Hello there,

I guess this game wasn't meant for me even though I was really interested in trying it. It's not usually my cup of tea but for some reason lately, I've wanted to try real Aviation Sims...

If anyone is interested in sharing the solution to my problems, even though it's too late for this game, it would still be worth it just in case it happens again. If so at least Ill know what to do. It's really strange that this small black screen popped up and that the game didn't work. It's never happened before, not with this top notch laptop, never had any issues. Go figure!(Post #32 -#34).

I tried and tried everything suggested plus other things I could think of before posting. Even continued to try afterwards but nothing worked:-(

Thank you in advance to whomever will take the time to help me with this issue. I can assure you that it will be very much appreciated and that I'm grateful for any advice you will give me.

Have a great week everyone and God Bless you all :-)

P.S. See you in March!!!


......................Moderator comment......................

Todays giveaway and two oothers in the series are freely available 24/7 from FreeGamePick. I stopped referencing them some time ago becasue tey had changed their practice to forcing you to install toolbars etc, but that has changed. you can now uncheck the boxes and get a clean game. Helic is called Helicopter Wars (sometimes these free sites change the name of the game). The other two are called Sky Battle and Sky Battle: WWII. you'll also find some other excellent arcade flying games such as Aerial Fire and Air Shark I & II plus Forbidden Galaxy I & II. Just google FreeGamePick then click on the Flying link to find all of the games :)

Here you go

http://www.freegamepick.com/free-flying-games.html

After sitting here playing the game, here is my review of it..

It installed and runs fine under Windows XP and Windows 7. Graphic quality is excellent, Game play is easy.

The only issue that I would like to point out for me is that the controls for the helicopter are a bit over responsive, but I have compensated for that in the game.

Got past the training with ease and the first mission seemed hard at first, but once I got the full hang of it, the game went smooth.

I got memory access violation?
Windows 7 64 bit OS.

..........................Moderator comment.........................

Please check previous comments for possible fixes. Thank you.

Yes to both questions.

Great game.

Came across the "memory access violation" error. It interrupted by mirage mission.

Windows xp - sp3
ATI x1400
Core2duo t7200

Hello everyone,

I hope it's not too late to post it's 8:00 P.M. my time. I downloaded and installed today's game on laptop Win7 x64 AMD Dual Core. But, when I try to open it, a small black screen (not the entire screen) pops up for 2-3 seconds???

I have tried all the suggested "fixes", all compatibility possibilities, updated drivers, even uninstalled and reinstalled to no avail. I have DirectX 11 so that's not the problem either. I really don't know what else to do since this is the first time it's ever happened.

If anyone has a suggestion for me so I can fix this problem, it would be greatly appreciated.

Have a great day everyone!!! Well, since it's late in the day...Have a great week everyone!!!

Thanks GGOTD & Whiterabbit :-)


...............................Moderator Comment..........................

Does the laptop fulfil all requiremnts? and does your graphic card support DX 11

Hurray!! game installs and loads fairly quick, play is smooth, Had to rename my shortcut have two other games named HELIC , come on really? no originality here ,one is a block game other a virus/bug game and now a helicopter. have had some firewall and video issues on one of my systems all are W7 x64, but all run good today ,, Thank-you GOTD


....................................Moderator Comment.........................

Thanks for your feedback

Just thought it was interesting to point out that the picture associated with the lowest level difficulty was a flight attendant, the second level was someone that might pass as an ace pilot, and the hardest difficulty, titled "Hardcore," had a picture of a guy that looks like he's a handlebar mustache away from shooting a porn. Very funny :p

Been trying to playing this game.

Keep getting errors.

Errors are:


Entity has no animation

Memory access violation

The instruction at 0x6cc181f0 referenced memory at 0x6cc181f0. The memory could not be read.
Press OK to terminate the program

.......................Moderator comment.......................

Hello Brian, please read the comments above, this has been discussed and ome possible fixes mentioned. Treat, whose posted a few posta above you found that reducing the quality by 50% stopped the crashes and memory access viloation. There are many reasons why you get this message some of which i've posted in answer to other users comemnts. It could also be a software issue such as an old driver or Direct x, your graphics card may not support the game etc. Please let me know if any of the suggestions work for you. Thank yu.

