Giveaway of the Day - INCINERATE

Developers rely on good feedback to improve their games. If you download this game 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 going to give more games away. The giveaway site already has a very good standing with the search engines. 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 even more decent games.

Please leave some feedback once you’ve checked the game out. It can be positive or negative, but please explain why your reasons for the feedback you post. You could also leave suggestions for improving the game, for example, this game could do with a levels editor, add more power-ups, describing the ones you think would be suitable, add some mini games (which seem all the rage in some arcade games now) or enable the user to be able to change the in game music easily.

Thank you in advance to all those who take the time to post a constructive comment.

Regards

Whiterabbit aka Stephen

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Incinerate: (41,5Mb zip file – when installed 72.1Mb)

Installation:

Today’s game is a 41.5Mb download with an installed size of 73.3Mb. 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\ (XP)

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}).

The size of the downloaded file and the installed game are both different to last year’s files, but the versions seem to be the same. The game works on win XP Pro 32bit, Vista Home Premium 64bit and Win 7 Pro and Ultimate 64bit. (Not tested on other iterations of windows).

Introduction:

Incinerate was originally given away June 2009 and received lots of positive comments and out of 497 votes received a 54% positive vote, then again February 2010 where it received a positive 58% out of 355 votes. And finally earlier this year (Feb 2011) where it received a positive 69% of the votes from a total of 299. There’s plenty of opportunity to see what the community though about this game from the 171 comments that you’ll find from June 2009 HERE (77 comments), Feb 2010 HERE (48 comments) and Feb 2011 HERE (49 comments)

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

Problems installing or activating:

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 wrapped set-up file “Failed to connect. Please try again later” If this happens try re-booting your modem and/or router, failing that reboot your computer or clear out the internet cache, in particular the cookies for the game giveawayoftheday then re-try.

Mike posted last eek that it could be browser related. and Mr Snoozles has previously given other suggestions. (I don’t have time to link to those posts at the moment, will do so later)

If you have problems post giveaway please post any requests for help etc HERE

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The Game:

Today’s game is a vertical scrolling shmup (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, armour, 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 branching routes. This aspect of the game gives some re-playability 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 checkpoint by clicking on the continue button. Otherwise you’ll start a new game from the beginning.

Video & Images:

You can see a 5min 45sec video of game play HERE

You can also see loads of screen captures HERE as a slideshow or all on one page HERE where you can then select individual images to look at.

The main menu gives you access to an options menu that allows you to change screen resolutions, starting from 640 x 480 x 16 to 1600 x 1200 x 32. 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 this 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 ‘shmup’s’ 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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Alternatives:

You can get today’s game giveaway free 24/7 from Gametop HERE. Remember to watch out for toolbar installations and home page hijacks via check boxes during the games installation.

There are hundreds of space themed games available, many of which are free. They are amongst my favourite 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 honestly 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 . Unfortunately I’ve not kept the list up to date of late, so there are actually loads more free games that are space related which you can find via the Games Synopsis HERE. 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) or DotEMU, both are 3D space simulators, with amazing graphics and a real feel for being in an imaginary space shooter. I’ve listed several very good space orientated games at the end of the review. The X3 series of games are some of the most realistic space games I’ve ever played together with the online game Shattered Horizon. You’ll find the Free Games synopsis HERE

There’s also several free Shmup’s (Shmup’s = Space Shoot ‘Em Ups) available from Gametop, MyPlayCity (Where you’ll find Star Defender2, Orbital destruction, Astro Avenger 1 & 2 plus loads more good quality Shmups; so if you missed those that were given away previously you can now get them free 24/7 ) You’ll also find a few over at FreeGamePick, but the last time I downloaded anything from freeGamePick they had become more aggressive w.r.t. toolbars and in some cases forcing you to change your home page before you could play their games.

You’ll find Arial Fire, Air Shark, Air shark 2, Forbidden Galaxy, Forbidden Galaxy 2, plus many more that are linked to via the Shmup’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 during 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 untoward 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 aren’t free and can cost cost anywhere between $10 to $50. Apart from Galcon Fusion which was only released yesterday (Friday 12th Feb) I’ve got every one of the games listed below and IMO think that all of the games are excellent. If you love anything to do with space you’ll probably love most of these games. All of them are available via steam or as a DVD.

Genesis Rising …………………. Strategy

Mass Effect and Mass Effect II …..released last week – FPS/RPG

Spaceforce: Rougue Universe .…Strategy/shooter

Sins of a Solar Empire …………. Strategy

Sword of the Stars …………..…..Strategy/shooter

Light of Altair ……………………Strategy

X3: Terran Conflict ………………IMO a brilliant game

X3: Reunion ………………..……expansion to the above game

Shattered Horizon …….…….….First Person Shooter set on and around the shattered remains of the moon and the international space station – amazing visuals – now with more maps, extra weapons and a single player mode – requires Vista or Win 7 – XP not supported

Galcon Fusion …………………..shmup

Gratuitous Space Battles ………………………….…strategy

Star Trek DAC ……………………………………….strategy shooter

AI War Fleet Command ……………………….…….strategy shooter

Jamestown ——————Shmup

Solar 2 ——————

The following are available from Good Old Games for between $5.99 and $9.99

You can find m even ore Sci-Fi based games from Good Old Games and DotEMU
as well For example:

Earth 2040

Earth 2050

Freespace + Expansion

Freespace 2 (brilliant 3D space shooter)

Darkstar One (similar to Freespace 2)

You’ll find more freeware links to space orientated games in the original comments for this game when it was given away back in June 2009. the link is above in the Introduction to the review.

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Sorry that it’s taken over 2 hours to post the main review. For some reason I’ve not been able to access the Admin panel so weasn’t able to post it until now.

Please excuse the length of this post. It’s morphed into a rather large review with extras since I first posted it a few years ago.

Nice classic vertical scroller. You can shoot things up, and then some.

Power up’s, bosses, different sceneries; that’s what you want in a classic scroller like this and INCINERATE delivers, it’s all there.

Graphics are fine and so is the sound. There’s nothing fancy or next-gen in this department, so do not expect that; they just do their job well enough.

If you got some time to kill, this game will do it for you.
It would’ve been nice if it was just a little bit bigger (as in: more levels), but that could also mean I had way too much fun blasting my way to the end and felt regret when it was actually over…

All in all this game offers some good fun if you are into shooting things up, without having to feel guilty about it.

If you don’t own this game already, get your copy now. You won’t regret it.

………………….Moderator Comment…………….

Thank you for the feedback Jan