Guess what? A zombie game!

 This game had been suggested to me by someone in a comment and I would like to thank whoever did suggest it for that. Because Infectionator is simply awesome. You play as some kind of mad scientist who has the ability to spread a zombie-virus in some town and watch it and all the people become tasty treats to your new zombie army.
Dying people drop money (wut.) which you can pick up (how?) and buy upgrades for (from whom??) your virus with.
The game itself does not require great graphics or sounds, the retro look fits it well and the "bloop bleep" 16-bit-music creates a great retro-feeling about it.

 There are only minor issues I would like to adress though. First of all: there is a lot of less than subtle racism. You start in Africa in some tribe's village where people say token-sentences. You then spread to bigger African cities where all black people are apparently rastafaries and everyone in a suit is white. I have also not seen a single black woman in this game. All soldiers and police officers are white...

But I didnt mind that much. Becaus I thought it funny. Its so blatand that you cant take it seriously, really. Another part that was kind of annoying was the tutorial, that I mostly skipped, because itexplained the most self-explanatory parts while leaving out the ones that weren't (at least to me: it took me quite a while to figure out the update screen).
But despite these things, infectionator is really recommendable and quite a bit of fun if you want to procrastinate studying like me.

This probably does not fit into my category

But I will review it anyways. Because fuck you.
Today I am taking a closer look Age Of Chivalry, a source mod, available for free on steam (as long as you have any game from steam that uses the engine.)
It is designed by Torn Banner Studios, formerly known as Team Chivalry and thus they sort of do fit into this blog.
Anyhow, the game itself is a first person... well its not directly a shooter, though you do shoot sometimes so... uh... yeah. Let me say it this way: you control one out of nine classes of warriors with different weapons and armory, with each weapon providing you with at least three ways to damage your opponents and you hack and slay your way through different maps with different objectives. You could say that the game is sorta multiplayer-based, because there is no single-player campaign. Given the absurd stupidity of the bots the game provides it is no wonder however. Minecraft has better AI. Whatever, real men don't use bots. Real men go to the internet and do battle there.
And boy, did I do that the past week.
Now let me start with the downsides of this game, so I can then drown it in praise, because I believe this is a great project that could really go somewhere.
The biggest negative point is that this game does require a good internet-connection. And by good I mean it is unplayable with a ping over 60. Seriously, it isnt. I guess you can sort of understand that if you think that you have to parry melee attacks and react to your opponent in real-time, which gets pretty hard if you are 1/10th of a second behind. It happened to me quite often that I simply died without understanding why the fuck I was dead.Yeah, I got mad, but I got over it. Another minus is the level-design. Most levels are so fucking dark that it is impossible to tell who is friend or foe unless you can smell their breath and tell that they didnt eat the same thing you did because they have eaten at a different encampment. This goes along with the fact that some maps are unplayable with 32 players (which is the player-limit for most servers tho), because there is just a shit-load of people trying to get through a narrow pass. You then just need a single dude (me) with a big weapon swinging away and 10 of his comrades loose their head. Not cool, especially if you have voice chat on. Boy, I did learn some new swear-words. In so many languages.
Which brings me to the next point: the community. It is an unfortunate fact that many indie-games have a lot of stupid kids playing it. Especially this one lures them in with its over-the top violence and body parts sputtering around.
But that is it with the negative points. Really, there is nothing more I can hate about this game. And I am sure all of these aspects will be taken out with updates gradually (right? rrrriiiiiight?).
Now, why did I play this game so excessively over the past week? Simply because it is very intuitive. Well, it did take some time getting used to the delay of your attacks, but after you get that down you can start slaying. The taunts and voice outputs of the characters, the blunt noises of steel hammers crashing skulls and the agonizing cries of dying warriors create a dense and violent war-atmosphere. You experience hell on the battleground. Which is probably why the levels have to be so dark. Who knows.
Anyhow, I will just go and play another round or six until I finally stop procrastinating and start writing that novel. Hope you are not too sad, office drones. Next week I will review infectionator.

Guess who's back

Yes, my minions, I have returned from the cold, black hiatus that swallowed me.
I came to present to you: EFFING WORMS by Effing Games. This game does so many things so very right, it is just perfect for a lunch break or the short periods between two assignments.

Doesnt this scream "AWESOME!"?

If you are like me and enjoy cheesy horror flicks then you will enjoy this game just as much as I did.
In a nutshell you are a worm and you want to eat. Humans, Cows, Dogs, Tanks, Choppers, Mechs, Hovertanks... all that good stuff. And that is all you do. Inbetween levels, you get to upgrade your worm and get neat features, like spikes or a different type of skin.

Today's weather: Sunshine with a ninety percent chance of angry worm.

The problem? You can only choose one of two upgrades and you can make that choice only once. So you always have to think: "Do I want a fast worm, or do I want more health?"
However you decide, you grow in size and abilities until you become a massive monster and destroy everything that dares to walk around above ground.
The easy controls make this a blast. The worm steers sort of like a car in a racing game (see Freeway Fury), except that you will be drawn down by gravity if you are above ground. However, jumping out of the ground to snatch some choppers out of mid air is just more fun this way.

