8Bit Killer brings back the good old times of Castle Wolfenstein and Doom. It uses 64 colors, chiptunes and 32×32 pixel textures to bring you an interesting game experience that you might have experienced in the past; If you are old enough that is.

The game offers a story line with nice graphics, different levels with many different types of enemies and especially boss enemies that look incredible. The game is not hard to beat and if you are into ftp games you might finish it in under one hour. The experience however is worth the time it takes.

Controls are the usual fps controls. WASD or cursor keys move the character around, mouse can be used to look, left mouse button or control to shoot and right-click to open doors. Space opens the equipment menu that provides access to the different weapons found in the game.

The game scales nicely on a 1920×1200 computer screen and would probably run fine on higher resolution as well. Great game, lots of fun!

Quite interestingly one of my all time favorite games has been released that way. The game’s name is Fallout and it can be downloaded and played freely at the Gametap network which provides ad driven free games.

Other games that have been released recently are The Suffering, a morbid dark and brutal first person shooter suited only for adult players. The game can be directly downloaded from Gamers Hell and other file providers.

Another newcomer is Rise & Fall Civilizations At War, a realtime strategy game with a first person mode that I wanted to play for a long while but never managed to. It’s now free and can be downloaded from Filefront.

Lastly we got Area 51 a game sponsored by the US Air Force also available from Filefront.

King’s Bounty was an incredible game on the Sega Genesis. It had all the game elements of turn based strategy games that became popular with the Heroes of Might and Magic series which seemed to have been heavily influenced by King’s Bounty.

King’s Bounty The Legend takes many game elements of its successor and combines them with modern graphics and enhancements. The game is still a turn based strategy game. The player steps into the role of a Knight, Paladin or Mage to run errands for the King of the country. The choice of class deeply influences the strategic choices on the world map and in combat. Each character class has its own abilities and leadership values. Leadership is still the most important character trait since it determines the amount of troops that can be hired.

The Knight starts with the highest leadership value and the Mage with the lowest. The Mage on the other hand possess some powerful spells that do mighty damage in combat while the Knight has to rely on skills which are not that powerful. If you are asking about the Paladin, it’s a mix between Mage and Knight. Characters can level up which will give them the option to pick one out of two benefits like increased leadership or mana.

Unrelated to the level of experience are the skill trees, one for each character class. Each character can learn skills from the other two skill trees except for a few ultimate skills that are exclusive to that class. Skills can be bought with runes that are found during the travels. The Mage class can learn skills to use different schools of magic or make existing schools more powerful.

Troops can be hired in buildings on the map. The game gives the player no opportunity to build buildings which is one of the major differences to Heroes of Might and Magic. Combat on the other hand is pretty much similar. The player’s troops are located on the left side of the battlefield while the enemies are on the right. Each troop type can use one action per turn. Available actions are the usual move, move and attack, ranged attack, magic and wait. Combat ends when one army is completely defeated on the battlefield.

King’s Bounty The Legend provides the player with information about roaming troops. The combat difficulty level is displayed whenever the player hovers the mouse over an enemy on the map. This gives an excellent indication if combat makes sense at the current time.

Unfortunately though that information is not provided for troops in buildings. It happened more than once that enemies in buildings where to strong to be defeated at that time. The only available option was to load a previous save game to be able to continue playing the game.

Inexperienced players will have difficulties following a path throughout the game. The game uses an open map which means that it is possible, and it will happen quite frequently, that a player will move into an area where he does not stand a chance against most enemy troops. The quests are also not listed by difficulty. Some can be obtained quite early in the game but cannot be completed much later.

The same is true for the tournament that is offered in the second building that the player encounters after completing the tutorial. If the player accepts to fight the first enemy in the tournament he will be defeated. The enemy is to strong to be defeated and the player has to wait before he can try to do that.

This imbalance is the greatest weakness of the game. It usually is not such a big problem because it just means to load the last autosave and avoid the fight. It can still be frustrating and demotivating at times. There are a few other minor quirks like having to travel back to the buildings to fill up the troops that have been lost in combat and the visual problem to distinguish elements that can be interacted with from those that do not provide that feature.

