Space, the final frontier.. blah blah. You may find yourself – as I have – disappointed that you did not end up being an astronaut like you planned to at age 6. All the cardboard, crayons, and football helmets I could find never got me to the moon… or even out of orbit. Fortunately Crowd Control Productions has made a wonderful MMORPG: Eve Online.

Having just released its newest expansion Dominion (and patch 1.1.1), Eve seems to be barely a wrist into their bag of tricks. Unlike the 2 month old demigods in WoW, the rookies of Eve will find themselves absorbed in a world not too much different than our own… for being set hundreds of years in the future.

The original premise is pretty easy to follow. Humanity, in all its greedy splendor, has raced through our own galaxy securing space, planets, and precious deposits mainly for corporate growth. At the end of this expansion, things again turn to war. Until one day a giant wormhole opens up in the far reaches of our known space to reveal a sister galaxy which later becomes known as New Eden. The first settlers find harsh conditions to face. Soon they are subjected to the worst imaginable fate, the collapse of the New Eden gate, and permanent separation from the worlds they called home.

Read on to learn about the game and how to acquire a free trial.

Several generations later, members from different settled races began returning to space to once again explore and conquer. The Amarr, religious zealots and slave traders, devout in their beliefs and sure of their purpose and actions. The Minmatar, tribalistic and resourceful, it was not until recently that they have had even a solar system of their own, after finally escaping the Amarrian regime. The Gallente, the only purely democratic federation, they strive to present a face composed of all the peoples of Eve. The Caldari, formerly attached to the Gallente federation, they proved the most powerful corporate and military force, eventually deciding to establish their own dominance and separate from the federation.

The character creation process is very involved, but not too complicated. As usual your race, lineage, and education/profession play a big part of your beginning attributes. They have even added an accelerated period of training for new characters to make sure you don’t spend too much time as a nooblet.

From the casual gamer (do a few missions or a bit of mining, then walk away and leave your character training), to the most aggressive gaming enthusiast (Venture to faraway nullsec areas with no rules but the rules of survival, or into massive wormhole environments uncharted by any other capsuleer), Eve Online offers something for everyone. Missions never grow short on objectives or money or even rare items both potent and valuable. Mining offers pathways to manufacturing or stockpiling minerals for sale to the highest bidder. Lastly, the PvP arena is in a word, massive, allowing for fleets of multiple hundreds to gather and fight. And these are just the tip of the iceberg. With multiple venues for control, conflict, fortune and fame, all on a single-shard server with over 5000 different systems to explore, gorgeously represented in pixel shader 3.0, the main thing to consider in Eve Online is: What would you like the point of your game to be?

Gameplay Type: MMORPG Control Type: Mouse action with hotkeys Payment: Subscription (several options), Time Code (also can be purchased with in game revenue)

Gameplay: 9/10

Story: 9/10

Graphics: 9/10

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Total Score(obviously) 9/10

Get started with a free trial, heck, ask me and I’ll get you a buddy invite with an extra free week on it :D, Click here!

First thing I thought when playing this game was, yawn. The load time is well over 5 minutes. The loadout screen reminded me of Runescape, only Runescape takes a lot less time to load. However, I doubt anyone is interested in how long it takes to load, and rather how good the game is. I’m going divide it into my usual categories. Gameplay, Story, and Graphics.

Gameplay:

Gameplay is lag intensive, yes. However, it if you ignore that, it is very good. I couldn’t help comparing it to the PC game. Simple point and click, but there’s something elegant about the combat system. Whether it’s the many talents, or the party interface, it kept me interested. And it takes a lot for a flash game to keep me interested.

Story:

The story varies from the PC game a little, but it was very interesting all the same. The only problem was the way the game started. It bored me. The flash game had a lot to live up to, and in the end, it failed too. It’s worth a play if you don’t have the actual game, but if you’ve already played Dragon Age Origins, your going to be sadly disappointed.

