Chariot Drive's "Freeman Chronicles," a Half-Life Live Action Series, Is Now on Steam!

This is the next best thing to a Half-Life 3 launch: ChariotDrive's excellent live action Half-Life series is now on Steam!




Nothing after the jump.

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Wing Commander Saga Review

The pros and cons discussed in this Wing Commander Saga Review:

Pros

• Freeware sci-fi space sim action at its best
• Brings back a well-loved series using a (relatively) modern game engine
• Tough-as-nails difficulty should please hardcore gamers
• Good story

Cons

• It’s a space sim. Don’t expect levels filled with myriad eye candy effects
• Punishing difficulty will put off a lot of casual gamers
• The inability to save mid-mission (and to skip conversations) might prove exasperating for some.

I oftentimes yearn for the bygone era of the 90s. For all the crude graphics of that period, developers doggedly capitalized on every aspect of the new frontier that was 3D. In their quest to make their games as close to reality as possible, they followed game design paths that would be considered nowadays as bizarre. Some were works of genius; some were ungainly. Nearly all had rage-inducing difficulty. That trend has, for the most part, sadly died down in favor of catering to a wider audience base as possible. This has given way to steadfast (and sentimental?) old school fans lamenting the dearth of games that do not spoon-feed their players.

It’s a refreshing turn then that a group of developers has resurrected a series that garnered a huge following during the 90s. The Wing Commander Saga Team (that’s what it says in their ModDB page), after a decade, has released Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn, a freeware sci-fi space simulator that puts players in the struggles of the Terran Navy; a military campaign that transpires before Wing Commander 3.

Has this free space simulator game managed to capture the feel of the series? Is it difficult enough that it can set itself apart from the scores of vapid, anemic games today that litter store shelves? Read this Wing Commander Saga Review to find out.  



Gameplay

First things first. Is it legal? Yes, according to the game’s site, it is. You don’t even need to own Freespace 2 (whose game engine powers this freeware space sim). I don’t know how they did it, considering all the takedown notices that have killed a good number of freeware PC full version games, but I’m not complaining either. Mayhap, EA (the current owner of the IP) deems that this freeware full version space sim will pique the curiosity of anyone playing the game that they can’t help but be enticed to buy the other Wing Commander games. Myself, I’m buying the entire series after I play through this one; Wing Commander Saga is that good. 

This freeware space sim puts you in the role of David "Sandman" Markham, a fresh graduate of a Terran Confleet academy. Right after your assignment to a carrier group, the game draws you in a vortex of events that shape the outcome of a critical segment of the Human-Kilrathi Wars. (Man-Kzin? Sorry, couldn’t resist; don’t shoot me.) Don’t expect Wing Commander staples like Christopher "Maverick" Blair and Todd "Maniac" Marshall to take the center stage though; this is a separate segment of the war from that of the main series. (This is evidenced by the developers inserting the following in the massive PDF manual that comes with the download:

“Following the attack on Earth, the Terran Intelligence Agency deploys a top secret, tactical search party through a previously uncharted Kilrathi jump point. A heavy carrier (name unknown for security purposes) is equipped with self sustaining recycling systems, mining apparatus, and a 62 person Special Operations team.” And “To date, no known communications have been received from this special mission.”).

For those unfamiliar with the series, all Wing Commander installments are military sci-fi games. Considering that your character is a plebe, don’t expect that you can pilot anything you want and fly off and gallivant across the far reaches of the cosmos searching for adventure. This is not Eve or any of the X games.  While this might seem off-putting to those who have grown accustomed to sandbox space games, this gem of a download does what it does well—this is one of the few games that lets you feel as if you’re really part of a space-faring navy at war with a genocidal, equally advanced alien race. The first time you get to see gargantuan alien cruisers inexorably making for a friendly capital ship, the line between playing a game and witnessing a climactic scene in a space opera series begins to blur. 

And a space opera it is; Wing Commander Saga needs to be. Unlike conventional PC first-person shooters, space sims are different in the sense that there’s no collection of ingeniously-designed levels wherein gamers play through; there are no perches to snipe from, no doors to storm through. There’s just the relatively featureless vastness of space. Thus—just like this one—all successful space simulators feature well-developed universes, character conflicts, and edge-of-your-seat mission parameters to keep things interesting. Wing Commander Saga: the Darkest Dawn pulls this off successfully in multiple fronts. In the span of the game, you get to witness civilian habitats being left behind as the navy makes a tactical withdrawal, form bonds with wingmen only to see them vanish later in flashes of superheated gases and mangled steel, and hear exclamations of despair when an enemy fleet unexpectedly warps into the sector you’re patrolling. You’ll also likely to cheer with your beleaguered wingmen every time the space equivalent of the proverbial cavalry drops in and begins to train anti-matter capital ship batteries and missiles at hostile ships. Experiences like these set apart Wing Commander Saga from the usual PC FPSs. 

It’s not just banter and emotionally powerful set sequences that make this free full version space sim a success though; Wing Commander Saga is an excellent space fighter simulator. Controls are responsive and in fact, the developers have been thoughtful enough to provide players with control scheme options in their latest patch: that of Freespace’s (which lets you steer your craft like traditional first-person shooters) or that of the old Wing Commander games (which accelerates the cursor even more the farther you move it from the center of the screen, making for a floaty but a more realistic approximation of how a space fighter would handle). 

(Note: I can’t say anything about playing the game with a joystick though as I only have a Logitech MX-518 with which to play my games but I’ve heard several users in the official forums that they’re more comfortable with a keyboard and mouse set-up.)




In the spirit of recreating believable dogfight experiences, the developers have taken care that hostile pilots aren’t mindless zombies. These activate afterburners, drop missile countermeasures, and do loops to evade enemy fire. Your companions aren’t slouches either; they do what they do well. In fact, in the easier levels of difficulty, they will rack up more kills than you. The experience sometimes even gets frustrating if you’re not nimble enough—more often than not, they will beat you in destroying an enemy bogey if you don’t take it down fast enough. 

