Talk of the Wizard

Top 5 Indie PC Games of the Decade #3

2011-02-15T01:15:00.004-05:00

Audiosurf is one of those games that offers something for everyone. You can cruise through a neon-future version of your favorite songs at a leisurely pace in freeride or low difficulty puzzle modes, or play as a hardcore gamer might, repeating tracks obsessively with the aim of conquering the leaderboards. A better fusion of casual and hardcore gameplay styles would be difficult to come by, particularly one with such boundless source material. The game is yours to manipulate as it readily acquiesces to your mood, making it worth playing on nearly any occasion, for any reason, for any person. -IGN

More after the jump.

A smoother, calmer song has deeper and cooler colors.

The long and the short of it is: Audiosurf rocks. Suffice it to say that Audiosurf is more than a game, but an experience. While a typical game might take you on an absurdly long quest to follow a definite goal, Audiosurf follows a more casual route and lets you choose how you want to play. Whether it be hard or easy, fast or slow, mind numbingly difficult, or painfully easy, Audiosurf presents you with a different experience every time you play. The genius behind Audiosurf is that it analyzes any song from your library, and converts the song speed, length, and sound range to actual speed, length and bumps in the game.

Tougher songs will become faster, bumpier, brighter and warmer.

While many a gamer would have been satisfied with Audiosurf as is, the creators of Audiosurf have also added quite a unique element to the game. Besides the song itself, you can also customize your game via the ships that you choose to ride with. With every ship comes a special ability or two, or a game modifier. The mono ships for example only require blocks of one color, and that you avoid all grey blocks.

The ship selection scree, showcasing my favorite unit 'The Ninja Mono' on Elite.

The ship you use can make or break the game. From song to song, the idea is to try different ships and abilities on varying difficulties to find what works best, and get the high score for that song. You'll begin to find that Audiosurf becomes a much more involved and competitive game once you get into the aspect of playing non mono category ships and attempting (Keyword: Attempting) to knock out buddies, strangers, and friends out of their high score spots on your favorite songs.

All in all, Audiosurf is a great game that is fun for all ages and can please any variety of groups. At the easiest settings, I'm fairly sure even some of your small pets would enjoy riding with Audiosurf. While I wouldn't recommend letting animals play Audiosurf on your computer, you are welcome to try. Get back to me with the results. Happy Valentines Day!

And by the way, check out http://fedensaudiosurf.blogspot.com , and suggest a song.

Top 5 Indie PC Games of the Decade #4

2010-12-15T21:31:00.001-05:00

The most outstanding feature of this incredibly fun title is its personality. Every inch of Plants vs. Zombies is jam-packed with humor and attention to detail, and I never once stopped enjoying its clever take on the genre even after I had exhausted everything it had to offer. Do not miss this game -- titles this good don't come around often. - Destructoid's Review of Plants Vs. Zombies.

More after the jump.

Popcap's Plants Vs. Zombies, a casual game about plants, and well, zombies, puts you in the shoes of a homeowner as he faces the by product of a zombie apocalypse. You defend your home from the hordes of the undead using nothing but the plants on your lawn. Seriously. As mundane and boring as this sounds, plants Vs Zombies actually manages to pull this off quite well. Using 'sun power' to grow plants, you defend your home from all manner of zombies, ranging from zombie bob sled teams, to football players, to Micheal Jackson lookalikes. (Complete with summonable dance crew!)

You didn't think I was serious, did you?

Even with such a common tower-defense style gameplay, Plants Vs Zombies manages to stay fun and unique by tossing in the ability to buy unlockable plant types using money you pick up from killing zombies. You'd be surprised to know that the plants you pick on each level can actually be the difference between life or death in some cases. Say some dolphin riding zombie (Yes, they really do exist) is planning on climbing in your windows, and snatching your people up. What do you do about it? You use tallnuts to block those brain snatching deadheads, and you shoot them down from a distance. The gameplay is multi-faceted, coming with 20 mini game challenges to satisfy those looking for a more difficult experience. Once you master each level, you unlock more items in the shop which you can use in the campaign.

KILL IT WITH FIRE!

PvZ is a well polished and highly addicting game that will keep you entertained for hours as you mercilessly plow through rows and rows of zombies using only the plants in your front yard. It is just as bad-ass it sounds, so make sure to grab a copy at the link below, or on steam if you can.

(Buy it via amazon)

Top 5 Indie PC Games of the Decade #5

2010-12-12T23:06:00.000-05:00

"Super Crate Box is coming to bring back the glory of the golden arcade age, when all that really mattered was getting on that high score list. Grab your baseball cap and loosen your pants, it's time to fight endless hordes of enemies and collect every weapon crate you can. Prepare for an arcade delight with interesting, refreshing game mechanics, cracking retro art and a terribly hip chiptune soundtrack."

How indie studio Vlambeer describes it's own SuperCrateBox

More after the jump.

Super Crate box is a simple and addicting action shooter developed by Indie studio Vlambeer. Its 8Bit graphics, simple controls, and chiptune music team up to take you on a retro adventure that is not only easy to grasp but fun to play and easy to get lost in. The games is mainly centered around three things. Your weapon, enemies, and the crate. Using your weapon to kill enemies, you grab the crate a certain amount of times to beat each level and continue to the next. However, if you don't kill the enemies before they reach the bottom, they will become angry and begin to sprint and rage like a pissed off 4 year old.

In addition to letting you pass the level, the crates also have another purpose. You get a random weapon every time you pick up a crate, and the more crates you grab, the more weapons you unlock. This can lead to some crazy situations where you have to choose between taking the chance and hoping you get a good weapon, or grabbing the crate and increasing your score.

Truly a throwback to the golden age of the arcade, supercratebox embodies the heart and spirit of the pioneering games of the 80's. I recommend Supercratebox as a game that both new and old gamers alike can enjoy, and as a tribute to the original gamers, the retronauts of a generation long gone.

Tutorial - Upload Images From URL to Site

2010-12-12T15:46:00.000-05:00

If you have ever wanted to upload an image from a URL without download and uploading, this tutorial is for you. With this method, if you're signing up for a forum, or setting up an account for any site, and you want to link a file for your avatar or profile picture without downloading the image and re-uploading it, now you can!

More after the Jump.

Finding An Image -

The first and the simplest step is to search google for an image on a site that allows hotlinking. Once you find a suitable image, click the result in google, and it will show you the image in a popup box. Right click it, and choose 'Copy image URL'. This will be used to upload the image.

A close up of the image after clicking its result in google image's search.

Finding a place to upload -

The second step is to find a site, for example I will be using Facebook. First, I'm going to go to my wall, and click change profile picture. From there, I will choose upload a picture. (It may go under another name, such as 'choose a file from your computer' on other sites.)

Uploading to Facebook.

Uploading the New Image -

Last step! From here, a popup will appear. From there click 'Choose File' and a file dialogue will open. With your image URL copied to you clipboard, where the 'File Name' field is, paste your url.

Paste your url into the 'File Name' field.

Voila!

After you click 'Open', an "Uploading..." popup will appear, and close in a few seconds. You have just uploaded from a URL in a file dialogue box! This works for many popular sites, including Facebook.

Sites I have tested and know this works on:

Facebook 4chan Wordpress tumblr

(All SMF and PhPBB forums)