Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Titan on May 25, 2009, 11:59:12 am
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Has anyone played any good freeware games lately? Most of the ones I've looked at aren't very good, though these two were great:
UFO: Alien Invasion (http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/) - an intense, turn-based squad tactical strategy game. Really pretty, tons of depth. Centers around a organization of international soldiers that are Earth's only line of defense from aliens.
Warzone 2100 (http://wz2100.net/) - Sort of a standard rts with a Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri style unit design process.
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The Babylon Project but I guess that doesn't count :lol:
TAGAP!!!!
www.tagap.net
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Warzone 2100 is similar to FS2, in that it's currently open-source. I wish they'd make better pathfinding though; is one of my favourite games but pathfinding sucks ass.
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Same here, and the Skirmish AI has been too dumbed down, it used to be nearly impossible, and now it's way way too easy, though, in part, that's because the pathfinding tends to end up clogging enemy bases so that none of its units can move.
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Good freeware games?
Here's my collection:
I Wanna Be The Guy (http://kayin.pyoko.org/iwbtg/) - Immensely challenging platformer. Only expert gamers need apply.
Eversion (http://zarat.us/tra/offline-games/eversion.html) - Deceptively cute platformer hiding a very dark secret. (Author's warning: not intended for children or those of a nervous disposition.)
Cave Story (http://www.miraigamer.net/cavestory/) - Quite possibly the best freeware game ever. Good characters, plotline, gameplay, sidequests, music. A 2D shooter/platformer hybrid, kinda like Metroid without quite as much exploration. You owe it to yourself to play this game.
Blue Wish Resurrection + (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www004.upp.so-net.ne.jp/x_xgameroom/&ei=CPMaSoWqI5b8tgPJgunZCA&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dx.x%2Bgameroom%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:*) - freeware shmup somewhat reminiscient of DoDonPachi. Challenging without being unfair, with some really nice music.
Eden's Edge - another shmup, same designer as BWR. Somewhat simpler but still highly enjoyable.
Fraxy (http://fraxy.kafuka.org/wiki/Main_Page) - boss rush shmup in which you can download bosses made by other people. Quality depends on how good the boss maker was.
I have quite a few more shmups, but those are the best.
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Neverball (http://neverball.org/): Probably my favorite free game these days. Great graphics, well designed levels and some nice music. The gameplay is based on Super Monkey Ball, although with an abstract look and feel that works very well for this type of game.
Hurrican (http://turrican.gamevoice.de/hurrican_site/): Nice platformer with a surprising degree of depth in its gameplay. The graphics are very good and it feels quite polished for a free game.
Outbound (http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f268.html): An older but still good top-down mech game. It has 8 fairly large levels, each having their own gameplay objectives and graphics tilesets.
As for RTSs, C&C and Red Alert 1 come to mind and are both freely available now, if you haven't already played them. C&C's cutscenes are just classic, and I still occasionally load up RA skirmishes with my old future wars (http://FutureWars.zip) mod and watch the AIs fight. :D
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Off-road Velicoraptor Safari. (http://www.raptorsafari.com)
:pimp:
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If you're looking for a good freeware RTS, Spring (http://springrts.com/) is a great game. Imagine Supreme Commander with TA units and without Crysis-like requirements.
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If you like Cave Story, you should also check out Within a Deep Forest (and, to a lesser extent, Knyt Stories). Very atmospheric 2d platformers.
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UFO: Alien Invasion (http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/) - an intense, turn-based squad tactical strategy game. Really pretty, tons of depth. Centers around a organization of international soldiers that are Earth's only line of defense from aliens..
That's like the only X-Com remake that ever worked.
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Cave Story (http://www.miraigamer.net/cavestory/) - Quite possibly the best freeware game ever. Good characters, plotline, gameplay, sidequests, music. A 2D shooter/platformer hybrid, kinda like Metroid without quite as much exploration. You owe it to yourself to play this game.
Fixed for great justice.