Gamers who like the Heroes of Might and Magic series or any other turn based strategy game will like King’s Bounty The Legend, that’s for sure. It’s an excellent game that has a few balancing issues that do thankfully not weight in that heavily. Since there are not that many turn based strategy alternatives King’s Bounty The Legend is a definite buy. Player’s who want to try the game first can take a look at the demo of it.

We used to create our own patented system when we were stuck: Use everything with everything and everyone everywhere. That clown in Day of the Tentacle still slipped through our grasps.

The ultimate list of fan remakes of classic adventure games tries to list all current and future fan remakes that will be released. We have already seen some huge releases like the new Zac McKracken adventure game which is only available in German language currently.

Be prepared for remakes and new adventures of your popular adventure heroes, here we go:

Broken Sword 2.5

The last months were quite a blow of fate to George Stobbart. First he had to leave Nico for one year because of an important trip to the USA, then his beloved grandfather died of a cancerous growth. But that was not everything. When George receives a telegram from France one day he already has a foreboding of evil. The consigner is - Nicole Collard, Paris, France. His presentiment shall turn into cruel certainty: Nico is dead! “First my grandpa and now Nico?”, George thinks and takes the first plane to Paris.

Project Status: Nearly Complete
Releases: 2 Demos released, full game release: 28.09.2008
Release Languages: English, German, Danish, Spanish, Polish, French and Russian

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis 2

Fate of Atlantis 2 will be set five years after the original. In the autumn of 1944, as World War Two gradually draws to a close, the Nazis are desperately clutching at straws in order to prevent the inevitable. The fabled city of Atlantis, believed by both Indy and his adversaries to have been destroyed in 1939, still awaits discovery, having withstood the millennia in complete isolation. Its relics and ancient forces, contained for eons, may well destroy humanity in case they should ever escape. When they learn of their earlier misapprehension, the Nazis hasten to turn the tide of the war by doing exactly this: Unleash the powers of the Lost City…

Project Status: Under Construction
Releases: None
Release Languages: English

Indiana Jones and the Fountain of youth

When a fragment of a German communique is intercepted by agents of MI5, they become aware that a prominent researcher and occult expert - Dr. John Burton - may be working with the enemy.

When his London offices are searched, they find only cryptic clues…and are forced to turn to one of his former colleagues for help.

MI5 solicits the help of Marcus Brody and Indiana Jones - who are quickly drawn into the investigation by ties of loyalty, and an old grudge.

On the trail of the missing Dr. Burton, Marcus, Indy, and his student Shelly Hartley discover more than they bargained for - the secret history of an old legend, the device that triggered an ancient arms race, and a source of power which could tip the balance in favor of the forces of darkness.

Project Status: Unfinished
Releases: Demo Release
Release Languages: English, Dutch

King’s Quest 1 VGA

A remake of King’s Quest I, but this time with full hi-color graphics, point-and-click interface, sound effects and more.

Project Status: Released
Releases: Full Version
Release Languages: English

King’s Quest 2 VGA

A remake of King’s Quest II, but this time with full hi-color graphics, point-and-click interface, sound effects and more.

Project Status: Released
Releases: Full Version
Release Languages: English

Maniac Mansion Deluxe

Ever since a meteor landed in the back yard of Dr. Fred and Nurse Edna’s Victorian mansion, bizarre things have been happening. First, their mutant son, Weird Ed, dropped out of school. Then patients started disappearing from Country Hospital. And now this strange event is affecting the lives of innocent (and even some not-so-innocent) teenagers. In fact, a girl named Sandy is being held captive in that musty old mansion right now. Sandy’s boyfriend, Dave, has lots of friends who need you help to sneak in - and sneak her out.

Now exactly how it all ends up depends entirely on which trio of friends you send in there. And which inhabitants you encounter. In fact, the farther you get inside the mansion, the more weird characters you’ll meet. There’s Nurse Edna - who’s as nasty as she is ugly. There’s a disembodied Tentacle who wants you to make him a rock star. And a host of others, who all have their own crazy quirks you’ll have to deal with. Everyone in there seems to be working for Dr. Fred. But the question is: Who is Dr. Fred working for?

