Zombies, Russians, spaceships and robot cowboys? Heck of a strange week for the old indies, as evidenced by a Christmas game that missed the mark by about a month or so. It was a pretty tight battle between Hypership and Blocks for the prestigious award, but in end the cubical undead put the brakes on that out-of-control ship.
Armless Octopus Bloody Tentacle Award of the Week
Block Zombies! – Mike
Block Zombies! gives a cubical middle finger to all those twin-stick shooters that constrict you to a tiny area and lets you run around a voxel wonderland while murdering the faces of tons of zombies. The game’s clean, colorful look suits it well, and it helps alleviate the feeling of dread that would otherwise accompany a small girl running around an entire town filled with zombies. Upgrade points allow you to beef up your arsenal and provide a little bit of a feeling of progression, and items like grenades and landmines help round out your supplies. You can check out our full review here.
We Recommend
Hypership Still Out of Control – Dan
Have you ever been playing a shmup and thought to yourself, “I love this type of game, but I wish the pace was a bit faster”? Fun Infused Ganes must be reading your thoughts because that’s exactly what Hypership Still Out of Control is. You’ll make your way through wave after wave of hazards in a vertically scrolling environment while the ships movement speed increases with time. With four player local co-op, retro style graphics, stellar chiptune soundtrack and balanced level design, the only real black mark against HSOC is the occasional framerate dip. Framerate issues aside, the demo is more than worthy of your attention.
All Your Creeps – Taylor
All Your Creeps is a pseudo tower-defense game where you have to defend – or attack – a space shuttle that is taking off in 5 minutes. By selecting the appropriate towers to defend it, or the proper swine influenced attackers to destroy it. The game also includes an endless mode and couch co-op for up to 4 players.
Cowbots - Dave
This card-based shooter is unique for XBLIG, and although it appears simple at first, there is actually a bit of strategy behind it. There are 3 different game modes, although only one is available in the trial. Players begin with a hand of cards, and each one has a unique character or ability which is used to face off against enemies in a twin-stick shooter style game. The game then alternates between using cards to lay down more units or upgrade your existing ones and the shooter levels. There’s a lot to it, so I’d certainly recommend you at least give it a try.
Other Releases
Perfect Shooting Training Camp – Erron – It’s a training camp style shooting gallery that wants you to hit the bullseye on targets, except almost every time I hit the bullseye it wouldn’t register a hit. When I finally did knock a target down I watched the counter tick down from 21 to 20, and had less than 40 seconds to complete it. I’m not a half-bad shot in real life, and firing a rifle accurately is far easier than this simulator..
An Elfy Winter – Mike – The demo had me playing as an elf in a sleigh on the left side of the screen moving vertically to try and rescue the mobs of elves that were floating horizontally. How many can you catch in sixty seconds? More importantly, who cares?
Detect – Mike – I could talk about how this game is basically you running around a bland city of lifeless Avatars trying to find one that matches a picture provided, but Erron sums it up far more succinctly. Mike, I played this one by accident. It’s a pile of doo doo, love Erron