Regards

W.R.

Good game.Splash2 screen wasn't active for more than a second and a half before game fully loaded so wasn't an issue.For some reason game seemed to alter sound of key clicks even after closing(will check this out later).All in all a good game.Thanks GOTD & Fly. Best regards Stephan, keep up the good work.


..........................Moderator Comment........................

Thank you

Great game. Low drag on resources, great graphics and low lag even with minimum quality, and fun.

Awesome game! Easy install, starts quickly, tutorial was effective (helped pick up the nuances of the game easily). Windows7x64, Intel i5, 4GB RAM.

Update:
"- Game crashes with “Memory access violation” after some missions (reproducable)"
After reducing the video quality from 100% to ~50% (@1280*1024*32), the crashes vanished...
"- No option to save the game/mission, so you have to start again from the beginning after a crash"
Only completed campains are stored, not single missions :-/


..........................Moderator comment......................

Thanks for your updated feedback, very useful info for others who are getting crashes.

It is most certainly a false positive. The game giveaway has been giving free games away since December 2nd 2006, initially for over two years every day then from April 2008 every weekend, with some short breaks when no games have been available and in that time there has never been a game given away with a virus or other malware. All reported malware has been proven to be false positives.

No one else out of the almost seven thousand users who have downloaded this game have reported any malware activity; which in itself would support the false positive theory. It's your prerogative not to take chances, but I really think you are missing out on a decent game. What your software is probably picking up is the giveaway wrapper which phones home to the giveaway servers. It's not malware, just a checker.

If the giveaway team were to start allowing games through that contained malware they would very quickly lose their standing with the major search engines. The giveaway project is a business making money on it's reputation as a clean site. It's one of the safest sites available on the net today. They used to have a freeware library which they got rid of because of the risk of malware. They didn't think it was worth it. As for the free games project; that's run by a group of gamers who throughly check all games they link to. the games are not hosted by the giveaway owners and are the responsibility of the users who volunteer to post those free games.

Thanks, I took the screen level down a notch and decreased the quality and now the game is working fine.

After a long time today an arcade game... Thanks!
+ Game control is easy to learn, though it's not a real heli control (I wouldn't expect this for an arcade game, there are some specialized RC Sims for that)
- mission could not be completed as game pointed out "one plane left" although there was no enemy left... (once)
- Game crashes with "Memory access violation" after some missions (reproducable)
- No option to save the game/mission, so you have to start again from the beginning after a crash :-(
- No option to change the keymapping


.........................Moderator comment....................

Thank you for your feedback term, much appreciated. So far I've been lucky enough not to get any crashes. I like this as a change from my usual sims. I play DCS: Black Shark (I'm waiting for Steam to get DCS: Black Shark 2 so that I can upgrade). I also have The A10-C Warthog from the same series, both of which are the best flight sims going for realism. I'm also hoping Steam will get I'm also looking forwards to the new Microsoft flight sim when it's finally released. Don't really play FSX any more. I like Helic and the other three iterations of this game (e.g. Sky Aces: Cold War and World War II and Air Attack) just for their simplicity and I find them a good distraction from my more serious and in depth games. you can chill out and just fly around. I tend not to follow the campaigns all the time, often spending several plays on one level just shooting up everything I can, air ships, enemy planes and choppers, and all the ground and sea targets. Just loads of fun without having to learn loads of key bindings or use specialist controllers such as the Saitek Flight Controller and Stick or the Flight Yolk

I just tried to play this game. All the initial screens displayed fine, but when the game starts it's rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise. Kind of makes it difficult to play (unless I tilt my head sideways.) Is anyone else having this problem?


.......................Moderator Comment......................

no one has reported such a problem so far. Try changing your screen resolution. That may fix the problem. If not try updating Direct x and your graphic drivers.

Ok Windows 7 x64 Ultimate 8GB ram. Did need to follow #1 DEP
http://www.updatexp.com/dep-exceptions.html
Using keyboard & mouse. Need try on lowest level to get used to lite taps for turns. Made mistake of running Training Mission as individual part, completed. Then went to Play, Tourist, and boom have to redo all the Training stuff again. Oh well later for that to see if actual full missions can be played. In Training just get close to target & circle until get enough hits. Does get a little wobbly from all that spinning around. Joystick prob best.
Thanks guys.


