Contributions > Descriptions by Niccolò Mineo (311)

Razer, Spacer, Humpty Dumpty, Tubby and Freddy Banana are five friends organizing a tournament on 10 wacky tracks placed in 5 different worlds, in order to determine who is the fastest inhabitant of their charming world.

The player slips into the role of one of these merry friends. Every driver has a different, fantasy vehicle, which differs in acceleration, traction and weight from the other drivers' cars. Race through lovely hills, villages, and ghostly woods. Collect bonus weapons and options like bombs, rockets, jump, and turbo boost. The physics engine is enabled for crazy stunts and wild crashes.

Gromada's artificial planet was built as a giant factory for new battle machines. By constructing battle robots, cannons, tanks, helicopters, planes and floating mines crowding the 20 fully animated (flora, fauna, fire, smoke) arenas of the planet, the player can defeat the mysterious alien forces come to destroy Gromada. Aliens also managed to gain control over all battle units on the planet but Kassandra, a tank with enormous war features that can be even upgraded and beefed up at the end of each mission. With this mouse-controlled beast, you can accomplish all 25 leveled and unlinear missions until you get control over Gromada again, by destroying all enemy machines (20 types in total). The multiplayer mode include particular bonuses for achievements.

Your task is to infiltrate Megalomann's desert headquarters, the Doom Tube. This consists of three cylinders, one inside the other, each divided into several decks (levels) which are subdivided into quadrants (rooms). They are interconnected by an elevator, the Orbivator. The virus has, however, leaked into some of the rooms - some are more poisonous than others - and through the Captain has been injected with a protective serum, if a quadrant is too toxic it will kill him. The serum that keeps him alive is only temporarily effective but the ingredients to make more can be produced in the Converter quadrant. The Converter is activated by touching certain wall panels and placing sufficient quantities of Ying and Yang (the ingredients) in receiver plates. Ying and Yang can be obtained by blasting a doom pod found in one of the quadrants. You carry a nearly indestructible shield to deflect projectiles and nearly all energy beams. In some rooms, however, rotators are active and send out lethal beams. On destruction these rotators release a codeword which can be helpful in accessing later areas of the Doom Tube. If you can reach the final deck of the Doom Tube, you may be able to disarm the missile - but the game is played in real time, and you are given just one hour to save the world.

Half-Life Deathmatch: Source is a recreation of the first multiplayer game set in the Half-Life universe.

It features all the classic weapons and most-played maps, now running on the Source engine.

At first, it was released as a free download on Steam only to people who already owned Half-Life 1: Source. It is now available for free to Steam customers who buy the available Half-Life / Source packages.

The character Baron Baldric is quite known among Apogee fans for his appearance in Mystic Towers, but the Baron had earlier appeared in this side-scrolling game. It is considered very rare since the registered version was only sold in the Australian territory.

The story behind Baron Baldric: A Grave Adventure takes place under Castle Pedabouch. You have to search for the family treasures in the tomb: it was told that, centuries before, Baron Baldric's ancestor, Baron Lazarus Pedabouche studied an evil Wolf-Magic and turned into a cruel tyrant: fortunately, when he seized Rosie, a local milk-maid, he was stoned to death by his own subjects. Rosie died too, and was doomed to haunt the whole castle until the ancient baron was slain.

The game is somewhat similar to Impossible Mission 2 and the earlier Montezuma's Revenge because of many elements bringing the game far from the action genre. You have to find flints to light lamps when they go out, and regularly eat food to survive the maze.

Half-Life 2: Episode Two is the second episode to extend the story behind the original Half-Life 2. In the previous episode, Dr. Gordon Freeman escaped from City 17 with Alyx Vance, while the Citadel was destroyed by a storm of unseen proportions. This episode brings the team face to face with the Combine forces stationed in the White Forest, since they have been ordered to stop Gordon and Alyx from delivering a packet of crucial information stolen from the Citadel to an enclave of survived scientists.

There are no new weapons, but Gordon receives a new form of ammunition for the Gravity Gun: the Magnusson Device. The driving sequences introduce a new vehicle: a powerful car with its engine revealed.

