Today's game is a little strange. While I chased down the developer thinking that the game was something along the lines of Little Red Riding Hood, I later found out that there was no Red, however, Mr. Bree does indeed fall in along those lines... except that he is a pig!

Mr. Bree -- Returning Home is not a nice nursery rhyme. It is not a game of discovering sharp fangs on grandma. No, rather, it is a very dark, twisted game of a pig escaping the butchery. The entire game is lined with saw blades, bullets, and giant spikes. Your objective is very simple -- get the heck out of there and make it home!

When I first began playing Mr. Bree, the game felt a little slow, and rightly so. The poor pig was terrified as the game launches and cannot remember any of his abilities. He is just lucky to be walking at all. But why? Why is he so lost in the forest? As the game progresses, you will come across puzzle pieces which begin to reveal the plot as well as forgotten moves like jumping, running, and bouncing off of walls.

There are three types of puzzle pieces that can be found, as you can see in the below trailer:



The pink puzzle piece is a good memory, and by grabbing it, you will successfully complete the level and regain those memories. The bright yellow pieces are your forgotten abilities! Grab these pieces to regain your bad-assed skills. The red pieces are Mr. Bree's bad memories. These will unlock the hidden memories of his escape from the butchery. Every third bad memory that Mr. Bree finds will unlock another level in which to escape. These levels are extremely difficult and the entire screen is tinted red, giving it a murderous horror feel. The first butchery scene was not really that hard, however, the second level was a bear. I actually thought that I was doing well in the game, rarely even dying. However, once I began playing the second butchery level, I soon discovered that I had unlocked an achievement that really isn't a good achievement... "You Gotta Be Kidding" which you get for dying 10 times in the same level. Then not long after that, I unlocked "Die Pig, Die!", which you get for dying 100 times.



In the end, I found that the controls were a little tough, using only the keyboard. Maybe it is just me, but holding the run button, forward, and jumping with one hand was difficult. I also tried controlling the sprint button with my right hand, and found that to be a bit clunky as well. It is possible that I am just attached to the mouse with a 12" rope.

One of the features of the game that the developers invested a great deal of time into was the music. I don't recall seeing too many games in which I found music tracks included in the media kit. Additionally, when launching the game, there is a pop-up which tells you, "Game best experienced with headphones". The music is very good for the game. I did enjoy it and I feel that it does add to the experience rather than just fill up the background.

The last thing that I would like to say about this game, rather the developer, is that TawStudio Entertainment did a very good job on the presentation of this game. The fact that they had a media kit to supply on demand spoke volumes to me. Typically, Flash Developers are not the most organized developers, mainly because it doesn't take a game design degree to produce a good flash title. TawStudio came across in communications as a very professional group and Mr. Bree -- Returning Home broadcast that same message. This is the level of excellence that the rest of the Flash Game Industry should be trying to achieve.

Let me know what you think of the game below or you can chat with me on Twitter @cnewton_igm.

You can find the game here: Mr. Bree -- Returning Home!

Today I was notified by an indie developer that he had just released his new game and that he wanted me to check it out on Kongregate. I logged in and began playing and the next thing I know I had run the gauntlet of 25 levels and finished with a final score of 4 million points. Normally, I would call it a day right there, but when I saw that the high score was 16 million and felt that I was not satisfied with my experience yet... it was on!

Super Defence is a side scrolling defense game where your objective is to defense your space station at all costs. While there is no real plot to the game, the constant upgrades and action keeps you enthralled. I felt that a few of the upgrades allowed me to get a little lazy, but once I reached level 20, I was forced to step my game up and actually develop tactics and fine tune what worked and quite doing what didn't work.

When the game begins, you are a simple space ship equipped with a pea-shooter. Everything feels slow, clunky, and the enemies match that as well. After a few levels, you can upgrade to attach additional machine guns (aka pea-shooters) to your ship. The real fun begins when you reach enough XP to purchase the space station weapons. My favorite is the Fire Chain, which is a barrier that the enemies are forced to pass through which heavily damages their ship. Other space station weapons include turrets, missiles and a lightning gun. Each of these weapons has several damage enhancements as well, so be sure to stock pile the XP.