...........................Moderator comment......................

After playing the game with mouse, keyboard, joystick and X-Box controller, I'd say the most fun I had was with the joy stick. It just felt right. :)

Hmm: this 'America-or-no-America' issue is confusing. The previous GGOTD version page (I checked) AND the developers' site clearly states only three missions: Island, Europe, and Middle East (which I note, Stephen, you have in some places named 'Afghanistan' for some reason?).

This isn't my kind of game, so I won't be downloading it, but the debate about this 'mythical' and seemingly non-existent (?) American campaign intrigued me! Perhaps Refugee has mis-remembered the original? Or perhaps the confusion has arisen because (as mentioned in the previous Giveaway page's comments) one is…at least sometimes…shooting at the US Navy?

.....................Moderator comment.....................

I'll will try and spend some time with the game later today so hopefully will be able to put to rest the question you pose. At present I'm too busy with the kids homework, moderating and playing some of my recently purchased games (Alan Wake, Pinapple Smash crew, Really big sky and the now free Fallen Earth) to want to do it now, maybe someone else could take up the gauntlet (please) :-)


I'm sure in the original game my version did include Afghanistan, but I couldn't be sure now because that copy was on a disc I lost last year and I'd not got around to backing it up. (the last time this was given away it came with a registration code, so I was going to back up the installed file with a copy of the reg code and transfer it if needed to a new drive). I was also a little obsessed with Afghanistan at the time because my son was being prepared to be shipped out with his regiment (Scots Guards) following some training over in Cyprus and I was really worried.

- Shooting looks like it comes come from the lower bottom of the screen, not from the chopper...
- the static "crosshair" is awful, change the shape!!!
- make it 3D (e.g. projected in a sphere), and animated in some way
- include a transparency slider for crosshair
- Steering is somewhat unrealistic. No way to stand still.
- mouse movement is much to slow, itegrate a mouse sensitivity slider for both axes and an +Y/-Y inversion switch
- menu should be accessible from within the game, not only from main menu
- Ground texture detail is washed out beyond good and evil. Increase detail level 4 times and it might budge.
- lower the texture resolution of the environment
- Include particle effects like clouds and smoke

good luck!


.........................Moderator comment................

Thank you for your feedback Harry. :) Some good ideas here. Lets hope the developer takes note. I think this game and its sisters has potential to be classic arcade games if some of these and others suggestions are built into the game.

I'd also go as far as to include a levels editor and maybe some mini games like target shooting and a sort of obstacle course where you have to fly your chopper through stationary and slowly moving hoops etc.

after updating ati drivers and disabling visual composition i still get error "unable to set graphics mode". Win xp ati hd series 4600. Pity cause screenshots looks decent.


......................Moderator comment....................

Try updating your copy of direct x. you will need to download the latest version of Direct X 9.0c. It could very well be that your DX9 is out of date for this particular game.

Other things you could try are changing your screen resolution to a lower setting and try changing the refresh rate on your monitor to a lower setting, say 60 Hertz

It may be that your video card doesn't support the particular mode this game requires to run, hence the error message "unable to set graphics mode".

I forgot to ask, are you using a laptop or a desktop computer?

Is it the same version of Helic on GameTop?


.......................Moderator comemnt......................

No, the Gametop version is 69Mb in size; according to Paul "the newer version (which we have) consists of pictures with higher compression ratio or smaller dimensions (1024×1024 vs 256×256 pxl), making them smaller. Also some music files are downsampled from 192 to 96 kpbs".

Also with todays version you don't have to worry about misisng unchecking the check boxes that could see you with an additional toolbar in your browser and your home page changed to Gametops home page, and when you shut the game down your browser isn't opened and directed to the gametop site

Thanks GAOTD team, very nice game and definitely a keeper for me! :)

On smaller size of today's version of Helix:
Content appears the same based on file-to-file analysis of 2010 versus 2012 installation. But the newer version consists of pictures with higher compression ratio or smaller dimensions (1024x1024 vs 256x256 pxl), making them smaller.
Also some music file are downsampled from 192 to 96 kpbs in today's version.
Let's play on.