While the AI isn’t smart enough to do complicated moves such as doing barrel rolls or cutting their engines abruptly to let you overshoot hostiles, it’s agile enough that the whole experience is vastly unlike what you will experience in, say, id Software games where you get to cut down waves upon waves of enemies. 

The missions are diverse enough to be largely entertaining—in the course of the game, you’ll get to escort carriers and civilian ships, ambush hostile troop transports, and even chase after swarms of capital ship missiles beelining for friendlies.

My only complaint with the game is the way it is structured. As with other Wing Commander games, missions typically are made up of several sub-missions that end when you’ve auto-piloted from them through nav points. Die (or fail to achieve a critical mission parameter) in one of these, and you get to repeat the entire chain from the very beginning (i.e., events before reaching the first nav point of each level). In true Wing Commander fashion, you cannot save mid-mission. Given that the developers have infused this game with a 90s feel, this downloadable free space sim will give you a devilishly hard time. You will die multiple times and get to hear the same banter from your wingmen over and over and over again. In difficult missions—escort ones come to mind—you will fail enough times that you will get to memorize a substantial amount of the conversations that will replay every time you try another go at the levels. 




The game’s difficulty is a divisive point; casual players will most probably quit in exasperation while hardcore ones will find this game a worthy challenge.

There’s also the fact that the tutorial fails to point out a few of the important controls. Also, owing to an odd menu screen design, most players will never know there’s a Wing Commander Saga tutorial. Clicking on the door that says “start or continue a campaign” from the very first screen you see takes you to the opening phase of the Darkest Dawn campaign, a move that will plop you into the action with no idea of what button does what.

>>>Click here to see how to access the Wing Commander Saga tutorial

Not taking a tutorial is a disaster; as a PC space flight simulator, Wing Commander Saga has a whole bevy of controls. I’ve listed Important Wing Commander Saga Hotkeys in a separate article. While hardcore simulator fans will have a grand time getting used to the various controls, some might find the learning curve too steep. There are controls to equalize shields (useful when you’ve taken multiple hits on a single side), drop countermeasures, match speed with your current target, and target a specific subsystem of a capital ship (radar, turrets, etc) to name a few.  

Graphics

Wing Commander Saga’s graphics are light years ahead of even the last installment to the series (Prophecy). Powered by the Freespace 2 engine, the game touts several modern features like specular lighting and sun flares. It’s nowhere near Crysis of course but seeing a Kilrathi heavy cruiser rendered by the new game engine should be a jaw-dropping experience for Wing Commander fans.

The PC game’s engine is not cutting edge but you’d still be wowed by several of the backdrops---you’ll dogfight above the debris ring of a planet, seek enemy assets around asteroid belts, and even defend a civilian capital. The last is one of those rare moments in gaming that really catches you by surprise. Doing atmospheric dogfights with Kilrathi heavy fighters is something I never thought I would experience. 



On the downside, some of the textures in Wing Commander Saga appear outdated, namely carriers’ flight decks and briefing room cut scenes. While these visual weak points are certainly not game breaking, it’s odd to see the aesthetic deviations. Landing in carriers feels as if you’ve just passed through a time portal; the anachronistic texture of the ships’ interiors just contrasts greatly with the sheen of the exteriors. 

Also, Wing Commander Saga isn’t as smooth in terms of anti-aliasing relative to other games. I’ve tried adding both exes just to be on the safe side to the Nvidia Control Panel’s “Manage 3D Settings” menu and have tried both 2x and 4x settings but the results still aren’t as satisfying as say, Darksiders' or FEAR's. 

Briefing room cutscenes are arguably the game’s lowest point. They just can’t match up with anything within the game—even the menu screen, which is the closest thing to the cutscenes. There’s no specular lighting and no deeper shadows that would have lent them a greater sense of depth. Still, they only make up a small percentage of the game though so this isn’t a serious concern.

Audio

Explosions and hostile and friendly fire sound accurate enough that it brings me back to the days when I was playing Prophecy. The hollow thump and hissing sound as a capital ship missile leaves its launcher is exhilarating to hear (or chilling if its target is a friendly); you’d know something massive was hurled out from a ship’s rack when you hear one of these demolishers fly out. Granted, there are more games there that emit a better sound effect when a missile is launched but it still is good to hear that the developers thought to give capship missiles a different sfx. 

The con to the aforementioned pro: capship turrets sound almost the same as the lasers of interceptors.



The music is upbeat enough in tense situations and serene enough at idle times. It’s good, really good but it’s not something I’d remember several months from now. 

Voice acting is great and for the record, this free space sim elicited from me more guffaws and snickers than any other game to date. (“’Commandeer’? I guess someone’s mommy got him a thesaurus for his birthday. Aww…”) A wingman’s obsession with women, another’s banter with a longtime friend, and an elite wing’s preference for classical music—all these lend Wing Commander Saga with a tangible life of its own. Every time you play the game, you’ll never get the feeling you’re flying with just masses of extra hit points. You won’t find a Jen Taylor here, much less a James Earl Jones, but the voice actors of this freeware downloadable space sim did an impressive job. (Kudos to the writers too!)

(Note: I haven’t tested this yet on a 5.1 surround sound system as my Logitech X-530 just died but I’ll be updating this review as soon as I get one.)

SUMMARY

Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn also brings back a universe that has been well-loved by fans and game critics alike; you get to revisit a genre that has long remained dormant. In all probability you might not finish all 50 missions due to the game’s difficulty, but—because this is freeware—you don’t have anything to lose if you do. 

Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn didn’t start out as a retail game so this just might be the most well-polished (stand-alone; single player) downloadable freeware game out there that doesn’t have an item mall. Give it a go.

Tilt: 8.0 – To date, I haven’t experienced any glitches much less crashes so as a whole it’s a seamless experience. This would have scored an 8.5 or a 9.0 but the difficulty and the way the game is structured—lengthy unskippable comms between pilots and ships in even the most difficult missions—guarantee that you’d be wasting your time listening to the same lines over and over when you replay them. An option to skip the talky bits would have helped. As it is, this is one of the best freeware full version games out there. Download it now. 