Graphics:

The graphics were the high of the game. For a flash game, they are amazing. They even have different skins in for the character creation (like the real game) and the armor and weapons also change when the quality goes up. The pause screen is very like the actual game also.

So here’s how it ends up.

Gameplay: 5/10

Story: 7/10

Graphics: 9/10

Overall: 7/10

A good game in all, and definitely worth a play if you have the hardware to do it. You can find it here. The game has a good amount of gameplay in it.  At least an hour or two (considering it is flash based).

Iji information has been added below, continue to the full article to check it out.  The game is being offered by download for free at Daniel’s Base – Iji.

Iji is like any other game. You’re the only hope in an apocalyptic world, there are aliens taking over, and you are the only one who can stop them. You’ve got shotguns, reflectors, lasers, etc and the enemies do too. But this game is not simple, because of the love poured into it by Daniel Remar. This ordinary game has been modeled into a complete masterpiece, full of character, detail, and outstanding gameplay.

On a visit to her father’s workplace, a research facility, the alien race of the Tasen bomb the entire planet, save for the facility which is now a base of operations. 3 doctors hole up and reverse engineer the alien’s nanotechnology to create a unstable but operational cyborg. The doctors are killed, and the weight of the literal world is placed on Iji. Now she must find out how she can get the Tasen to leave, fight political corruption, and deal with the burden of being a convict or a mass-murderer.

Without going into more plot, it must be said that the characters are truly realistic and suffer from many footfalls humans do. The writing is fantastic, the plot is engaging, and it has terrific back-story that is incredibly intricate. By reading Logbooks of all the aliens, you can piece together many things. Past events, fears, even alien soccer.

Daniel makes great use of a palate, changing the colors of each level to reflect the mood appropriately. Though the backgrounds are mainly a washed-out blue, a simple look around the room reveals many details- overturned chairs, bloody walls, cracks and distortion, yet if that’s not your thing it’s also very easy to continue on and tune them out, since they have a nice blending effect with the wall.

The gameplay is fluid, fast paced, and easy to get into. You have many stats, all of which can be upgraded with spare nano you can find by killing enemies or searching the level. There are 8 main weapons, 4 for each race, and they can be combined to make a total of 16 weapons. Not to mention that there are 3 secret weapons, however, making it a grand total of 19.

While there are boring weapons such as the shotgun or machine gun, there are many fun ones as well, such as MPFB devastator, Shocksplinter, and Resonance Detonator, making gameplay very interesting.

If you ever consider killing your enemies immoral, you can always take the high road. Iji features a pacifist mode where you can go through the game without hurting a fly. It changes the dialogue significantly and has a impact on the ending, along with another in-game event.

It’s very, very hard to find a video game that is so decisively simple, yet has such depth and love put into it as Iji. Iji has all the important parts of a good game down: It’s fun, simple, and it truly molds to fit your play style. It is a game not for Action fans, not for the casual, but for everyone. Do everyone in the world a favor and download it from Daniel’s site, and start playing it now. It’s free, nonprofit, and takes up miniscule space. No installation necessary!

Daniel’s Base – Iji – Download

A simple, yet loveable remake of the old game “missile command”, with some interesting and fun editions.

Continue reading for links and information.

A reward system has been put in place for destroyed rockets and missiles, which is used as the game’s currency. This can then be spent on upgrades for your main base, involving the shields and reload speed. Where this game differs from the classic is the additional buildings that you protect actually have a function. The buildings have the power to recharge your shields, deactivate all of the enemies on screen, give you a helping hand with a second gun, and even stop time itself. Your probably thinking stopping time would make the game pretty easy, but this game gets hard before you realize it.

The Soviet style of music that gets stronger and louder really ties in well when the screen starts to fill with missiles, really adding to the inevitable feeling that you know you cant hold them all off. The cherry on the cake is being told how well you did at the end, with a complex system of awards. This ranges from pin point accuracy, to money collected, to how many missiles you grazed with explosions, with a bronze to platinum medal judging from the game over screen.

This game truly is one of my favorites, and I would recommend this game to everyone.

