The Goalkeeper

#49

Greg, I think your virus checker is overreacting, but it's also possible that your system is infected somehow and infected this file after you downloaded it. I found no viruses or errors with this game. And oh what an unusual game this is...

Reply | Comment by Nate – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#48

WR,
thought I'd post real quick just in case you check one more time. Sorry about the confusion. Of course, no need to add this one to the commments. Actually, I didn't mean for you to post the personal/private part of that last one. Or maybe you didn't, maybe I'm only still seeing it because I'm on the posting computer. Like you see your "awaiting moderation" posts. It doesn't really matter to me, though. Just didn't want to embarrass you, though I don't know what would in that post. It doesn't embarrass me; no problem there. Also, didn't want to give people the idea they could be constantly bothering you through the comments section, though that's probably not likely. I'm even still seeing the email on my end, though that's usually moderated out.

I'm not expecting a flood of spam from other commenters, though. Especially since, like a dummy, I misspelled it, so it won't work anyway, my actual reason for posting again. :(

What's a wathcer, anyway. Arrrgh!

Hope the QC gives you the clout to have the claim resolved in your favor. Thanks, again.
Watcher

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

I totally forgot to come back on monday morning to check whether more comments had been posted. It's Thursday morning now. I've deleted your email after copying it for myself. I'll email you soon
:)

Got the funeral in about 10 hours so i'm off to bed.

Reply | Comment by watcher13 – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#47

same results as yours with .tmp & .zip...GK.exe, all of those hits...

i agree about probably false positive, but for that many hits, err on the side of caution...that's why i asked you to upload GK.exe from your PC (double-checking)...

maybe the developer will read the comments today, & the results will be updated as they are submitted/tested...has happened before on the GOTD side...

my only other GGOTD problem of late is those flash cookies the Wheemplay games throw on my PC...at least that i know of...lol...

: )

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

Thanks Violet. I did upload GK.exe and got a clean bill of health. then uploaded it to two other sites. One came back with one hit (F-Secure) and the other was clean as well.

Reply | Comment by violet4714 – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#46

Not my kind of game.
No virus or trojan present.may be AVG is giving false positive

Reply | Comment by lora – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#45

@WR...
run Program Files/Winter Wolves/The Goalkeeper/GK.exe from your PC thru the scanners & double-check, please...
thanks...
violet4714
http://www.virustotal.com/file-scan/report.html?id=551bcad0fdacfaa01e3f5d98d3541b93746c080b87b461847d21e1cef928b557-1323672539
http://virusscan.jotti.org/en/scanresult/4366314b6ad6214d7f8d97232316f23324684c97
http://vscan.novirusthanks.org/analysis/faa7e8a4acd6ecf754d8cc4cbfabd17f/Z2stZXhl/
: (

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

Hi Violet, I've also done the same and I got ‘clean as a whistle’ results. you can see one of them above as I posted it in response to someone else’s comments about virii. I would suggest that you do a full scan of your computer. I don't mean to scaremonger, but it looks as though your own computer is infected. If it is it would contaminate the results from your own uploads (or possibly).

There have been too many spurious results. Of course I would also err on the safe side and delete the game, but in all honesty I truly believe the game to be clean.

You could test the assumption by uploading other files from your computer. Try other giveaways to see if they also come up contaminated. If they do, that would confirm my suspicions that your own computer is the source.

Reply | Comment by violet4714 – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#44

When I made my original post here, I was on my Windows XP machine (Desktop) and it ran perfectly, other than trying to figure out how to play the game. I just installed it here on my Windows 7 (64 bit) machine (laptop) and it is also working correctly in full screen and Windowed Mode. I have made no changes at all to the game settings.

To make it a little bit understanding, this game WILL run under Windows 7 (32 bit and 64 bit) with no issues at all. If you are having a few issues with the games not wanting to work, I would recommend checking Windows for Updates. Some of the updates do not fall under the important updates, but under Optional and they are also needed.

GGOTD has not once failed in checking all files before posting them up here, and I have ran SETUP.EXE and the unpackaged files with everything in my arsenal of Virus checking software and it always came back clean. There is no virus at all in this game and the ones listing the reports saying there is a virus in the files, the virus could of came from your PC or your ISP. You need to run a virus scanner on your PC to see if you actually have any viruses. AVG does lie, and does not catch everything, that is why I run multiple anti-virus software on my PC's.

