GameHippo.art : ADVENTURE

What do you expect when you die? Shining light? Booming voice? Rotting slowly in the ground? You probably don't expect to be greeted by a grouchy old crone in a flying yellow bus, but then, neither does Nathan.ï¿½ Thatï¿½s how the game starts for you, as Nathan ï¿½ walk out of the door, have a heart attack, and dieï¿½ to be greeted by this flying yellow bus and taken to some sort of research post in deep spaceï¿½ When there you find out why youï¿½ve been taken toï¿½ well, not the afterlife, exactly. You see, youï¿½re going to be getting a second chanceï¿½ a chance to sort your life out, basically. Reconcile with your daughter mainlyï¿½ which may not be easy. With information from a slide-show and a little help from your friends, however, you may just be able to pull it offï¿½ What we have here is a traditional point and click adventure, and a well executed one it is. However, what I really liked about this game was the surreal, slightly warped humour that came from both the characters and dialogue, along with the fact that this is a game with a heart. The author, Tim Knauf, has done a great job with that and also in making sure there is plenty of variety in the type of puzzles to be solved, without any of them being real stumpers. All in all this is a great little game for anyone who enjoys adventure games, while serving as a perfect introduction to the genre for anyone unused to them The game is of course freeware but I really do ask that if you play the game and enjoy it, you email the author (address on his website mentioned below). Iï¿½m hoping that if he gets enough response, heï¿½ll write another! :-D Final Ratings Graphics: 8/10 ï¿½ very colourful and stylistic hand-drawn graphics with some nice animated touches to. Sound: 7/10 ï¿½ some good quality sound effects and bits of good music here and there (no MIDI files!) Playability: 8/10 ï¿½ easy to use interface that does what you need with the minimum of fuss. Longevity: 7/10 ï¿½ a decent-length game, over far too shortly, but thatï¿½s largely because itï¿½s so enjoyable in the first place! Replay Value: 8/10 ï¿½ the warped humour and short length make for a game youï¿½ll come back to after a while. This is a slightly abridged version of my review which first appeared at http://www.epinions.com/content_4636975236

