*Insert Queens "Bicycle Race" here.*

I love being a freelancer and being able to review the games I want. Here is another great Kongregate one: "Cyclo Maniacs". It was created by LongAnimals & RobotJam, who are known for cute, original characters, reappearing in many of their games. The game itself can be found HERE.

The title screen gives you a bit of an idea what's to come.

So let's get in there, shall we? You start off with a single playable character, an average biker on a normal bike and a single available track. On this track (as on any other track) you have three achievements to complete. But unlike most other games these aren't just for prestige: they also bring you new characters and new tracks to play on, so finishing first is not always that important. Actually, it doesn't matter at all as long as it's not the achievement you want to work on right now.
The controls are pretty simple. You can accelerate, brake, jump and lean forward or backward, making wheelies or even loopings once you're off the ground.
Careful though: turn too far or not far enough and you'll spread that beautiful face of yours all over the place like liver-sausage on pumpernickl.

Many areas, many levels.

After a while you get the hang of it and quickly gain all characters, upgrades and tracks. And by quickly I mean it takes 8 fucking hours but you wont notice because this game is so god damn addictive.
I am serious. The easy controls, the nicely done difficulty curve and the funny characters, plus the fact that you'll be ripping combos like a mad cunt once you managed to get Ron.
I am serious, that guys power level is way beyond 9000 when it comes down to summersaults, like mine when we're talking about uhm... doing nothing really.
Anyway, where was I going with this? I don't even know anymore. Unfortunately my computer deleted my savegame for this one, so I had to start from scrap for the screenshots, which is sad. I had the thing played through man, like, all the way (what does it mean?).

Love me tender? Screw that. Buttfucktrain on the way.

Enough said. Play the game already.

Sandbox for the big boys. Well, pubescent boys.

Allright. This game has been the SHIT back when I was in that highschool in America. Like EVERYBODY was playing it in lunch hour and study hall and free periods. Mostly because it didnt exactly count as a game, but as a simulation? Whatever, it wasnt blocked by the school proxy server so we didnt care. We took any diversion. And boy, did we take it.
So what is this "game" I talk of? As I mentioned, it's more a simulation. It is a sandbox simulation and I mean that as literary as possible because man, no pile of code ever deserved the title "sandbox" as much as this one.
It's got the mysterious name "Dust" and You get to play with a wide arrange of toys, beginning from actual sand, over to seeds, up to high explosives and fireworks. All those fun things your mommy always took away when you were in an actual sandbox. Except for the sand, of course. Sand is still just sand.
While the graphics are ridicously simple, no music or sound effects present (thats why everybody who plays this game sits there going "BOOOOM! PSSSSHHHH! KAPOOOOOW!") the physics of this game are actually quite good: something explodes or burns, it creates heat, things move away from it due to expanding air. Everything gets whirled around, more things get to the heat source and catch fire... well you get my point.

Fireworks, Oil and Gundpowder raining down on a concrete bunker with a permanently lit fuse in the middle. Gee, that's not at all dangerous, right?

This was bound to happen.

Whoops.

You can clearly see the particle movement and heat simulation, indicated by the red, green and blue background.

But now, since "Dust" isnt a real... game and all, and you don't have a goal, why is it fun? Or is it fun at all? Well... Yes. It is fun. It's not going to take you through that class you despise but had to take because you needed the credit in which you now sit in the very back row with your netbook and pretend to be "working". At least it's not going to last all semester, no. But a little diversion on the side? Perfect. I mean seriously, look at the screenshot. You see the kind of shit you get to play around with? Don't you wanna rub each and every fucking element of this game in your face? Fuck, I havent even figured the shit out of some of them. For example the fuck is "soapy"? (And I love the abbreviation "F-Works" btw...) there's tons and tons of ridicolous amounts of things there. I mean, they don't behave realisticly in most cases but who gives a rat's ass. But come on, you can't tell me that the grenades in real life bounce off of walls like they do in Call of Duty 4, right?
Whatever folks. Imma build huge sky scrapers of stone and watch them tumble from the blast of a c4 explosion.

Hehehe.

Hello world.

Hello dear world. I would like to introduce myself and the concept of this blog. I am a 20 year old German, who lived a year in Wisconsin and spends a lot of time... well I like to call it thinking about important things. Yes. Let's use some phrase to hide that I actually just waste time. But we all remember John Lennon's quote "Time you enjoyed wasting wasn't really wasted" or something in that direction.
AAAAANYHOW. I like flash games and I always think that some of these are so cleverly thought out and well programmed, that there is just so much work in them that they deserve a proper review. Well this may not be proper and adequate, but I often like to think that writing about stuff while at the same time being critical and informative is fun, so its more of a personal thing.

I would like to begin today with one of my all time favorites: "The Space Game" by Kongregate.
(To be found here: http://www.kongregate.com/games/CasualCollective/the-space-game)

The campaign screen. I fail to finish the last mission...

The concept behind "The Space Game" is quite simple. You are a greedy miner who wants to cash some minerals in. The problem is that the wealthies areas are populated by pirates who'd like a slice of the cake. And a slice of your vulnerable space stations. And your workers. Maybe even from you, nobody knows.
So you build your bases (powered by a central generator) over a net of space-power lines. I know, I know. This isnt realistic. Boo hoo.

Cute base, isnt it?

While doing this you have to wisely choose how to spend your budget: do you want to expand quicker, gain more money but have a spread out base that will be hard to defend? Or do you save money to build a massive walls of lasers and missle cannons in the case of an attack?

And you will be attacked. A lot. Depending on what mode and what difficulty you chose, there will be different kinds of enemies that will require different defenses. The king (or queen?) of them being the mothership with powerful long-range lasers and interceptors, that can only be properly responded with upgraded missle launchers.

Aw balls.

 Furthermore it offers 3 game modes plus one if you have an account with Kongregate (hell, if that one company keeps buying websites there wont be a need to create an account, wink wink): campaign mode, in which you have to complete a certain amount of missions with certain varying targets, mining mode, in which you must harvest a given amount of minerals before you got your ass handed to you and survival mode. In survival mode there is no victory, (which is kind of ironic, considering the name of the mode) but instead there is just a lot of cash, a lot of space, and a lot of enemies. IMMO the best one.

But let's get down to what I like about this game.

First of all: I am an absolute science fiction freak. I especially looooove things that are "far out there" and "The Space Game" gives you that feeling. Well, if you zoom in all the way and just look at one of the single mining stations doing it's thing.

Anyhow, I really enjoyed the simplicity, yet slight difficulty curve of this game. It's like its saying "Come on, just a little more, I have to show you just one more thing, just one more wave of enemies, can you get that?" - like when your grandparents call you if you could 'just help them build up the new cupboard they bought' and end up working all day covered in grease, sweat and filled with apple pancakes.

Also notable is the writing around it. Its kinda childish, but funny. It's not what a space agency would write to their space mining operator via space mail, but thats okay. I am sick and tired of mini games taking themselves too serious.

And I am even more sick of games making fun of that. This one just comes very natural, like the programmers sit next to you while you try out their newest creation.

The graphics are subtle, the music is fitting and the sound effects are ... well, they're there and you can kind of tell what they are, so I guess they suffice.

All in all very playable and very addictive.