Here are some links to find and play below.

Kongregate – Newgrounds

I came across this simple game where giant robot looking monsters are destroying your city and you have to run across the tops of building trying to escape as mayhem is unfolding.  It gets pretty addicting, and it’s kind of hard to stop playing.  Here’s the link.  Good if you need to waste some time and the music suits the situation you are in in-game.

For those of you that visit flash sites on the regular, Kongregate and Newgrounds are probably places you frequent, when looking to waste some time.  This game caught my eye because of its high rating at NG and then it’s great looking art style when I started playing.

Read on for a short description and a link to the game.

It’s like any other cannon animal game but maybe slightly more violent.  If you ever played Kitten Cannon or the IPhone/Ipod Touch game Flight of the Hamsters you will notice gameplay is similar although the upgrades are better and you can actually shoot your animal in the air with a gun (also upgradeable) to make him fly farther.  A few other things also caught my eye like the music, which was pretty good, and the autosaving feature that made it easy and fast to exit and pick up where you left off.   Toss the Turtle is a fun game to waste some time, but one question that I cant answer for this game is, Who is paying you to shoot and mistreat this poor turtle with a cannon?

Link: Toss the Turtl on Newgrounds – on Kongregate

The gaming world has evolved within the past few years.  With many great releases like Killzone 2 or the very interesting games for the Wii, its hard to keep track of every great game.  In this edition of Face off we will be reminiscing about those good old days of single joysticks and bad graphics.  Yes, we’re talking about the Nintendo 64!  From a huge selection of N64 cartridges, here is my personal picks for the most enjoyable N64 games ever created.

Number One – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time

Released in 1998, it is both a continuation of the ever so famous “Legend of Zelda” series, and a stepping stone in the the Role Playing game genre.  With a wide array of colorful characters and challenging foes, it is no surprise how successful this game grew to become.

With excellent game-play, the player has a nice mixture of main story line play, while having many mini-quests to give the player a “break” from the real boss. Whether you want to bomb some Dodango’s or go fishing in the pond, multiple paths await you.  In addition, every step you take leads to a new discovery and even shocking surprises (hint, Sheik is not whom he seems.)  To top it off, the game flows very well with the prequels, so fans of those already popular games love it even more.

Let us not forget about the beautifully rendered world.  By far one of the best graphical achievements of its time.  Hours of amazing content are guaranteed with this pick.

Number Two – Super Smash Brothers

Released in 1999, Super Smash Brothers was well known for its infamous commercial with the audio “Happy Together.”  The commercial was a hit, and so was the game.  The games success is attributed to it’s grahics (good for the times) and its fast paced action, which people loved.

With a wide variety of characters no single game is exactly the same.  Single player puts you in the shoes of the character of your choice as you go head to head (and in some cases, you vs 30) to take down the Master Hand.  When you’re done obliterating your enemies, or just feel like taking a break from the tournament, you can hook up a second controller and go multiplayer with a friend or three.  In multiplayer you can choose between free for all or team battle, which leave hours of competitive fun for the four people playing.

As an added bonus, after you begin unlocking characters you can also unlock their bio’s, giving a more insightful explanation of whom and where these characters are from.  The replay value is fantastic especially when with friends, this pick is definitely worth the purchase.

Number Three – Super Mario 64

Made in 1996,  shockingly with graphics that only rival that of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.  The player takes the role as America’s favorite plumber, Mario, as he enters the crazy worlds that lie within paintings inside the castle where the princess is being held by Bowser.  As he collects up to 120 stars he eventually making his way to the defeat of Bowser, and the rescue of Princess Peach.  If you are determined enough to get all of the stars you might even meet Yoshi in this game.

The graphical aspect of the game was amazing, and it combined elements of puzzle with a free roam world.  The player must navigate around the worlds and defeat foes to acquire the stars hidden within.  Fans of the old Mario games were surprised at how different, yet so similar, the game ended up being.  With all of your favorite characters, including the pesky Ba Bombs.

