I just wanted to let everyone know about a small (?) game developer that makes fun games - Small Rockets, at www.smallrockets.com. I don’t know these guys, nor am I affiliated with them in any way.
The best endorsement I can make for their games is that I have bought three of them: Star Monkey, Ultra Assault, and Tower of the Ancients. All three are quite addictive, and all are the type of game that you can sit down and play when you have a few spare minutes (although, they can burn many hours in their own right.) The first two I mentioned are shooters (in the arcade scroller, not FPS, sense), and the third is a sort of strategy/puzzle game.
The games are well done, look great, and are (relatively) cheap. I think indie developers who do good games are always worth mentioning. I do notice that a few games I remember from the past (e.g. Hot Chix & Gear Stix) are on their site, and I guess they bought the rights to those games. I really have no idea. Check them out when you get a chance.
I played Star Monkey awhile back and it totally kicks ass. Old-school vertical scrolling shooter (my favorite kind) with slick graphics and sound. Totally worth it.
Plus, how can you not like that name? STAR MONKEY.
Hey, I’ve not stopped by their site in some time, but wow what an improvement. I just spent some time with Ultra Assault and Star Monkey, and I’m considering registering both. I love shmups such as these. Thanks for the tip, Lokust!
Yeah, they’re a great developer. I own a few of their games (Ultra Assault, Red Ace Squadron, Star Monkey, MAD: Global Thermal Nuclear War, Master of the Skies: The Red Ace, and Tower of the Ancients) and enjoy every single one of them. I’ve been excited to see what they’re working on next for a while now(other than Shaun Murray for the GBA), but haven’t gotten a response yet.
They don’t have longevity in the galciv sense, i.e. it’s not different every time. Well, at least the shooters aren’t. The shooters are 21st-century versions of the old arcade shooters that had the same pattern of ships every run through the game. I guess you either like those games or you don’t.
Tower of the Ancients is more along the lines of the ‘easy to learn, difficult to master’ games. I keep going back and their games often because they’re good when you need a quick blast of gaming.
Star monkey is fun because of the ship upgrades you can buy. I will sometimes play through the game aiming for different weapon specializations, and it spices it up a bit. It does suffer from being memorizable though - the enemies always are in the same places.
Something about scrolling shooters is just fun though, even if you’ve played through it. I find myself going through a lot of the older classics like Raiden 1&2, Raystorm, Gradius 3, and a couple others when the mood takes me. Sometimes it’s just about beating my top score.
a modern update of sorts of old-school top down twitch space shooter with resouce gathering, a small tech tree, ship upgrades and really nice looking graphics. it has a homegrown feel that I like. Very addictive and fun game.
the demo allows for some very basic gameplay and shows how the more advanced features work. The full version cost is a tad steep at $25 but it far more enjoyable than many AAA games I’ve dblown $50 on.
Starscape is great fun, no doubt about that! I ordered it late last week and am hoping that my copy arrives in the mail soon(I said screw it and got the CD rom version). Not even sure how I originally heard about the game, but I’m glad I did.
Just checked my mail and noticed a nice little package from across the pond from Moonpod. Game comes in a DVD case with a nice looking cover. The CD itself is pretty nice, although you know some guys were in their garage printing lables and sticking them on the CDs, hehe. No manual though :( But you can’t have everything. Seems to be worth the extra ten bucks.
I was a bit let down by Starscape. The fact is, you basically see all of the gameplay in the demo.
All of the other zones are copies of the first, with slightly upgraded ships and a different ‘big’ ship. It gets very repetitive.
I guess I was hoping for something more along the lines of Star Control II, with a some depth behind things.
Even the ‘instant action’ – the way it described it, I was sure that once you beat that mission in the registered version, there would be a bunch of increasingly difficult scenarios to follow. But no, that’s it, just that one battle. Huh?
About the Ultra Assault demo…after a 20 mb download, 4 minutes to install to “decompress music”, a 5 second level load time, I only get to play for a minute? Am I missing something?
I think the art of making shmups is best left to the Japanese.
