Contributions > Descriptions by Mickey Gabel (332)

In Glum Buster, a free "charityware" game, you travel to several surreal worlds to bust up some "glum". On your travels you will encounter flying roses, pirates, ghosts, and pirate ghosts. You will ride a giant grasshopper, fly on brooms, and hunt invisible fish.

The game combines classic 2D platforming with several unique twists. In addition to simply running and jumping, there's flying, shooting, grasshopper riding, and more. There are action sections, puzzles, exploration, collectibles and secrets to discover.

Pocket UFO is a remake of the classic X-COM: UFO Defense for Pocket PC devices.

In the game you run X-COM, an international organization formed to combat aliens invading earth. On the strategic front, it will be your job to manage the organization, hire staff, buy equipment, conduct research and more. On the tactical front, you will send soldiers to carry out combat missions on downed UFOs and enemy bases.

Building bases, assigning research, hiring and allocating stuff and equipment is done on the global world map. Research is essential to the development of the technologies you will need to defeat the aliens. Engineers will implement these technologies, building better equipment. You can build several bases in different areas of the globe. In each base you will have several facilities such as living quarters for your staff, research laboratories, and hangars for aircraft. You will have to send out craft to intercept and shoot down UFOs discovered on the radar, and then a troop to clear the area of the downed UFO. This is when the combat missions start.

Combat is isometric view and turn-based. Each soldier has a limited amount of time-units to use each turn for moving around, shooting, crouching, etc. At the end of your turn the aliens take their turn and so on. The skill and experience of your soldiers, the time of day, the terrain are some of the factors that affect combat.

Pocket UFO is very faithful to the original game - and recreates the classic mixture of strategy and tactics.

Disc is a game of fast reflexes and clever thinking.

Control one player against the computer or another person. The objective is to finish off opponents by knocking him off the platforms or by making the platform disappear by hitting the walls behind your opponents. Your weapon is a disc, which you can throw at your opponent or at the walls. The disc will ricochet off the walls, opening a wide range of angles and attacks. You can also try a direct hit at your opponents, as enough of these will eliminate him as well, but be careful - since it gives him a chance to block your disc, thus gain control of it!

As you progress through the levels, from Novice, through Disciple, up to a Great Guide, your rivals become tougher, platforms take longer hits to disappear, and there are more discs on the playing field.

Jack Butcher is a former soldier, and now an assassin working for the government. His contact Sabre has a new assignment for him: take out Jacques Arnoud, head of Microkomm and an associate of the Red Storm Rebellion. They are planning to use Microkomm's new government contract to fund a rebellion, and the government wants him dead. This should have been an easy assignment - hit and run, escaping through the roof. However, seconds after Jack shoots Arnoud, a guard bursts through the door. After narrowly avoiding capture by the guard, a bomb blows the stairways to the roof. Jack is stuck in a building crawling with guards and security drones who are out to get him.

Assassin 2015 is a plot-driven 3D first-person shooter focusing on combat rather than exploration. Opening the wrong door or going the wrong way will usually result in the player character's death, as he will encounter a horde of guards or drones. The player listens to the instructions of Jett Jones, the protagonist's only outside support, and follows her directives. The gameplay is mostly linear and involves traversing corridors and rooms and shooting the enemies within. However, the game features some other scenes, such as running away from a giant robot and an elevator shootout.

Three Vikings, Eric the Swift, Olaf the Stout, and Baleog the Fierce, were kidnapped by the alien Tomator, the evil Croutonian ruler, who is collecting unique life forms to display in his gallery. The three Vikings will have to combine their unique skills to defeat Tomator, as well as a vast array of aliens, robots, giant snails, big lizards, and more.

The Lost Vikings is a side-scrolling platform puzzle game with a twist. Instead of one character who can jump, run, shoot, collect items, flip switches, and so on, there are three different characters, each with his own skills. Eric the Swift can jump, run and bash through walls with his tough helmet. Olaf the Stout has a shield which can block attacks, function as an air glider or as a step to stand on. Baleog the Fierce can shoot things with his arrows (including switches) or kill things with his sword. The player has to use the three Vikings as a team if he wants to get past the increasingly difficult levels and puzzles.

The player controls one Viking at a time but can switch between them at any point. The Vikings have limited space in their inventory which they can use to keep various items. Each Viking has three health points, and if he loses them all from confrontations with dangers, he dies (some threats kill instantly), and the level must be restarted.

Many centuries ago, mankind and dragonkind fought each other, and chaos ruled. After many years, the conflict came to an end, as the Order of the Flame was created, bonding men and dragons together as the protectors of peace and virtue. Under the direction of the Order, the world of Drakan has prospered in peace, attaining new heights of learning of magic.

All this came to an end when Navros, the war mage, betrayed the Order of the Flame, and led the Dark Union against the Order in the Dark Wars. He released evils on the world such as the Wartocks, to serve as his army. The Order was demolished, and only by the sacrifice of the great dragon Arokh the Drak Union was stopped. Arokh and the rest of the surviving dragons went away to sleep, and the Order and the Union were thought to be finished at that time, centuries ago. They were wrong.

Waking up from a Wartock raid of her village, Rynn, a young warrior, discover the village in ruins and her brother kidnapped. As she sets out to find him, she becomes, perhaps by destiny, bound to the legendary dragon Arokh. The two then set out to find out what is happening...

Drakan features a unique engine that seamlessly blends outdoor scenes and indoor scenes. Playing the game, you will ride Arokh, using his fiery breath as a weapon, or walk around as Rynn, using swords and bows as your weapons. You will have "dog"-fights with dragons, or a hand to hand combat with giant spiders, scavengers and Wartocks.

The Journeyman Project: Turbo! is a remake of The Journeyman Project. The year is 2318. The place: the sky-born city of Caldoria. After a century of bitter struggle, humanity has finally learned to live in peace. In 2117 the Unified World was established. And humanity knew no more war.

But all that was achieved was threatened with the invention of time travel. Its potential to destroy humanity's hard won prosperity realized, the only time travel machine ever built, the Pegasus, was moved to a secret location. The Temporal Security Annex (TSA) was formed to protect history from sabotage. The project's code name: Journeyman.

Today is 11.6.2318. Exactly ten years ago, an alien delegation calling themselves the Cyrrollans approached earth as messengers from the Symbiotry of Peaceful Beings. They gave humanity ten years to decide if the want to join the Symbiotry or not. Now the moment has come, and humanity awaits the arrival of the alien delegation.

You are Agent 5 of the Temporal Protectorate. When you report to the TSA, you find that someone is changing history, influencing events and happenings, changing how things happened - and not for the better. It is your job to find out who is messing with history, stop him, and restore history. For this you will have to travel time, using the Pegasus, as far as 2 million BC. You will travel to Mars in 2185 to stop attack on an alien vessel, visit the World Science Center in 2310 to stop an assassination, and go back to 2112 to destroy a nuclear missile. You will collect items, solve puzzles, and pit your wits against a giant robot.

The game itself is an adventure game, played in 1st person perspective - explore the environment, collect and use items, solve puzzles and small games, and it even has a maze in it. It has a few twists though: according to TSA's rules, you are not allowed to interact with people from a different time, so you must gather information in a different way. You can also stay only a limited time in every time zone, since you protective suit has only limited energy. You can also die at this game, if you are not fast thinking and fast moving.