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Cave Story (http://www.miraigamer.net/cavestory/)
LA-MULANA (http://agtp.romhack.net/project.php?id=lamulana)
The Apocalyptic Game About Penguins (http://www.tagap.net/)
Survival Crisis Z (http://www.skasoftware.com/)
Red Valkyrie (http://chromaticgames.com/show.php?id=9)
Decker (http://www10.caro.net/dsi/decker/)
Iter Vehemens ad Necem (http://ivan.sourceforge.net/)
Nethack (http://www.nethack.org/) and/or Falcon's Eye (http://users.tkk.fi/~jtpelto2/nethack.html)
Battleships Forever (http://www.wyrdysm.com/games.php)
Soldat (http://www.soldat.pl/)
Transcendence (http://neurohack.com/transcendence/)
Walkover (http://www.confrontation-unlimited.net/mpenetwork/?site=walkover)
The Ur-Quan Masters (http://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.php)
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (http://www.fileplanet.com/124800/120000/fileinfo/Return-to-Castle-Wolfenstein:-Enemy-Territory-Client-v2.55)
Crazy Cross (http://www.fileplanet.com/148139/140000/fileinfo/Crazy-Cross---Full-Version)
Notrium (http://www.monkkonen.net/notrium.php)
Bontãgo (http://www.bontago.com/)
GameBiz 2 (http://www.veloci.dk/gamebiz/gb2/)
Clonk Planet (http://www.clonk.de/classics.php?lng=en) and/or Clonk Endeavour (http://www.clonk.de/ce.php?lng=en)
Theseus - Return of the Hero (http://www.liberatedgames.com/game.php?game_id=133)
The Ur-Quan Masters (http://www.liberatedgames.com/game.php?game_id=42)
Eversion (http://zarat.us/tra/offline-games/eversion.html)
1213 (http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/1213/) (Only to be played for the secret ending, the game itself is actually pretty poor.)
Five Days a Stranger (http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/5days/) and Seven Days a Skeptic (http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/7days/) (I don't care for the games in the series outside of those two, but make sure you play Five Days, then Seven Days. They're the first two, and it's crucial to the plot that you play them in order.)
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I found (re-found, actually) another freeware game. But I'm going to give it its own thread in a few hours, so....
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TripleA - An Axis&Allies game (with multiple modes). http://triplea.sourceforge.net
It's sucked more than a few hours out of my life lately.
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Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Pretty good multiplayer FPS.
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Grand Theft Auto and its sequel come to mind.
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Racer (http://www.racer.nl/) it quite a good free 3D racing simulator, though there are some bugs with it on my computer. Download other people's cars, tracks, etc.
The downside is that I haven't figured out how to make the AI go faster than 60km/h (or 120km/h for the Lambourg you first get), and some of the collision detection between car and ground is a bit dodgey. Also, learn the hotkeys, because sometimes you fly off the level and fall forever unless you use the "return to track" hotkey. And it seems to be discontinued.
Also, http://xmoto.tuxfamily.org/ is the page for a 2D side-scrolling motorbike game like ElastoMania. It has no in-built editor that I'm aware of, but it's OK. No suspension worth noting on the bike, and the brakes always allow a small bit of movement.
http://supertux.lethargik.org/
For people who like Tux the linux penguin. Comes in Windows format as well.
http://www.gltron.org/
Discontinued Tron game, ride in squares without crashing into your opponents' wall(s). Fun multiplayer. Make your own skins. Try fast in mini map, test your reaction times. Crash the game by creating too many right-angles (not a problem unless you try).
http://www.warsow.net/
FPS with MSPaint graphics, very fast, different moves, hard bots. Weird sounds.
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Speaking of racing games...
Trackmania Nations Forever (http://www.trackmania.com/tm/index.php) has some of the coolest track setups I've ever seen. I hear the paid version of the game (Trackmania United) is even better, but Nations has more than enough variety to keep me interested. Tracks are almost all done by players (track editor included).
GeneRally (http://generally.rscsites.org/download.shtml) is a fun little gem of a racing game. Great for hotseat multiplayer![/url]
Also...
Continuum/Subspace (http://getcontinuum.com/) is a lot of fun, if you can get it to work on your system.
Battle of Endor/Battle of Yavin (http://www.bruneras.com/fgames.htm): Very simple premise, but faithfully and effectively executed. Until FotG or someone does them better, at least... :D
BZFlag (http://bzflag.org/) Deserves a mention too.
