Infection: (6.96Mb)
Infection is a platform/shooter. You have to move through stages killing off the creatures infected by a strange mist that has been given off by a asteroid. If you are familiar with Metroid, you’ll see some similarities in this game though the game play is much more linear. There are 5 levels full of death and monsters, with around 40 rooms to explore. There are only 2 save points further on in the game, so it’ll require some careful game play if you don’t want to have to keep returning to the beginning. It’s a hard one to beat according to the developer. The following are some tops included in the read me that comes wit the file:
Tip 1: Do not just jump into the enemy and sit there shooting and say ooooh this is too hard! Go up the enemy and let it chase you backwards and shoot like crazy. There is no way you can beat the game without coming up with a strategy and getting to know the levels. Every level can be beaten without getting hit once. It just takes some time to get good
Tip 2: There are 2 save points in the game. The first one doesn’t come till level 4-1. I know that is a big gap but it makes it so its not an easy game which a lot of save points would do. The save points restore your health and give you an extra life. You can only have 1 saved game at a time which is fine.
Tip 3: Dont give up.
Controls:
arrows = move
left or right mouse off a wall wall-jumps (very handy)
right mouseclick = grenade
left mouseclick = machine gun
esc = go to menu
enter = skip scene
Download:
http://www.shawn64.com/games/game3.php
or
http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f1020.html
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Neko (9.83Mb):
Developers blurb:
Neko is a surprisingly refreshing 2D platform game, seamlessly blending different styles of game play, while keeping it all fun and enjoyable. Use your head to solve puzzles and use your reflexes to avoid getting hit. There are three detailed environments to explore and five pixel-bashing enemies to encounter.
Cursor keys used for movement, crouching and climbing. Space used for jumping and Ctrl for throwing things.
To view which abilities you possess which can include any number of the following, Parachute, Fire, Barrel Swimming, Rope Whistling, Shift and Roll press the shift key, which brings up a window with what abilities are available. To select e to use, use the cursor keys. The number next to the ability is the cost. There is also the speed boost, which can be accomplished by jumping immediately after you land after humping from a rope. See the read me for details of all the special abilities and when to use them. The game comes with an installer that also installs a shortcut to the desktop and start menu programs list.
Download:
http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f1154.html
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Booga Boo remake (31.5Mb)
This is quite an unusual and somewhat difficult ‘jumping’ platform remake.
Authors Description :
Booga-Boo was a very good game from Indescomp (1983). The publisher was Quicksilva and the program was running under Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum. There is a review from a book called 1001/1 GAME C64/128 (1989, Hungary):
A little flea called Bugaboo has fallen into a deep gorge, and it's your job to get it out as quickly as possible, reach the top of the cavern in which it has become trapped. The cavern is made up of various ledges and platforms which you can use to work your way to the top.
To move around you simply use two keys, for jump left and jump right. The amount of time you hold the keys down for determines how far you jump..
There are dangerous carnivore plants and a big bird who is roaming the caverns, being able to fly as he is. You only have one life in this game.
Aim: Get back to the beginning of the ground. Warning! There are carnivore plants and a big bird.
The music is good, super graphics and animation. Red points show you how big the jump will be if you stop pressing the arrow button.
You control a little flea and you need to get back to the ground after you have fallen. There are enemies to prevent you from doing there. Keep jumping higher & higher to reach the ground. The controls are quite difficult to master, and it will takes you a while to get used to it. There is also a saved and load features in this game. The way to the top is to save at the right moment or load when you die. Practice makes perfect, so keep jumping !
Game controls are simple. Use the L and R cursor keys to jump. The longer you keep the cursor key depressed, the longer you will jump, the red points show you how big the jump will be if you stop pressing the arrow button. Use S to save and A to load. To go to main menu from ‘in game’ press esc. To end game use arrow keys in the main menu to select exit.
Download:
http://czentnar.extra.hu/bb2.html
or (slightly older version (v2.3)
http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f2730.html
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Rebound 2 (3.51Mb)
Authors Description :
The action-packed sequel to Rebound Revolution bounces back to Revorba for another wild and jelly-filled adventure to save the world from cubic tyranny! With all new powerups, you'll soon find yourself, spinning, sliding, smashing, and bombing through over 70 levels of bouncing maddness. Simplistic controls and hours of gameplay make this sequel a game you'll want to bounce back to.
Rebound is a fun to play platform game with colorful graphics and funky music. Get your ball to the warp at the end of the level while interacting with some cool extra's that will keep bringing you back for more. Some levels are not as straight forward as they first seem but with loads of levels and lots of bouncing around make this a game worth down-loading.
The game also has some good mini games that are worth checking out.
Every 10 levels you can save your game.
Download:
http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f2806.html
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Gilderman: (1.16Mb)
This game downloads as an installer and installs a shortcut to the start menu programs list, but no desktop shortcut.
In this family-friendly game, you play the role of a flying superhero with explosive powers, which is also the coolest feature in this game. The arsenal of bombs is the very ingredient that brings the gameplay vitality. The levels (a total of 20) have a variety of layouts and obstacles of which some are rather surrealistic. You get a feeling that the game author has plenty of fictitious enthusiasm. The game has a few shortcomings, but I just want to mention the one that prunes the gameplay and lowers the rating: The characters' animations which in my opinion are rather coarsely drawn. Disregarding this particular downside, and Gliderman would have soared higher because the levels in themselves are wisely built.
Review by Boson (gamehippo.com)
Authors Description:
In his personal vendetta against blue blocks, Gliderman must use quick thinking and lightning reflexes to out-maneuver soccer balls, falling cows and all manner of mayhem. Oh, and he blows things up... which is really cool!
