The Indie Royale – The Replay Bundle Vol. 1

The Indie Royale have now re-released some of the greatest hits from previous Indie Royale bundles in the Replay Bundle Vol. 1..

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3pQhysaJQA] (more…)

Seeking Potatoes – Defense Grid and Killing Floor

Defense Grid: The Awakening has a “Portal” Level.. the Aperture Science Center for Human Annihilation Studies!  With two different core locations, this was a rather hard level.. the aliens very quickly took all the cores from my first base, then swarmed the second with a flood of tiny aliens which I was unable to stop.

My second attempt failed as I was beaten by the Crasher alien on the last wave..  in the end I took a friend’s advice and sold the towers which only overlooked the first, dead, run, so I could afford upgrades for the towers on the flat area.

After beating this level, I joined the guys for some Killing Floor.

We were killed off quickly in our first attempts, and I felt like I wasn’t helping at all, having not checked it out on single-player first.  Areas out in the open seemed the worst, with zombies coming from anywhere, though in the enclosed areas they had the cover of darkness.

I started out with the Commando class, as it was recommended as the easiest all-rounder, but noticed that I was filling the xp bar for the Sharpshooter class mostly, so switched class.  We turned the difficulty down, in the belief that the difficulty scales with the number of people playing, and after that things were a lot better.

As this is part of the Potato Sack Pack it has a slight modification adding GLaDOS to the game as the trader, with a few choice comments here and there 🙂

My first visits to the shop were a hurried glance at the screen before the timer ran out, so it took a few visits before I’d seen enough of the interface to know what I was doing and to start trying out new weapons.  I should possibly be banned from the grenade launchers in this game as I managed to blow myself up twice..  I also tried out the crossbow.. I loved it when the enemies were at range, but once the zombies were in the room with me it was just too slow.

It was fast enough to take out the Patriarch in the second of our full games though.. very lucky as I was the last alive and had only 3 health! 🙂

Portal 2 ARG and Defense Grid: The Awakening

Portal 2 was supposed to be released on the 19th April.. however, an earlier release date was suggested over the last week, as a pile of clues have been discovered by fans dedicated enough to go looking for them.

I am not one of those people; while I love the fact they’ve done it, I don’t have the time or knowledge required to root around with codes, convert random numbers to images and access encrypted files.  Seriously.. even if I had the time I wouldn’t even know where to start, nor whether I was even going in the right direction.  Instead, I’m content to keep an eye on the Valve ARG wiki..

The Potato Sack Pack appeared on Steam last week, and I just took it as an opportunity to grab a few more cheap games, but it was another part of this rather clever play by Valve!  The info gathered so far points to Portal 2 being unlocked when an unspecified amount of play-time has been reached on the various games in the pack.

There is also a potato-collecting mechanic involved, with collectible potatoes hidden in the games and elsewhere: one can be collected simply by joining the ‘nelipot’ Steam group.  The ARG Wiki people have discovered that more potatoes increase the rate that the GLaDOS@Home bars fill up.. so really, the aim of this game is now: collect potatoes and play indie games 🙂

I won’t be idling in any games overnight, though.. while it’s mentioned on the Wiki as a way of adding the the cause, I consider it to be too close to cheating when the ‘aim’ is to play.  I have similar reservations about using the login details posted for collection of potatoes as well..  I’m just going to play the games.

I was gifted Defense Grid: The Awakening on Friday: a tower defense game with a twist.. when the invading aliens reach your base that’s not it.. they steal a power core and attempt to leave the base with it.

Killing the alien results in the core being dropped.. it will try to make its way back to base but can be grabbed by another alien en-route.

The Meteor tower is my current favourite.. long-range, great damage when it hits.. though I like the laser too, especially when upgraded. 🙂