Army Break 8: Great news I have.

Unfortunately said news have nothing to do with my army duty -news on that front aren't cause for celebration really- but should be of interest to the quality gaming public that tends to visit the halls of the now half empty Lair. It's all about news of the gaming, indie gaming and retro gaming kind then. Hope you don't mind about the fact that they really aren't the newest news around...

Anyway. Let's start with a biggie. Unity the versatile, powerful, and not ridiculously difficult to use game development tool has just gone freeware. Grab it here, study the excellent tutorials, think a bit, use your imagination and go create something.

For those that would like to enjoy their quality interactive fiction on the go, classic Spectrum developer Zenobi managed to cram its whole catalogue in one tiny DS cart. Follow the link scroll down and see for yourselves.

Further DS focused Speccy love comes from indie group Headsoft who have created the fabulous Manic Miner in the Lost Levels for the DS. The game sports 50 obscure and classic levels and has to be seen to be believed. Oh, and it's free. Grab it.

Staying on the retro-esque side of things, thought I'd remind everyone that the excellent third issue of Retroaction magazine has also been released. It costs nothing, looks brilliant and covers such diverse topics as Blade Runner, the Atari STe and retro fanzines.

Adventurers will be glad to know Machinarium has gotten itself released, whereas Tales of Monkey Island episode 4 will be with us in a matter of hours. Yes. It's the point-and-click brigade advancing once again.

The indie brigade on the other hand is organizing -with the help of TIG Source- the Assemblee competition. It's the first two-part compo I've ever seen!

Oh, and I got myself a Playfire profile too.

Army Break 7: Enough is enough.

Just a lovely Grim Fandango video for you luvs. We'll soon be talking about armies, games and, err, stuff though.

Army Break 6: Ahh, yes, the army. And PC Zone.

It occurred to me that, well, I haven't really mentioned anything regarding my time spent in the army, which frankly is kinda weird. I am after all boring everyone to death about the subject. Seems to be the only thing on my mind lately, exactly as people had foretold. Then again this is -supposedly- a gaming blog, and surely you lovable lot wouldn't care for crude jokes that don't make sense outside a military camp, nor would it be normal for you to be interested in my ridiculously long list of petty and not so petty complaints.

So, let me just say that the whole experience has so far been far more tiring than expected, feels outrageously pointless and really isn't that much fun. On the other hand, a rare moment of army induced boredom, coupled with a bit of free time, led me to paying for a ridiculously overpriced issue of PC Zone UK. And then to promptly and quite obviously reading it. PC Zone, you see, had always been my fav PC gaming magazine ever since I laid hands (ages ago) on its jaw-dropping issue 4. And yes, even though I am no longer a regular reader, I was quite aware of the fact that the mag had changed hands and that things aren't up to old times standards.

Still, I was expecting a good, rich and well-written issue. Despite the ridiculously cheap and thin paper the mag was printed on and the impressively uninspired cover. Sadly, I was quite disappointed.

The mag felt painfully small, heavily focused on mainstream gaming and lacked the variety of articles, humorous bits, features, reviews and previews that made it what I used to enjoy. Granted, most parts were actually well written and the humour -where present- was generally good, but I just couldn't help but feel annoyed at some really silly and sub-par reviews that judged games solely on genre. Or the fact that half of the issue covered, in what can only be described as excited fanboy tones, dull FPS offerings. Or that the retro section was incredibly poor. Or that PC Zone completely failed to offer something other than what can readily be accessed in your average gaming site. Or that the DVD was filled with demos. Or that the number of reviews was shockingly low.

Oh well, at least there's still Retro Gamer to provide me with analog reading fun...