This game is a classic, but what prevents it from taking second place for me is that around 60 stars it begins to get mildly repetitive.  Becoming pretty tedious in its path leading to all 120 stars (you can defeat Bowser well before accomplishing this task.)  Despite this set-back in my mind, Super Mario 64 will guarantee you a great play.

Number Four – StarCraft 64

Released in 2000, this was a re-make of the top selling computer game.  For all of you unfamiliar with StarCraft, it takes place in a foreign world, 3 races (Terran, Protoss, and Zerg) are fighting to conquer each other.  With 30 missions and your choice of 1 of the 3 races, this game has plenty of plot and replay value.

With AI, the player is guaranteed to face a challenge no matter what happens.  Many players lose in the end by making the mistake of attempting to win by brute force.  In order to succeed you must play strategically while also multitasking to maintain a healthy outpost while attempting to foil the enemies.  Although, if you are a lovers of brute force, you are not out of luck.  You can amass incredibly large armies of warriors in this game, and watch the onslaught unfold in front of you.  Everything from nukes to infested humanoids.

StarCraft 64 does have its dis-advantages however.  Because of its adaptation to the console, the game is not as user friendly, and the graphics are not as great.  The game can be extremely difficult and frustrating at times.  Although, the replay value is good, once you beat the game the player will begin to lose interest (as with most any game.)  Bottom line, if you are looking for a good challenge, hours of fun, and an amazing storyline this is the game to track down.

Number Five – Mario Kart 64

Released in 1997, Mario Kart 64 was a somewhat controversial game. Some people loved it, some people hated it, there was seldom an in between. Either way, the game was a best seller. Mario and his friends were on the track, and racing is all they did.  The game is no “Need For Speed” but the difficult tracks, hidden shortcuts, and powerful weapons give the game variety.  With different characters to choose from, each game can be determined by both skill and luck.  What gave the game its high rating was its weapon selection.  Each weapon can be attained by crashing into a rainbow colored diamond, after wards the player obtains something that would either benefit him/her, or negatively impact his enemies.  A good example of this was the lightning rod, which the player fired off, and momentarily made all of his enemies miniature.  This allowed them to be squashed while slowing them down at the same time.

Single player is rather dull in my opinion, and most people quit after beating the 4 tournaments.  However, playing with friends in multiplayer can give good times(winning), bad times(losing), but most importantly competition for hours.

As you can see of the giant selection of N64 games lying around on my shelf, these games by far have the highest value when considering all aspects of gameplay.  All of these games were arranged by pure opinion, combined with bits of information I had received from Wikipedia and Zeldapedia.  Special thanks to GameSpot who reminded me about Super Mario 64.

Although this online service through Zsnes has been offered for awhile now I just recently got into playing SNES games online with friends that dont live close to me anymore.  They took compatibility for what they called netplay out in the latest versions of the emulator due to instability mainly, but if you get the 1.42 version and set it up successfully you can still play one of many games over the internet with friends.  All you both need is the same emulator, rom (with the same file name), and a host (one of the two players, router configuration will probably be needed.)

Read on for more information, a step by step guide, and a list of all working games.

If you go to this website it gives a very detailed account of how to get everything working along with a list of working games.  I am going to try and simplify it a little bit, but if you need router configuration or have trouble I suggest going straight to the source above.  To find a certain game I suggest just googling the name of it with “rom” at the end.  I suggest you and the person you intend to play with use the same resource in getting the game so it will already have the same file name, and it will assure you got the same dump(copy) of the game.

The first thing you need to do is make sure both players have the same copy of Zsnes, you will need 1.42, you can get it here.  Afterwards, you need to decide who is going to host, and who is going to be connecting.  In order to connect you will need to contact your IP addresses to each other in some sort of chat, it will be displayed in the connection window.  Which is in the Zsnes program after you click on Internet and then Netplay.  Hopefully it should work meaning you wont need any router configuration.  At this point it will be all about opening the game and having fun.  If you had any trouble or think you do need to configure your router (host) I suggest just visiting the link above it would be silly for me to repeat a perfectly fine guide again.  If you missed the link here it is again (http://www.emualliance.com/zsnes/.)  I use a vent to talk to a friend while I play, but you could just as easily use AIM or MSN.