Graphics: 7.5 – Space. There just isn’t much to see. Still, what the game has are gorgeous; the angular, angry, maroon-dominated design of the Kilrathi ships and fighters give a good contrast to the sleek aerodynamic symmetry of the predominantly blue-hued Terran Confleet ships and fighter craft. Explosions are awesome to behold and planets, nebulae, and star flares bestrew the game with much needed splashes of color.  

Gameplay: 9.0 – The space sim genre is largely dead at the moment. (What (popular!) space games are thriving aren’t even strictly combat games; most are geared towards economy aspects like the X series.)  At the moment, the experience offered by this free PC space sim is unparalleled; you just can’t find anything out there that can compare to this one. Dearth of competition aside, Wing Commander Saga is a game that can stand on its own. Its punishing difficulty guarantees that veteran fans of the series won’t be disappointed. Casual gamers might give this a lower score though; the game's appeal largely depends on your preferences.

Sound: 8.0 – Talkative teammates breathe a whole new dimension into this space fighter game. Explosions sound powerful and the music tracks keep you engaged. 

Replayability: 8.0 – I’m playing this game on the default difficulty and I’m pretty sure I’ll be playing this again at a higher one once I finish this just to see how dogfights play out. I’ve been playing this for more than a week now and the game shows no sign of stopping (the game’s developers claim this game has 50 missions; that’s a stupendously large amount!). 

Final Score: 8.1

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Downloadable PC Free FPS Multiplayer Shooter - Full Game Warmonger: Downtown Destruction Review

Back in 2002, a company named Ageia surfaced, bringing into the PC industry avant-garde hardware designed to offload physics calculations from the CPU. The hardware, a dedicated physics card (much like a separate sound card, only this one calculated physics, not audio) didn’t do so well, considering that enhanced physics didn’t produce game altering changes back in the early part of the decade. In 2008, Nvidia acquired Ageia, fusing the innovative physics technology with their video cards. Ageia might not have survived the decade, but their legacy, the hardware and the middleware PhysX, continues to live on in several games.

One of these is Warmonger: Downtown Destruction, a game developed by NetDevil. Now released as a downloadable free PC FPS game, Warmonger was made to fully integrate physics-related gimmicks into its multiplayer-centric gameplay. I couldn’t find any information on how Warmonger found its way into Nvidia’s downloadable Graphics Plus Power Packs but the free PC FPS multiplayer shooter now acts as the flagship of the bunch of freebies, giving players the whole nine yards of what it feels like to have a physics-intensive game.

The full review, gameplay videos, and the download link after the jump.


In fact, the downloadable full version shooter does this so well that I feel the developers focused on this too much and ignored the other gameplay aspects. The game's features are so sparse: there are only two gameplay modes, Team Deathmatch and Capture and Hold, two modes that are so simple they don’t even need explanation.

What the free multiplayer FPS was designed to do however, it delivers in spades. The game is riddled with elements that flagrantly announce it to be a PhysX game. You turn a corner, a banner blocks your way, undulating and flapping in the breeze. You brush it aside and find yourself in an open area, cinders floating past you in a realistic manner as you run towards the sound of a firefight. You arrive at the scene and hastily take cover behind a concrete barrier as a hostile opens up with his chaingun. The concrete cover you ran from breaks apart in chunks. You take a bead, alt-fire, and launch a grenade. The thing sticks on the chaingunner. He runs towards you, in a desperate attempt to take you with him but blows apart several feet away, chunks of meat flying in all directions. These little things thoroughly immerse you in the urban-themed arenas of this free PC first-person shooter.

The game’s audio too, which by the way, supports surround sound systems, is impressive; the weapons are a joy to shoot.



There are only three weapons in the game: the aforementioned assault rifle that can also launch grenades, a rocket launcher, and a chaingun that has the mother of all recoils. The chaingun requires you to activate a force field that stabilizes the thing. Encased in a force field, a player is all but invincible to all attacks except rockets and grenades. The catch though is that the force field takes about two seconds to fully come up, making the weapon a support armament; the assault rifle, with its accuracy and no-frills approach, is simply better. The rocket launcher? Without tanks and other heavies in this FPS game, this weapon is next to useless. I don’t even know why it’s in the game except to blow up barriers and show off the Unreal 3 engine’s PhysX capabilities.

Yes, it is powered by the Unreal 3 engine.



As such, it is easily one of the most gorgeous free PC multiplayer shooters. Everything in the game screams modernity. Physics doodads aside, the shaders of the game are impressive. Textures are convincing, shadows play around walls, the lighting---coupled with the game’s art design---really delivers.

Despite its technological prowess however, Warmonger is a failure in two fronts. One of these (the other being its anemic gameplay features) is its multiplayer aspect. There is no one playing. There are mediocre freeware games out there that have robust player bases but not this one. This can be attributed to the fact that the game forces players to utilize GameSpy’s Comrade matchmaking system to find online matches online. Either that, or you have to know the IP address of the server you want to join and type it in the field the game provides when you click on the “Join Server” choice. Now there is NOTHING wrong with Comrade, but the designers’ choice not to implement a native matchmaking system really pulls this free PC game down.

Recent matches: two years ago.

The above problem kills this multiplayer-centric PC game. Warmonger: Downtown Destruction is one awe-inspiring game for people who haven’t seen PhysX and the Unreal 3 engine in action before. Its audio is impressive, the graphics are immersive---the whole package really paints a dystopian place where mercenaries in combat gear duke it out--- but without a player base to speak of, this game gets relegated to being just a tech demo of Ageia’s legacy.

If you haven’t seen PhysX effects, download this full version free FPS multiplayer shooter, play it, and get a taste of the merged power of the Unreal 3 engine and PhysX. You can get several of your friends to play it in a LAN party, but they might refuse; with the myriad freeware PC FPS games out there that offer more in terms of gameplay, Warmonger is a hard sell.




