Work, work, work

I'd like to explain why I'm not posting very regularly right now. I've became an editor of the whole Hrej.cz. Before, I was responsible just for the "plné hry" section dedicated to freeware games. That was indeed a lot of work, but now I'm responsible for each day's issue - the two of three articles on Hrej.cz homepage. Last two weeks I was just trying to cope with it, make contacts with authors, get used to a different kind of work - and I had no time to care about Tomus Files. Well, I don't have much more time now, I'm still learning, but it keeps getting better. So I might be able to write a few words later this month. Just don't expect miracles. Thanks for your patience.

6 Days A Sacrifice - it's over...

I have to admit, I have a soft spot for Yahtzees games. I've even made a Czech translation of Trials of Odysseus Kent, I was amazed by intelligent platformer 1213, I loved playing 5 Days A Stranger, after a few tough hours I managed to finish 7 Days A Skeptic, after a few tough hours finding a walkthrough I finished Trilby's Notes ;-) and now, 6 Days A Sacrifice is history. What to say about it?

It's hard. I would not recommend 6DAS to players who don't have previous experience with Yahtzee's horror series. The story can't be fully understood unless you know at least roughly what happened in 5DAS, 7DAS and TN. That's where I see a major flaw of the game. On the other hand, the atmosphere is nearly as dark and ravishing as in Trilby's Notes. Yahtzee has once again written some perfect pieces of dialogue and he is just SO good in building up thrill. The soundtrack works great here.

And I also like Yahtzee's graphics. There are lots of more attractive freeware adventures, but his sprites are lively, the characters are animated well and the author knows how to use the plain visual effects to his benefit.

If you played the previous horror adventures by Ben Crosshaw, don't hesitate a minute and go for download. If not, go there, there and there before - and then download 6 Days A Sacrifice too...

Download (2.2 MB)
8/10

Lab-Rat #37 - permanent heart attack

Lab-Rat #37 is a little arcade game based on running through various mazes and eating cheese. I hate maze games, but this one got me. Why? There's enough action - the laboratory rat is addicted on drugs and needs to eat painkillers. If player doesn't find enough drugs, its heart starts beating VERY fast and it might lead to heart attack.

Visually, Lab-Rat #37 is nice, appealing, not excellent, but solid enough. Well, solid enough could be a good comparison also for other components of the game. Let there be more games "solid enough" like Lab-Rat #37 on MMF scene... ;-)

Download (0.79 MB)
7/10

Opera Slinger - Singstar on PC for free?

Have you ever wanted to become an opera singer? I admit I would wonder if you had. But maybe you have sometimes wanted to play SingStar, an excellent PS2 game, in which you can compare your singing talent with many music stars from all over of the world. Opera Slinger combines experience from both and offers very good (but unfortunately rather short) amusement for everyone who likes music.

This game was created by group of students from Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy and it belongs among the 2007 IGF Student Showcase winners - rightly, that's without any discussion. You are to perform five well-known songs from such composers as Beethoven, Mozart, Verdi or Vivaldi. But don't worry, even if you can't sing as Luciano Pavarotti or Magdalena Kozena, you won't have any serious troubles with finishing Opera Slinger. The goal of the game is to beat your opponent in the opera hall by gaining the favour of crowds on your side - of course, they will incline more to that singer who can deal better with mentioned songs.

Technically, Opera Slinger is an excellent game. Unfortunately, this fact has taken its tribute on hardware requirements and size of the archive: 141 MB is pretty much for freeware title. And I have to subjoin, very short freeware title. Five songs won't take you more than 15 minutes and then you're done. Anyway, Opera Slinger is still very interesting project and especially if you have fast internet connection, you should really consider trying it.

Download (141.43 MB)
7/10

Must-play games from older BG competitions

I've written about how the 2006's Becherovka Game is worse than previous years. Let's prove it somehow: this is my list of must-play games from the older competitions:

2005
Aquadelic - a great racing game with motor boats. It's now being upgraded to a commercial (budget) title of the same name!

Becher Islands - Crazy Taxi on a boat in Far Cry – like setting.

Becherator - principally simple, but very tough puzzle game. Addictive.

Laser - Deflektor in 3D, but still exciting.

Little World - a funny adventure game from the insect world.

