Giveaway of the Day - Astro Avenger

I did the same as last week and assumed we were getting a particular game that I was told about over a week ago and only discovered we were getting Astro Avenger at 3am this morning. It was much to late to write a full review of my own, so all I’ve done is a copy paste job, with my own Installation and Conclusion plus additional information. I agree with all of the review I’ve used so won’t bother to replace it with my own later today (I’ve got two new games to explore – The Witcher 2 and Fable III plus an expansion to one of my favorite racing games Race 07) I’ve had Astro Avenger for 4 years so know the game inside out. It’s not the best Shmup around, but it’s okay. If you don’t want to read the lengthy review below I advise going ahead and downloading then playing this excellent game.

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Astro Avenger

Installation:

The game downloads to a 27.7Mb zip file that unpacks to a read me that contains a registration code plus an executable set up file. When clicking on the executable you can either allow it to install immediately or click on change settings. This allows you to change the default install path from:

C:\Program Files\Astro Avenger

To whatever you want. If your root directory is different to C: the game will install to that drive instead (for example I have my Win XP installed to the F: drive so the game installs to F:\Program Files\Astro Avenger and on my Win Ultimate installation it installs to E:\Games\Astro Avenger (because I changed the install path from Program Files to Games); my Win 7 Ultimate is installed to the E: drive on that particular computer. however you’ll have to check the agreement box first before you can make any changes. Once completed you can select whether the game will boot up once the installation wizard has finished (it’s checked by default) and whether to visit the home site (which is unchecked by default). The game takes up 51.7Mb once installed.

It plays on Win XP 32 bit, Vista Home Premium 64 bit, Win 7 Ultimate and Pro 64 bit.

Introduction:

Using 3D technology Astro Avenger features awesome graphics, excellent sound effects and a thrilling space-age sound track! The game employs an advanced upgrade and power-up system that allows you to buy new types of weapons, ammo, armor and batteries as you advance from one level to another. Fighting takes place in five distinct and expansive galaxies, with over 25 different enemy ships types – kamikaze, fighters, attack planes, bombers and more – to combat!

Reference accessed 21st May 2010 http://www.myplaycity.com/astro_avenger/

The Game

You play the role of a pilot whose mission is to battle through the rogue Emperor’s pirate armada which has forcibly seized power. You must inform the imperial troops about the rebellion, but they are quite a distance away and your path is blocked by the enemy. Luckily, your ship is designed for long-term travel, which translates into a huge capacity for firepower.

The game plays much like a classic shooter. Enemies come at you from the top of the screen, and you can shoot at them, but the gameplay isn’t as simple as it sounds. Initial encounters will involve weak enemies, but your weapons are also fairly weak. At the end of every stage you will be able to upgrade and repair your ship at the independent Vendor stations, and these Vendors are a huge part of the strategy of the game. As you get further along in the game, you realize that upgrade decisions you’ve made will have a huge impact on your ability to fight and survive in later stages. You could do massive upgrades on your laser weapon, but if you don’t upgrade your battery, your time will be spent waiting for it to recharge while enemies swarm around you. Similarly, you can buy lots of missiles of various types to cut through the enemy forces, but if you don’t upgrade your armor periodically you’ll get destroyed by relatively few shots from stronger ships.

The enemies aren’t just going to sit around while you shoot them of course. The pirates will react to your attacks in a number of ways. Some will come straight for you with gun blazing, while others will defensively move to the side hoping to get a shot in while you’re distracted by other enemies. While you can’t aim sideways, you can draw them out with your movements, and homing missiles can always take care of those hard-to-reach enemies. Some enemies are powerful, slow, and lumbering. They hurt, but you can force them to face up and then quickly move in behind them to attack them without worry. Other enemies are incredibly quick, but have low armor, so they can be destroyed relatively easily, but they become a serious threat when in groups of more than three or with mixed groups. Dodging a single shot is easy, but avoiding multiple shots, missiles, and laser beams all at once is a real challenge. Also note that enemy shots can also hit other enemies so you can use that to your advantage.

As you go through the different stages, new enemy ship types will appear. Some will have incredible armor and may seem impossible to destroy, such as the attack planes, bombers, and the destructive commodores. Platforms and astroliners are massive ships or stations that have been converted to military use by the pirates. Turrets get upgraded, making them more destructive and heavily armored. When facing an incredible number of enemies at once, it helps to make use of the various missiles available to you to turn the tide in your favor.

While your laser is your main weapon, and you can upgrade it about 25 times, sometimes bigger payloads are necessary. Plain ballistic missiles are cheap and useful, but homing missiles will be able to turn and go after enemies to your side and behind you. Medusa’s are explosive missiles that will split into six other missiles in various directions. Nukes act as smart bombs and destroy everything on the screen, which is very useful when you’re running out of battery and have way too many targets. My favorite weapon was the Swarm cluster bomb. Launching multiple small homing missiles, you can cause massive damage to multiple enemies. I loved using Swarms on the laser-toting astroliners. Normally they will shoot beams and launch kamikaze ships, but a few well placed Swarms will knock them out before they fire a shot.