Download:
http://www.groovylime.com/gliderman.htm
Although the base game is free you can buy an extra 20 zones for $3:
http://www.groovylime.com/GlidermanBonusLevels.htm
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Okay, my last game for this week:
Dark Legions:
The 90's (especially the first half) were a very interesting time for gamers. Genres were created and matured, colourful universes were invented and many of our games today are heavily influenced by the classics from that era. Take a look at today's releases and you can almost always smack on a 90's title that inspired them.
Some of these old classics are left to gather dust, however, because they were part of a fad: a niche genre which never survived the 90's. One of these was the table-top combat game. This genre was said to be inspired by a scene in Star Wars, which saw Chewbacca play a game of holo-chess involving pawns fighting for a square on the board. An interesting idea, and games like Archon and Battle Chess sold like hot cakes for years which shows the public thought so as well.
One of the last games in this genre was Dark Legions. Not content to simply copy its brethren, it took the genre and shifted it around, perfecting it. Maybe that's why the genre is dead: Dark Legions really pushed it to its boundaries. You're no longer stuck with the same board layout, you're no longer stuck with the same pieces, you're no longer stuck with dodgy graphics, etc. Dark Legions gave its older brothers (and even Archon Ultra, released around the same time) a swift kick up the ass and got away with it.
But let's talk about the game itself: Dark Legions is a mix of combat and clever strategy dressed in gorgeous VGA graphics. The goal of the game is simple: find the carrier of the orb and kill him. To do so, you need to employ a great deal of strategy while protecting your own orb carrier from your opponent. As simple as it may sound, the game is actually quite intricate.
When you start, you need to choose quite a few things: which map do you pick? A large one (which means a lot of ground to cover) can be tricky and enemies can slip through your defenses while a small one means there's nowhere to run and hide when those defenses have been ripped to shreds. There are dozens of maps to chose from so pick wisely.
You also need to pick your army: you start with an amount of gold and have to spend it wisely on both characters and rings. There are dozens of characters to choose from, and each has its strengths and weaknesses, and even a different price tag. Next, you can buy rings to buff up your units, so make sure you have some money left to spare! Rings are invaluable and can create much tougher units. The key here is diversity - make a nice and diverse army and make sure you can tackle each unit your opponent throws at you. You can also buy traps to cover those areas of the map which you can't quite manage to defend or you can simply surround your orb carrier with them. Don't forget: the more gold you get, the more your opponent gets as well!
Once the actual game starts, you need to place your units on the bottom of the map, pick an Orb carrier and distribute the bought rings. When done, the game is on and you can start moving your pieces. Some units move faster than others, some walk while others fly (important when traps are involved) and some can even teleport from place to place.
When you finally spot an enemy and you're within moving distance, you can choose to attack. This gets you instantly thrown in a top-down, one-on-one, real-time fight to the death. You basically have two combat moves - a normal one and one that requires energy to use. The range of moves is really too diverse to get into but let's just say there's more than enough and it really invites a great deal of tactics - especially when you consider that your health gets carried on to the next fight, so you really do not want to get hurt too badly. And that's it really - use tactics to fight the right enemy with the right unit, track down the orb carrier, and finish the game.
If you're tired of the AI, you can even play against a friend: hot-seat or over a network, and it is tremendous fun. If there was a modern remake that worked across the Internet, I'm sure it would get its fair share of fans!
Personally, I love this game. The graphics are what drew me in all those years ago but its the depth that got me hooked. It's sad to see how few people still remember this game and how, even at the time of its release, it didn't get a lot of attention. 1994 was an amazing year for PC games and it's a little unfair to those gems that got buried beneath the likes of Sam & Max, Doom, Sim City 2000, Theme Park, Magic Carpet, and so forth.
Dark Legions is not without faults, however: the AI can be a bit daft and really doesn't properly protect its orb carrier. Also, some combinations of units really simply don't work and can cause a single battle to last for far too long. Generally, these are all small niggling flaws considering how much of the game Silicon Knights got exactly right. The atmosphere, the music, the sounds - it's an incredible experience which is quite unusual for what is essentially a board game in disguise.
I highly recommend this game to anyone who wants to mix table-top strategy with arcade combat scenes. It's sad that no sequel was ever made (no doubt due to the massive success of Command & Conquer and Warcraft) but at least we still have this little gem to play. Anyway, two thumbs up! Try it!
Notes:
The main archive is the disk version. Note that this version is not cracked meaning that you'll need to download the manual to pass the copy protection. There is also a patch which has been added to the extras if you wish to update the game to the latest version.
The CD version is also added as an extra and the patch is included in the archive. The CD version has a few benefits: there's some new animated sequences and there's no copy protection. Do note that the disk and CD patches are different from each other so don't try and apply the disk version on the CD version.
DSBox info
Set cycles to more than 30000 and the core to Dynamic for a smooth experience.
I did experience a problem with the CD version: when moving a unit, the game would hang. Applying the patch seems to solve this. The disk version works perfectly with or without its patch.
Running the game:
The disk version simply needs to be unpacked and then run with DL.exe in DOSBox.
The CD version contains an image which you'll need to load using the imgmount command (check the DOSBox readme for info). Once you've done this, you can install the game to a mounted hard drive. You need to keep the CD image mounted every time you want to play the game.
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Legions
Download links:
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/3579/Dark+Legions.html (don’t forget to download the manual as well. You’ll need it to unlock the game)
or
http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/abandonware/pc/strategy_games/games_d/dark_legions.html