Space Merchants: Conquerors - Elite-like space sim game with trading and fights and RPG elements. Overall winner in 2005...

2004
2004: Space Becherovka - absolutely great, absolutely funny adventure game. Parody on Star Wars, Space Odyssey, Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy and many other sci-fi classics...

A.N.T.Z. - very well though out puzzle game.

Becherov - overal winner in 2004. Looks like GTA 2, plays like GTA series. You may not act that evil there, but it's still very funny.

Hracer - very good racing game.

Plane Arcade - it looks like flight sim, but it's "just" adrenaline action-paced air shooter.

Řež, Bechere! - great FPS with Czech punk music, eight levels and time and score based gameplay.

Točna - a funny adventure, country setting.

2003
Alien Agency - very nice 3D platform game.

Gringo - stylish western shoot'em up.

Sub Hunter 4 - overall winner in 2003, underwater shooter.

Sky of Fire - action flight simulator with good 3D graphics.

Ham ňam - a little bit more action-paced Pacman clone. Visually not so appealing, but very funny.

2002
Becher's Dream - great flash adventure – a funny and stylish one.

Penguinator - I'm not quite sure, but I think it's the overall winner, well presented action game.

eXtreme Race - a funny top-down racing game in the Micro Machines style.

2001
Zlatý kalich - one of the best Czech free adventures, funny flash point'n click game with great presentation. Enteron, a couple of developers, now works in Illusion Softworks.

2000
Zázračný lék - the first overall winner, a flash adventure game by Enteron. Not as long as Becher's Dream, but graphics and audio are great.

Becher Tycoon 2006 – the best XXL game

Becher Tycoon 2006 is the winner of XXL cathegory in Becherovka Game 2006. The other cathegories are limited to I think 10 MB, in XXL, there can be up to 100 MB and there's no genre limitation. Becher Tycoon 2006 came out of three games as the best, even though I think it's just an average economic strategy.

I played it for a first time after a night spent by partying. I was somewhere between drunk and sick – and BT didn't help me much. Or maybe it did, because after five minutes of playing it, my stomach decided it's time to vomit. Well, it was caused rather by the Becherovka drunk earlier than by the qualities of the game, but I haven't got rid of this sick feeling afterwards.

BT06 is not very appealing. Its visuals are mediocre – I'd much prefer 2D, but nicely drawn isometric graphics than this 3D rendered world with crappy textures. The gameplay is better, more sophisticated than one would expect, you have to provide your factories with necessary resources and get rich by producing, transporting and selling Becherovka. However, the controls are far from perfect and the game gets stereotypical soon.

So the biggest positive is maybe that though I was afraid, writing about BT06 doesn't make me vomit again. So far. So, let's end this quickly. Cheers!

Download (89 MB)
5/10

Super Arab 2 – what's gone wrong?

I had the doubtfully enjoyable opportunity to play Super Arab 1, so I didn't expected much from Super Arab 2. It's just another Super Mario clone, not original in any kind. You have a simple side-viewed levels here and main hero trying to jump his way to the end somewhere on the right side. There are bonus coins (this time melon pieces), enemies with the parameters of turtles – and some elements of Super Mario gameplay are even missing, like the carnivorous flowers, power-ups making the hero grow or diving into the tubes.

Super Arab 2 can't stand when compared to the best freeware clone, Mario Forever, in any way. The graphics are solid, but there's not even half of different settings than in MF. Gameplay lacks Mario feeling and level design is just average. And I was very disappointed, that the author didn't make the game at least CONTROVERSIAL. Why the only thing making it stand out of the tons of MMF Mario games is the beard and scarf of Super Arab and the arabic title screen? I'd love a game to talk about, an evil, terrorist, anti-American, or a game about islam religion and djihad, or a stylish oriental arcade game with camels, bedouins, water pipes, carpets and so on.

Let's hope we'll see something of this in Super Arab 3.

Download (2.15 MB)
5/10

Faux Pa - heavenly puzzle

From hell to heaven, that's the way two main heroes of a Czech puzzle game Faux Pa have to go. Devilish character Lucius is the stronger one - and so he can operate heavy things, angel-being Thrill is weak, but light, so she's able to walk over cloud platforms. Faux Pa is a puzzle game similar to Slovak classic Quadrax: player is supposed to navigate Thrill and Lucius to the exit gate in each of overall 30 levels in a side-viewed screen. This is not an easy task because of clever system of platforms, switches, elevators, movable blocks and so on.