Kobo Deluxe (http://olofson.net/kobodl/) is a very pure arcade shooter, lots of fun. Easy to get into a blissful "zone" of shooting things for hours.[/url]
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UFO: Alien Invasion (http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/) - an intense, turn-based squad tactical strategy game. Really pretty, tons of depth. Centers around a organization of international soldiers that are Earth's only line of defense from aliens.
Good stuff :) Thanks!
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GeneRally (http://generally.rscsites.org/download.shtml) is a fun little gem of a racing game. Great for hotseat multiplayer![/url]
Yes, Generally is a nice little game. I haven't played it in a while, though.
Also, TORCS (http://torcs.sourceforge.net), a free racing simulator. Sort of like Racer, mentioned earlier. It has its own track editor, too.
I remember I did an article on Racer for a English assignment in year 9. :)
The downside is that I haven't figured out how to make the AI go faster than 60km/h (or 120km/h for the Lambourg you first get),
On any track, you have to record a path for the AI, with each car you want to race with. It was a pain, sometimes, when you kept messing up trying to do a good lap.
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You can try Dargonfable: http://www.dragonfable.com/
It's a good ,fantasy RPG ,you can play free or buy an account upgrade (I play free).
This site also have links to two other games ,first is Mechquest ,something like Dragonfable in SF
(it's a bit weaker than DF) and the second is Adventure Quest ,a predecessor of DF ,though happening a bit later.
Sometimes it's a bit difficult to log in to Adventure Quest because of the server limits (servers are full nearly all the time).
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That's a flash game, much different than freeware in the sense we're talking. Freeware refers to downloadable in-depth games, not free browser-based demos.
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GeneRally (http://generally.rscsites.org/download.shtml) is a fun little gem of a racing game. Great for hotseat multiplayer![/url]
...
The downside is that I haven't figured out how to make the AI go faster than 60km/h (or 120km/h for the Lambourg you first get),
On any track, you have to record a path for the AI, with each car you want to race with. It was a pain, sometimes, when you kept messing up trying to do a good lap.
That could make for some interesting races...
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Ace Online aka Space Cowboy aka Air Rivals aka... whatever...
MMO Flight combat sim with ground and space missions.
URL should be ace.subagames.com
Takes a lot of time to level up though. Best if you've got some friends
to power level or fight as a pack with. Once you get north of lvl 50 you can
deal a lot of damage.
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Ace Online aka Space Cowboy aka Air Rivals aka... whatever...
MMO Flight combat sim with ground and space missions.
URL should be ace.subagames.com
It doesn't feature a monthly fee or a box price, yet revolves around an item shop mechanic where you are supposed to buy "goodies" for real money.
As most Korean "style" MMO games... gameplay is heavily focused on repeating quite simple tasks ad nauseum as well and is much more blatant and obvious about it than any of our "mainstream" MMOs,
which of course makes spending real money to help progress a little faster ever so more "attractive". :sigh:
Not really what i would even consider a "free game"... and certainly not a "shining example" LOL.
Takes a lot of time to level up though. Best if you've got some friends
to power level or fight as a pack with. Once you get north of lvl 50 you can
deal a lot of damage.
Yeah... takes a lot time of monotonous killing basic enemies so you are able to do more and more damage to things that have more and more hitpoints -
giving you some shallow illusion of progress in what is essentially little more than the human version of a hamster wheel /pukes.
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SuperTuxKart: http://supertuxkart.sourceforge.net
The Battle for Wesnoth: http://www.wesnoth.org
Little Fighter 2: http://www.lf2.net
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Runes of Magic (http://www.runesofmagic.com/en/index.html), a MMORPG suspiciously similar to WoW in many respects.
EDIT: Otherwise, Anarchy Online (http://www.anarchy-online.com/wsp/anarchy/frontend.cgi?func=frontend.show&template=main) is still going strong.
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:bump:
Infantry is good. You need a Station account, but it's entirely free.
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I found this neat little site (http://www.remar.se/daniel/games.php) a couple of days ago. It has six games (three of which are worth notice).