............................Moderator comment........................

Ah! so the American campaign isn't missing. I'll have to play this some more just to be sure. However, what you say makes sense. Thank you for taking the time to do a comparison.

Regards

Whiterabbit

Is there Joystick support?


.......................Moderator comment.......................

There doesn't appear to be from the games options; however I already had one of my joysticks installed and ready for use (been playing one of the Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.s flying games recently and it worked with no adjustments needed. Just make sure you have your joystick set up pror to playing the game.

The X-Box controller for windows is also supported. :)

Oh now I see, that's probably the 26MB difference!

"Players can try their flying and shooting skills at three campaigns: Islands, Europe and the Middle East."
Why can't I try my skills at America ;)

..........................Moderator Comment.........................

That's a good point re the loss of 26MB, This must have been an earlier version of the game. If anyone still has the version given away back in Oct 2010 or the MPV ersion would they check to see if they have the American campaign and also see if there is a version number. Thank you.

The previous versions download was 92.7 MB.

.......................Moderator comment.........................


Hi Gary, we've already established that previously. It seems that this may be an earlier version than the one we got before or that the American campaign has been removed. (Thanks to Refugee for that info - I hadn't actually checked this new version so didn't notice the disparity between the two games, not that i'd have remembered that there were four in the one we got before, lol)

The lack of proper pitch control is a major flaw in this game. Real pilots who have actually flown stick-controlled aircraft (gliders in my case) can't easily switch from their learnt behaviour. If you don't give the correct control movements you crash and die. Not in a game but in real life so pushing for nose-down and pulling for nose-up is firmly ingrained in my brain.

Apart from that the game seems quite nice but without proper controls it loses much of its appeal to me.

- Ben -


.........................Moderator Comment.....................

Hi Ben, if you use a joy stick it works perfectly. I push down on the stick and the helicopter pitches forwards and reduces its altitute when I pull back on the stick it pitches backwards and increases in altitude. Works intuively when using a joy stick. Unfortunately many users don't own joysticks these days. I have two spare going, no wait, i threw one out recently. the otherone is a sidewinder and as far as i know still works. though you'd need a converter to plug it into a USB as it's got the old 15 pin plu on is as does the two driving wheeelds i have. I'm dumping them soon, so if you live near Manchester UK you dann come and pick them up for free. :)

The X-Box controller for windows also works, just had to make sure i'd installed the 64 bit drivers, re booted and it worked first time. :) It'll probably work with other controllers as well.

Got this from gotd before - it was 68.1 MB!
Today - 42.2 MB! Odd? Thank for the game
last time given away!


.....................Moderator Comment.......................

Yes it is odd. Also the installed game is approximately 30Mb lighter than the previous version. I don't have the original download now so can't compare them.

Just a very brief comment from me.

While starting the game I got an ugly blue "splash2.jpg" for a short period of time.

After installation you can go to ..HELIC.ENG\video\splash2.jpg
This is a blue picture.

What I dis is copy splash1.jpg over splash2.jpg. Now you have splash1.jpg and splash2.jpg with the same picture.

The game will start now without problem and without the ugly picture.

more:
Though the screenresolution automatically is set to the resolution of my screen (coincidence or programmed that way) I do not have the option to play the game in Windowed mode wich to me is a major omission.


.......................Moderator Comment........................

Hello Alf, not seen you in a while, missed your excellent min reviews of late. I think the spash screen has arisen due to the removal of the developers introductory screen. Thanks for the fix. Though it's not necessary to fix it to actually play the game.

How can I uninstall this game?

.......................Moderator comment...........................

Just delete the installed folder, sorry it took me so long to post todays review which tells you hw touninstall it. I was distracted by a minor emergency at home)

When I try to start the game it gives me an error: Memory access violation. Any of you got this?


...........................Moderator comment...............

Hi Dragos, One reason why a Memory Access Violation occurs is when a program attempts to use something which does not exist on the computer. It could be you are missing something essential such as a net framework or XNA framework (just quoting example, these are not quoted as being required. Maybe trye updating your graphics card drivers then try running the game again. also try downloading and reinstalling the game again.