Faux Pa is very nicely presented. There's a story briefing at the start of every puzzle. Lucius and Thrill fall in love at the beginning of the game and they have to find a way to cope with their differences. It seems like they can't touch each other (for Lucius would burn Thrill to ashes), but there has to be a solution...

Also the graphics are great and a few different settings add to the variability of the game. Faux Pa is one of the top games of last years Becherovka Game and definitely a remarkable freeware puzzle.

Download (8.54)
8/10

Blackmail in Brooklyn - AGS = action game studio now

It's always a surprise for me when I see a non-adventure game made in AGS. I still can't decide whether it's a good thing that action, platform or puzzle games are being made in Adventure Game Studio or not, but it's definitely a proof of Chris Jones' good work in making AGS universal.

Blackmail in Brooklyn is a classic fighting game like Renegade or Golden Axe. You can't choose your character here, there are only a few moves (you can punch and kick the enemies, jump - and that's all) - and also the visuals can't stand when compared to recent Streets of Rage remake. The gameplay is solid, but the overall feeling is much worse than in Streets of Rage - the game is slower, less fluent and sometimes it's not transparent who's hitting whom and how badly...

The average score is appropriate for Blackmail in Brooklyn. But I think it will be only fair to mention it as one of the many proofs what AGS is capable of. Hail to the blue cup!

Download (1.85 MB)
5/10

Star Wraith: Shadows of Orion

When I've first heard that Star Wraith: Shadows of Orion is completely free, I couldn't believe my ears (and eyes). This game was originally shareware but it could be sold for a few dollars even now. Nevertheless, it is a very nice habit of the authors - prequel to SoO was also released as a freeware after some time. And I hope that we can expect the same with Star Wraith IV, which was brought out in 2004. Because in this way (thanks to the developers) we could taste the top of the shareware production for free. Considering the size of game archive and its hardware requirements, this is very good offer for everyone.

In almost every point of view the game stands out as a really nice piece of work. Its gameplay combines the best from such titles as FreeSpace, Wing Commander and Freelancer and adds maybe the most polished space battles I've ever seen. Alright, visuals have already lost something of its beauty but among other freeware rivals SW:SoO still looks very exceptionally. There are many other merits: non-linear campaign, comfortable and easy-to-learn controls, instant action mode and also the mission editor, which guarantees long-term amusement for creative players.

I recommend you, do not hesitate and download Shadows of Orion now. It is definitely worthwhile.

Download (9.77 MB)
9/10

Moribund World : Like A Thousand Suns

Moribund World is an overall winner of Becherovka Game 2006. It’s a game produced by a Slovak team Data web, which won last year with his excellent space simulator Space Merchants: Conquerors. This time they’ve tried a point’n click adventure, but not just a traditional hand-drawn, funny, AGS or Wintermute based game: their submission is a lot more sophisticated – and still beatifully executed.

The story takes places in the postapocalyptic world where Becherovka is the most precious source of energy. Player has to find some for his vault to survive. Moribund World isn’t the longest nor the most complicated game ever, but the story is nicely presented. The rendered graphics are nice, so is the music and sound effects.

Also the RPG system is very nice. Moribund World is in a way similar to Quest for Glory and player has to rise his statistics sometimes to complete a task, which is not confusing there, it’s just a nice addition to the adventure standard pick up – use/combine/give – talk – go pixel hunt – go use everything on everything – go pixel hunt again...

Download (9.73 MB)
8/10

Becherovka Game – seven not a lucky number?

It’s been seven years – a long seven years. In 2000 the first annual Becherovka Game has been announced. The competition for Czech and Slovak developers had always featured some of the best indie games of the year in the Czech republic – and the number of participants was year to year higher and their games more and more professional. In 2006, things have kind of turned the other way. Maybe 25 doesn’t seem like a step out of the glory, but we’ve seen 40 or even 50 games before. And what’s more important, there wasn’t that much of quality this year. Yes, of course, BugAbOO is excellent, so is Faux Pa or Moribund World. But there’s for example simulation cathegory: only two games, one of them practically unplayable Becher’s Cup 1976 and the second one just a little bit better, but still very frustrating and unfinished Lodičkoidy. Neither one of them can function as a good advertisment to Becherovka.

