There’s not a lot of “big name” games I’ve enjoyed lately, many of them have been sorely disappointing (with a few odd exceptions like Fallout 3). I’ve found myself checking out a lot of games from smaller companies, or even indie projects. They don’t have the big names or the big budgets, but they have the love for what their doing, and sometimes that’s all you need. So here’s a few games I’ve enjoyed recently.
I’ve just spent 2 days playing a cool little game I found on Steam called** Alien Shooter: Vengeance**. It’s a “you versus an absolute horde of monsters” type game, top down isometric perspective. Mouse to aim, WASD to move. Nice lighting effects, some nice little touches like highlighting a weapon on the shop screen brings up a “buy ammo” button. The game is pretty intense from the get-go, and it does a great job of sticking with the pace right up to the blood-soaked, bullet-filled end. Some levels have mounted cannons or vehicles which break things up a bit without losing the intensity. It is a bit short, but well worth the 15 bucks in my opinion. Or you could throw in the original and the sequel for $20 on Steam. Check the demo here, Steam doesn’t have the demo, just the regular games. There seems to be a whole series of them - Alien Shooter, Alien Shooter 2, Zombie Shooter, etc - but Alien Shooter: Vengeance seems to be the most tweaked and best of the bunch.
What else? There’s another game called Defense Grid: The Awakening, which might be my next purchase after playing the demo on Steam. It’s a standard Tower Defense game, of which there are dozens available everywhere on the internet for free. So why spend $20 on it? Well the game is pretty slick, the graphics are pretty damn nice for a TD game, and I really enjoyed the demo.
**Jets ‘n’ Guns ** is a cool little side scrolling shooter from Rake in Grass. Tons of different ships to buy, loads of insane weapons, very cool level design, and a hilarious sense of style. $30 for the Gold version, which is a lot for an indie shooter but worth it. Note: after you beat the game, you can keep your stuff and play over again on a harder difficulty. Very slick and well produced for an indie game.
UFO: Extraterrestrials is one I’ve posted about before, but I think it deserves another mention 
It’s very important that you get both patch 2 (it includes patch 1) and Bman’s mods. With the mods, the game plays almost exactly like X-Com, and there will be a boatload of options (3 screens worth) to play with and customize your game any way you want. Besides making the game very close to X-com, the mods add classic features such as reserved TU’s for different types of shots, the original X-Com aliens, and some new features (items, UFO swarms, boss aliens). Can be had from www.gogamer.com or ebay for $20 or less, and I seriously think this was the most bang for my buck I’ve gotten from a game for years. Note: FinnAgain tells me Bman’s mod is up to version 4.07 now, so poke around on the site for a newer version than I’ve posted.
So, what indie games have you played and liked? Post them here, try to give some info on the game, why you liked it, where to get it, etc. Note: I’m not necessarily talking about freeware/shareware (although those are cool too), just games made by smaller companies or a dedicated group of individuals.
