Ben There, Dan That follows the adventures of programmer Dan Marshall and his reanimated zombie flatmate, Ben. What starts out as a simple hunt for a TV aerial to facilitate viewing of Magnum: PI turns into a multidimensional quest for a missing Yin-Yang.

If you don't mind some fairly primitive graphics, enjoy in-jokes about retro gaming and think you can stomach what Zombie Cow themselves describe as "the odd dabble of mild racism" (Eh? Careful with the irony guns, guys, that stuff can get everywhere) then BTDT is available for the low, low price of free - although Zombie Cow would certainly not object if you wanted to chuck a donation their way.

Ben There, Dan That [Zombie Cow]

Freeware Game Pick: Hikkikomori Quest [IndieGames]
Hikkikomori Quest RPG [Welcome to the Dream of Future]

You'll need to protect ya neck as you explore the 36 chambers of the sewer, reclaiming the Wu-Tang Baby from the Cheese Panda. You'll find the freely downloadable The Sewer Goblet: The Wu-Tang Clan and the Wu-Tang Baby, should you be so inclined to take the low fidelity, high concept adventure.

The Sewer Goblet - The Wu-Tang Clan and the Wu-Tang Baby [Gaming World Forums via Waxy]

It may not hold your attention for more than twenty minutes, and may frustrate as Gauntlet ghosts are bearing down on your Space Invaders ship, leaving you helpless, but it's so worth checking out.

Freeware Game Pick: Rom Check Fail (Farbs) [Indie Games]

Best Freeware Games of '07 - 30 Categories! [TIG Source]

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.

Christopher Boyer, CEO of Variant Interactive, was wounded to the quick and sent me an email, explaining the situation:

f I might, I'd like to clear up what amounts to speculation from Wikipedia and a couple of folks on Livejournal. The ugliness started with a kid who I suppose is a regular in some Cave Story fan community on Livejournal.com, who sent Pixel an email, or posted on his BBS (one of the two, I'm not sure at this point) about the PSP version. Pixel, who does not speak English, didn't quite catch the gist of what he was saying and told him he didn't know what the kid was talking about. This kid took it to mean that Pixel had never heard of us or what we were doing. Hence the drama bomb.

The truth of the situation is that I've personally been in contact with Pixel, both one-on-one with my mediocre Japanese skills, and through a wonderful translator for the big stuff (and pretty much everything, at this point) since early 2005.

We are clearing each and every step with Pixel before we move forward on just about anything, and are about to wrap up an early build for him to preview and put his OK stamp on.

This is excellent news, and Christopher insisted that they were actually going to be sending Pixel a good chunk of change for the port.

Even more clarification, after the jump...

I was slightly less optimistic, though, about Christopher's bomb-shell announcement that Cave Story for the PSP was going to feature a complete graphical overhaul:

Primarily, the game is intended to be exactly what it is, with a facelift, as the main goal is to get Cave Story to a wider audience and share that experience. (The facelift, sadly, is a necessity for this - not everyone is into the retro look and feel, and a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, so to speak.) We are absolutely planning other ways to expand the gameplay and make it a worthwhile purchase for old fans and soon-to-be-fans alike.

I asked him to clarify his intentions of giving a facelift to only some of the most beautiful and lovingly wrought pixel art to grace gaming in the last 15 years. Christopher soothed some of those fears:

It's like this. You and I both love Cave Story as it is. Piles of people love Cave Story as it is. We love its charming 8-Bit look and retro style and feel. And I'm sure you'd agree that the more people who can play Pixel's masterpiece, the better right?

But, not everyone will pick up on the game's oldskool flavor, precisely because it looks and sounds dated. What we are simply doing, with the main game mode, is bringing it to modern day standards, so more people will be interested in playing the game who aren't or haven't been into the indie game scene. That is what I mean when I say we are giving the game a facelift. We do intend to make it possible for people to play the game exactly as it was originally created as well, for those who want the original game exactly as it was, too. I don't want to rob anyone of that experience.

As much as I think these people who won't pick up on the game's "oldskool flavor" are dogs who should be shot in the gutters, this actually seems like the ideal solution. Those who'd like to play the game in a graphically updated version, full of buxom babes, he-man cyborgs and blood-splattering Uzis can do so. But those who simply want a portable and faithful version of, well, the most charming platformer ever made will have that option too. And expanding gameplay? Sounds like a good reason to pick up what's already a free game. Florian Eckhardt

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.

Unfortunately, we haven't, which is a shame, because it looks awesome. How can you not like a game with a description like this?

"Toribash is a turn-based fighting game. Create your own martial arts movies in single player sandbox mode, or join the competition in the multi player modes. Focus is on tactics rather than reaction and button mashing. The game features physics, full dismemberment, decapitation and comic style blood."

And — developers take note! — there's even an OS X version! Time to take Toribash for a spin. Florian Eckhardt

Toribash [Official Site]

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.

