The game's creators, having officially flipped the 2.0 switch, feel Gang Garrison 2 "is now stable enough to start telling the world about it." So what has changed? Well, according to the staff, the nine fully functional classes — Runner, Rocketman, Firebug, Detonator, Overweight, Constructor, Rifleman, Healer and Infiltrator — have new sprites!

But there's much more than that. Version 2.0 includes new and shiny things like:

- Unique Taunts
- New Music
- New Menus
- New HUD
- New Options
- New Explosions and Effects
- Tons of new maps
- Custom map support and a Level Editing Utility.
- Kill notifications
- In-game communication
- Team Autobalancer
- Spectator Mode

A word of warning though, from the official announcement of 2.0-ness: "While this game has come a long way, it is still a work in progress. Many impressive new features are currently being planned and developed, like new gametypes and alternate weapons."

Go on! Grab that EXE. (And tell me how it is... )

Gang Garrison 2 [Official Site - thanks, Sam!]

D-Pad Hero, a retro "demake," uses rather simple-looking pad controls — simply press a button and one of the directional pad's axes in time with the beat — one's that appear to ramp up in difficulty rather quickly. This is a fully functioning Nintendo Entertainment System game, one that you can download and play on the emulator of your preference.

As you can see in the demo video above, it's not unlike Beatmania or Dance Dance Revolution in its interface. But the stylings are totally NES. Go on, grab yourself a copy. It has "Sweet Child O' Mine"...

D-Pad Hero [Official Site via Offworld]

While maybe not up to the spec laid out by Blizz and apparently not playable on a proper Atari 2600 emulator as some other recent demakes were, The Molten Core is playable and visually more authentic than previous attempts to make this joke serious.

The Windows-only download is a mere 2MB and, according to its author, offers about 20 minutes of gameplay. I've yet to walk to the Windows box to try it out myself, so downloaders beware.

The Molten Core [Gamer's University via Something Awful Forums]

GG2 is in a complete 1.0 stage and clocks in at 4.8 MB. There's a deep forum discussion on its creation over at TIG Forums, and its periodically updated.

Of course, I feel obligated to tell you to take all sorts of reasonable precautions with what .exe's you download and install. But if you do play it, let everyone know your impressions in the comments. Mine: the sprites, at least in the close-up stills, look nice and familiar. Gameplay seems to follow the same kind of running/jumping physics, if a little skimpy on the animations.

burgerk1ng says it's a fun game. The file can be found here and here. Boilerplate caution about downloading and installing .exes from strangers.

Gang Garrison II [FINISHED] [TIGForums, big thanks reader burgerk1ng]

...it probably wouldn't have been that good. One of the other entries from The Independent Gaming Source's Demakes contest is this Shadow of the Colossus throwback. One can make the argument that graphics don't matter, but unless you're moved emotionally by parallax scrolling, some of the "oomph" when Team ICO's game gets ported to the TRS-80 Model III. Like the Portal demake Super 3D Portals 6, this one's freely playable.

Hold me closer, Giant Dancer [TIGsource Forums]

The 8-bit re-imagining is playable on the Atari VCS emulator of your choice, but the author recommends Stella. It's also free. We're firing up our copy of Stella on the Kotaku Towers West PC to partake right now.

SUPER 3D PORTALS 6 - FINISHED [TIGsource Forums]