Compatible Games (copied from the above mentioned link):

• All SNES SPORTS game roms
• Aero Fighters
• Art of Fighting 1 & 2
• Battletoads in Battlemaniacs
• Battletoads vs DoubleDragon
• Brawl Brothers
• Brutal: Paws of Fury
• Captain Commando
• Clayfighters 1, 2 and Special Edition
• Contra 3
• Darius Twin
• Double Dragon 5
• Dragonball Z Super Butoden 1-3
• Dragonball Z Hyper Dimension
• Faceball
• Fatal Fury 1, 2, & Special
• Fighter’s History
• Final Fight 2 & 3
• Ghoul Patrol
• Goemon 2, 3, & 4
• Goof Troop
• Gundam Wing: Endless Duel
• Joe&Mac 1 & 2
• Jurassic Park 2 – The Chaos Continues
• Killer Instinct
• King of the Monsters 1 & 2
• Kirby’s Avalanche
• Kirby’s Dreamland 3
• Kirby Super Star
• Legend of the Mystical Ninja
• Lemmings 1
• Megaman 7 (Secret Code – password 1415/5585/7823/6251 and press L+R+Start)
• Metal Warriors
• Mortal Kombat 1 & 2
• Mortal Kombat 3 (some rom version don’t work on ZSNES)
• NP Mario Picross Series
• Peace Keapers
• Pirates of the Dark Water
• Pocky & Rocky 1 & 2
• Pop’n Twinbee
• Power Instinct
• Primal Rage
• Puzzle Bobble (Bust a Move)
• Raiden
• Rampart
• Ranma 1/2 II
• Rise of the Robots
• Rival Turf
• Run Saber
• Sailor Moon
• Sailor Moon R
• Sailor Moon S
• Sailor Moon Puzzle (R,S,Super S)
• Sailor Moon Fighting (S,Super S)
• Samurai Shodown
• Secret of Mana
• Seiken Densetsu 3
• Shaq fu
• Star Fox 2 Beta
• Star Trek Starfleet Academy
• Street Fighter 2 (and derivatives)
• Street Fighter 2 Turbo
• Street Fighter Alpha 2 (doesn’t work properly in ZSNES)
• Street Racer
• Stunt Race FX
• Sunset Riders
• Super Bomberman 1-5
• Super Mario All-Stars (SMB3 minigame)
• Super Mario Kart
• Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (Secret Code – at map, hold select, then press X,X,Y,B,A)
• Super Offroad
• Super Smash TV
• Super Street Fighter 2
• Suzuka 8 Hours
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4 – Turtles in Time
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 5 – Tournament Fighters
• Tetris & Dr.Mario
• Tetris 2
• Tetris 3
• Tetris Attack
• The Great Circus Mystery
• Top Gear 2
• Tuff e Nuff
• Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
• Uniracers (2P not working well in ZSNES)
• Wild Guns
• World Heroes 1 & 2
• Wrecking Crew 98
• Zombies Ate My Neighbors

If you have trouble getting it working or dont understand something on this site or the guide linked above leave a comment with your issue and I can try and assist you.

Since the beginning as I first made my discover of what emulators and roms were, I have been plagued with using a keyboard to play them.  I did know there were USB controllers you could get at various electronics stores I just never brought myself to be able to put out the money for them.  The other day I was wondering if you could simply hook a PS3 controller up to a computer and get it working.  After a little research I found that people had already figured it out by replacing the original USB HID drivers with an open source version called libusb.  There were some issues with this (peoples mouses and keyboards stopped working, and Vista users could not use this method) but after awhile I came by an article with all the information I needed.  Apparently, a Chinese programmer created a PS3 controller driver that works with peoples standard USB HID.  He called it Six Axis Driver (click here to get the download).  Unfortunatley this only works in the 32bit version of Windows.

