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You have almost no excuse not to download freeware indie platformer Ninja Senki, the action platform game from Jonathan Lavigne inspired by classic NES games Ninja Jajamaru-Kun and Mega Man. More »
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When things go 2.0, it's a big deal. Remember Web 2.0? Boy did we have some fun with that! Thankfully, the fan-made, Team Fortress 2-inspired 8-bit"demake" Gang Garrison 2 has reached such a milestone. More »
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Joakim "Konjak" Sandberg, developer of the gorgeous IGF nominaated Noitu Love series, has released a one-level "love letter to Zelda" called The Legend of Princess. It's the unofficial sequel to Zelda II we'll never get. More »
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We, along with a lot of other people, took a look at the rather offensive Muslim Massacre. Kotakuite tokeytorey let us know that after getting a lot of press, attention, and wrath directed at him, creator Eric "Sigvatr" Vaughn had tucked tail and posted an 'I'm sorry' and obligatory 'In retrospect' statement on the Muslim Massacre website. I take a sort of dim view of statements that verge on 'but you just didn't UNDERSTAND what I was trying to say' chest beating (apologize and move on, dude), but both statements are after the jump: More »
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The top-down shooter Muslim Massacre instructs players to "Take control of the American hero and wipe out the Muslim race with an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons!" And that's pretty much it. Kicking off with a George W. Bush voice sample ("Let's roll!"), the player lays waste to scores of Muslims in a bloody 2D landscape, on city streets and soccer fields, with Robotron (or, if you prefer, Smash TV) inspired gameplay. You kill hundreds of faceless men and women, some with suicide bomb vests, some unarmed, as you work your way up to "bosses" like Osama bin Laden and, ultimately, Allah. It's packed with tasteless stereotypes and unapologetic detached violence. More »
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Indie developer Zombie Cow (they did the spoof deathmatch platformer Gibbage)- have released another 'tribute' game — this time a Windows Point 'n' Click adventure heavily inspired by classic Lucasarts SCUMM games like Monkey Island, Sam & Max Hit The Road and Day Of The Tentacle. More »
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If you're up late and fancy killing off an hour or two of your not-so-precious time, you could do worse than giving Hikkikomori Quest a spin. A freeware RPG, it tells the tale of a Hikkikomori who, having had his birthday ruined on 4chan, decides to set out to prove the world wrong by performing brave deeds. Like...leaving the house and buying a hot dog. It's an adorable piss-take, and best of all, features some artwork by Paul Robertson, he of Pirate Baby fame. You can download/get more info at the links below, but please, don't all go at once, you'll break things. More »
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Tales of Game, the team behind Charles Barkley Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden have released their latest freeware roguelike The Sewer Goblet: The Wu-Tang Clan and the Wu-Tang Baby, a dungeon crawling adventure starring GZA, RZA, the late Ol' Dirty Bastard, Raekwon and the rest of the Wu-Tang crew. And for maximum appeal, Tales of Game has introduced the Wu-Tang Baby, a "tiny but majestic baby with a mysterious pendant" adopted by the seminal rap group. More »
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What'd I do today? I was meant to do some work. That didn't really happen. Instead, I ended up hovering around Ikarium all day. It's a free, web-based strategy game that's basically Civilization, except it's web-based, and it's free. And entirely multiplayer. Alliances, diplomacy, war, trade, the works. What's best is that build routines are done in real-time, so you can open it up first thing in the morning, set some orders then just let it run over the course of the day, only requiring you to check in every now and again to keep things ticking along. Just like a good web-based (ie office-friendly) game should be. More »
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BusinessWeek are very serious. So seeing they've just opened the "BusinessWeek Arcade" - which is a catalogue/portal for "some of the Web's best free, independently produced games" - on their site is a bit of a shock. Not as big a shock as seeing the calibre of games they've got on there, though. No shitty, cheap flash games here: the idle professional will instead be enjoying top-shelf titles like Crayon Physics, Toribash, Tumiki Fighters and - yes - Off-Road Velociraptor Safari. More »
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Farbs' excellent ROM CHECK FAIL is a WarioWare-style retro mash up featuring the gameplay, music and graphics from gaming's best arcade and console classics. The freeware PC game (a wee download) borrows from Defender, The Legend of Zelda, Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Spy Hunter, Qix, Buster Bros. and others to create a quirky, fun race against the clock for high scores. One second Link is stabbing away at asteroids, the next Pac-Man is biting his way through an Arkanoid level. More »