PC REQUIREMENTS: 700Mhz CPU, 192Mb RAM, Windows 95 and up

GAME AUTHOR Tim Knauf
REVIEWED BY CaptainD
STAFF RATING 7/10
USER RATING 7.6/10

FILE SIZE 7 MB
FILE DATE Dec 31, 2005
UPLOADED Feb 25, 2006
DEV TOOL SLUDGE

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Iter Vehemens ad Necem

Iter Vehemens ad Necem (or IVAN, for short) is a graphical rogue-like that is simple enough for the casual gamer to play, but has even more depth than most of the others. Don't let the confusing name fool you, this is a game that rivals that of Nethack in the sheer joy of playing it. Within the world of IVAN, you play a lowly banana picker. One day, you are on your break when you are called to the castle. The viceroy of this colony tells you that another colony close by may be plotting against him, and you are givin the mission to take a letter to this place. You are not told what this letter says (you can't even read it), why you should do it, or what you are going to get out of it. You are just ordered to do it. Yes, the story is pretty lame, but the gameplay easily makes up for it. As I said before, IVAN is a rogue-like, and plays like one. Most of the time, you'll be running through dungeons killing monsters that oppose you. However, this is definitely one of the highest quality, and most unique of all rogue-likes I've seen. The game is suprisingly simple to play for a rogue-like, the commands are simplified and easier for the people who don't want to read manuals and study control lists. Even through the simplification, the game retains some complexity in the vast amount of things you can do. When was the last time you prayed to a god in a game, and the god invokes his wrath to sever your arm off? Yes, by far one of the most unique things I've ever seen in a game like this is the body system. All of your body parts can be severed off, and it all drastically effects how your player works. If one of your legs is severed off, your encumbrance is severely reduced, and your movements are slowed. If you lose both legs... well, your only hope is to pray to your most appreciative god in hopes he will give you a couple of iron legs, or else you'll be laying on the floor until you starve or are killed by the unforgiving amount of creatures about (or you could use an amulet of life saving, but those are extremely rare). You also must pay attention to the amount of damage your body has sustained. Eventually, you will start to bleed in areas you have been hit in, which detracts from your health even further. Of course, you've still got all the things you loved from other rogue-likes here, such as polymorph, one of my favorites. The only things I could've hoped for is a character creation system. You always start out with the same stats and items, with no options to tweak him. However, your character starts out as a clean slate, which you build upon throughout the game. Depending on your actions, you can build up certain skills. Carrying enough items to weigh yourself down will increase your leg strength, and taking heavy damage and healing wounds through rest will increase your endurance. This also applies to weaponry, use your weapon in your left hand and you will gain a proficiency with that hand, and fighting with one type of weapon for a long time will let you level up your skills for that weapon as well. This allows you to build your own type of character to play how you want. IVAN's graphics are very good for a rogue-like game. Objects are nicely detailed for their small size and there are lots of nice little graphical treats to be found within the game. When you hit an enemy, or when you're hit, you will see blood splatter on the ground, if youï¿½re hit hard enough youï¿½ll see your character dripping in blood. Once a character is bleeding, you will see a trail of blood following where they went. If an enemy runs after you have critically hurt him, you'll be able to chase him down and slaughter him for that nicely deserved helmet you were admiring. The real downside (if you see it that way) is the extreme difficulty. Iter Vehemens ad Necem even means; Violent Road to Death, which aptly describes the difficulty level. Overall, IVAN a great game with lots of features to keep you coming back for more, even when you've been killed by that pathetic little kobold around the corner. Most people could probably find something here to love, but the difficulty of the game is so unforgiving at times you might give up on it and move on to other games just because you lost your favorite character you worked so hard on. IVAN is the closest example of a perfect freeware RPG I've ever seen, and easily deserves a 10/10. I've always been a big Nethack fan, but IVAN has surpassed my expectations for any freeware RPG.

PC REQUIREMENTS: 266 MHz CPU, 48 MB RAM

REVIEWED BY Sykz
STAFF RATING 10/10
USER RATING 8.8/10

FILE SIZE 1.3 MB
FILE DATE Dec 10, 2004
UPLOADED Mar 17, 2005
DEV TOOL C/C++ (generic)

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Wodan - The Trial

Welcome to the world of Wodan. Here, all land is made up of colorful hexagons aimlessly floating on an endless sea. This land is inhabited by goofy looking men. As if it wasn't obvious, these men have one thing on their mind: domination. Wodan - The Trial is a turnbased strategy game with an innovative set of rules. Once you start a game, a small world of hexagons will be randomly generated based on the guidelines you set beforehand. Each hexagon is evenly devided up between the players, and ownership is identified through each player's color. Players take turns recruiting soldiers, possibly combining soldiers, conquering enemy hexagons or soldiers, or the intense thrill of cutting down pesky trees. To add depth to the combat, soldiers can be combined to create more powerful variations. Soldiers of higher levels are used to kill lower level ones, while opposing soldiers of equal level can't move in to adjacent squares nor attack each other (until you get level four soldiers; this results in both men dying). You can also construct towers. These function as immobile level two soldiers that don't require the normal upkeep all soldiers use. When one player takes over every hexagon on the board, they win. The graphics are simple but don't look bad at all. I like the graphics of the tiny men as they stand around, waving their arms without a care in the world. There is no music in Wodan, and very few sounds. There are little beeps and boops when you conquer land and a silly, undescribable sound when you destroy soldiers or villages. Up to eight human or computer opponents can be playing at the same time. Even more, you can play with other people on the same computer, across a network, or even through E-mail if for some reason you so desire. Despite the unappealing graphics and near lack of sound, the game is a blast to play. Wodan should offer a lot of replay value, even if you just play with computers. The computer opponents can put up a good fight, but it's encouraged that you find some other folks to play with. To top it off, Wodan is a very accessible, easy to learn game with a small 741 KB filesize. After reading this, there is no reason you shouldn't be playing Wodan - The Trials afterward.