After so many stages are completed, you will fight one of the impressive and powerful bosses. These battles can be difficult, but I find it is best to take out the smaller and easier enemies first so you can concentrate all your energy on defeating the boss. Winning the battle treats you to more of the story and leads you to more action.

Astro Avengers also has multiple difficulty levels, so Easy will have the enemies easing up on you while Hard will have them gunning right for you immediately. The game also lets you publish your high score, allowing you to compete not only against yourself but other players. The game has plenty for shooter fans, especially those who liked the Airstrike series.

Reference http://www.gametunnel.com/astroavenger-game-review.php 21st May 2011

Features:

• 5 large stunning worlds (galaxies)
• 50 levels with tons of blasting fun
• Thrilling space-age soundtracks
• Load/Save game
• Three levels of difficulty
• 25 challenging enemies – kamikaze, fighters, attack planes, bombers and more!
• 5 type of lazers with 5 level upgrade
• 5 type of rockets and 11 different bonuses

System Requirements:

• Windows 98/XP/Vista/7
• Processor 700 Mhz or better
• 64 Mb System RAM
• 16 Mb Graphics RAM
• DirectX 9.0

Images and Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK81J6C6RuY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kmApeZEGJM

Conclusion

I purchased this game from Reflexive arcade about 6 years ago and loved it. It’s a little dated now, but still has some great in yer face game play. Between levels you can upgrade various aspects of your ship and weapons which adds to the game play. It still looks good since it’ release in 2004. Exploding ships and sound effects add to the enjoyment off this game. Personally I found the music a little repetitive, but you can turn down the music via the options menu. You have ample options to set up the game to use either mouse, keyboard or joy stick which should please most community members. The upgrades add a lot of replayability to the game as each time you replay the game no two levels are alike. I give this an 8 out of 10 which sub divides into 9 for game play 8 for effects and graphics and 7 for sound and music.

Thnk you to Playrix and the game giveaway for bringing us a new game. We’ve had Astro Avenger 2 before way back in 2008, which is a slighty more polished version of this game. You can get both versions 24/7 from MyPlayCity.

Other useful information:

If you want to change the in game music you can do so easily by selecting your own music; converting the files to the .ogg format using a suitable audio converter – if you don’t have an audio converter you can download one for free from the giveaways freeware section (you can find the link to the freeware section at the bottom of the giveawayofthedays home page):

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/freeware/cat/Audio_Video_Audio_Encoders_Converters/

You’ll find the music files via the following path (assuming you’ve allowed the default setting and your root drive is C:):

C:\Program Files\Astro Avenger\Music

You can even change the sound effects if you wish. Many alternative explosion and laser gun sound effects can be found on the net for free. You must change the name of all files you are going to use both Music and Sound Effects with the original names otherwise the game may crash. I would create a backup of the Music (and Sound) folders if you are going to make any changes just in case you mess things up.

Alternative Games:

If you like Space orientated games there’s loads of links to free games that have been posted in the game discussion forums from large 3D Space area games that are as big as 3Gb to small Shmups of less than 20Mb. Most of the games have been listed in the Free Games Synopsis up until week 100. (I’ve not had time to keep it updated for several months, but am in the procxess of correcting that at the moment. We are at week 141 in the free games project) Weeks 101 to 141 can be found in the game discussion forums, just look for threads beginning with the title Week ……… there’s also a specific Shmups thread that you’ll find in the sticky section, but that also hasn’t been updated in ages. There are loads of Shmups that have been posted within the weeks 101 to 141 so if you’re wanting more shmups to play you’ll have to trawl the game discussion pages until I’ve finished updating the Free Games synopsis. I’m also in the middle of finishing a thread for a game called Project Starfighter, another Shmup, which I intend posting on Monday.

There are several space orientated games to be found over at Gametop and around 40 from MyPlayCity, including today’s game giveaway. At least with today’s game you don’t get your browser opening up when you close the game down like you do with MyPlayCity games. You may argue that you can lose todays game when you upgrade, but it comes with a registration code, so that’s not necessarily so. If you do download from MyPlayCity in the future, there’s no toolbar or home page checkboxes to bother with when installing the MyPlayCity Version, but you do get an advert showing while the MyPlayCity installer does it’s thing, plus of course the usual browser opening whenm you shut the game down.

http://www.myplaycity.com/free_space_games/

hey is it 60 minutes trial? so it’s not free

…………..Moderator Comment…………

Gamegiveaways are never 60min trials. READ the readme and you’ll discover that there is a registration code provided. Use that to register the game, then you’ll have the full version.