I was a judge this year, last year and in 2004. I can see 2006’s games are worse then 2005’s and 2004’s – and Jan Becher company clearly has to see this too. That’s probably the reason, why they didn’t announce the 2007 Becherovka Game yet (in previous years, they’ve announced the next year’s competition right after the announcement of winners).

We can still just speculate: will there be BG next year or not? How will the cathegories change? Will there be still such a gracious prizes? But one thing is clear. Becherovka Game WILL change somehow. I just hope it won’t die that easily. I’d really miss the gift pack of quality alcohol we judges are given each year. :)

Becherovka Game 2006 – a short summary

This is the complete list of entries to last years Becherovka Game with short descriptions and links to download. The bold ones are quite good. I'll review some of the becher-games later.

Another Day at War - not much of alcohol there – and a pretty dumb real-time strategy, when you try to defend Czechoslovakia from the German invasion during the WWII. 4/10

barBECHbar - a nice flash game, where you assume the role of a bartender and try to mix various drinks with Becherovka. 6/10

Becher Bar - not much to see there. A miserable flash action game. 3/10

Becher Show - this one seemed pretty nice, but it's not providing and easy survey – and the gameplay is just too frustrating and stereotypical.4/10

Becher Tycoon 2006 - I'll feature this one a full review, but in short: an ambitious, but not really well executed tycon game similar to Transport Tycoon. In 3D. 5/10

Becher's Detectiv - a game with a funny english traslation. Otherwise – an awful point'n click adventure. 2/10

Becherovka Championship - a nice racing game, but it's just a slighly changed template. 6/10

Becherovka Ski Show - an acceptable sport arcade. Trying to get a high score is kind of a challenge there. 6/10

Becherself - a nice point'n click adventure, which doesn't amaze by graphics, but has a solid story. 6/10

Becherův pohár 1976 - "Becher's cup 1976" is a poor racing game, which looks like Micro Machines, but the gameplay is far from that standard. 2/10

Bechon - a great shoot'em up. I'll review this one later. 8/10

Bechout - a Tetris (or Blockout) like game in 3D. Nice try... 6/10

BRG - I haven't played this one for a long time, but it's a nice racing game in 3D. 7/10

Brick - an under-average flash puzzle game. It has nice set of levels, though. 4/10

BugAbOO - this one should really win the whole competition. Great game. 9/10

Faux Pa - it's kind of a faux pas, when you name a game about faux pa Faux Pa. But it's a very nice puzzle game with great story, resembling an old Slovak classic Quadrax. 8/10

Hockey 2006 - I looked forward this one, but it was a straight letdown. Not much common with ice-hockey, not much fun at all. 5/10

Imagine Bridge - another one which was translated by some automatic translator. One of the worst games in the competition. 3/10

Lander - the winner of the Flash games cathegory is a complex clone of Lunar Lander. It's nice you have different tasks on different planets, also the physics are OK. 7/10

Lodičkoidy - a poor space shooter game that won the simulations cathegory, just because the only competition there war Becher's Cup 1976, which is even worse... 3/10

Moribund World: Like A Thousand Suns - the winner of the main competition, a postapocalyptic adventure with RPG elements, lots of puzzles, dialogues and quality graphics and music. 8/10

Okulděje III - a photo-adventure which is unexpectedly very good, though hard. 7/10

Space Adventures - pretty good space shooter. 7/10

The Becher Rocket - innovative, yet absolutely chaotic logic game. Made in Game Maker. 4/10

Vychladni! - "Cool down!" is a professional piece of advertising game. It's an addictive puzzle classic and it functions well as an ad. 7/10

Sydney Finds Employment – for better homeless living!

Well, maybe I expected just too much. I've read excellent istvan's strips with Sydney, a total bum, a small and absolutely disgusting character we find sleeping in a shoe-box at the start of his unusuall adventure. Sydney Finds Employment was one of the AGS games that I really looked forward – and while it's still a very good game, I just can't help myself being a little disappointed. Why?

