5 indie games, name your price to help developers and charity

Earlier this year I posted about the original Humble Indie Bundle. Well the guys that brought us the first one are back just in time for the holidays! The games this time are Braid, Cortex Command, Machinarium, Osmos, and Revenge of the Titans. I have had Braid for a while and liked it. It’s platformer with time travel. I just got Osmos a couple weeks ago from a friend through a Steam multipack sale. Osmos is a great game if you like physics and casual play.  Check out the official sites to try before you buy if you want. Either way, it is a great deal. Help support indie developers and charities this holiday season!

The Humble Indie Bundle #2

The original bundle users got a Steam unlock code in the mail. Check out the Wolfire blog if you missed that email.

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They just announced you can get Bundle #1 if you donate above the average AND activate both on Steam! All those that donated before the announcement get Bundle #1 regardless of how much they donated. How cool is that?

So it looks like all of the crazy costumes are popping out of the woodwork now that Halloween is coming around again. Brain Alien over at What the Photo brings this pic to my attention again. It brings back memories. No, not those of Sith Vixen in her Femtrooper outfit, which by the way is one of my TOP incoming links on Google (currently ranked #1 for image search).

The memories it brings back to me are those of my first Nintendo games. Every once in a while I get nostalgic, and feel the urge to play my old games. Metroid and Legend of Zelda were my first two “console” games. I earned the money for my NES and games through my own sweat (TRUE, I lived in Phoenix, AZ) and blood (not so true) delivering newspapers in the summer during my spare time. OK, that’s a story my wife’s heard way too many times, so I’ll move on. I still have my original NES and all of my games boxed up in long term storage. If I feel the need to play, I whip out my trusty emulator, but not everyone has access to the ROMs or the patience to get and emulator working right.

I knew that a few years ago the Nintendo’s patent on the NES expired in the US around 2006 or so. Since then a site called VirtualNES popped up. I didn’t realize it, but according to some very sound arguments, their site is legal. . Consider it a free online arcade. If you’ve never played Metroid, check it out!

Play Metroid Online — note, requires Java plugin

Controls:

Borderlands by 2K Games is a unique mashup of and FPS and RPG. The game is rated M for a reason, there is nonstop killing and gore. If you liked Diablo 2, and enjoy FPS games, you’d love Borderlands.  They both have three playthroughs with the same missions, but higher difficulty. Also, the loot engine has random loot with 17,750,000 different possibilities. Part of the fun is the unending quest for better loot. Overall, the variety of missions is much more in-depth in Borderlands. You can play single player or multi, but with Borderlands your single player character is compatible with multiplayer games.

Last week I finally finished the first playthrough with a couple of friends that have mastered the game already. They were kind enough to start out with level 1 along with me and work through the story missions. One of my friends has beaten the game five times and still enjoys it. I think that is a testament to the quality of the game. Most of the missions are NOT just kill XX and come back, much like I remembered World of Warcraft to be. There are a few early missions like that, but overall most of them are much more complex. (more…)