

Other supporting tools

For much older games Dosbox is the way to go, DOS games run on modern software using it. So the pre Windows 7 games are still playable thanks to this tool.

Gnash for flash games, in the late 90s and early 2000s the flash game market was booming with all sorts of mini games and jokes, if you want to relive the moments from that time era you have to have Gnash installed, as Firefox doesn’t run flash games anymore.

Something is still missing

Despite all these modifications and tweaks, it still feels like an archipelago of scattered games with no theme or purpose to them. There is one missing piece of the puzzle.

Lutris the crown jewel

Yes, a great deal of me re-embracing games is having Lutris in my repertoire of tools. There are many reasons for that

1. Lutris collects games across systems in one place, making them easier to find and see.
2. Lutris calculates the time played on each game.
3. Sets the resolution automatically and then sets it back to the system’s resolution after I’m done playing games.
4. If a joystick is connected to the computer, it is automatically recognized thanks to some tools Lutris has (depends on the game itself).
5. Lutris helps install some games from its library.
6. Lutris has useful wine settings embedded in the program itself that help diagnose the game issues.

Now that I’ve listed the software, lets dig in into the actual experience

1. Turn the phone silent, block all social media. If it doesn’t work then airplane mode is the way to go.
2. Use a headset and joystick for maximum gaming effect. A lot of games actually recommend using the Joystick for a better experience, Mario 2012 is an example. 

A joystick / headset combo.

3. Sit comfortably, if you can get a beanbag that would probably be awesome! (I don’t have one yet). 

Beanbag, the perfect gaming companion

 

4. Keep it fresh and exciting, I’ve reviewed a bunch of awesome games on this blog, and there are hundreds more that can be downloaded for free.

5. Have fun, don’t over think stuff, don’t force it either. Things are best when they occur naturally.

Final words

With these tweaks and tools, the gaming experience on Linux isn’t only possible, but actually rather enjoyable. There are plenty of titles to choose from and good times to spend with games.

Did you find your second wind before? What worked for you? Let me know in the comments section below.

Introduction to wine on Ubuntu Linux

2019-06-10 / / 0 Comments
Wine stands for (Wine Is Not Emulator), and it’s a bunch of Mono libraries used to run windows programs on Linux.
As a Linux user you will cross paths with wine and in this post I’ll be talking about whether is it a good or a bad addition to your system.

Why wine?

If you play games then you will come across wine sooner or later, as we all know that Linux is not a gaming system by default. The last few years saw a rapid growth in Linux games thanks to Steam, and software that eases game installation like Lutris. However it’s far from Linux being a default system for developers and gamers alike. And that where wine comes to play.
You need all the help you can get playing on Linux, if you can have your collection of games running with Wine, that’s a win (no pun intended).

A starting point

Any beginner taking the first steps in the world of Linux will have to use Wine to ease the transition from MS to Linux. (No! I don’t mean drink the pain away!!) In fact some distributions aimed at beginner users have it installed by default like Zorin.

Wine because wine exists

Many game developers won’t port games to Linux and instead direct users to “Wine” for games to run on Linux. As for older games that are already out there, good luck with those!  The only way to be able to enjoy them on your system is to have Wine installed.

Wine is better than other solutions

Using wine is much safer than having a dual boot setup, if you mess up the installation procedure then it’s good bye files! (Always have a backup and even make an image of your hard drive).

What programs and games Wine runs?

There are thousands of games and programs that run on Linux using Wine, and with every update that list grows more in size. The best way to know is to try of course and see how things work out.

How does it work?

If you have portable programs, just double click them to work. If they require an installation then follow the steps as you would on a MS system. You can remove them later from “Uninstall Wine programs”.

Uninstall wine programs from here

 And you can edit several settings from the applet configure wine, including what version of windows does it work like for compatibility.

If you already have it, Wine it!

Many free and open source games (I’ve reviewed several on this blog) run on Linux and Windows. So if you have the game for Windows and you have Wine installed, there is no need to download the game again, here wine helps you save some data!

Installation 

Please refer to the manual on the official website, there are steps that needs to be done in order to get the 32 bit and 64 bit programs to run without an issue on Ubuntu. I recommend using the development branch to get the latest version possible.

Final words

Wine is not a perfect solution, it has its flaws like any software, but it came a long way in running your games and software on Linux. Having it run with Lutris really enhances your gaming experience and widens your game options by a whole lot!

Just remember to use with moderation, native is always better.

Do you use Wine on your Linux machine? How is your experience?  Leave a comment below and let me know what do you think?

I wrote an Arabic post a few years ago that roughly mentions wine, take a look at it from here.

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