Iji:
Platforming game with a leveling system. It has a user-generated (ish) storyline. I recommend the optional high-quality soundtrack.
Garden Gnome Carnage:
The name kind of speaks for itself.
Castle of Elite:
A few of the Elite level puzzles are... difficult evil.
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If you're looking for a good freeware RTS, Spring (http://springrts.com/) is a great game. Imagine Supreme Commander with TA units and without Crysis-like requirements.
This looks pretty good actually!
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I had a bit of a nightmare getting it running and ended up uninstalling it :(
Though, in fairness, that was more me not wanting to spend the time messing around with the map/mod downloader thingy.
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I'm more of a single player person, mainly because
A: My internet is crap
B: I suck at all games
C: Games made for single player have easy tutorials (In my experience)
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C: Games made for single player have easy tutorials (In my experience)
How about Railroad Tycoon II? :drevil:
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LOL, I used to play that. Too bad the disc got scratched to sh*t.
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One that I like is Battle for Wesnoth.
http://www.wesnoth.org/
Its a open source RPG with plenty of content.
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Teeworlds for mac and pc
http://www.teeworlds.com/
(http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/1381/screenshot00758375537.th.png) (http://img204.imageshack.us/i/screenshot00758375537.png/)
Entirely free, it's a 2d online shooter that also has a built in mission editor that is really easy to use. :)
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I know they were mentioned earlier, but play the WHOLE Trilby series. . In this order, 5, notes, 7, 6. It's in my opinion more entertaining than the monkey island series. There are also three text adventures to play after 7 but before 6.
Www.totallyramblomatic.com
Made by yahtzee who reviews on zero punctuation. :yes:
It hurts. . . .
My king. . . . .
And lo they knew his name. . . It hurts. . . :nervous:
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/me dislikes zero punctuation. :mad:
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/me dislikes zero punctuation. :mad:
Suckit. :p
EDIT: BTW, it's fullyramblomatic.com
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/me dislikes zero punctuation. :mad:
He's very opinionated but he does it out of love. :p
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Cheers Titan for that correction :yes: I was doing all that from memory. . . .anyone tried crayon physics or braid?
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I love that crayon game :nod::yes:
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I know they were mentioned earlier, but play the WHOLE Trilby series. . In this order, 5, notes, 7, 6. It's in my opinion more entertaining than the monkey island series. There are also three text adventures to play after 7 but before 6.
Www.totallyramblomatic.com
Made by yahtzee who reviews on zero punctuation. :yes:
It hurts. . . .
My king. . . . .
And lo they knew his name. . . It hurts. . . :nervous:
/me could have sworn that Notes was released after Seven. :nervous:
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Suckit. :p
You used a full-stop. :p
He's very opinionated but he does it out of love. :p
...out of love to hate, yes. :drevil:
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C: Games made for single player have easy tutorials (In my experience)
How about Railroad Tycoon II? :drevil:
My father could NEVER get enough of that game..
...until he beat it. All of it. BTW we have platinum edition with second century era so its like twice as much to do.
WELL... someone mentioned GLTron, I believe. That one's ok, but I prefer Armagetron, which has a very stable online community.
I have also played alot of the Marathon trilogy via Aleph One. Bungie released the entire trilogy as freeware, as well as the source code for Marathon 2, and basically they had their own version of the SCP.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST, I also suggest Toribash. It's basically a turn-based fighting game where you mess with a ragdoll's joints to make it fight the opponent ragdoll - extend, contract, hold, or relax a joint. It's fun. Graphics range is from "bad, but acceptable enough not to scare people away, but also runs GREAT on crappy comps" to "looks almost real except that none of the stuff in the game is real".
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Has anyone mentioned this site (http://www.acid-play.com/)?
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Whoever mentioned Wesnoth, thanks. It turned out to be more than interesting game with some strategic depth.
I'll try Allegiance also as soon as I have time.
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Hammerfight (http://www.fun-motion.com/news/hammerfight-announced/) and, as it used to be known as Hammerfall (http://www.fun-motion.com/physics-games/hammerfall/), are demos of the full game (which I have no idea if it will be free or not), but, as they are now, are fun to play.