Another reason could be a partially completed defragmentation routine. Have you recently defragged your hard drive which ahs then been interuppted? (though this would casue other prograns to crash as well)

Gave it a try. Quick and easy install on Vista 64-bit.

I didn't make it out of the training level before quitting, but things I noticed:

An unassigned splash screen at the beginning, all blue with a label of splash something.

The music during the opening is not balanced, very loud on the left side. Evens out during gameplay.

There aren't many options. The one I really wanted and couldn't seem to find was to invert up/down controls. It was really hard to get used to uninverted! Not that I gave it much of a chance.

Game looked good, graphics were nice.

Controls were really loose it seemed to me, and I don't recall seeing a sensitivity adjust option. Also, the movement was limited. Not that I wanted to crash myself into the ground, but it felt like I was stuck at the same altitude.

Aiming was kind of challenging, the body of the helicopter got in the way of the target view, and the heli moved too quickly to get into position to aim/shoot. A first person POV would have been a lot better, maybe a toggle for first to third person.

Not having inverted controls really put me off. It's a flying game, if inverted controls aren't default, there should at least be an option to change to it.

Overall, it looks good and the price is okay for what it is, but it needs a little "more".


...........................Moderator comment.........................

Thank you for your excellent feedback Amanda. :D

In BriefL>


I'm really happy this one has been repeated., it wasn't a free standing game like some giveaways so I lost it when reinstalling windows some time ago on one of my older computers. This game is art of a series of games of this genre that cover the world wars, modern avionics and helicopters. It was originally given away back in October 2010 and received a positive 50% of votes out of 414 votes. There were 39 comments which can be seen HERE. The game is basically an arcade flyer with 3D graphics. You can fly through stylized environments destroying ground targets and shooting down enemy planes and helicopters. Controls are very simple, with flying accomplished either via a keyboard or mouse.

Good news is you can also use Joysticks, in fact joysticks work the way you'd expect then to work, i.e. pull back on the stick to increase in altitude (nose up) push forwards on the stick to reduce altitude (nose down).

Also good news; if you have an X-Box controller for windows that will also work so long as you install the drivers for it. You can get those from Microsoft or various other sites. Make sure you get the 64 bit version if you have a 64 bit platform and 32 bit etc etc. :)

HelicL>



The game downloads to a 42.2Mb zipped file containing a read me and a dual activation and setup module. (Unlike the previous time when we got a registration code and the set up file size was at least 20MB more). To newcomers this means just click on the giveaway wrapped set up file and select your installation path (if you wish the game to go to somewhere other than the default path). Once installed the game is automatically registered The installed games footprint is 68.9Mb in size (this is also around 30MB smaller than the last time we got this program). On starting the game It installs to:

C:/Program Files/Helic.Eng/Helic.Exe

The game plays okay on XP Pro with SP3 32 Bit, Vista Home Basic 64 bit and Win 7 Pro 64 bit.

No shortcut is installed to the desktop or the start men programs folder nor is there an uninstaller installed so to uninstall you just have to delete the installed folder.

IntroductionL>

Players can try their flying and shooting skills at three campaigns: Islands, Europe and the Middle East. As they complete levels, players gain access to new, more manoeuvrablelic game play helicopters, more powerful enemies and unexpected surprises. Easy game controls allow new players to quickly get in the thick of things. In addition to helicopters, some missions can be completed at the controls of combat fighters. Survival mode offers a rapid-fire shooting gallery option for gameplay. Ready for takeoff? Wheels up!

Reference accessed HERE 2nd Oct 2010

The GameL>



Helic uses the same games engine as previous Fly games that have been given away such as Sky Aces: World at War, Sky Aces: The Red Baron and Sky aces: Cold War, though the game looks to have been improved somewhat. The environments are much the same with perhaps a few more buildings. All ground buildings are destructible. Flying is easy, you can use either the mouse or the keyboard to control your plane. To fire weapons use the left and right mouse buttons (chain gun and rockets). You can pick up health packs and resupply ammo and rockets by flying over bonus coins.