System requirements from the Warmonger: Operation Downtown Destruction page: 

2.13 GHz dual core processor with 2 MB L2 Cache
2 GB RAM
1.8 GB hard disk space
Nvidia 7900 graphics card or equivalent
PhysX capable hardware, i.e. Nvidia GeForce 8 series or better or Nvidia 100 series
Windows XP/Windows Vista

>>>See more downloadable full version free FPS PC multiplayer shooter games from HERE

These links will take you outside Imbacore.blogspot.com:

>>>Get the downloadable full version free FPS PC multiplayer shooter game from HERE (Scroll down until you see the game.)

>>>Alternative download HERE

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Free PC FPS Full Spectrum Warrior Lag Stutter Framerate Problems and How to Solve Them

[Note: Full Spectrum Warrior is not a first-person shooter. However, instead of making a new category for third-person shooter games, I decided to incorporate this into my "Free PC FPS" category.]

Video uploaded by Wozu999

I recently came across the news that Full Spectrum Warrior had been released as a downloadable free full version shooter game years ago. I downloaded the installer, installed the game, and... got confounded. The game ran alright --- except that my mouse lagged big time, the intro stuttered, and the free PC FPS game produced abysmal framerates.

I scoured the Internet for a solution to the frames per second problem and found the solution. It can be found after the jump.

The remedy: disable your Internet connection AFTER you launch the game.

How this is done:

1. Launch the game.
2. Alt-Tab and access your PC's Control Panel.
3. Go to Network Connections.
4. Disable your connection to the Internet.
5. Alt-Tab back to the game (or click on the free PC FPS game's tab on the taskbar).

Full Spectrum Warrior should run flawlessly.

>>>See more downloadable full version free FPS PC multiplayer shooter games from HERE

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Review: Downloadable Free PC FPS Horror Shooter Zombpocalypse

So you've just gone home from the office and all these numbers are swirling in your cranium. Cranium. Yes, to de-stress you want to bash some heads in. You can't do that to your neighbors --- the cops will get you. A game. Yes you want a game. One that involves simple mindless shooting and none of the banal complexities that games nowadays tend to force on their players. A flash game perhaps? You click the Mozilla Firefox ico---wait.

I've got something better.

It has got all the gore you want, the simple mindlessness of the catharsis that you crave for, all in one adrenaline-pumping package that recalls back the days of arcade yore. Layer this with advanced graphics effects like specular, lightmaps, dynamic shadows, muzzle flashes, and advanced shaders and you've got one hell of a zombie shooter.

Image taken from the Zombpocalypse official site. Posted here for the sole purpose of promoting the game.

And it's free.

The review after the jump.

Zombpocalypse is a downloadable freeware zombie survival third-person shooter. And while the game barely squeaks through to be called a "full version game," all its other aspects forcefully cut through skin, bone, and innards where presentation is concerned.

To be fair, FilePlanet does tout it as a "demo" and not a full version PC game. The game puts you in the role of a survivor who runs around a number of maps that you can select from, mowing ranks of undead down, gathering weapons that intermittently spawn at fixed locations around the tiny maps.

That's right, there is no progression, no storyline, no boss fights, just you running around killing dead things that had refused to die the first time.

But oh man, does it deliver; everything from the shadows, the lighting, the specular effects --- this is one game that impresses. The audio is superb in that guns are a joy to fire. The game's flamethrower is sick: it has got the right amount of hiss and basso effects to it while the game's magnum sounds so powerful you'll be grinning diabolically everytime you manage to snatch it.

And snatch everything you will. Every moment in this game involves you running. Take a hit from an infected, and the screen shakes and blur. Get your health level low enough and you'll begin to limp around.




Which is a bad thing. Pouncers and leapers anyone? How about huge zombies that can breathe fire?

Yeah, you need to run. Every. Single. Time.

It's just you and waves of undead circling around like the stark raving mad people that you all are in this game. And you are going to do this in tiny areas that barely can be called levels, such is their Lilliputian dimensions.

As much as I'd like to go on extolling the game, Zombpocalypse does come in a filesize that's as small as the levels it contains. The 39Mb filesize already serves as a caveat to first-time players of the game --- aside from the things I've mentioned, there really isn't anything to do in the game aside from running around blasting animated rotting corpses while picking up health packs and weapons.

However, if you think of it as an arcade trip with advanced graphics trappings, this free PC zombie shooter more than delivers. And for $0, it's well worth the price of bashing some craniums in.

Without harming your neighbors.


>>> Visit the game's official site HERE.

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Review: Downloadable Free PC FPS Full Version Horror Shooter The Suffering

The Suffering is a third-person horror shooter game from developer Midway Games, the maker of the Mortal Kombat series. In the game, you play as Torque, a man incarcerated for the massacre of his entire family. In an innovative gameplay scheme that uses the much-overused plot device amnesia, the player has direct control of how much truth lies in this allegation.

This game has an ESRB "Mature" rating. The review might be disturbing for kids.

The review of the downloadable free PC FPS full version horror shooter---and the download link---after the jump.

If The Suffering were a book, I'd say it's a good one but not a page-turner. Unlike games where the pacing presents plot hooks that elicit a deep curiosity to find out what happens next (Halo, etc) or games that present you with awe-inspiring firefights and/or foes that have superior AI (the F.E.A.R. series, No One Lives Forever, etc), The Suffering for the most part presents you with sequences that feel too drawn-out. For most of the game, there's not much in the way of story development; it feels like a dungeon crawl with you blazing and chopping your way through waves and waves of hellspawn. Fans of Serious Sam and the first Doom games will find action here that will prove satisfying but gamers who are looking for more depth may feel the game a bit bland for their tastes.