Whiterabbit-uk, hope you get to feeling better, your meeting goes well tomorrow, and keep up the good work at bringing these games to us.

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

Thank you for the feedback and the well wishes. :)

Reply | Comment by jradams350 – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#43

Game runs on much lower hardware than is recommended. Of course, many system requirement recommendations are optimal, rather than minimal, since developers don't want to have to deal with complaints from people who have computers whose hardware is just on the borderline of what's necessary. This runs on W2K, 400 Mhz CPU, 192Mb RAM, 8 Mb graphics card.

I don't want to disrespect this game. It seems like a lot of thought went into this. I tried to play, but, even after spending my training points, I still can't get my hands in front of the ball. They seem to come to a dead stop as the ball is coming toward me. Of course, I could just use the automatic option, but then the game would practically play itself, which the review that Whiterabbit helpfully reprinted pretty much says. I'd have to agree with many of the particulars of that review.

I notice on their website that they have a game called "Boxing Manager". I mention it because this would seem to work better if you were the soccer team's coach or general manager or owner or whoever would be the logical choice to make personnel decisions. When you're simming a player, I think there should be a little more balance between the game and the management aspects. I use for example our American Football fantasy leagues, which, even though the realism isn't all fantasy will tell you it is (I have a little sports backgroud) there's a tremendous emotional investment in the actual games. And there, you're not even simming players, but you're still heavily involved in the actual game play, but, you could just read the stats if you want. Works either way there, but not here. Here the game is an afterthought, worse, it's practically irrelevant.

What I'm saying, though, is there's enough a nucleus here, that, with a little rethought, this could be quite entertaining.

One quick word on the virus issue. I advise people: if you get a hit, click the link if one is provided by you AV, or go to your AVs homepage and look the virus up. Because scanners today use "heuristics" - in other words, "suspicious behavior" detectors - there are many false positives. If you check, you'll find your AV has many "names" for viruses that they actually have NO descriptions for. In those cases, my semi-educated guess is a 90% chance of a false positive. So panicking might be premature.

Personal, private note to Whiterabbit:

Stephen, thank you for your recent "long time, no see" responses to my posts. I appreciate your kind thoughts. Actually, you haven't heard from me because my forum account seems to be corrupted. I discovered this when I tried to start a thread on free American patriotic music right before our 4th of July. Had thought of deleting that account and starting a new one, but don't see a delete option. Tried changing the password, hoping that just making any kind of change might reset it, but, no luck. To clarify, I can log in, but can't post anything. I experimented with PMing you, but can't. Get something like "your not allowed to send personal messages. Are you logged in?" But I can log in and see my profile. Again, just can't post or PM.

Been meaning to send a private message to you via game giveaway. If possible, could you look at it at your convenience to see if you can spot any problems. That is, of course, if a moderator can even see anything about an account's status. If you don't mind, you can contact me through one of my e-mail accounts:

wathcer13b@yahoo.com

BUT PLEASE DON'T EVEN TRY UNTIL YOU HAVE THE TIME. I truly appreciate how busy you are. After all, how frequently do you even get a spare moment. I'm guessing about once a decade. :)
A meeting with a QC! That obviously indicates how serious your claim must be.
Best Wishes on that and in general:
Paul the Watcher.

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

I'll check your account later to see if anything has been changed or corrupted, I'm actually an admin over on the forums so have more privileges. Thank you for the feedback as well. The QC was brought in because of the seriousness of the claim.

Game runs on much lower hardware than is recommended. Of course, many system requirement recommendations are optimal, rather than minimal, since developers don't want to have to deal with complaints from people who have computers whose hardware is just on the borderline of what's necessary. This runs on W2K, 400 Mhz CPU, 192Mb RAM, 8 Mb graphics card.

I don't want to disrespect this game. It seems like a lot of thought went into this. I tried to play, but, even after spending my training points, I still can't get my hands in front of the ball. They seem to come to a dead stop as the ball is coming toward me. Of course, I could just use the automatic option, but then the game would practically play itself, which the review that Whiterabbit helpfully reprinted pretty much says. I'd have to agree with many of the particulars of that review.

