The Arcade: A Monthly Roundup Of Freeware Games (May 2008)

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Welcome back to The Arcade: A monthly Roundup of Freeware Games.  We are glad you found us.  My Today Screen continues to enjoy exceptional growth as more readers find us every day, and The Arcade has been enjoying the fruits of these successes, growing right along with the site.  Thanks to the generosity of Patrick Jordan over at Just Another Mobile Monday, the entire unedited archives of The Arcade now appears right here on My Today Screen.

In the meantime, you did not come here to read about what we have done before.  We are here for one reason, and that is to discuss the free goodies that many developers like to offer.  So, let’s get right to the action and take a closer look at:

1. Peter’s Gamebox

2. Greedy Penguins

3. Hit or Miss Solitaire

4. Space Invaders

5. Pocket Zidane v. Materazzi

Peter’s Gamebox

Holy Freeware, Batman!  Let’s kick this edition off right with a whopping 8-in-1 freeware game pack.  And not just any eight games, mind you.  These are all classics.  What wil you find in here?

• Blocks and Blocks 2: Two different Tetris Clones
• Snake: You direct a growing snake around the grid, trying to earn points by gobling up the fruit.   Don’t run into your backend, though, or it will be game over.  This was one of my favorite BASIC games on my old 386 DOS machine, and it is still just as fun today.
• Cannons: Another Scorched Earth clone.  I love it!  Lob missiles and other munitions at your opponent’s cannon until one of you is blown into oblivion.
• Mahjongg:  This is the first of several matching games in the gamebox.  You will find an assortment of tiles on the board.  Just find two that match and remove them.  Rinse and repeat until all of the tiles have been removed.
• Same: This is similar to the Bubble Breaker game which came with your device.  just tap groups of like colored balls to remove them an earn points.
• Squash: Who doesn’t love an Arkanoid clone??
• Mah’ River: Another matching game, and the only game in the pack I had never played before..  This time, you must search a grid of tiles to find two adjoining tiles with the same picture and color.  Remove them from the grid and keep going.

Wow.  I mean, this is really a pretty slick bundle.  Frankly, as I was playing I kept expecting some trial to run out.  The games are all well made, and the choice of which games to include is outstanding (though there was an abundance of color and tile matching games).  What a great way to kick off this issue.

Greedy Penguins

Start at the top and work your way down with your choice of four different penguins.  Sounds pretty easy doesn’t it?  Well, this vertical-scrolling game is anything but easy.  You’ll start at the top platform and watch as the platforms scroll from the bottom toward the top.  Your goal is to keep your penguin moving toward the bottom of the screen, without falling off.  It feels a lot like running the wrong way on an escalator.  Along the way, you will find a variety of platforms, including: bouncers, conveyor belts,and even spikes.  Coins and fish are arranged strategically around the maze, and you will want to collect them in order to earn points (coins) or regain your health (fish) which can be lost if you hit the spike along the way.  Fall off the bottom of the screen, or run out of health and it is game over.  You can play by yourself or head to head against another person (collect the most coins to win).  I thought this was a fantastic (and usually pretty quick game).  It would have been nice if you could play with more than one life or have some kind of checkpoints.  I did get a little tired of starting over from the beginning every time.  Otherwise, this is a fantastic, fast-paced game which will leave you breathless by the time you finally reach the bottom (if you reach the bottom).

Hit or Miss Solitaire

It is no secret that I am a nut for solitaire games.  I have reviewed an awful lot of solitaire packs and have included a number of free variations here in The Arcade already.  Heck, I even judged the category in the Smartphone and Pocket PC Best Software of 2007 Awards (the 2008 edition is coming up fast). So, it should surprise no one to find another solitaire card game here in The Arcade.

Hit or Miss Solitaire is really quite a unique game.  The idea is to move all of your cards from the Stock Deck (which is where they all start) to the Foundation Pile.  Like any good story, there is your beginning (stock deck) and end (foundation pile).  Of course, we have ignored the middle, which is where all of the action takes place.

On each turn, move the top face down card from the stock deck and place it face up on the discard pile.  Then, compare the value of the card to the value indicator on the top of the gameplay area.  If they match, then your card can be moved to the foundation pile.  Of course, every time you move a card, the indicator changes (it counts up from A to K).  This is one of the more challenging solitaire games I have played.  Not only does it require quite a bit of luck (getting the right card to match the moving target in the indicator area) but also quite a bit of mental acumen, which most solitaire games do not necessarily rely upon.  Without a certain degree of mental toughness, you are likely to just let that playable card go sailing by as you tap-tap-tap away for the next card.

Space Invaders

Hello 1980 and the Atari 2600.  Any of our readers over the age of 20 probably remember the Atari 2600 and the classic game, Space Invaders that was included in the package.  My friends and I must have spent hours blasting away at the tiny green aliens as they marched across their track, getting ever lower as the blasted away at our bunker shields.  Now, in his perfect style, Jean-Francois Manguet (who is quickly becoming one of my favorite developers of free games) has expertly and accurately recreated this classic game, with the original colors included.  I found the controls were a bit tricky on my Mogul, but not so much that it deterred me from enjoying this game.  Perfect for you nostalgia nuts out there…or for you kids who want a taste of the 1980’s era technology that mom and dad had to put up with when we were your age.

Pocket Zidane v. Materazzi

This is one for you soccer (or futbal in Europe) fans.  Most of you probably recall this bizarre incident from 2006 World Cup, in which Zinedine Zidane headbutted Italy’s Marco Materazzi in the chest.  Don’t remember that?  Check out this clip to see the inspiration for the game Zidane.

In this game, you play Zinedine Zidane as he is swarmed by drove after drove of Italy’s finest soccer (futbol) player, Marco Materazzi.  Just keep headbutting them in the chest and they will drop like flies.  But watch out, let any of them run roughshod over you and, or worse, get past you,and your health will reflect your poor efforts.  This is a great and whimsical game for all of you soccer fans out there…especially fans of Marco Materazzi. [Note: In the link above, you will find the download link in the right hand sidebar.]

Wow.  Talk about a bonus edition of The Arcade, today we brought you a whopping 12 games for the price of five Uhm, yes, I know they were all free.)  Four standalone games and an eight game pack.  Not too shabby at all.  I hope you enjoy playing these games as much as I enjoyed finding them .

As always, if you have any freeware games which you would like to see me highlight in this space (or if you are a developer of free games) just send me the link via the contact form on the front page, or send an email to dsgoldring [at] mytodayscreen.com (replace the “at” with a “@”. And if you are just joining us, be sure to check out our archives here at My Today Screen.

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