The game has two modes; the first is standard play which is the main campaign, where you start with a training flight then are taken through missions that take you through different locations that include European Skies, Islands and Afghanistan. In survival mode you can choose where to go from the above locations as well as choose the time of day, which include, Early morning, Sunny, Cloudy, Evening and night, you can also choose three levels of escort from Easy, Standard and Armada. Both modes have three levels of skill, Tourist, Warrior and Hardcore. The difference between the three is the number of enemies you have in the sky at any one time.

There are three helicopters to choose from, the first being the only one unlocked at the start of the game. The demo only gave me 15 minutes of play, so I didn’t get the opportunity to find out how you unlock the other two choppers. You get a Gazelle Eurocopter, a SA320 Puma and a UH34 Choctaw helicopter.

You can change the screen resolution between 800 x 600 x 32 to 1920 x 1080 x 32 with 30 different resolutions to choose from. There’s also a quality slider, which is useful if your computer isn’t so powerful. If you get any lag, reduce the screen resolution and quality settings to a point where the lag disappears. There’s also a music toggle which allows you to turn off the in game music if you wish.

ControlsL>


• Mouse Movement – Direction
• Q/W/E – Turns
• WASD – Power/Strafe
• F1 – Display Help
• F2 – Display Map
• Up Arrow – Low speed
• Down Arrow – Full speed
• Left Arrow – Turn & Strafe Left
• Right Arrow – Turn & Strafe Right
• LMB – Machine gun
• RMB - Rockets

FeaturesL>


• 10 helicopters based on actual models

• 3 campaigns, 20 fast-paced missions

• Survival quick game play mode

• Original soundtrack




System RequirementsL>


- Windows 98/ME/XP/Vista
- Pentium III processor
- 256 Mb RAM
- 50 Mb hard drive space
- 32 Mb video memory
- Sound card
- DirectX 7




ConclusionL>



Overall I loved playing this game. It’s easy to pick up and hard to put down. Compared to my DCS: Black Shark Helicopter Simulation it’s the easiest helicopter game I’ve played in a long time; it's similar in game play to the many freebies available from Gametop, MyPlaycity and FreeGamePick (see below, with two big differences, 1) ... you are flying in an open 3D world (compared to flying in a scrolling environment) and 2) ... All ground objects are destructible. The game is well made and an improvement on earlier games in this series (mentioned above). It’s reminiscent of some of the arcade flying shooters I remember playing many years ago in the arcades, but today's game has much better graphics.

I think Helic is worth a good 8 out of 10 for ease of play and a well rounded campaign; however, I’m a little biased with respect to scoring this game; so some may think I’m overly generous.


ScoringL>



Download and installation – 10
Registration process – 10
Graphic Appearance in Game – 7+7
Audio – 7
Game Play – 9+8
Replayability – 7
Originality – 7


Total score 72 out of 90 which equates to 8 out of 10


I've scored this game quite high because iI think it's different from your run of the mill HOG's, TM games and match threes, which have become the main stay of the arcade buisness. Though a burgeoning indie movement is slowly taking over (thankfully). It's got some reasonable game play and is easy to pick up. As aleady mentioned below, it would have been much improved if you were able to reverse the mouse movement. I always crash when i first play this type of game after a break. (I've still got a couple of these from previous giveaways).

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If todys game doesn't take your fancy then check out the game discussion forums and the free games synopsis. We’ve posted a couple of thousand free games over the last three years, some of which are fantastic.



All of the major game distributors such as Steam, Impulse and GOG all have some sales with savings as good as 75% in some cases.