The story about a homeless guy trying to find some work because of the goverment's "final solution" to mess on the streets is promising. But Sydney Finds Employment is somewhere half on the way to a real satire – but still there are many moments "I see, this probably was supposed to be funny, hey, why I didn't laugh my ass off?" kind.

I can't say much against the pixel art graphics (maybe some rooms could use a little improvement, for example the zoo shop) and music. Also the puzzles are mostly not too difficult and the length of the game is acceptable. I gave SFE 7/10 on Hrej!, which is a really good score. I'd love to give out 8 or even 9, but Sydney just didn't swallow me up enough...

Download (11.5 MB)
7/10

SnowRace 2006 – riders on the snow

SnowRace 2006 was published in the end of last year and it was a kind of christmas present from Czech Game Maker team Fiolasoft. It's a sequel to succesful arcade game SnowRace which had an interesting physics engine. Player is supposed to ride with Santa's sledge through several side-perspective levels. The score can be inceased by picking up presents. The presents are of different colors – and they also function as power-ups here.

SnowRace 2006 is a nice Christmas game. The physics are good for a GM game, pixel art graphics and music at least acceptable. There are some flaws: the game isn't much varied and might get boring quickly. Also there are several bugs (which should be repaired in the upcoming version 1.3). Good work from Fiolasoft...

Download (4.35 MB)
6/10

Streets of Rage Remake

I admit I've never played the original Streets of Rage. I've never played Renegade, too. But I spent a lot of hours playing Golden Axe - and that's the reason I like fighting games of this type. Streets of Rage Remake is a nice retro one: it has pixel art graphics, stylish backgrounds and tons of well-animated enemies which is a pleasure to beat down.

I've played the one-level betaversion some time before the end of the year. I was amazed by the action-packed gameplay and great presentation, but the whole experience with the game was just too short. Now there's a new 70 MB version, which is almost final build (but still beta) - and I just don't know what to name as a negative. Maybe somewhat dumb enemies? But they're not so bad and they weren't smarter in Golden Axe, either. Sometimes quite hard difficulty? But you need some kind of challenge...

Streets of Rage Remake is just a quality beat'm up game for everyone with just a little weakness for nostalgia...

Download (72 MB)
8/10

BugAbOO - Tim Burton drinks Becherovka

In December 06, the Becherovka Game 2006 competition results were announced. I myself was one of the judges, so I played all the 25 entries. In Becherovka Game, the point is to make an advertising game for a famous liquere company from Karlovy Vary. There are various categories like action, adventure or simulation games. Each year, there are dozens of nice freeware games. This year, the winner of the whole competition was a nice adventure/RPG Moribund World: Like A Thousand Suns, which could be described as a Quest for Glory in the world of Fallout. But we at Hrej! liked more the winner of the action category: BugAbOO.

BugAbOO was made in Macromedia Flash and it's a pretty simple game. It's 2D, side-platformer. The player is supposed to jump over enemies or shoot them with a sling (and there are nice ballistics in the game). BugAbOO is not a revolution in the terms of the system and the core of the gameplay. The story and the overall atmosphere of the game is what makes it a hit.

BugAbOO is about a group of children which gets imprisoned in the nightmare world of awful fairy tales, where they have to deal with evil toys - Teddy bears with prolapsed bellies, clown figurines flying high on their strings, dolls with bouncing heads and insane expression in their faces... It's very tim-burtonesque - and there's a very little amount of Becherovka propagation in the whole game, which I take as a positive. The graphics are maybe the strongest part of BugAbOO - they're stylish, detailed and the parallax scrolling in the levels is just excellent.

Download (10.1 MB)
9/10

Tradewinds Legends: Unlikely Heroes

I reviewed this game for a Czech paper mag Level (issue 147). Frix, the editor, gave it to me saying: "I just can't believe it, but I've got stuck with Tradewinds for 10 hours last weekend." So I expected great things to happen. But TL:UH were even better than I thought they could (should?) be.

The core is just a simple merchant game. You manage a fleet of ships (10 is the maximum amount of ships), travel from city to city, buy and sell goods. Nothing really original - just the setting (I like Orient) and pixel art graphics make it very appealing. But there's more: buying spells for simple yet funny real-time battles with pirates, upgrading the fleet with better ships, buying cannons, getting into the air with just-so-desperately-nice flying ships and - last but not least - following the storyline by accepting tasks from various rulers.