There is also a new soundtrack and the game engine has been updated with a new renderer, a new dynamic lighting and shadowing system, updated physics, and new effects such as motion blur and depth of field. Dual-core processors are now supported as well. The player always controls Gordon Freeman, often assisted by Alyx, a Vortigaunt, or the rebels.

This water skiing game was known at the time for its realistic simulation. There are only three events, but fortunately they are pleasant to play. They are slalom, free figures and, to finish, jump with ski. If at the beginning it is tricky to find a good technique, once you find it the game becomes much more tedious. The Gods Of The Sea also featured the sponsorship of a celebrity at that time: Patrice Martin.

Rescue Shot is a shooter developed and published by Namco. On one side, it differences from the famous Point Blank series. The game, in fact, looks more like Time Crisis, which doesn't rely on accuracy less very much, thus letting you enjoying the fast-pace of the game dynamic. On the other side, the variety in Rescue Shot is similar to the Point Blank series.

The game takes place on a lot of different scenarios, full of traps to avoid and dangers to overcome: from a manufacturing industry to a tube, from a Japanese market district to a country village. The main character in the game is Bow, a dog who wanders through a fairytale-esque land where all sorts of minions try to hamper his progress. The aim of the adventure is to help Bow regain his memory after he fell off a cliff. He needs to collect all 5 dream fragments to be able to make a wish, so he can remember where he came from.

Each of the 10 scenarios (grouped in 4 stages) has got its unique inhabitants (robots, birds, porcupines, bats, ...) and boss (a tiger, a wolf, a machine...). Tons of items in the background, from mushrooms to spiders and flowers (and even windows), can be shot to reveal power-ups of all sorts. Occasionally you have to shoot Bow in the derriere to get him to jump over obstacles, or a timely shot to the head will cause him to duck flying objects.

Half-Life: Uplink is a special standalone version of the 1998 first-person shooter computer game Half-Life. Uplink features many of the common enemies, characters, and weapons from the full game, but the location and scenario in this demonstration do not appear in Half-Life. Like its successor's demo, however, Uplink was made available for download after the release of the full retail version of the game.

The Uplink chapters were cut during Half-Life's development phase, and roughly fit in prior to or during the Lambda Core chapter. They were, however, strongly revised for this release. Uplink also includes the same Hazard Course from the full release of Half-Life.

Uplink was included with the Game of the Year Edition of Half-Life as a mod, and was included with all subsequent releases. When the series migrated to Valve's own Steam distribution service, Uplink was absent entirely until 17 November 2023, when it was integrated into the Half-Life base game as part of the 25th Anniversary Update.

Uplink was also included with certain video cards as bundled on one disk that also included Team Fortress Classic and Counter-Strike 1.3.

Uplink is available in English, French and German.

Lost Coast is an add-on for the original Half-Life 2. Originally slated as a part of Highway 17 chapter of the game, it was left out, reworked and released separately. Although it is essentially only a single level and not part of the main storyline, it contains minor storyline details.

The levels starts when Gordon Freeman wakes up after falling down. He is greeted by a man referenced as The Fisherman on a dock. He opens a gate and tells Gordon the St. Olga church has been taken over by the Combine. They use it as an outpost to launch headcrab rockets onto a nearby town. Your task is to infiltrate the church, take out the launcher, and dispose of all resistance.

Valve also used Lost Coast as a playable tech demo to showcase the Source engine's HDR lightning (high dynamic range lighting). It includes an optional commentary track as well. While playing, you can activate commentary nodes shown as speech bubbles. The enemy AI is then temporarily disabled and you can listen to the developers discuss certain challenges and choices for that part of the level.

ADVAN Racing is a Japanese racing game developed with the cooperation of ADVAN, a real extreme car competition in Japan. It features 16 cars taken from the real races, including both the roadsters and the rally cars. Atlus borrowed and improved some visual aspects from the cousin Gran Turismo, and many of the best racers are available right at the start of the game. The car views found in the game place are among the standard of the racing games, except for the in-car view, which features a generic dashboard with no steering wheel or dials. Game modes range from the simple exhibition racing to the official ADVAN GP. Multiplayer features one-on-one split-screen races.