If you want more than 60 minutes of playtime per save in Hammerfall, then after playing for a while in a save (around 30 minutes), go into the Hammerfall directory and then into saves, open "profile_01", find m_roots, and change the number behind it to -1.
To get past the level limit in Hammerfight, go to Data\Levels, move DEMO.seria out of the directory. Now copy one of the other levels, and rename it to DEMO.seria. Now, when you reach that 'end level', either through solo or arena, you will be takem to the level you just put instead of DEMO.seria. That way you can keep playing arena (if replaced one with the ARIA levels), or repeat the campaign (if replaced with one of the GAIAR ones), although the second option might be a bit wonky. Levels other than GAIAR and ARIA dont seem to be completed yet.
edit: The reason I posted the old and the new is because you can play much more of the story in the old one.
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Has anyone suggested abandonware yet? :nervous:
If you like RTS, old, cntrl-click interface for multiple-unit selection, you should consider the original Warcraft. Abandonia and go... You'll need DOSbox, but that's really easy (and free) to get a hold of.
If you like flight sims that are still shockingly realistic, check out Parsoft's old A-10 series. The only version they made for Windows was A-10 Cuba!; if you've got a Mac you might be able to find a way to run Cuba! and Attack! using an OS9 emulator. If you can do that, you get all the fun options I never had as a kid (I never had A-10... :( ) like the mission editor, etc. The Windows version isn't as good.
If you find that abandonware is uncomfortable, I throw one last suggestion to the breeze: YS Flight Sim. Yes, it does suck, but once modded to use better, "more realistic" aircraft, it actually is quite fun. It achieves this feat by being so shockingly simple and almost arcade-like that you can merely focus on flying. Combat missions are also fun. This might be a good one for multiplayer...
To clarify, YS Flight is freeware. If you need to modify something, also note that most things are alterable via text editor. I've never tried making a new aircraft, but I believe there's tutorials out there. The source code is NOT open.
-Thaeris
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The original Warcraft? When Blizzard is still around? How is that abandonware?
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I suppose I don't know... it is from '94 and you can't buy it anymore from the manufacturer. That might have something to do with it. It's also for DOS.
Of course, you could also be a lame company such as LucasArts or Electronic Arts which have games even older than the said title, unavailable for purchase, have NO real demand except among nostalgists, and still refuse to release the program to the general public... :hopping:
But you can find the said program on abandonia...
I will state that if Warcraft had intermittent cutscenes throughout I've not seen them. Perhaps that was a feature of having the disk (though you could get the program on floppy too, right?). The intro cutscene is there, though... Warcraft is Warcraft, though. Crazy action four units at a time!
-Thaeris
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Lucasart plan to release their older titles on Steam.
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not for free.
And a self-respecting gamer already has those games in the firstplace.
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...why would they release it for free? Their adventure games have quite a fanbase. Hell, Monkey Island got a sequel.
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Three didn't it?
http://www.get-your-rom.com/SNES.php?letter=all
The EULA as follows
Super Nintendo Entertainment System rom's should only be downloaded if you own a copy of the actual game, will delete it within 24 hours, or are using it only for testing and/or development purposes (such as for taking screenshots)
:yes:
I have one title screen for each rom i have.. That's me covered :nod:
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I meant a recent sequel.
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:wtf: Sequel or remake? Specify......
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Hidden and Dangerous Deluxe is available for free. I tried it, since my friend's copy of Halo:CE is scratched to hell.
It's... ok. The sad thing is that the AI (both friendly and enemy) is infinitely better then me. It's also kind of buggy, with unintuitive menus... but i haven't run into any of the crash bugs, which means I can skip through most of the menus.
You gotta play it like a romhack or Sands of Time: Save everytime you kill someone or manage to move forward successfully, load whenever you die (which is all the time). It's a decent game.
The people that made it should be shot for not releasing the source code (It's from 1999!!!), since many of the problems seem to stem from just plain sloppiness and/or rushed release. There's a truly great game underneath all the crap.
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:wtf: Sequel or remake? Specify......
This. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Monkey_Island)