All of this is topped off with a nice icing of witty comments and the little elements, like protestors holding peace signs and commentatory to your upgrades.
I also really enjoyed the punk-rock soundtrack that is cranked up every time you come above ground, especially because it is quite cheesy.
Unfortunately this game is not perfect. It is very short and very easy, after level 5 or so you will not find any enemies that could pose a real threat to you and two levels later you find yourself in sandbox mode, where you are killing people aimlessly just to see that little score number on the bottom right corner rise.
Which is probably why Notdoppler gave this game a 13+ rating, because it degrades human life.
...
Not like I care. OM NOM NOM!

The simple things.

It's the simple things that make me smile. Like fully-automated high caliber turrets that blast away at undead hordes while you kick back and enjoy a nice glass of white russian. Or people wearing red headbands while handling weapons that would rip a normal human's arms off. But the man I talk about is not a normal human. He is the main character of a Seant Cooper game series: Boxhead.
So far, there are five installments of the game: Boxhead: the rooms, Boxhead: More Rooms, The Halloween Special (which I believe to be the original one), Boxhead 2 Play (with multiplayer!) and the newest one Boxhead, The Zombie wars. Imma just go ahead and review the latter, if you don't mind.

I really like this scenic display of boxheaded zombies right here.

 The idea is just as simple as the graphics are: you are alone, you have guns, there are zombies which are after the soft, grey matter in your box-shaped head. And as always, the simple concepts are the best ones. The more zombies you kill in a row, the higher your combo-counter rises, the higher your combo-counter, the more upgrades and weapons you get.

Just don't get cornered...

 That is about all I have to say about the game mechanics of this series. There are a few things that set these games apart from the other zombie-shooters: for one this one does not try too hard to look good. There are so many games out there that try to create a creepy atmosphere but utterly fail. The boxhead games however just rely on action, action and even more action. You end up slamming your space key into oblivion in a fruitless attempt to hold off hordes and hordes of zombies. Especially the Boxhead 2 Play with it's co-op multiplayer and the fabolous possibility to wall yourself in with explosive barrels to mass-slaughter the undead does a really good job in creating a unique action experience for two people.

Turrets: the lazy man's choice for letting the dead rest.

 The Zombie wars one however is a little different. Not only does it feature new graphics, 3 new zombie types and completely different levels, it also gives you turrets. That's right: turrets. Automatic little thingies you put somewhere that just take out rotting walkers on their own. Just like that.
Amazing concept. Unfortunately this does not come without a prize: the devils became a lot stronger in this one, instead of just throwing fireballs they now launch entire firewalls at you that will destroy everything in their way (except for their little friends). Also their ammunition is quite limited, so in the end you rely on running around and going toe to toe with those smelly white-shirts as before. But trust me, that never gets old.

Turrets can't do the job alone :(

So if you have the time, and if you like shooting zombies, you should definitely check these games out. They will entertain you for hours and hours.

Kind of like office space. With zombies. And completely different.

Ah, The Zombie Exploder is a game just the way I like it. It combines so many great elements and features to a good mini-gaming experience for people, who can take a little blood and gore on their work-computer, and who also like zombies the way I do: smashed to pieces.

Do you see that awesome menu? The zombies on the left move, btw.

The premise is pretty simple: at some point during your working day you realize that all your co-workers have turned into zombies. This wouldnt be much of a problem if you weren't in the 20th story of an office building packed with suit-wearing undead stumblers.
So you have to fight your way from storey to storey to finally reach the ground (which I never managed to do. Tell me in the comments, how far you got. The lowest I ever got was 10th).

You cant really tell, but I just threw a zombie out of this window.

The music is subtle, the "physics" feel smooth and the graphics look neat and gory. Even the menues can impress me with their 28-days-later-feel. One of the funniest moments in the game is however, when you throw a zombie out of a window and the game rewards you with a "HOMERUN!" and gives you extra points for your RAMPAGE-bar. I just cant help but imagine some poor dude running around on the streets and having zombie parts raining on him.

One thing bugs me about the game though, and that's how you control your character. It is... very innovative, but annoying. You still move with WASD or the arrow keys, and you can do a flying kick by pressing the left mouse button, but you control your fist via MOVING your mouse. Which leads to me flailing my mouse around like a crazy person. I tried to play this game from my girlfriend's sofa and it didn't work so well because the mouse didn't pick up the movement the way it should have and I got a lot of french kisses from rotting-ex-coworkers.

No means no!

 But overall, there is nothing better than running through a mass of walking corpses while kicking and punching them into oblivion.

The fist follows the movements of your mouse.

Finally the only spanish I know comes to a good use: "HOUSEKEEPING? CLEANING ROOM NOW!"

Allright, I'm just going to tell you to check this game out if you're like me and you like zombies and a little bit of gore.