Todays 24hr deal is And Yet it Moves with 75% off. A new 24 hour deal starts at 6pm GMT. Every day on Steam. you can also get 66% of both the Serious Sam pack that contains 8 Serious Sam related games (Serious Sam 3: BFE, Serious Sam 2, Serious Sam first and Second encounters, both the originals and the remastered HD versions as well as two Indie offshoots called Serious sam: Double D and Serious Sam: Random encounters, you can check the deal out HERE. There's also 66% off Deus Ex: Human Revolution, (though I think it's available cheaper on Green Man Gaming) plus a few other minor deals. Over on Gamestop you can get 78% off the 2K bundle costing $69.99 (only available in America) and containing several premium games that include: BioShock, Borderlands, CivCity: Rome Civilization III Complete Edition, Duke Nukem Forever, Mafia II, Shattered Union (XP Only), Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: The Complete Collection (Sid Meier’s Civilization IV, Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword, Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Colonization, Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Warlords), Sid Meier’s Civilization V, Sid Meier’s Pirates!, Sid Meier’s Railroads! (XP Only), and finally the X-COM Pack - (X-COM: Apocalypse, X-COM: Enforcer, X-COM: Terror from the Deep, X-COM: UFO Defense), plus they have some more deals such as 50% off Miners Wars 2081 Pre Alpha and another alpha called A Valley Without Wind). Gamersgate as usual have well over a 100 sale items ranging from 95% off for an 86 pack gamers delight (this pack has every strategy game 1C have ever released, with some premium titles, the cot for the pack is less than $70 working ot at less than a dollar per game. This is a ridiculously low price and your chance to own some fantastic games. You can find them all HERE and includes for example The Theatre of War franchise, Star Wolves franchise, Men of War franchise, Kings bounty Franchise, plus a whole load of other excellent games. The actual cost before the deal is taken into account over a thousand pounds/ $1500). There are loads more games on special offers, too many to mention here. :) You can check out all of the main distributors deals via the Didematic Site

There are some no strings attached freebies from Alawar and Realore (well you do have to install Alawars gamebox and register a free account over at Realore). You can get Flowery Vale a match three from alawar and a word puzzle called Aqua Words from Realore. The Alawar freebie is usually available for around a month (it's already been available for three weeks or more) and the Realore game changes every Friday.

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Problems installing, activating and running today’s game:

If you have difficulty downloading or activating the game you can try again later or do one of the following - for example once downloaded when you click on the dual activation and set up file you may get the message “Failed to connect. Please try again later” Check to see if your internet explorer isn't offline (thanks to MrSnoozles/Mike and GMMan for that fix). If the previous suggestion doesn't work go check out previous comments from the last several weeks and look for comments from GMMan and Mike. They have also posted their possible fixes for this problem.

Mike suggests that you check to see if Internet Explorer is offline (even if you use firefox). If it is make sure that it's online thn try again. I’ve always tried re-booting my modem and/or router with some success, though Mike has said that doing that does nothing. Still, it’s worth a try if all else fails.


If you are getting the black screen problem right click on the games executable and select properties then click on the compatibility mode and select the disable visual themes. This should fix the problem, if not try disabling the display scaling on higher dpi settings and disabling the desktop composition.

Other fixes include changing your screen resolution, installing the latest direct X (remember that XP uses DX 9 or earlier only, Vista uses DX 10 or before and Win 7 DX11 or before). Also try updating your graphics drivers. The main two chip manufacturers are NVIDIA and ATI (now AMD) both of which offer driver downloads for free. Just go to the respective manufactures home page and you'll find a link to the driver download page. To find out which graphic card or graphics chip your computer uses type in Dxdiag in the search field (Vista or Win 7) or the run command (XP); this opens up the DirectX diagnostics panel. click on the display tab and look to the left panel. You should easily see what graphics card or chip you are using. (This is required information when selecting the correct download from the developers site).

If you are asked to turn off your Data Execution Prevention for this game to run. You can create an exception so that the game will run without having to turn DEP off. Please bear in mind it's rare that anyone even mentioned getting a DEP warning. If you are not sure how to create an exception read THIS article, which tells you how to do it.


If you are having problems unzipping the game giveaways zip file, for example getting a message saying the file is invalid try using a different file archiver such as 7-Zip, J-Zip, CAM UnZip, Hamster Free Zip Archiver, GZip, B Zip2, peazip, ZipUnzip, FreeRAR Extract Frog, RAR File Open Knife, ALZip, The Extractor, RarZilla Free Unrar

Okay, that should be enough. there are actually many more free versions available. also there are other commercial titles such as the well-known WinRAR, Stuffit, WinAce, NXPowerlite and Corel Winzip Pro, but IMO 7-Zip is probably one of the better freebies. I did purchase a copy of Stuffit when it was on sale a few years ago and recently repurchased a more up to date version when it was o offer via BitsDuJour, but didn't like the interface for some reason, so hardly ever use it.

