Lets take a closer look at Stealth Bastard. The game is a portable game for Windows. You need to create an account on first start which you can do by entering a username and password. That’s it. No email verification or other nonsense. When you select to play the original levels of the game, you will notice that the first are designed as a tutorial to explain the basic game concepts.

It is always the player’s task to reach the level exit. You can move the player with the cursor keys and z jumps. You can crouch by holding down, and interact with objects by holding up (for instance to hack computer systems). It is also possible to jump and hold on to a ledge (and jump again from that position).

Since it is a stealth game, stealth plays a big role in it. You can hide in shadows which helps to avoid detectors and enemies searching for you. The game puts an indicator on the screen so that you see on a glance whether you are hidden or not. And if you are not, you usually die pretty soon thereafter.

The challenge of the game is to reach the exit in one piece. For that you have to avoid traps and robots in each map. When you look at the traps you see some variety there, from laser beams over crushing blocks and moving platforms. You will also encounter stationary detectors and robots patrolling the area. Considering that you do not have a weapon, your best bet is to stay low and try to sneak through a maps defenses to reach the level exit.

The developers of Stealth Bastard have added puzzle elements to the game. This may include something profane as moving an object over a switch to open a door in the level.

The game has more to offer than just a single campaign. First of all, you compete with your score against all other players of the game. The score is always the time it takes you to reach the level exit. You can replay levels at any time to score better.

The second thing that sets the game apart is the level editor that comes with it. The standard maps are not difficulty enough? Create your own or play maps created by other Stealth Bastard players.

Stealth Bastard Video

Verdict

What I really like about Stealth Bastard, apart from it being free and bloody awesome, is that it is easy to learn but hard to master. That, and the fact that it concentrating on stealth and not weapons and fighting. That’s very refreshing The visuals are very nice, as are the music and animations.

This game could have easily sold for $5 to $10 on Steam or Xbox Live Arcade. My bet is that it would be highly popular on those channels.

I highly suggest you give Stealth Bastard a try. You can download the game from the developer website directly. The editor and everything else you need to play is included in that download.

Team Fortress has a huge following. You can see that when Valve pushes out new community maps and items, which they do on a regular basis. Game Maker Eric Ruth’s love for the game made him think about a 2D arcade version of the game. And so, Team Fortress Arcade was born.

The game is a typical side scrolling jump and run game set in the Team Fortress 2 universe. You can play all classes of the original game. Since it is 2D the designer hat to make compromises but more about that later on.

The game begins at the class selection screen where you and up to three buddies (hot seat for the win) can pick their classes. Some classes are better suited for a single player play through, but since you have got unlimited continues, you should not have problems completing the game with any class available.

You should take a look at the readme as it contains the controls for each player. Player one for instance uses WASD to move, H to shoot and U to jump. You can press both the shoot and jump button together for a powerful melee attack.

All characters have at least one special ability. The Soldier can rocketjump, the Scout double-jump and the Spy can cloak.

Probably the biggest let down of this game are the enemies. Instead of having to fight against characters of the Red team, you fight against red robots. While that’s nice and entertaining for a while, it does not motivate as much as beating the crap out of Team Fortress classes.

You have to battle a red Team Fortress 2 class at the end of each stage in a boss fight. These fights are usually not that difficulty to complete, even though the bosses have lots of life.

Stages include the good old attack maps where you just have to reach the end of the stage, but also payload and control point stages known from the game. The variety is good in this regard.

Team Fortress Arcade is most fun with at least one additional human player. You may have troubles playing the game with four players on one keyboard at the same time, especially if one of the player’s has big hands and fingers.

Playing with additional players opens up interesting options. You could go for a heavy medic combo for instance, or medic soldier for that matter. The medic’s ability to heal is invaluable in the game if you want to complete it without dying.

Team Fortress Arcade offers enough variety for Team Fortress fans to justify a play through. The game would shine if the developer would replace the robots with members of team red.

You can download the free game for Windows PCs from the developer website. Eric Ruth mentioned that he will update the game in the coming months with new modes, difficulty challenges, online co-op (awesome) and player versus player matches.

There may be a downside to this which should be mentioned as well. If you add a third party game to Steam, Valve is surely going to know about it which can be a privacy issue.

If you still want to go ahead you need to do the following. Start up the Steam software and wait until you have been logged in. Locate the Add A Game link in the lower left corner of the interface. A menu pops up if you click on the link.

Three options become available, one of them offers to “add a non-Steam game” to Steam.

When you select the first option to add a game a new window opens up with a listing of all programs installed on the computer. This does not only include games though. Chance is that not every game on the computer is in that list. You can use the Browse button to open a file browser to pick an executable from the computer that is not in that list.

You can check all programs and games that you want added to Steam. Once you have done that you click the Add Selected Programs button to add the games to the Steam game listing.