The monsters of the game come in many forms. They are also one of the most ingeniously-designed creatures I've seen in quite a while (except for the ubiquitous Slayers; the whole marionette-Hellraiser-Voldo fusion comes off as hackneyed). All of the monsters that skitter, burrow, glide, and lope across Abbott Penitentiary echo their former lives and the horrors of their deaths --- Marksmen are amalgams of rifles and the bodies of firing squad victims while Mainliners are ghastly imps that are impaled with multiple syringes that contain lethal poison.

Scare tactics: a Slayer drags one of its shivs on the floor.

While having limited AI, these creatures have varying attacks and maneuvers that more than immerse players in moments of sheer fright and frenetic life-or-death struggles; it's chilling to see a Slayer while its time, dragging one of the swords connected to its forearms along the ground; it's also sickening to see a Fester--in addition to its usual flailing attacks---open up its belly, disgorging packs of rats from its corpulent form, red layers of viscera showing through the flaps of meat that it peels back.

The Suffering also doesn't hold back with encounters. While most of the time the game hurls small mobs of undead at you, there are also moments where it opens the floodgates of Hell and you begin to wonder, "Gewd loards, am I doing this right? Maybe this scene has points that have infinite spawns and I'm not supposed to tarry here. GewdloardsheretheycomeagainI'mgonnadieI'mgonnadieI'mgonnadie" and just when you get buried under a wave of rotting, screaming, gibbering, snarling undead, the firefight ends and you're left there panting, "I'm still alive! That was impossible but I'm still alive!"

Of course, most of the time, you die --- save often.

Except for the aforementioned periods, The Suffering is not infuriatingly difficult (this coming from someone who finished the entire F.E.A.R. series at Extreme Difficulty without using SloMo; your experience with The Suffering might be different from mine) but it does ramp up the difficulty significantly in its later parts.

Tortured existence: the ground vomits a Marksman from its depths.

As mentioned, the game also grants players direct control on how the plot turns out. In various points of the game, players are presented situations where they can be good, neutral, or evil. Their choices in these key points will have a direct impact on the game's outcome --- kill everyone in sight and you get the "evil" ending; doing the opposite of course gives you the "good" one. I'm not sure on how to get the "neutral" one but a walkthrough reveals that killing everyone and not using Torque's ability to turn into a monster (you acquire this in the first part of the game) give you it.

What I don't like about the game is its color theme that's prevalent in most of the game --- it's too orangy, from Torque's pants to the surrounding terrain, the downloadable free PC FPS full version horror shooter is steeped in shades of orange. It may be in the realm of the subjective, but surely, isn't there a better color scheme than shades of orange? And no, it's not about the PC game's ancient game engine; Silent Hill or Resident Evil's surroundings look better in terms of color.

Yes, orange. Lots of it.

The free PC FPS' audio, with the exception of the voice acting, is a letdown. Firearms have a meaty feel to them and they have just the right amount of bass. However, they're kind of rough around the edges, making firing them not as appealing as shooting guns in say, Far Cry or Area 51, another game from Midway that has been released as freeware. It's not bad but it's far from perfect.

And then there's my issue with voices. They fade belatedly --- run away from a character who's talking and his voice will still have the same level of volume from three meters off.

Complaints aside, The Suffering does have several interesting characters. In order not to present spoilers, suffice to say I particularly like one escapee and one of the main characters, whose overall design, showman-esque voice, and frequent appearances imbue the game with a bit of the story immersion I've mentioned that this game is somewhat lacking. If this game had more of these interesting encounters, The Suffering would have been something else entirely. Sadly though, the non-player characters are few and far between, leaving you to run through the game alone (more so if you kill everyone in sight just to get the game's "evil" ending).

A malefactor flails away with hook-tipped chains. The monster is essentially a human body stuffed in a sack with chains for weapons.

Overall, The Suffering is a good horror PC game that, while feeling too drawn-out in the first parts, does boast of intermittent hair-raising encounters and frenetic gunfights that are reminiscent of the first Doom games. Fans of PC horror games that present mobs of helllspawn to cut a swath through should definitely try this one out.

When you get to the last battle, I wish you good luck: this game has one of the hardest, meanest final boss encounters I've ever been in. >)_)

>>>Download this downloadable free PC FPS full version horror shooter from HERE

>>>See gameplay videos of this downloadable free PC FPS full version horror shooter HERE

>>>See more downloadable full version free FPS PC multiplayer shooter games from HERE

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Review: Downloadable Full Version Free FPS PC Multiplayer Shooter Game - Alien Arena

(It was late when I made this; might update it tomorrow afternoon.)


"Do not run! We are your friends!" so the goblin sappers of Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne are fond of quoting. While millions of gamers may be reminded of Blizzard's diminutive green imps everytime they hear this quote, nothing resembles Mars Attacks! more than Alien Arena. This downloadable full version free FPS PC multiplayer shooter game from developer COR Entertainment has taken Quake 2-style gameplay and fused it with a 1950s alien invasion design theme that warps players back into the years of yore.


The review of this 1950s-themed downloadable full version free FPS PC multiplayer shooter game (plus a video of me against "Hard" difficulty bots!) after the jump.


Jolly, fragile-looking devils with MASSIVE guns

Right from the get-go when you fire up the game and see teammates and opponents alike in bubble helmets and goofy martian skins, you'll know that this game tries hard to have a retro sci-fi feel.

And it succeeds. Brilliantly.

From Martian Enforcers to rusty, one-eyed cyborgs, Alien Arena has all the trappings of a 1950s alien invasion film. Cylindrical bodies; segmented, tubular metallic arms; bulbous helmets --- the design at first might strike you as uninspired but after a few minutes of gaming, you'll realize that the graphical aspect of the game is intentional---and considering that all shooter games nowadays are going in the opposite direction of the timeline design-wise---brings a breath of fresh air that reeks of ingenuity.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

From the high-pitched whine of death rays (yes! green ones!), the otherwordly pew-pew of the default Blaster to the electric crackle of the Violator (the game's lethal, close-range weapon), the game's audio effectively captures what film directors of the 50s thought martian energy weapons should sound like. And while Alien Arena might be full of the pew-pews of that decade, it pulls out all the stops when it comes to the powerhouse armaments. When you hear the SKRAAKT! of the Chain Gun's alt fire or the guttural rumblings of the Flamer, you know you're holding a bad a$$ something of alien manufacture that should be bound to numerical keys above five.