If you are posting requests for help late in the day I would suggest posting in the main giveaway forums in the game Game Discussion . If you’ve installed the game but it won’t work for some reason, it should still be registered, so someone may be able to help at another time. Unfortunately if your problem is actually installing it then once the giveaway period is over there’s nothing that can be done until the game is given away again (though that isn’t guaranteed. It’s always worth checking out the free games sites as sometimes the games we get here are also available for free from them as well.

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Developers rely on good feedback to improve their games. If you download this game PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE take some time once you’ve played it a while to leave some constructive feedback either positive or negative. The more constructive feedback we get, the more likely developers are to give more games away. The giveaway site already has a very good standing with search engines like Google. Developers want their products out there on the WWW, this site has the potential to do that. The game giveaway project gives away on average between 9 to 17 thousand downloads for each game depending upon what genre and how obscure the game is. That’s a lot of homes these games are being downloaded into and a lot of potential cash that’s being lost by the developers. If we get better games because of better feedback, the community are likely to continue to benefit from the generosity of the developers. Satisfied community members are then more likely to visit the home sites of those developers and purchase games that they may not have bothered with before they discovered the developer via the game giveaway site, thus giving the developers more incentives to give away more decent games to draw more users to their site. There are a lot of game sites and they all want your business. I really do think if we can improve on the quality and numbers of users leaving suitable feedback more developers will join the project. It's a great environment to recruit beta testers as well; giving the community the opportunity to try out games that aren't on general release yet.

Again PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE leave some suitable feedback once you’ve played the game for an hour or so. It can be positive or negative, but please explain your reasons for the feedback you post. It doesn't need to be a dissertation, just a paragraph or two explaining what you think could improve the game and maybe what you didn't like about the game with suggestions to replace the negative area's. Thank you in advance to all those who take the time to post a constructive comment. It will be very much appreciated by the developer, the giveaway team and me. Thank you.

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Additional Game InformationL>






Please Read this before downloading any of the games I've linked to!L>

Please be aware that when installing games from MyPlayCity (MPC) you do have to install a toolbar and allow your browsers home page to be changed to MyPlayCities home page. The home page can be changed back once the game has been installed and you can turn off the toolbars by going into view and selecting toolbars. A drop down menu will list all of the toolbars you may have. Just uncheck the MPC toolbar. You can delete the toolbars by finding where the executable has been installed to and deleting it then going into the registry and deleting all registry entires associated with the toolbar. If you go ahead and install any MyPlayCity games and aren't sure what to do please post a request in the forums where either i or one of the usual regulars will help you. Personally i don't usually post links to these gaes, but they were already posted from back when MPC was clear of such practices.

As for Gametop, I think you can still uncheck the check-boxes that ask for permission to install toolbars and change your home page, but haven't tried installing a Gametop game for over a year, so they to may have hanged their policy. All games from these distributors will open up your browser when you close any game that you got from them. This is a totally innocuous action that has no impact on your computer apart from opening your browser. Nothing is downloaded or taken from your computer when this happens. It's just a tool the distributors have coded into the game to take you back to their web site. Just click on the X and it's gone with no residuals left behind.

You can get several excellent helicopter games or similar from Gametop, for example:

Desert Hawk

Incinerate

Air Assault II

Air Assault



Also there’s some online examples such as Desert Fire online, Zenon Online, Helicopter Strike Online, which you can find via the following link, just look to the bottom of the page:

http://www.gametop.com/category/action.html


You can also get some helicopter games (some of which are the same as those from Gametop and FreeGamePick) from MyPlayCity, for example:

Helicopter Wars

Airforce Missions

Helicopter Game


Air Invasion; and you can get the following games from FreeGamePick for example:

Aerial Fire

Air Shark

Air Shark 2. Finally, there are several decent helicopter browser games which can be found HERE


If you like real helicopter sim’s a great game to buy is DCS: Black shark, which can be purchased either from Steam or Direct 2 Drive. If you consider there are nearly 300 key bindings for the game you can imagine how much of a simulation the game is. :lol: There are some older Helicopter sims that you can get from abandonware sites like Abandonia such as HIND – The Russian Combat Helicopter Simulation