Project Status: Released
Releases: Full
Release Languages: English, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Latin American Spanish, Maltese, Bulgarian and Russian.

King’s Quest III

A remake of Sierra On-Line’s 1986 game, King’s Quest III - given a “VGA” make over, and newly presented for a generation of adventure game lovers to discover and enjoy.

Project Status: Released
Releases: Full
Release Languages: English

Leisure Suit Larry 2 Point and Click

Ah, Larry, life seemed so perfect, didn’t it? A beautiful woman, a nice house, in a rich city… but then, dreams usually are perfect. And even YOU have to wake up, Larry, and go Looking For Love (In Several Wrong Places)! And if you happen to get chased all over by the KGB and the evil Dr. Nonookee, well, such is life…

Project Status: Released
Releases: Full
Release Languages: English

Quest for Glory II VGA: Trial By Fire

Our hero returns to Shapeir to battle against evil in this new VGA remake of Sierra’s classic second game in the Quest for Glory series.

Take on the role of a fighter, magic user or thief as you save the town from certain destruction.

Project Status: Released
Releases: Full
Release Languages: English

Quest for Glory 4 1/2

All is not well in the valley of Spielburg. Elsa has disappeared (again) and the sheriff has been murdered. The rest of the valley is in chaos and the influx of heroes has done little to calm the valley. Your job is not done. It’s time to go back to Spielburg.

Project Status: Released
Releases: Full
Release Languages: English

The New Adventures of Zak McKracken v1.03

It could have been such a nice day. Zak’s favourite movie is on, most of the work on his novel is done, and Sushi seems to have survived her long stay in the sink quite nicely. Still half asleep, Zak gropes for the mailbox key and wanders down the stairs. Wow, a lot of mail again, he thinks to himself. However, next to the usual advertising for Monolith Burger, this time it also includes a letter from the distant Bogota. Suspecting no evil, Zak opens the envelope. As he reads the first few lines, he loses control of his face…

Project Status: Released
Releases: Full Release
Release Languages: English, Spanish, Russian, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch and Norwegian.

Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space

The Zak:btas-Team worked about seven years on an inofficial non-commercial sequel to “Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders”. Uncountable leisure-times, weekends and summer vacations were spent for “Zak McKracken - Between Time and Space” (Some people already began to title the game “Zak McKracken Forever”), but now it’s finally done - and we are very proud of the outcome! It is one of the most extensive fan-adventures ever released and to be released in the next years.

Over 50 high-quality Locations, accompanied with athmospheric music and filled with numerous, lovely animations and challenging puzzles. A ludicrous story fully dubbed and with professional cut-scenes are awaiting you

Project Status: Released
Releases: Full Release
Release Languages: German. English planned

Do you like Mindsweeper? Do you also like DigDug? If you answered both questions with yes you might want to take a closer look at the free pc game GoGo Digger which combines aspects of Minesweeper with a DigDug like gameplay without the action.

The task of the game is simple. Each level a map is presented that is showing a level that looks exactly like those known from DigDug. The player is at the top standing on the ground and below him is the earth. His task is to move through the earth and find all the diamonds that it contains. There are always eight diamonds to be found.

It is possible to go through the exit of each level which is at the very bottom without collecting all diamonds but this would mean a lower score.

To make things difficulty mines are hidden in the earth and each square of earth that gets removed by the player will either show a diamond (which gets collected automatically), a mine, a stone, a blank field or a field with a digit.

If the player steps on a mine he will lose one of his precious lifes, if he looses all of his lifes it’s game over. He cannot move through rock which acts like a solid barrier in the game. The interesting part is the blank field and the numbers.

A blank field indicates that no mine is adjacent to it while a number indicates the amount of mines in adjacent fields. The player has to figure out the safe fields of each level and those that are better avoided.

The character is moved with the arrow keys or the mouse. A limited amount of so called Star Balls are available at the player’s disposal which destroy every field around the player. A kind of smartbomb so to speak to be used in situations where the next step could be the last one.

When I first saw Flywrench I thought that it looked like a pretty ugly game from a time long ago. Then, on the other hand, if you play Flywrench for a second you realize that this is indeed a shiny example of games that don’t care about beautiful realistic graphics but concentrate on gameplay, motivation and fun.