But what's really satisfying to fire is Alien Arena's Vaporizer (no, it's of martian make; it's not Nick's invention). That weapon is pure evil. Compared to it, Doom 3's BFG is ghey. When you fire it, for a full second, it gives out a keen wail as its electronics charges the thing --- and then it punches out a bar of blinding blue light that totally dismembers, destroys, and disintegrates anything it lances through. It's like you have a mini-Son Goku or Lews Therin Telamon in there throwing kamehamehas and balefire.

Wait. Did I tell you my Logitech sub-woofer goes postal when I fire that thing?

It does.

Audio and graphics --- no other downloadable full version free FPS PC multiplayer shooter game has a visual and aural design cohesion that's so seamlessly tight as to give it an atmosphere so tangible and immersive as Alien Arena. Throw in Quake-style gameplay and you know you can't go wrong trying this one out.

Me against "Hard" AI opponents. Cyborgs, martians, and Terran soldiers! (First part of a two-video series)

Part two of the series.

>>>Get the downloadable full version free FPS PC multiplayer shooter game from HERE

>>>See more downloadable full version free FPS PC multiplayer shooter games from HERE

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Battletech - MechWarrior 4 Downloadable Full Free FPS PC Game

This PC multiplayer shooter game still is not free YET but this downloadable full free FPS PC shooter game WILL BE released as freeware on the 25th anniversary of the franchise. Either that, or some company's going to lose face big time for reneging on their announcement...

[EDIT: The game is now officially freeware. Check out THIS POST.]

(Links to the official sites---the founder and the publisher's--- of the downloadable full free FPS PC shooter game are found after the jump.)

-----------------------------------------


The enemy was coming, climbing the hill that separated us at a ground-eating pace. The computer identified his BattleMech as an Owens, and by his energy emissions, it was---in all probability---carrying a couple of Medium Lasers and Long-Range Missile modular launcher pods. I moved my 'Mech deeper into the grove that I had chosen as my screen.

I knew the stand of trees could not hide me; his electronics was as good as mine and, judging from his purposeful stride, my presence had already lighted up his electronics.

He topped the hill.

I fired my LRMs while quickly maneuvering for a clear shot with my lasers. My 'Mech jerked as two salvos of smoke-trailing destruction kicked from my launchers, streaking towards the lone silhouette standing on top of the promontory. The angry swarm wove around the intervening vegetation, steel locusts hungry for ferro fibrous-covered fodder.


He automatically took evasive action, his LAM system furiously providing point defense---THERE! I grabbed the clear shot, and three shafts of coherent light stabbed out, daggers of energy that slivered and melted reactive and reflective armor…


Welcome to the world of MechWarrior, where soldiers strap into ambulatory weapons delivery systems known as BattleMechs.

Based from FASA's pen-and-paper tabletop strategy Battletech game franchise, MechWarrior focuses more on the men and women who pilot the juggernauts of destruction that walk the 30th century.

In both the multiplayer shooter PC game and pen-and-paper versions, the franchise had players tweaking their engines of destruction, replacing modular weapon systems with ones of their liking. This freedom of modifying existing 'Mech builds (within specified weight limit restrictions), held great appeal and the franchise was wildly successful in its heyday.

However, in January 2001, the company closed. What seems surprising (and painful to BattleTech fanatics) is that the company didn't fold due to financial reasons. The founders closed down the company as they felt the pen-and-paper industry was going downhill. Microsoft and Activision still continued to make games a few years after that but FASA ceased the production of BattleTech boxed sets.

In December 2007, however, one of its founders, Jordan Weisman, announced that his venture, Smith & Tinker, was resurrecting the MechWarrior franchise. On July 9, the company's site announced that they will be releasing the multiplayer PC shooter MechWarrior 4---and all its expansions---for free.

Curious, I've downloaded the demo version of MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries and gave the PC FPS game a go. For its time, the free FPS offers superb graphics and an insane amount of customization. In it, players can swap weapons systems, add in different systems (point defense, jumpjets---yes, Justin! Jumpjets!---IFF jammers, etc), and choose types of armor and engines, to name a few of the plethora of tweaks available.

It might seem a minor thing compared to the whole picture, but I really like this game's audio effects for the laser weapons of the 'Mechs --- every time I fire a Large Laser, I can almost feel the very air being seared as those powerful beams of light lance out.

These are just light 'Mechs but the feel of pounding the earth and tearing apart trees as you bound through the landscape is very satisfying. Awesome? Very.

>>>MechWarrior 4 to be released for free! - The Smith & Tinker news post
>>>BattleTech.com
>>>More free PC FPS HERE
>>>Free PC RPG games HERE
>>>Freeware strategy games HERE

>>>Having problems installing the game? Here's a guide on how to install Mechwarrior 4 using Mektek's MTX software

>>>Click here to read more...

Downloadable PC Free FPS Multiplayer Shooter - Full Game Area 51 Review

Not the type who reads "long-winded" reviews? Click the link at the bottom to see the full review where a gameplay video of the downloadable PC free FPS multiplayer shooter is shown. A link to more free full downloadable PC free FPS multiplayer shooters can also be found below.

Released a year after Far Cry and Doom 3---two PC first-person multiplayer shooter games that upped the bar in graphics standard---Area 51 didn't garner a solid following of full game FPS fans and faded gradually out of the limelight almost immediately after its release. Recently though (after Midway folded?) Area 51 has stormed its way into the freeware arena, stomping its full game free fps shooter game brethren. Touting Midway-backed production values, the game---which garnered only average reviews from reputable gaming sites like GameSpot and IGN---now stands as one of the must-downloads in the downloadable freeware scene.

See the in-depth review---complete with screenshots and the download link---after the jump.


