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!]

This stunning, two-dimensional, arcadey hack and slash represents a potentially frightening alternate reality scenario, one in which the sidescrolling sequel to the original The Legend of Zelda became the series' norm. The Legend of Princess is beautifully 16-bit in its sprite work, Link's pink hair notwithstanding. Delicious notes of Magic Sword and Wario Land undertones add to the experience.

The pace is fast, the graphics are gorgeous, and the cost is zero. We'd definitely advise checking it out. At the very least, the videos linked to at Indie Games are worth a watch.

Freeware Game Pick: The Legend of Princess (Konjak) [Indie Games]

An Apology

I would like to make a public apology for any offense that I might have caused through releasing this game, and to Muslims in particular. My intentions when releasing this project were to mock the foreign policy of the United States and the commonly held belief in the United States that Muslims are a hostile people to be held with suspicion. I would like to make it clear that I have never shared such a belief and my intention was to mock those who actually do believe these things.

It quickly became obvious to me that releasing this game did not achieve its intended effect and instead only caused hurt to hospitable, innocent people. I believe removing this game and website will do much more to attain my desired effect than leaving it on the internet, so I am doing just that.

I would like to ask for the forgiveness of Muslims around the world and to make it clear that I did not release this game with ill intent. So without further ado, I would like to say that I am truly apologetic for what I have done and will take full responsibility for all offense that has been caused. I can only hope that any further misgivings can be laid to rest.

Sincerely,
- Sigvatr

In Retrospect

As a game player, game designer and as a person with an admitedly bizarre sense of humor, I believe this game's messages could only be interpretted as it was intended by dedicated gamers and people who share my tendency to find humor where you would least expect it. I at no point stated my intentions for the game either personally or in the game itself in a way which the population at large could probably understand, so I will admit that my biggest mistake was an inability to make clear what I was trying to convey through the game to people who had no interest in experiencing it themselves.

What brought me to create this game in the first place was my frusteration at the lack of distinction in our society between Muslims in general and bad people who are Muslims. I have never been able to rationally equate Islam or its followers with violence and the infliction of suffering and I believe that people who do think these things is where the limelight should be shining at this point in history.

Muslims around the world are suffering because others want them to feel bad about themselves, and those others do not want to listen to Muslims when they try to defend themselves. If any good is going to come to light because of this international scandal that I have caused, then I hope it is that people will begin to listen to Muslims because there is a lot they have to say at this point. They are not doing anything wrong, we are simply not listening to them, and because of this they are suffering.

The media only listens to the shocking and offensive Muslims and then conveys the story to people in such a way that those Muslims become definitive of the religion in general. If you are going to start listening to what genuine Muslims have to say, then you are going to need to open up to them when you see them in the store, on the bus or at work, because that is where you will find eachother. Genuine Muslims don't come out of the TV set or the newspaper, only exciting and infuriating news stories.

That is my two cents.

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.

It's unwaveringly offensive by design — it's given the tagline "the game of modern religious genocide" — so it should come as no surprise that people are voicing their displeasure with the game. According to UK publication Telegraph, British Muslim organizations are up in arms over the shooter.

“Encouraging children and young people in a game to kill Muslims is unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive,” said Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of The Ramadhan Foundation, a Muslim youth organization.

Muslim Massacre, created by Something Awful forum goon Eric "Sigvatr" Vaughn, has been publicly available for a while now, but people are now starting to give it some attention.

We've played the game and found it to be a rather straightforward shooter, with a surprisingly well crafted visual style and retro 8-bit musical nods. It has allusions to 80s shooters like Contra and Ikari Warriors and is stupidly "patriotic" in its execution. It doesn't play particularly well, nor is it a bad game.

Muslim Massacre is, according to its creator "fun to play" but "The Muslims represented in the game aren't meant to be based on actual Muslims."

As for an after-the-fact artist's statement, Vaughn is quoted as posting on the SA forums that “If I was to try and come up with a meaning for the game at this moment, it would probably be something along the lines of metaphorically destroying the stereotypical depiction of a Muslim.”

'Muslim Massacre' video game condemned for glamorising slaughter of Arabs [Telegraph]
Muslim Massacre [Official Site]

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