Incinerate: (10.7Mb)
Today's game is a 32.6Mb download with a installed size of 72.1Mb. Installation is a breeze; the unzipped activation/setup file installs to the following path:
C:\Games
There is no desktop icon created so you will have to create your own. If you want a start menu shortcut you will have to go into Documents and Settings which is found in the root directory (C:\).
i.e. C:\Documents and Settings\name\Start Menu\Programs\,
where 'name' equals administrator, or whatever name you use for your account. Just create a new folder within the program folder and add a shortcut from the games executable file. (right click and select create shortcut then copy that to the folder you've just created - you can also use the same shortcut and copy it to the desktop or select send to desktop {create shortcut}).
Quote:
It is 2074. Astronomers from around the world are watching an asteroid crash into the surface of Mars leaving a huge crater. Clouds of dust and vapor hide the surface of the planet for several long months. Communication with all Martian research stations is lost. When the clouds clear away, people send new spaceships to the Red planet. The spaceships send back shocking news. Hundreds of plants producing arms have been set up on the maimed surface of Mars. Thousands of machines stock the mineral deposits that had been brought to the surface by the massive explosion. A huge geothermal unit is running in the Center of the crater. Its energy creates a protection shield that extends beyond the planet's atmosphere. The objective of the unknown aliens is absolutely clear: they're building an army to conquer the Earth! So people are sending a small spaceship to the Red planet with one mission: blow up the shield generator so they can launch missile attacks from the orbit. The spaceship will have to land in an isolated area, and then try to infiltrate into the alien conspiracy. You are the commander of the spaceship, and the fate of the Earth is in your hands!
Reference: accessed HERE 26th June 09
The Game:
Today’s game is a first time giveaway called incinerate. It’s a vertical scrolling schmup (space shoot’em up), with a small ship that you control with the mouse. The left and right mouse buttons select primary and secondary weapons. You can move the ship anywhere on the playing arena, avoiding buildings and other objects. You can destroy buildings, objects and enemy ships before they destroy you. Crashing into buildings and ships destroys your shields, but you can do this occasionally. You can pick up extra power ups once buildings have been destroyed. Repair droids will repair any damage caused by enemy fire or by crashing into buildings. On the way you have plenty of opportunity to pick up a variety of power ups that you can also purchase from supply depots that you’ll find shortly after starting a new level. You just have to fly your ship over the symbol that denotes the supply station. The supply depots contain several items such as rockets, armor, magazines for your guns as well as various upgrades such as your weapons and shields. You primary weapon requires magazines and the secondary weapon, which is fired using the right mouse button requires rockets. Occasionally in game you will also come across barnching routes. This aspect of the game gives some replayability to the overall game, though choosing either route doesn't look much different. :) . Provided you have completed a checkpoint, you can return to the beginning of a checkoint by clicking on the continue button. Otherwise you'll start a new game from the beginning.
If you want to play the game from a flash drive or even a CD ROM disk, you should be able to as it is free standing, which means there's no important registry keys installed.
Video & Images
You can watch a video of Incinerate game play HERE
and check out all of the images I've uploaded all on one page so that you can select individual ones to look at HERE or as a slide show HERE
The main menu gives you access to an options menu that allows you to change screen resolutions, starting from 640x480x16 to 1600x1200x32. You can toggle between full screen and windowed mode plus change the lighting from normal to advanced, though I haven't checked what the difference between the two settings is okay, and finally there’s a sound and music slider for adjusting the volumes. The help menu is rather basic, with nothing more than the story line and an image of the various power ups available. There’s nothing about how to play the game either.
On starting the game a page opens up that allows you to create a new profile. You can set up more than one profile if you wish. Once this is done, a level map appears. I’m not sure if you can re select previous levels as I only played the one level (left it too late to play an extended game earlier this morning). Once in game you can see several symbols around the periphery of the playing area. These give information telling you how many rockets or magazines you have as well as informing you about the state of your shields.
Conclusion
I was only able to play the demo which consisted of six levels so cannot describe the later parts of ths game I thought the construction of the game was quite well made and the difficulty was good enough to create a reasonably decent game, that I would say is worth a good 6 out of 10; though, that said there are many schmups out there and overall I think this one is an average shooter. The above images and game play video should give you a good idea of the game.
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There’s hundreds of space themed games available, many of which are free. They are amongst my favorite genres. The following two links will take you to threads that have links to loads of free space shooters and strategy games, then I’ve included a couple of sites that giveaway commercial games, after that I’ve listed several games I own that I can honstly say are excellent time wasters which you may consider buying – all are bargain bin games by now, then a link to a brilliant commercial site that has gathered older DVD/CD based games and removed the DRM from them and now you can download the games, ranging from a few hundred Mb, to upwards of 4Gb in size. (So you’ll need a broadband connection to download them)
The first one is the Space Shoot ‘Em ups or Shmup’s: A longish list of FREE games, where you’ll find a massive list of Freeware, abandonware and even a long list of browser based space orientated games. I highly recommend the following one from that thread: Fraxy, Universal Combat, Realms, and Chalk . There’s more, but I’m sure you have lots to check out now. I hope you find something of interest. I would certainly consider buying Freespace 2 and/or Darkstar One from Good Old Games (GOG), both arew 3D space simulators, with amazing graphics and a real feel for being in an imaginary space shooter.
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2724
I’ve not kept the list up to date of late, so there’s actually loads more free games that are space related which you can find via the Games Synopsis:
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4534
There’s also several free Schmup’s (Schmup’s = Space Shoot ‘Em Ups) available from Gametop and FreeGamesPIck:
and
http://www.freegamepick.com/en/games_download.html
You’ll find Arial Fire, Air Shark, Air shark 2, Forbidden Galaxy, Forbidden Galaxy 2, plus many more that are linked to via the Schmup’s link I’ve posted above. all the games from these two sites are commercial quality games that are given away free through sponsorship. When installing these games you do need to watch your installation as some of the games do ask if you want toolbars installed or even to change your home page, however, these can be avoided simply by making sure the boxes that show up dutring installation are unchecked. All the games from these two sites do open up your browser when you close the game down, but there’s nothing untowards about it. you are always taken to the sites home page where you can check to see if there are more games. Once you close the page, that’s it.
finally I’ll list a few really good DVD based space shooters/strategy games that’ll cost anywhere between $10 to $30, all of which I’ve already bought and can vouch for:
Genesis Rising – Strategy
Mass Effect – FPS/RPG
Spaceforce: Rougue Universe – Strategy/shooter
Sins of a Solar Empire – Strategy
Sword of the Stars Strategy/shooter (available on Steam cheap)
Light of Altair – Strategy (also available on Steam)
The following are available from Good Old Games for between $5.99 and $9.99
Earth 2040
Earth 2050
Freespace + Expansion
Freespace 2 (brilliant 3D space shooter)
Darkstar One (similar to Freespace 2)
there’s more SciFi based games from GOG as well:
Regards
Whiterabbit
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