Area 51 is a sci-fi PC first-person shooter that is reminiscent of the Half-life series. As specialist Ethan Cole, you get to go inside the Groom Lake facility where---yes, you guessed it---something has gone terribly wrong. A virus has spread inside the facility, infecting its personnel. While in the beginning the base is under military control, things slowly start going south as you blaze your way through the game's levels. By the time you finish its first half, all your companions will have died.

While in itself the game's hackneyed story can't hope to captivate its players, Area 51 does provide PC FPS fans with a cathartic experience delivered by a decent game engine.

Despite being trumped by Crytek and id Software's games, for a 2005 release, the engine is more than capable, rendering light sources convincingly, bathing in-game objects with bloom effects. It also has no trouble rendering firefights with multiple adversaries; these play out smoothly, exhibiting consistent framerates.

Yes, lights; lots of them...

The game initially pits you and the HAZMAT team that you belong to against hordes of infected AREA 51 personnel. Sadly, the developers didn’t quite get the cathartic, frenetic feel of popular horde games like Doom 2 and Serious Sam. This can be attributed to the fact that despite Area 51’s superb audio---glass shatters convincingly and you can almost feel the recoil of the guns---infected react to injury in a very anemic manner. Even if hit by multiple bullets, they don't even scream until before the moment they croak, making shooting them as exciting as shooting moving pieces of cardboard. This comes as a disappointment given that the first part of the game is chock-full of these creatures.



Without spoiling anything too much, the game does pick up in the second half. You become infected and gain the ability to mutate temporarily into a long-taloned, thick-skinned monstrosity that soon enough gains two more abilities:

• Parasite - enables you to shoot tentacled flying things that seek out and latch on to the nearest enemy, leeching health and giving it to you (how they do that I have no idea) and
• Contagion - lets you shoot a stream of bacteria/pheromones/whatever at an enemy, making them go postal. Enemies in this state will attack whoever is nearest. The infection then kills the afflicted after a short period.

The game also introduces a new type of enemy ----- spec ops soldiers. These baddies are as smart as the infected are dumb. While not exhibiting an AI as smart as of FEAR, they do take cover and lob grenades. They also take cover behind crates though I think the programmers have defined “safe zones” for Area 51’s AI. When they come near one of these (crates, alcoves, etc), they immediately make a beeline towards the zones come hell or high water. Though they use these self-preservation tactics consistently, they don’t know how to flank and more often than not rush headlong into your fire while their comrades provide suppressive fire. Again, the behavior isn’t FEAR but it does the job fairly well, pitting players against competent enemies.

...and soldiers. Lots of them too. Wait until you play in Hard mode and see their entire tribe.

One ax to grind against this game however, is the poor implementation of several features, namely its dual-wield system, grenade “inventory,” and how you access the in-game documents you input into a mini-computer that is attached to your character’s wrist. (Yes, it’s like Q collaborated with Vulcans to invent a tricorder-disguised-as-a-wrist-watch thingamajig.) I believe that all video games play on the concept that the player is in control. It’s with the aforementioned things that Area 51 fails.

The game lets you dual-wield assault rifles. While this is cool, aiming is hard. In the early stages of the game (when the sniper rifle isn’t available yet) this forced me to use a pistol in long-range firefights. An option to drop the second rifle when the situation calls for it would have been nice as it would have given the player greater tactical control over firefights.

The grenade inventory system fails --- big time. The game lets you use two types of grenades: the usual one and this alien-spawned Jelly Bean of Death that explodes on contact, bounces wildly once, creates a black hole, and then explodes a second time. Needless to say, the second is very powerful and is best reserved for very hard gun battles. Unfortunately, saving up on this JB grenades is an option not available to you. They “stack” on top of your regular grenades with no way to toggle between regular and alien grenades ala Halo. Again, this deprives the player of a greater tactical control.

What's an "Area 51" game without alien weaponry?

Lastly, the in-game documents that you can gather throughout the game provide the player glimpses of the life of the scientists in the Groom Lake facility. They also bolster the conspiracy theory behind crop circles and various epidemics that have ravaged our planet. These are meant to improve the immersive atmosphere as the player runs through the previously sterile halls of the science facility. Or they would have, if the designers of the game decided that the player can only read them if the exits the singleplayer campaign and accesses them through the game’s main menu. How they reached that decision is utterly beyond me.

All these however, are minor annoyances if compared to the mix of cathartic audio, fierce firefights, and immersive environments that is Area 51.

And hey, it’s free.

>>>Download the full free FPS game from here

>>>See more downloadable free PC FPS multiplayer shooters HERE

>>>(Warning: spoilers!!) Do you want to see the entire Area 51 Secret Files series?

>>>See freeware strategy games HERE

>>>Click here to read more...

Download Free Full Shooter Sim Game: Star Wraith: Shadows of Orion

So with a whole sack of salt I downloaded this 9Mb freeware shooter game called Star Wraith: Shadow of Orion...




...and had my skepticism blown to smithereens by pulse lasers.

At 9Mb, I didn't expect much from this freeware full shooter sim game. When I installed it and listened to the minutes-long tutorial though, I realized there and then that this little baby has more than just flash from starship drives and space pewpew prevalent in wannabe games that just coat themselves with eye candy and throw everything else outside the nearest warpgate. Free full shooter sim game Star Wraith: Shadows of Orion has (nearly?) all the complexity that serious space sim fans crave for.

This game has controls for making your space fighter strafe, spin left and right, give orders to squadmates, allocate power to your shields and weapon systems, activate jumpjets, and drop electronic countermeasures at incoming missiles. Panels also let you see your current target and your squadmates' shields. You can also cycle through targets, making your missiles track targets of opportunity.



What with the dearth of space sim game nowadays, this free full shooter sim game should more than satisfy Wing Commander and Freelancer fans out there.

Download this free full shooter sim game from HERE.

The official site of Starwraith 3D Games can be found HERE.

>>> Other freeware shooters

>>>Click here to read more...

Freeware Multiplayer Shooter: Halo Demo

So I downloaded the Halo demo...