Read on for a step by step to make sure you get things right.

Once you have the file all you have to do is:

• Plug in your controller via USB port.
• Run the installation.
• Load the driver through the program.
• Reboot your computer.
• Open your favorite emulator and set your input keys using the controller.

Also, for XP (32 bit) users, this will work for you too.  It is also a better method than replacing your Windows drivers.  Although, the old way works fine so this isn’t big news.

After that its smooth sailing as I play some of my favorite Super Nintendo games on my laptop with my trusty PS3 controller.  Never will playing emulators with the keyboard be a pain to me again.  By the way, if you didnt know, there are emulators for almost any system, and roms to go with them.  So check out Google and have fun with it.

Battletoads was a great game when I was a kid, and I can still have fun playing it with friends today.  For the most part Battletoads popularity was due to extremely difficult game play, exaggerated fighting moves (heads, fists, and feet would enlarge into gigantic versions while performing attacks), and also the variety of level styles they had.  Although after its release in 1991 many more versions and sequels followed, I will still favor the original Battletoads for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Continue on to see a brief overview, history, and where to find downloads.

Notice the similarities between the Battletoads and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Enlarged reptilian people must have been a popular genre.

Being named after bad skin conditions two of the Battletoads, Rash and Zitz, were on a mission to save a third, Pimple, along with Princess Angelica from the Dark Queen who rules Ragnarok with armies of Giant Rats and Pigs among other things.  Professor T Bird and his ship, The Vulture, assist the toads as they battle through 12 various levels including:

• 3D and 2D beat em’ up style levels.
• Racing (ground and air) through obstacles levels.
• Getting chased by a one hit kill enemy level.
• Climbing and jumping, as well as falling levels.
• An underwater level.
• And 2 tower scaling levels which included the last level when you climb the Dark Queen’s tower.

This game has always been considered a very infuriating game to play.  From friendly fire in 2 player mode to only having the very low amount of 3 lives.  No continue, save, or password options existed in Battletoads.  There were a few tricks for people who could find them though.  On the 2nd level a quick player could end up getting 10 or so lives to use through the rest of the game (I wont ruin the secret how.)  And also, throughout the game you could find warp points and if used efficiently could bypass half of the game without using a life.

Battletoads was considered to be one of the most graphically advanced games for the NES at a time when the gaming industry was breaking into the Sega Genesis system and Super Nintendo Entertainment System.  After the initial release and success of the first game a game with the same title was released for the Gameboy.  Although they had the same title the Gameboy game was completely different with a dissimilar story and levels.  Later after that another Gameboy game that was a copy of the NES version was released as Battletoads in Ragnarok’s World, with a small change making it only 1 player.  Between 1 and 2 years later Battletoads & Double Dragons was released for NES, Sega Genesis, SNES, and Gameboy.  In this game the Double DragonsLee brothers team up with the Battletoads as the Dark Queen and Shadow Boss make an alliance.  Soon after Battletoads in Battlemaniacs came out and had better graphics and bigger characters.  Most notably though in this game the characters each had their own set of attacks and a special that suited their personality.  Lastly, there was the arcade game Super Battletoads which differed from any console version a great deal.  The biggest differences included being a 3 player game, being mature rated (some people would consider this game violent, disgusting, explicit, or offensive – I call it fun.  The game adds blood, vomit, decapitation, piles of bones from the dead, crotch grabbing, gun use, toilets being used, nipples, and overall very gory scenes.)

You can find emulators for these systems everywhere, and roms for the games too.  Google!  If you want a much better experience and some multiplayer, I would recommend tracking down a copy of one of the games and the system it fits in.  On eBay they sell those generic double systems that play both Sega and Nintendo games for pretty cheap.  You do get what you pay for though, so if you have a legit Sega, NES, or SNES they would be much more enjoyable to play on.  Especially when it comes to controller quality.