games

Frets On Fire is a free Windows/Linux/OS X game that is very similar to Guitar Heroes for the Xbox 360. The main difference being is that instead of using a guitar you hold your keyboard like you would hold a guitar.

This makes you look very stupid but is great fun to play. Below is me playing:

I couldn't get the current version to work on OS X Tiger which is why I'm playing on my PC. You can remap the controls so you don't have to hold the keyboard like that but where is the fun of pretending to be a rock star then?

The game has three modes of play, easy (as featured above), medium and Amazing (as featured below). I've yet to master easy though some songs are easier than others.

The game comes with three songs however there are hundreds more available to download online giving you hours of fun. At the end of each game it gives you a rating and tells you how accurate you have been.

Also included is a song editor that lets you edit current songs or import new songs. The requirements are basic with the game only needing 128mb of memory and an Open GL compatible graphics card. Frets on Fire can be downloaded for free off their website.

I'm a huge Command & Conquer fan so when I saw the new box set of all the games in the series for £20, i brought it.

I'm not a huge fan of serial numbers, those annoying things you always have to enter. Never the less I put up with them but the Command & Conquer First Decade install took the piss.

Then after this I was asked to enter another one!!!

The game is still installing, looking forward to playing it.

As previewed in my previous Blog post our first game “Taylord Dark Lord of Justice – Defender of Public Transport” designed and implemented as part of a University project is now available to play and download online.

Please note it is a prototype and there may be a few bugs but it is playable and a lot of fun! If you are easily offended by terrorists being killed please do not play.

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Today we finally finished our coursework game. With over 3 months in the making our epic multiplayer train massacre is now complete. You play the “Taylord” a warrior with the mission of saving the public transport network from imminent terrorist attacks. Armed with only a dagger (we couldn’t work out how to make guns) you have to fight off chainsaw-armed terrorists (again we couldn’t work out other weapons) in the most important ride of your life.

It will be soon available on ImAFish to play with but until then I have some sneaked packaging pictures and screenshots.

Front cover.

Rear cover

Die you chainsaw yielding terrorists!

This is one stop you’re not getting off!

The game will be available exclusively to ImAFish soon.

(Taylord Dark Lord of Justice – Defender of Public Transport created and published by “The Return of the Yummy Mummy Productions” – Peter White, Ben Powell, Dave “Taylord” Taylor and Navinder “Ah Yeh” Bansal.)

* Edited 25 April 06

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Today I got my copy of Unreal Tournament 2003 after ordering it online a few days ago. Not only did this save me a trip into town but also saved me almost ?10. After a lengthy install time and 2.5gig of my hard drive gone I was ready to play. My first impressions we great, the game is easy to use, easy to play and didn?t take too long to load (takes about as long as the original).

The graphics are stunning, the little effects make it look nice like swaying grass, moving clouds and more realistic gas textures. Though it took me a graphics card update to stop the larger death match levels from stuttering, but the 10mb download was worth it in the end with everything running very nicely on my GeForce mx420.

The overall play of the game is similar to that of Unreal Tournament, the graphics are a massive improvement and the guns have been upgraded. They have replaced the old sniper rifle with a more advanced weapon that still gives some nice headshots. The other amendments are that of the extra packs you can pick up. These now include bigger health packs and adrenaline, which if you collect enough gives you special abilities such as running fast.

The one feature I did turn off straight away was weapon bob, which to be honest just got annoying and made you feel like you were on a ship. It also took me a while tweaking the graphics settings to get everything working smoothly while trying to get as much out of my card as possible, however this normally has to be done for most games.

I was also disappointed with the lack of outdoors maps, this will probably be left more to one of the mods such as strike force but will mean a hefty download for me. The game is still in very early days, I had a quick look on the web for maps and couldn?t find anything yet the same I found about support which was also very limited. I can see ut2003 lasting for the next 2-3 years like its predecessor did, however it would be nice if the game was to get popular quicker then the original as it did seem to have a slow start.

Overall I think ut2003 is a very nice game which has great potential and flexibility within itself that can hopefully become a very successful and popular game. I have decided to give it 9/10.