Categories
Flash Games Mindlessness

Friday Timewaster: Z-Type

We know, we know. Friday afternoons are where productivity levels are at the utmost worst. You’ve eaten your lunch, you’ve had some coffee, and now your head is fuzzy from a week of too many numbers. Or colors. Or words. Or graphs. Or people. Darn those graphs! It sounds to me like you need a little something to do while waiting for 5pm to roll around. How about trying this fun little browser-based game that lets you practice your typing and spelling? Z-Type is a shoot-em-up in the style of Galaxian (created by a guy called Dominic Szablewski who writes his thoughts in his blog), although instead of repeatedly pressing fire, you have to type the word that each enemy displays. This locks your ship onto that enemy, blasting it from the skies in a shower of sparks and fire and death and destruction. Glorious!

Z-Type screenshot

Surprising addictive? Yes. Enough to get you to 5pm? Probably. Give it a shot, Commander, and let us know your high score in the comments.

Link: Phoboslab Z-Type

Categories
Game Reviews

We Review: Xenoblade Chronicles X

Back in April, we reviewed Xenoblade Chronicles 3D, a portable remake of the Wii game of the same name, and we rated it quite favourably. Following that, we now have Xenoblade Chronicles X (pronounced as “Xenoblade Chronicles Cross”) for the Wii U, a spiritual sequel to Xenoblade Chronicles 3D. If you enjoy massive games with a huge emphasis on exploration, pay attention. Oh, and transforming mechs. It has transforming mechs. Who doesn’t love a good, transforming mech?

Categories
History Mindlessness

MS-DOS Games Now Streaming to Your Browser

I’m sure many of you have visited the Internet Archive at one point or another, or taken advantage of the massive library of free music, books, or film. In fact, many of you are probably aware of the Archive’s Arcade Emulation section, allowing to you to play many arcade games from years of yore. But we’re not interested in yorish arcade games right now. We’re after a different species of nostalgia: MS-DOS games. If you’re an old fogey like me, you’ll likely have misspent much of your youth playing games in CGA and EGA, and longing for a VGA. Or listening to the blips on PC speaker and wishing for a SoundBlaster for christmas. Or, hell, tapping away happily on your 8086 connected to a 20MB hard drive and a 360kb floppy drive, and hearing about the wonders of the 286 and the 720kb “stiffy” drive. Ahh….memories…

Gauntlet for MS-DOSIn any event, it was with much glee that I was pointed at the Archive.org’s insanely exhaustive repository of MS-DOS games, available to be streamed in your browser to you (like Gauntlet in the image above). No mucking about with DOSBox or fiddling settings; it’s all ready to play. And for someone like me, it’s pure nostalgic gloriousness. Oh, and a word to the uninitiated: most MS-DOS games are far far harder than the pansy stuff you kids play today.

I’m not sure how long this particular archive has been active, but I’ve had to tear myself away from it long enough to write a post about it—after this, you’re on your own again until I’ve sated my nostalgia-gland.

Check it out: https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games

Categories
Game Reviews

We Review: Star Wars: Battlefront

Ahead of the new Star Wars film coming up, we have Star Wars: Battlefront, the hotly-anticipated multiplayer phenomenon that’s been going since 2004. And this is, surprisingly, not another annual game like so many others, and this iteration is only its third entry in the series. This is the review you were looking for.

Categories
Game Reviews

We Review: Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash

The Mario Tennis series has been around for a while, and has been on nearly every major Nintendo console since its beginning in 1995. In point of fact, we reviewed the last Mario Tennis game for the 3DS over here. Tennis in the Mushroom Kingdom isn’t simply tennis, naturally, so I grabbed my tennis racket and headed for the courts to see what the new Mario Tennis is serving up. Aside from tennis balls, of course.

Categories
Game Reviews

We Review: Need for Speed

Need for Speed first appeared 21 years ago back in 1994 for DOS and the first generation Playstation (and two other consoles, for those information purists). The game did well enough to warrant a sequel in 1997, and there has since been a new Need for Speed game almost every single year after that. Sometimes we even got two, lucky us! Now in its 22nd iteration, the newest game in the series, titled simply Need for Speed, makes its debut on the current generation of consoles. I gear up, rev my engines, and go full throttle as I race and drift my way through this review to see what it’s about.

Categories
Game Reviews

We Review: Chibi-Robo: Zip Lash

Chibi-Robo (which literally means “small robot”) is a 10cm small robot on a mission to save the Earth. His first appearance was ten years ago, in 2005 on the GameCube, helping a family with their various issues. Since then, he’s appeared in a few more games, but in this latest outing, he’s fighting off an alien menace. Let’s see what the diminutive droid is up to in his latest adventure!

Categories
Game Reviews

We Review: The Legend of Zelda: Tri-Force Heroes

The newest game in the Legend of Zelda series, subtitled Tri-Force Heroes, is the eighteenth game in the series since its inception 29 years ago. Link has come a long way since that first adventure (well, they’re all different incarnations of Link, really), and now we have three Link characters all playing cooperatively together in the same adventure. Does it work well? I don my green Hylian garb, grab my bow, bombs, boomerangs, (Ed: And my axe!) and master sword, and head out into the Drablands to see what’s up.

Categories
Cartoons & Comics Game Reviews Massive Cuteness

We Review: Rakoo & Friends

Rakoo is a fuzzy critter on a mission for love, so naturally he recruits his friends as wingmen of sorts in his quest to woo his beloved. I grab some friends and controllers and see if I can help this hapless creature find his soul’s dearest wish.

Categories
Game Reviews

We Review: Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water

Project Zero (called Fatal Frame in the US), is a survival horror game series based on the concept of exorcising ghosts by using a device called the Camera Obscura. Think Ghostbusters armed with ancient cameras, just WAY more terrifying. The series is almost fifteen years old now, and Maiden of Black Water is the 5th game in the main series. A number of years back, we got a chance to review the Wii version of Project Zero 2, so it’s interesting to see how far forward the series has come since then. And since it’s the month for scary things… come, take my disembodied hand and let me tell you a tale of spine-chilling terror.