Like many I play games that are fun to play. If they have nice graphics, great. If they do not have them that’s fine as well. Flywrench is a flapflap game and controlled completely with four direction keys.

Unlike other games pressing a key does not only perform a move but colors the ship in a certain way. Up flaps the ship up and turns it red, Down rolls the ship and turns it green, Left and right move in that direction and turn the ship white.

The colors are important because the ship can pass walls in the level if it has the same colors as the wall. The task is always the same. To start at one point in a level and reach the exit of that level without bumping into any obstacles along the way.

The game lives from its level design and interesting gameplay. It’s a bit short though and experienced players make it through in 20 minutes or less. Still, wonderful game, great music, great gameplay.

My Japanese shoot’em up rampage continues. This time its Galshell 2, a game that reminds me a little bit of Anaru Dansyaku: Galaxy Hero and that was probably created by the same developer. It makes use of the same extra system in form of P power ups that defeated ships leave behind. If the player collects enough power ups additional firepower will be installed in his ship that he needs to defeat the hordes of enemies.

The game plays a bit different though. The bullets are smaller which makes it tougher but the waves are a tad easier so it’s probably of the same difficulty level than Galaxy Hero. You can pick three different players / ships at the beginning which play a different stage each with a huge endboss waiting at the end of each stage.

The ship is controlled with the arrow keys and Z fires bullets. You pretty much hold down Z all the time because you’ve got lots to do on the screen.

Galshell 2 is not a bad game but it needs some more polish to become an excellent game. If I had to choose I would pick Galaxy Hero and not this one. But since both are free I play and enjoy them both.

The Bitmap Brothers were Kings on the Commodore Amiga. They created classic games like Cannonfodder, Cadaver, Speedball and Chaos Engine. Gods was definitely not their best game although it featured their distinct graphics style. Graphics were brilliant at that time.

Gods Remake is a faithful remake of the classic Amiga game with additional levels thrown in by the author of the game. The game has been written in Java and it seems that it can be run under Windows and Linux if Java 1.6 or newer is installed on the system.

The great thing about this remake is that it definitely looks like the original game, at least how I remember it. You got the same sprites, backgrounds and music.

The player is controlled with the arrow keys and the control key for interacting with the environment and throwing weapons at enemies. Gods is still a rather slow jump and run game that has a high difficulty level.

It’s great if you liked the game in the past or want to play it for the first time. It’s free after all.

It’s your chance to own your own airline because you take over an airline with a few planes and permissions in Chicago, St. Louis and Detroit and the option to expand the reach to additional airports throughout the United States.

You begin as usual with a low budget, no extras and slow planes that can only carry a handful of passengers on their trips. Several new buildings can be erected at Chicago airport to speed up the process and please the passengers who become angry if they have to wait to long.

The player’s task is to transfer all passengers that appear at the airports to their destination without them becoming to angry. That’s only possible if the player buys bigger plains and the additional buildings.

Passengers are put into the planes and the first letter of their destination is shown on their Chest so that it is relatively easy to keep an overview.

Now Boarding itself is not overly complicated but fun for a few months of game time.

The flash game reviews were a bit scarce lately but Amorphous is surely making up for the lack of games that have been posted. Guys running around with oversize swords are usually only known from Japanese roleplaying games but it is different this time.

Amorphous is a survival game. The player has to survive. That’s the main objective. It does not really matter if he has to survive a certain time or just as long as he can, it is all about survival. But not the usual man vs man survival. It’s the player with his huge sword against vicious amorphous creatures like the blue springing ones or the green we like to merge and become bigger creatures.

The player can move the character by moving the mouse in that direction. A click on the left mouse button performs a swing, somewhat slow, with the sword that can hurt or even terminate creatures that it hits.

The game uses several kind of motivational elements like awards, rewards and creatures that only appear after a certain time has passed. It’s against the dummy creatures in the beginning and the tougher bastards later on.

Talking about game modes. You got a nice practice mode where you can select the type of creatures that should appear. you can only select those that you have already seen in the game. Then you got the terminate x creatures mode and the survive as long as you can mode.

It’s a nice game that’s fun to play.