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This is Twin Hobo Rocket, a pretty great downloadable game by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl, creators of Tri-achnid. You control two bums. In space. As they pop balloons and pester aliens for spare change. It's only 5MB, and has some wonderful toe-tappin hobo music, so go on, have a go. More »
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The world's best gaming deals can't beat "free!", so for those without a gift card in hand this post-holiday season, you may want to take a gander at The Independent Gaming Source's best freeware games of 2007. The number of titles, across an amazingly broad 30 categories, point out the year's best shooters, platformers and RPGs that can be had without anything more than some disposable bandwidth. Topping the list is a game that I only recently discovered myself while searching for Gradius pics, a Warning Forever-style top down boss fight-only shooter named Fraxy. The Japanese freeware game lets players create their own levels (bosses) with an intuitive editor. Other titles you may already be familiar with, including Knytt Stories, Guxt, Sam and Max: Abe Lincoln Must Die and the now free Command and Conquer. More »
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Last time we posted about the sublime freeware platformer Cave Story and its upcoming migration to the PSP, many of you called me out, claiming that this project by Variant Interactive was widely known to be an unauthorized port. Pixel had apparently decried it. I was so swayed by the collective voice that I urged none of you to buy it. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=208948&view=rss&microfeed=true We got a curious email from Hampa, pointing us to this video of his bizarre, bloody turn-based fighter, Toribash. "I know you featured the game Toribash a bit before!" Hampa insisted. More »
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With Vice City Stories and Silent Hill: Origins coming to the PSP in the next couple of months, Sony's brick has almost gone from "Portable Most Likely To Be Stuffed Into A Sock And Used To Bludgeon Ken Kutaragi Clean To Death" to being marginally worth having. But the announcement that Pixel's freeware 8-bit classic, Cave Story is coming to the PSP is a huge boon for the system. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=206111&view=rss&microfeed=true A new bit of seemingly helpful software called XB Stream has managed to knock out a bunch of podcast sites. More »
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Almost more interesting than their story itself is this sidebar over at TIGSource. "Serious game journalists needed!" it proclaims in the headline. Next sentence? A salutation to those very same self-stylized Pauline Kaels of gaming: "Hey bitches." More »
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Megagames.com has compiled a gigantic list of free games for those blogging hobos that are popping up everywhere. There are approximately 400 in the list, from the unsightly yiff-fest MMO "Furcadia", to the socially-conscious condom shill "Catch the Sperm". More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=183266&view=rss&microfeed=true Cave Story is one of the greatest games ever made. Period, then exclamation point, then my hobnail boot imploding the obnoxious face of the fool who disagrees. So charming, frantic, ethereal... the creator, Pixel, is one of those quiet, imminently modest geniuses that just melts your heart. More »
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I am a total sucker for free games, particularly free games that don't inflict advertising pain, are virus free, and take an old concept and inject with something new. This time, the something old is Pong and the something new is an "environment driven by computational fluid dynamics". Ouch! My brain! More »
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Nerd-chic sister site Lifehacker brings word of a Windows-only Freeware program that lets you cheat. Called "Poke," the freeware doesn't let gamers fudge at multiplayer titles, but is perfect for single-player titles like The Sims. How does it work? More »
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Now that Christmas has come and gone and gifts are likely a thing that's not coming your way until next year, it's time to start looking for freebies again. Fortunately for all of us, Ghacks put together a cool list of the best freeware of the year. Their top five include strategy, action, shooter and adventure. More »
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Over at 1UP.com has a story about Kuma Reality Games and their free, slightly strange Saddam Hussein game. The game places players in the middle of Iraqi history in positions with the ability to stop the horrors of Hussein (in some cases) before they start. It's part video game, part history lesson - but at least it's free. More »
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