My preliminary assessment of the game is that the concept is solid and the mechanics are super simple. However, it is my belief that the missiles are not very effective. The range is very short and the damage is negligible at best. In fact, by the time that the missiles are triggered to fire, the ship that casused the launch is usually destroyed. The developer did allow the missiles to lock onto the next available ship, however, by the time the missiles land; the other ship is either near dead or not a threat. Even when they do land, the damage just doesn't seem to add up and in the end, if I didn't have 18 million extra XP sitting around, I would complain that the missiles were a waste of XP. I have expressed this to the developer so perhaps a future patch will address this.

In the end, I am happy to announce that I did, in fact, chase down the guy with 16 million points and pushed my score out to 20 million. I think that this is a testament to the game, considering that you only score points if you successfully complete a mission. The only drawback is that my points are on Mochimedia's leaderboard and Kongregate... and not on NewsFLASH!

Let me know what you think of the game below or chat with me on Twitter @cnewton_igm.

You can find the game here: Super Defence!

Today I installed a new game called the Icarus Project. When I first saw the game, I really wanted to bypass it, as it just didn't look appealing. The game lucked out thought, as all the rest of the games on the page were pretty crappy looking as well. With a 'meh' moment, I decided to give it a try.

This game doesn't appear to be a game that will retain your attention for the long run, but it will absorb 20 to 30 minutes of your day and you probably won't hate me afterward. The concept of the game is that you are taking a job as a tester for the professor's new machines, fly-packs -- which are jet-packs. Your job is to test them out... which means that you strap an experimental rocket on your back, say a prayer, and jam the trigger button.

What's not to like?!



My preliminary assessment of the game is that the concept is solid and the mechanics are super simple. There is only one button used in this game, and that is the 'X' button. Press the button to ignite the rocket, release the button to cut the fuel. I said simple right?

From there, you only have to watch a few gauges and try to dodge obstacles (like birds...) and land on the ground rather than gaping chasms. The gauges are vitally important to both your safety and performance of the jet-pack. The first is the heat gauge. If the jet-pack gets overheated, it shuts off and ... well, you fall. The second gauge is pretty straight forward, and that is the fuel gauge. If you run out of fuel ... well, you fall. The bottomline is that gravity is a poor sport when you really think about it. No matter what you do, it wants to kick your ass. The problem is that we have rarely beaten gravity.

To put the cherry on the cake, there is a racing element to this game. Every other stage, it seems, someone is challenging you to a jet-pack race. The adrenaline surge that you get from trying to get, and stay, in front of someone tends to really be a detriment to you in this game, as it can help you drift a little bit and miss a landing or take a chance on making a few more landings before hitting a re-fuel point.



All in all, I recommend giving the game a try. The graphical aspect of the game is fairly cute and interesting enough to allow you to give the next level a try.

Let me know what you think of the game, as I originally was going to pass on it, but decided to give it a try anyway.

You can find the game here: Icarus Project

Flash Developer Con Artist Games is currently developing another game in the line of The Last Stand called Dead Zone. While there is currently not a release date publicly announced, they have released a trailer for the game and it is very interesting, but slightly different from the rest of the TLS series.



Even though they are shifting slightly in the game's look this time around, it looks to be smooth and intense, which seems to be par for the course for Con Artist. I spent a lot of time playing The Last Stand - Union City and I can't tell you how many times I was scared shit-less out of nowhere by zombies appearing where they once were not.

You can follow Con Artist on Twitter: @ConArtists

Keep up with the development on their WEBSITE.

You can play Con Artists older titles HERE.

If you are anything like me, then you enjoy killing things. Now, I am not talking about real life things. I am talking strictly digital things. Things that consist of pixels and electrically colored blood. To me, there is only one thing better than killing digital something and that is killing lots of digital somethings!

In the course of searching for a new game to review for the arcade, I came across an MMO called Realm of the Mad God. It was recommended to me by our Arcade Manager, Zach Zebrowski -- whom I have both thankedand cursed the last few days for this. Simply put... I can't stop playing the game!

My initial thought when I loaded it up was, "I don't get the hype. The game is very pixelated, there is seemingly no real win, and all I am doing to trying to level up."

...