You can then launch the game just like any other Steam game in the listing. You may furthermore set a category for the custom games if you make use of categories to access games more quickly this way.

And that’s how you add third party games to the Steam gaming platform. Are you using Steam? Have you added games to Steam?

Pushover is a remake of the Amiga classic. It is very true to the original game from what I can tell.

The game is portable and should run on most Windows PCs. I had no problems running it on a 64-bit edition of Windows 7. You control the ant in the level and can move around with the cursor keys. Dominoes can be picked up by walking right in front of them and pressing space. You can then walk with a single domino to another location and press space again to place it there. It should be obvious that the new location needs to be clear if you want to place your domino there.

To push dominoes you walk in front of the one that you want to push and press the up cursor. Your ant moves closer to that domino then, and you can press the left or right cursor key and space to give it a push. This push will hopefully be enough to push over all dominoes on the map.

There are different types of dominoes in the game, from standard dominoes over stoppers and bridge building dominoes to exploding dominoes and splitters. All different types of dominoes are introduced in the first levels to get a feel for them.

The original game on the Amiga offered 100 levels of game play and it is likely that the remake offers the same amount. The game is automatically saved after each successful level so that players can continue to play where they left of. The game ships with an editor that you can use to create your own levels. The game becomes very challenging at later stages.

I found a long play version of the original Amiga Push-Over game on Youtube, if later levels are identical as well it may help overcome situations where you do not know how to complete a specific level.

Pushover is a great remake of an Amiga classic. The game can be downloaded at the developer website at Ishisoft.

Bubble Bobble is one of those franchises that everyone knows about, even though it has not really been active in the past decade or so.

Fans on the other hand keep the franchise alive with fan remakes and adoptions.

Bubble Hero 2 is a game that is true to the original in many aspects. It comes with a single player and 2-player game mode and features the very same game mechanics.

Your goal is to clear a level of creatures that are walking or flying around in it. For that, you have your bubble attack. When you press the corresponding key on the keyboard or button on the gamepad you shoot a bubble. If a creature is in reach it will be enclosed in the bubble and start floating to the top. You now need to touch the bubble to take that creature out of the level. Repeat the process for all creatures in the level and you have made it and will advanced to the next.

Your dinosaur can walk, jump and shoot bubbles. Extras are sometimes placed on the map which can give you special attacks like a lightning that can clear a level by itself, or shoes that make you faster.

The fun begins when you play the game with a second player. I suggest gamepads for that as it is quite uncomfortable to play the game with two players on one keyboard. It works but gamepads are better.

The game has been released in 1999. Graphics, animations and sounds are fine, with the exception of the background which feels somewhat distorted in the game.

You will sometimes encounter boss creatures which you beat by shooting your bubbles against the walls to free stars that attack them.

Bubble Hero 2 is a nice remake of an all-time classic. You can download the game from Gamezworld. The game ran fine on a 64-bit Windows 7 system.

The original game was divided into four difficulty groups which each consisted of 20 levels each. The first, called fun, walked the player through the game controls. The task in each level is always the same. Get a certain amount of Lemmings, small creatures with green hair, from the level entrance to the level exit.

Lemmings can walk but do nothing else. If they walk into a wall their turn and start walking in the other direction, if there is a cliff they fall down and if there is something dangerous in front of them they walk right into it.

It was the player’s task to guide the Lemmings from entrance to exit. A set amount of skills was available in each level which could be given to individual Lemmings. This included bridge building, climbing, parachuting, blocking and digging.

Lemmings Remake is available for Windows PCs. The freeware game includes all original Lemmings levels plus all levels of the sequel Oh No More Lemmings. Additional holiday related maps are selectable from the level selection screen. It is not clear if those are the levels of Xmas Lemmings, another popular sequel at that time, or custom made.

You have the option to play through all levels one after the other, or use the level selection screen to play a specific level. The campaign keeps track of your progress. There is however no option to select a difficulty group like it was in the original game. You start with the fun maps and end at the Oh No More Lemmings maps.

Controls, graphics and sounds are true to the original which older games will love. You still see the big green cursor on screen that you use to pick skills and lemmings. Players can pause the game at anytime, which becomes important at later stages to plan ahead. The atombomb and switches to increase and decrease the game speed are provided as well.

Lemmings Remake is a true gem, it is fun to play and should bring back old memories to players who have played Lemmings on the Amiga in 1991.

Downloads are offered here at this forum thread.

So, head over to Poke52380 and download the new release. Graphics, animations and sounds are great and the gameplay feels a lot like the original Turrican game. They even included a great tutorial and a two player mode that can be played simultaneously on the same computer.

This is still a great game, mighty hard but great. Go grab it know if you are up for a challenge.