Well, being a demo, it's not really a freeware multiplayer shooter but it does the job. It contains the "Silent Cartographer" level and Halo's multiplayer shooter component.

I played around for a bit and yes, it IS Halo. I was expecting some eye-candy cuts here and there but for all purposes, it IS the game. And while those who have never played Halo before will definitely want to get the full version asap (it IS Halo THE game after all), the multiplayer shooter component is definitely a keeper for those who have yet to purchase the award-winning game. (There were some connection glitches but I think it's my damned Wi-Fi.)

The report page doesn't display scores but heck, I had fun:

Don't mind the name lol! It's a private joke.

>>>Click here to read more...

Downloadable Free PC FPS Multiplayer Shooter: TribesNext - Full Game Tribes 2

That got your attention.

Whoa, what's with this week? I just made an article about the free FPS multiplayer shooter Starsiege: Tribes and now, out pops this news that some fans just made a patch for Tribes 2 that makes it playable even without the game's original master servers.

That's right fellas, one of the most unique PC first-person shooter games is now a free FPS multiplayer shooter. (The link to the free game is found below.)

310 players online (12:40pm, GMT +8). Not bad for a downloadable free PC FPS multiplayer shooter.

While the premise of the entire Tribes series borders on the ridiculous (Why on earth will you outfit your troops with sets of power armor that no doubt will gobble massive amounts of resources and then send them up to the skies where they can easily be picked off by enemy fire? Also, why did a civilization come up with the idea that guns with slow-moving projectiles are more efficient?), it makes up for gameplay that's so unique as it introduced a vertical element to the PC FPS genre. The series is the Homeworld of PC first-person shooter games.

How is this free FPS multiplayer shooter fun you ask? See the video below:

Uploaded by mrwynd. Video made by a member of Team Vanguard. Shows vehicular combat and mid-air kills.

Tribes 2 introduces more vehicles and larger maps. It's also --- like its predecessor, Starsiege: Tribes --- predominantly a team-based capture-the-flag multiplayer shooter; opposing teams protect their flag while trying to get the enemies'. Think of it as a game like soccer. However, here, there are two "soccer balls" (the flags), no goals, and to score, you must have your "ball" in your base and touch it with your enemies' "ball."

WTH. That came out sounding wrong.

Anyway, it's not easy as you think as getting the enemies' "ball" entails that you have to rush headlong into the other "soccer players" who are guarding their "ball." And ohboy, are they are armed. The majority of them will be armed with spinfusors --- guns that shoot discs of such explosive power that if one hits you, it's gonna rip your power armor to shreds and blow you to kingdom come.

Here's a video explaining the basic premise of the downloadable free PC FPS multiplayer shooter. (A capper's role is to get the enemies' flag. They usually don light armor.)

A video explaining the gameplay of Tribes 2. T2Darlantan, the uploader, does an excellent commentary on how the game is played and the strategies a team comes up with to try to win a match.

A TribesNext video, showing the current state of the game. Nothing has been changed of course. It still is Tribes 2.

Links:

A Newbie's Guide - forum post detailing the various ships, base assets, and weapons available in the downloadable free PC FPS multiplayer shooter. Also contains definitions of common Tribes 2 jargon.

Installation Screenshot Walkthrough - forum post detailing how to install the downloadable free PC FPS multiplayer shooter.

TribesNext Official Site - Download the free PC FPS multiplayer shooter here.

Happy gaming! Shazbot!

DISCLAIMER: The videos are in no way mine.

>>>Click here to read more...

PC Multiplayer Shooter Starsiege: Tribes Anti-hack Script

The curse of the video game industry: create PC first-person shooter games that are too easy to pick up and they get dismissed as generic. Create PC first-person shooter games that require dedicated teamwork as to create kinds of gameplay that are complex and unique and the developers may have cult classics on their hands --- ones that will be easily forgotten except by their hardcore followers on the day a next-gen PC first-person shooter game comes along.

One such example is Starsiege: Tribes. Featuring a multiplayer shooter gameplay with jetpacks and almost no hitscan weapons, Tribes created the ultimate clay shooting game.

Heh. Boring? Definitely not.

Here, all of the players are the clay discs and you are armed with weapons that shoot --- if compared to bullets --- relatively slow-moving projectiles. You have to anticipate where your enemy is headed and shoot where you think he's swooping in (this is called "leading").

Wait there's more.

Yes, there's definitely more.

The "clay disc" thing is just a metaphor. Heh. Ha. Ha. Here, you all are futuristic soldiers who are divided into three classes in each team --- Light, Medium, and Heavy. Each class has a role to follow in this team deathmatch multiplayer shooter and each has pros and cons regarding firepower, speed, and armor. You and your teammates defend a base that you can set up with turrets, mines and force fields.

These all make up for a game that, for its time, was absolutely unique. It's just disappointing that it didn't garner the kind of attention it should have gotten from the gaming community. The reason? The same one that makes it special --- it deviated too much from the usual PC first-person shooter games; it presented too high of a learning curve to new players.

Virtually a mobile artillery platform, a Tribesman encased in heavy armor scans the skies for incoming enemies.

Sniping at two enemies. Here, you can't hide as the game clearly marks each player with red and green arrows. It's all about the jetpacking and the leading.

A scout jetpacks towards her base while an ally stands guard at the entrance --- no one must infiltrate the base to wreak havoc on its electronics!

Nowadays, this freeware multiplayer shooter is being kept alive by a robust online community who maintain servers.

Two of these, MaxOGC and the official site for the Annihilation Mod, have recently released an anti-hack script. Instructions on how this can be installed can be found HERE.

Video uploaded by Phanakapan in YouTube showing Starsiege: Tribes gameplay

Happy shooting!

>>> Where can I download this freeware multiplayer shooter that has been hailed by Gamespot as one of the greatest PC first-person shooter games of all time? (Players are advised to download the 1.30 Last Hope patch as servers usually host v1.30 games.)

>>>Click here to read more...