Four hours later I was still playing and had to force myself to stop playing and go to sleep. I now see pixels in my sleep, pixels in my cereal, and pixels in the road while driving... it's like a drug addiction and I don't know if I want to fight it. The game is seriously addicting, so if you want to suddenly lose 10 hours, don't click this link -> Realm of the Mad God!

The game puts you into a position where you have been transported into a strange world by an unknown entity for the purpose of being food for his minions. Through the game, the guy taunts and shouts you down while you play. It's a great way to incite a riot, and we will definitely get to the riots in a moment. But first, you should know that the game is an MMO-Shooter. Meaning, you have no ammo limit, you just have to survive as long as possible and blast monsters as you go. The game is also strictly Co-Op, so there is no PVP and as you progress, you learn how much easier the game is in packs... leading to the riots. Again, I'll get to that in a moment.

You start off able to play as a Wizard, but you plainly see that there are 13 playable classes. The problem is that only the Wizard is selectable. If you point at the others, you will be informed that you must obtain a level of 5 or 20 in another class to unlock this class. In the beginning, you must unlock the Priest by getting to level 5 Wizard. Getting level 5 Priest unlocks the Archer, who unlocks the Rouge, who unlocks the Warrior (all of these require level 5 of the previous class). That is where is starts getting hard and frustrating.



The next tier of classes requires that you to get level 20 in two of the previous classes! The first one that I unlocked was the Necromancer, who required level 20 in Wizard and Priest. I then unlocked the Assassin, who required Wizard and Rouge to be level 20. The combination of level 20 in Assassin and Necromancer unlocked the Sorcerer.

Each class is pretty different, but can be similar at the same time. You will really need to tap into your inner FPS and utilize the circle strafing and backpedal pulling. In general, all of the classes have a primary shoot attack, which is firing some sort of pellet (daggers, magic bolts, arrows, etc.) and an alternate attack which is more suited to the class, and really separates them. For example, the Priest area heals as his alternate while the Wizard area attacks and the Warrior incites berserker speed in his neighboring allies.

Each class additionally has a set of six stats: Attack, Speed, Vitality, Defense, Dexterity and Wisdom. Each stat is tied directly to an important aspect of your characters survival. From my experience, nothing is more important than Dexterity, however, since it is the stat that governs how fast you shoot. The higher your dexterity, the more pellets you can have in the air and that increases your chances of survival. As your character levels, your stats increase. It is my assumption that the stats increase according to a pattern that is determined by the selected class.

What I came to notice is that as you level and get higher speed and dexterity scores, the game seems to actually get slower and easier as you are able to out speed the enemy monsters and they feel as if they are moving slower. You can also get your hands on higher level gear which can increase your stats as well, making some of them pretty valuable.

Now, as promised... let's talk about the riots!

There are a group of monsters whom the Mad God really likes apparently. These monsters are ultra-powerful and tend to require a group of guys to beat down. These guys are no joke and are usually called Gods themselves. Whenever these guys get taken down, the Mad God begins to talk a little junk about how "you might be able to take So-and-So God down, but you are no match for me". His next line is that he has locked the realm... and it's time to RIOT!! (I added that last part.) The entire world begins to shake and the adrenaline begins to pump because you and every last person on the server are being teleported to the Mad God's castle.

Once you appear, you note that EVERYONE is indeed here and EVERYONE begins firing at the castle doors. As the encounter progresses, you quickly figure out that you need to remain in the swarm or get picked off by the incoming minions, who are supremely powerful. The progression through the castle resembles the sentinel attack on Zion in the third Matrix movie as the players sort of flow through the halls of the castle in a liquid swarm of firing ... things. It is very, very easy to die in the castle, so if you find yourself in this position, stay within the swarm and as close to a Priest or Necromancer as possible. If you stray, you will die!

Speaking of dieing... It is permanent. Don't do it if you don't have too. Any equipment that you were holding is lost. Any levels that you obtained are lost. All fame that you had gained on that character is lost... sort of. So be sure that you understand that you must accomplish these leveling feats in a single character lifetime.



I have to end this article here and now because my hands are shaking and I must go and play some more. If I ever stop playing Realm of the Mad God, I will get on to reviewing other games!

You can find Realm of the Mad God HERE