The tasks are the thing that spices all the experience up. Well, they always force player to travel between cities and search for something or someone, but the stories behind them are so funny. When I looked for an egg of phoenix, after a hard search found it and beat down some fanatic ecologist's fleet just to find out, that the real purpose was a sultan could have his rare phoenix omelette, I just had to laugh aloud. And there is something really addictive in the system of improving player's reputation, upgrading fleet, making money and performing the tasks. When I installed Tradewinds on my home computer, I've played it for eight hours and then stopped just because the system fell down. The next day, I played it for another four hours, 'till I finished the storyline. And two days later, I started the game again choosing the other hero, just to compare the two stories offered by the authors.

Tradewinds Legends: Unlikely Heroes are one of the most addictive games I've played last year. And not just me. It got us all - me, Frix, Luke and many others. So beware. It's up to you - this or cocaine. You've been warned...

Download (14.5 MB)
8/10

Played recently

Samurai Colossus - I might feature this one a full review later. It's a third person action game with high production quality and somewhat similar to Shadow of the Colossus.

Holiday Hills - a Christmas gift from Free Lunch Design. Just a little arcade game, but it can be very challenging. It's not a new Icy Tower, but I've spent unexpected amount of time trying to avoid trees and rocks there.

Fire and Forget - one of the IGF Student Showcase participants is a nice shoot'em up with great integration of music (and rhythm).

Helium Boy - a fat boy with two pink baloons. Isn't it just a perfect hero for a 3D platform game? Well, maybe not, but still, this sweden arcade is a very nice one.

Jet Set Willy Online - I thought it was just some kind of joke in the retro remakes community, but now we have a functional JSWO client there. I give up, you got me, Oddbob, Ovine and others. Now I'm gonna try to get it working and play in one of the seven modes. Good job!

Operation: Power Monkey - eat bananas! They're good for you!

Oh, SHIT! - Super Haunted Insomnia Tower

What to think about a game, that gets shortened to "SHIT"? Well, Super Haunted Insomnia Tower isn't such a controversial game like an older Czech arcade Falling Shit by my good friend The Dobrovod. It's just an Icy Tower clone with one twist. This tower is not as cold as the Ice one, but instead it is haunted.

Do you believe in ghosts? I personally don't, but in SHIT, they are everywhere. Player is supposed to be trying to jump as high as possible using the randomly generated platforms. But there are alway enemies destroying the platforms, shooting at the main character or changing the matter of the bricks. And sometimes it seems just impossible to deal with them, because the only thing the main hero can do is - to jump.

SHIT is in fact just a little bit more frustrating version of Icy Tower. Maybe the acronyme is a work of betatesters - it's one of the words players tend to use the most often. But still it's a funny platform game - and maybe a new challenge for Icy Tower veterans.

Download (2.51 MB)
7/10

Alley Cat 2

Alley Cat was one of the "games of my youth". Well, I'm still pretty young - but I already have the memories of times, when I didn't really undrestand anything about computers and all the english words I knew were "hello", "bye" and "oh, shit!" - and among games I've played on my next-gen gaming system (386 DX40 with 8 (!) MB RAM), among classics like Doom, Civilization, Dune 2 or Prince of Persia, there was a small arcade with CGA graphics and a kittie as the title hero - Alley Cat.

Therefore, it was a nice surprise, when I've seen Alley Cat remake in Retro Remakes forums some time before the deadline of the 2006 big compo. I really looked forward this entry. It wasn't completed in time, but the author didn't give up and published the final version in the end of the year 2006.

Alley Cat 2, as it is called, isn't the best freeware arcade game ever. Well, I just hoped for a little bit better graphics (the main scene with the big house is great, but some of the rooms aren't so good), maybe a few more sound effects - and I found the gameplay kind of difficult and sometimes quite frustrating. On the other hand - that's the problem of many old games - and maybe I'm just too comfortable. Alley Cat 2 has its bright side, too. It's still a funny game, maybe a little infantile, but generally appealing. Beating a high score functions as a real motivation there, which is great.

Do I really have to be objective there? I loved Alley Cat, and Alley Cat 2 is a good remake. It has some flaws, maybe, but it's my old love - and old love can't turn to rust...

Download here (6.73 MB)
7/10