PC REQUIREMENTS: Direct X 5 or above

REVIEWED BY Sykz
STAFF RATING 9/10
USER RATING 5.6/10

FILE SIZE 741 KB
FILE DATE Feb 15, 2006
UPLOADED Aug 18, 2006
DEV TOOL unknown

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5 Days A Stranger

Trilby is a tall, elegant, English gentleman thief. Thanks to an informer, he is heading to the now deserted DeFoe manor, whose owner and wife tragically died recently, hoping for a good booty. But, once he entered the big house, he can't exit; doors and windows leading outside the huge estate can't be opened anymore. Moreover, there's other people inside, trapped like him. And things get even worse when someone dies... So, we have a classic haunted house theme, but the entire game is so well developed over it, that you'll quickly forget this detail. The plot, articulated through the five days of the title, develops greatly, and a lot of reading is involved in getting to know more of the mansion and its former occupants. The atmosphere is one of the game's strong points. Gore is very scarce, there are more fear and terror than visual horror. What I liked the most, are the cutscenes involving situations where you can't tell where reality ends and nightmare starts, or vice versa. In those cases, I was genuinely SCARED. Later in the game, you could be afraid of going on, in fear of witnessing some more bad events. Really a great work on this side. Graphics are nothing to scream about. They just do their work more than decently, reminding me of the Sierra adventures of the late '80s, early 90's. I must point out, however, that a good effort was put into animations, you'll get the chance to see some noticeable ones in action. Music are declaredly taken from the RPG Maker 2000 library, but they fit with the atmosphere. Most of the time, however, it's just silence and strange noises, helping develop the tension. The interface is simple and not invasive. You can use the icons on the bottom of the screen to select the main actions, but it's better to click the right mouse button to recall the complete interface with actions, items and save/load/quit functions. The only annoyance is that you have to move the mouse outside the interface to close it every time. The game is not exactly long, also due to the limited amount of rooms - but, after all, you are confined inside a mansion, so a big variety of locations wasn't to be expected from the start. Some puzzles could prove to be challenging, you may feel clueless about what to do next until you gather the necessary information; remember, often reading is the key. Don't forget to save sometimes: in the second half of the game, there are a couple of situations were you could get killed. There are some game design flaws. You will find, at some points, a couple of objects practically popping out of nowhere at the right time you need them, an artifice I never liked in adventure games. And at times, for example after Trilby heard a strange noise or a bad event just occurred, he talks to other characters like nothing happened. But these problems don't hamper the quality of 5 Days A Stranger too much. It hasn't the lastability of some of the best freeware adventures, but it beats many of them in terms of atmosphere. It's far from perfect, but with such small download size you shouldn't miss it.

GAME AUTHOR Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw
REVIEWED BY Gendo Ikari
STAFF RATING 8/10
USER RATING 8.1/10

FILE SIZE 1.2 MB
FILE DATE Sep 29, 2003
UPLOADED Aug 07, 2004
DEV TOOL Adventure Game Studio

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Chicken Fighters 2002

Take Pokemon, remove the puzzle elements, replace all the pokemon with chickens, and you get Chicken Fighters 2002. And a good thing that is too. If you haven't played Pokemon, the basic idea of CF2k2 is that you wander around the countryside and catch chickens, then you fight the chickens against other chickens owned by other Chicken Fighters. Your chickens have several stats that improve as they win battles, which determine how much damage they do/recieve and how likely any hits are. You start in the town and have access to the desert where you can catch earth element chickens and fight in the Desert Tournament. To be able to fight in other tournaments you have to have a high enough chicken. In tournaments you earn money for winning which you can use to upgrade your chicken's defense and attack, buy health items for use in battle, and heal your chicken after battles. One thing that I like in Chicken Fighters is that you can go off and find chickens and then take them to the Slaughter House where you can sell them. Rarer and better chickens fetch more cash. This game will last you for some time if you enjoy it, there are eight different tournaments, a map editor, single player deathmatch and multiplayer deathmatch over internet or LAN. The only place CF2k2 falls down is the lack of anything else to accomplish while you level up your chickens, which can get a bit tedious and stops it from getting a 9 or 10 rating.

PC REQUIREMENTS: 200 MHz CPU, 16 MB RAM

GAME AUTHOR Issa
REVIEWED BY Rocksicle
STAFF RATING 8/10
USER RATING 5.1/10

FILE SIZE 1.8 MB
FILE DATE Jan 08, 2002
UPLOADED Jan 13, 2003
DEV TOOL Visual Basic

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