Review: Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony

Jamestown, released June 2011 from Final Form Games.

Bullet hell shooters, now here's a genre of games that puzzle me.  In these games you control a small craft typically armed with ridiculous firepower faced against scrolling levels chock full of enemies firing swarms of bullets at you, pretty much covering the entire screen in death.  Its your job to find your way through the levels without taking a single hit, preferably while also killing as many enemies and picking up points as possible in the process for a high score.  Why would one expose oneself to such sadistic punishment ?  The answer is of course, because its incredibly satisfying to beat them.  Really, that moment when you've failed over and over, but finally get through a level after several minutes of one hundred percent complete concentration and adrenaline.. That's why.

Don't need no stinking CoD for my FPS fix.

Because these last few weeks I've indulged one of my childhood nerd-dreams, playing some of the old school FPS's online, cooperatively.  I'm talking about the various shooters pre-Quake 1 here.  Prior to my current stint my only only experience with these old timers online has been playing 2 player Duke Nukem 3D via 28.8kbit (or therearound) dial up modem, which was fun at the time but also incredibly unstable and laggy.  These days however, with fast net connections and source engine tweaks that improve net code drastically, setting up a game of say, Doom 2 online is doable even by the most technically challenged such as myself!

Review: Age of Empires III

Sometimes, when you're as old as I, some classics stick out. This can be a good thing, or a bad thing based on how well they age. Many, many games older than say 5 years from release will simply refuse to play since they rely on outdated drivers and other programs that are no longer supported. Others may run, but seeing the game running again will probably completely ruin whatever childhood worships you once had on such games.  And don't even get me started on the games that are non-compatible on current systems, and most likely never will be enjoyed to their fullest rights.. Unless of course someone 5-10 years down the road from now decides to write a retro review, such as this one I'll admit, and prove me wrong.

Home boys in Amsterdam busy sending me stuff