I've written about my manic enthusiasm for the game before: "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 who can never fail to just melt your heart, and Cave Story is his masterpiece."

. On the other hand, there's no real point buying a PSP for Cave Story, considering it's free and playable now. Also, it's a damn short game, taking only about 4 hours to playthrough. Still, I might pick up a copy just to put a few yen in Pixel's pocket. Artists deserve to be rewarded for their labors of love. Cave Story PSP is due to be released sometime in 2007 by Variant Interactive. Florian Eckhardt

Cave Story PSP [Variant Interactive, thanks Thanius!]

Edit: According to Wikipedia, this is an unauthorized port, and Pixel won't get a dime. So just download the game and play it in a version that isn't ripping off the author. Don't buy this game when it comes out.

The freeware program allows you to stream audio and text xml feeds to your Xbox 360 console automatically.

Unfortunately, the initial version of the program, which cam pre-installed with a bunch of the top Xbox podcasts, automatically hit up each podcast and downloaded the 30 most recent casts. Two really bad things immedially happened, a bunch of Xbox 360 users had their PC Xbox 360 harddrives swamped and a bunch of podcast sites had their servers shutdown thanks to the enormous amount of download bandwith.

Gamertag Radio's Godfree wrote to say that their sever had more than 42,000 hits with more than 500 gigs of bandwith in less than 48 hours and now their site is toast. Fortunately, GT Radio doesn't have to pay for their overages, I'd hate to see what this is doing to sites where people have to pay out of their pockets.

Hopping over to the XB Stream site, I see that the creators already have a temporary patch up and are hard at work on a permanent fix.

If you have downloaded a previous version of XB Stream please immediately follow these steps below. Several podcast sites are being continually hit by XB Stream and using up massive amounts of their bandwidth. Please please follow the steps below to fix this issue ASAP, as we should respect the podcasts. 1. Uninstall XB Stream completely. 2. Download the new version on this website and install (it still is listed as version 1.0) 3. The new version will not download audio podcasts by default - PLEASE DO NOT CHANGE THIS YET 4. I will include a permanent fix by today/Monday which will only download 1 audio podcast.

So it sounds like you should avoid XB Stream until Monday, or at least carefully follow the above instructions if you do get it. It sounds like once this kink has been worked out it will be a pretty cool program to get for your 360. Brian Crecente

XB Stream

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."

But I digress. If you follow PC shmups at all, you will be well familiar with the work of Hikoza T. Ohkubo, the lone programmer behind the excellent all-boss shmup, Warning Forever. He has an excellent new game out, called Ray-Hound, which sounds very neat... like a reflective shmup.

The latest release from Mr. Warning Forever, RAY-HOUND is an action game which requires no shooting from the player's part. Trapped in a room with enemies consisting of turrets, you can retaliate by clicking on the left mouse button to muster a shield and send their shots back at them. The other method is to move your ship towards the lasers rapidly to initiate a boost and repel the beams of destruction.

This guy releases quite a few quality freeware shmups, so this is well worth checking out. Florian Eckhardt

Hikoza's New Game [TIGSource]

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".

Randomly clicking through, I was rewarded with the bile-filled description for A Nightmare on Sesame Street, which ends on a note of mystery:

Through the games' various levels you get to make sure each character of the game receives a slow, agonizing and painful end. By the end of the game the name on the street sign won't be visible, cause it will be covered in puppet blood.

This game is as simple as they come but it certainly deserves credit for its very rewarding concept.
The developer of this game is unknown.

The User Comments also offer up some good old-fashioned Greater Internet Fuckwad action (more the clueless variety as opposed to the malicious). My favorite?

anonymous at 18:27 8/0/2002 personally i was expecting more activities from the program. no-one makes a fool of Arnold Smith

"DO YOU HEAR ME, ELMO? NOOOO OOOOOONE!!!" Eliza Gauger

So many games! [MegaGames]

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.

And then explodes it with adrenaline! Which is why we're posting this crazy speedrun of Cave Story's Hell level, which I've always found frankly unbeatable.

Haven't played Cave Story? What the hell are you waiting for? It's free! - Florian Eckhardt

Pretty colors, good physics based gameplay, free download — what are you waiting for? Get it!

Plasma Pong Official Site

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?

If you are an avid gameplayer, you probably have a basic understanding on how computers and computer games work.

In a computer game, all numerical values are stored 'as is' in memory. We'll use a great game, The Sims, to show you how easy it is to take advantage of this fact using Poke.

Lifehacker explains that the program lets users go in and change all those numerical values to whatever you want. Rad.

Download of the Day [Lifehacker]

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.

Here's the list, hit the site for the description and links to games:

Advanced Strategic Command
Zak McKracken
Warrock
GunZ the Duell
Mono

Best Freeware Games of 2005 [Ghacks]

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.

Saddam Hussein: The Video Game [1UP]