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Get Bejeweled Deluxe for Free until May 23rd

Martin Brinkmann — Tue, 15 May 2007 07:38:00 +0000

I read about the offer to give away Bejeweled Deluxe for free on Sunday afternoon and thought it would be limited to their Mother’s day promotion and thus decided not to post about it. Apparently though this offer is still valid and will be valid until May 23rd. If you ever wanted to grab a free copy of Bejeweled Deluxe you could do so now.

Bejeweled is one of the games that girls and women love. (Everton confirms this in his post about the subject) I’m not sure if it is because of all those shiny jewels or the addictive game mechanics. A 8×8 square is filled with different colored jewels and your task is to swap jewels to place three of the same kind next to each other. You can play a online version at the Popcap website to see if you like the game, it normally costs $14.95.

To get your free copy to the following:

Go to the Popcap website and click on Buy now
Fill out the required information like name and email and add “FREE4MOMS” in the coupon code field.
Click on “Click here to Redeem” before you continue”
The “Item total” should show a price of $0.00
Click continue until you get to the download link

The website is experiencing some heavy traffic spikes. If you receive such a message you should try it at a later time again. Enough time to grab a free copy.

Weekend Fun Bontago

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 04 May 2007 03:32:38 +0000

I’m presenting a new game as usual on Fridays and this time it is Bontago. Bontago is a real time strategy game that can be played against computers or human opponents. Players start evenly on the area and can place blocks to expand their reach from their current position. The task of the game is to encompass all flags that are placed in the level. The initial area of control for a player can be expanded by adding new blocks to the territory under control. The height of the blocks that you can place on top of each others determines how far the influence is expanded.

The laws of physic makes it difficulty to place blocks on each other at the beginning and it takes some time until you get the hang of it. Areas of opponents can overlap which is not a problem in the game. You just need to make sure that you control a continuous area that contains all the flags that have been placed in the world.

Specialty blocks can be gained by expanding the area around so called gift boxes which will drop a special effects block which can be used to create volcanoes, earthquakes or rockets. Bontago is a fun game especially when you play it against human opponents.

A few words about the controls. You place blocks by clicking the left mouse button and move them around with the mouse. Scroll Wheel down lowers the block and Scroll Wheel up raises it. The right mouse button rotates the camera which is important as well and the middle mouse button rotates the block.

Weekend Game World of Padman

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 07:28:41 +0000

World of Padman is a multiplayer ego shooter that is using the Quake 3 engine which is a very capable engine. Just imagine the game Quake 3 without the adult science fiction theme but a theme that resembles a game for children. Not saying that World of Padman is actually a children’s game. Action is as fast paced as in Quake 3 and the game mode is still deathmatch. Frag the others before they frag you. Levels look really detailed and the style of the game is pretty unique as well. Before you begin you can select a character that you want to play and customize it a little bit.

Once that is done you can jump right into the action and join an internet server. (Single Player mode is not implemented yet) Servers are well frequented especially in the evenings, you should definitely find some players on a server with a good ping and play with them some maps.

Weapons resemble that from Quake 3 but got different looks and names of course. The names of the weapons (Nipper, Betty and Balloony for instance) fit pretty well in the overall theme of World of Padman. You find the usual selection of weapons, power ups and objects like jump pads in the levels to make them more exciting.

One more thing, this game is really big. You have to download 550 Megabytes which could take a while depending on your connection. I think it is very well worth the download. World of Padman excells at something that many commercial games don’t deliver – Fun. See you on a server, my nickname is rev.

Weekend Fun Rooms

Martin Brinkmann — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 07:59:54 +0000

Rooms is an excellent puzzle game. The objective is to move the character from the start of the level to the door that exits it. This can be done by either moving the character himself if there is space to move or by moving the different rooms that make up the level. Take a look at the screenshot below to get a better impression of how a typical level looks like. Several rooms make up each level and you can only move the room that you are standing in at the moment.

You can move it into any adjacent space as long as it is not occupied by another room. If you take the image above you could move the room that the character is in only to the right side. Moving the character offers more possibilities. You can climb ladders, teleport Matrix-like using phones and use objects like keys to open doors that block the exit.

Rooms can be downloaded to play offline or played on the web. I suggest to download the full version which has a size of 30 megabytes. Great addictive game.

Echoes new game from Binary Zoo

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 07:04:32 +0000

Back then when I started writing articles for ghacks I was writing about a freeware game that blew my mind. The game was called Mono and had such an addictive fascinating gameplay that I played it for endless hours. The creators of Mono developed a new game which is called Echoes that uses many of the addicting elements that made Mono famous. Echoes is an Asteroids clone on steroids. That is probably the best way to explain the basic principle of the game. The developers put it that way when they describe Echoes: “Yeah, it’s a bit like Asteroids hyperactive, drug crazed brother displayed in blur-o-vision© and viewed through psychedelic sunglasses in a cheap nightclub.”

Echoes is freeware of course and has a size of about 8 megabytes packed. You can run it from any location. Once started you move your spaceship with the mouse and use the ASDW keys to point the gun in one of the four directions available. The first waves of asteroids are no problem and some leave power ups behind that replenish shields and add guns to the spaceship.

Echoes is probably not as addictive as Mono – nothing beats Mono, you know – but it comes pretty close. It has nice visuals, a good smooth gameplay and action that changes and gets faster with every asteroid that gets destroyed. Take a look, you will enjoy it.

Weekend Game Naac

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 13:02:53 +0000

Naac reminds me a little bit of Smash Tv. It is a pretty straightforward top down shooter that can be downloaded from the developers homepage. You start with a handgun and have to defeat all aliens that emerge from different sides of the screen. The game would be incredibly boring if it would not feature power ups, better weapons, different types of aliens and even boss aliens that require strategy to defeat. It is absolutely crucial that you pick up the power ups and better weapons when they emerge randomly on the screen. It would otherwise become impossible to defeat the hordes of aliens at later stages.

The better weapons do not appear immediately. It takes about 2-3 waves of aliens before you get the real good guns like the rocket launcher. You control the game with the wasd keys and the mouse. The mouse is used for aiming at the enemies and shooting at them. Left click fires a bullet in the direction that you aim and the right-click changes the type of weapon that you use at the moment.

What else can I say ? Naac combines a fast gameplay with addicting game elements. Ideal for a quick snack in a break.

Game for the Weekend Ballistic

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 06:13:36 +0000

Ballistic is a addictive 3D maze type of game that reminds me a little bit of games like Marble Madness. The game Ballistic however brings some new elements to the “move ball to exit” type of games. First, the environment is fully 3D compared to the two dimensions of the other games. Second you do not move the ball(s) but the complete level and the ball just follows the laws of physics.

The screenshots are not able to show you how great the game is, you will have to download and play it by yourself to come to this conclusion. Ballistic is a race against time to reach the exit of the level before the clock runs out.

All kinds of obstacles are placed along the road to the exit, those include bumpers, blockers and others that have various effects on your ball. Bumpers for instance work like pinball bumpers, if the ball hits them it will recoil.