I notice on their website that they have a game called "Boxing Manager". I mention it because this would seem to work better if you were the soccer team's coach or general manager or owner or whoever would be the logical choice to make personnel decisions. When you're simming a player, I think there should be a little more balance between the game and the management aspects. I use for example our American Football fantasy leagues, which, even though the realism isn't all fantasy will tell you it is (I have a little sports backgroud) there's a tremendous emotional investment in the actual games. And there, you're not even simming players, but you're still heavily involved in the actual game play, but, you could just read the stats if you want. Works either way there, but not here. Here the game is an afterthought, worse, it's practically irrelevant.

What I'm saying, though, is there's enough a nucleus here, that, with a little rethought, this could be quite entertaining.

One quick word on the virus issue. I advise people: if you get a hit, click the link if one is provided by you AV, or go to your AVs homepage and look the virus up. Because scanners today use "heuristics" - in other words, "suspicious behavior" detectors - there are many false positives. If you check, you'll find your AV has many "names" for viruses that they actually have NO descriptions for. In those cases, my semi-educated guess is a 90% chance of a false positive. So panicking might be premature.

Personal, private note to Whiterabbit:

Stephen, thank you for your recent "long time, no see" responses to my posts. I appreciate your kind thoughts. Actually, you haven't heard from me because my forum account seems to be corrupted. I discovered this when I tried to start a thread on free American patriotic music right before our 4th of July. Had thought of deleting that account and starting a new one, but don't see a delete option. Tried changing the password, hoping that just making any kind of change might reset it, but, no luck. To clarify, I can log in, but can't post anything. I experimented with PMing you, but can't. Get something like "your not allowed to send personal messages. Are you logged in?" But I can log in and see my profile. Again, just can't post or PM.

Been meaning to send a private message to you via game giveaway. If possible, could you look at it at your convenience to see if you can spot any problems. That is, of course, if a moderator can even see anything about an account's status. If you don't mind, you can contact me through one of my e-mail accounts:

wathcer13b@yahoo.com

BUT PLEASE DON'T EVEN TRY UNTIL YOU HAVE THE TIME. I truly appreciate how busy you are. After all, how frequently do you even get a spare moment. I'm guessing about once a decade. :)
A meeting with a QC! That obviously indicates how serious your claim must be.
Best Wishes on that and in general:
Paul the Watcher.

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

I'll check your account  later to see if  anything has been changed or corrupted, I'm actually an admin over on the forums so have more privileges.  Thank you for the feedback as well.  The QC was brought in because of the seriousness of the claim.

Save | Cancel

Reply | Comment by watcher13 – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#42

I've downloaded almost every game provided by GGOAD. I've never had any infection or malware from any download from GGOAD or GOAD. I don't always keep the games but I try them and then when I can I write a comment.
I want to thank the GOAD team for all their offers as well as the developers for giving us a chance to try their products.

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

Thanks Sam

Reply | Comment by SamF – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#41

A virus scan of the Setup.exe with the orange key icon only tells you if the Software Informer installer and the GOTD unwrapper are clean. The game installer itself is encrypted by GOTD and therefore any malware therein is undetectable until the unwrapper unscrambles the content.

Concerning the bad vote and low amount of downloads today my guess is that it is partly caused by the lack of official support for Windows Vista/7 and partly by the fact that the game looks very boring for us that are not interested in football, especially the theoretical side of football. But I will at least download it to test how boring the game is :-)

@WR
Good luck "tomorrow"!

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

Thank you, much appreciated. :)

Reply | Comment by Sheepskate – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#40

ok, my mistake. Now I see the little soccer ball in the upper right of the screen

Reply | Comment by Jim – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#39

Until I actually "saw" the close-up of the dude standing there with a "soccer" ball, I didn't have a clue if this was a hockey, or soccer sim. Bravo guy's, we aren't mind readers..I believe I'll pass with all the thumbs down votes of confidence. Wow...

Reply | Comment by Jim – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#38

Never tried any game like this before.
Severe budget restictions for us.
So new games come from here.
Thanks for something completely different to try out.
If gotten in a store would completely pass on this.
Budgets help by making you try new and different things you would not consider otherwise and sometimes you find out hey, I actually like this.
So don't pass on something unless you have tried it first.
Mr Rabbit, hope everything goes well for you tomorrow.

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

Thank you markey marcus, much appreciated. :)

Reply | Comment by markey marcus – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#37

#5's VirusTotal page reflects today's giveaway more accurately. I checked the hash and that one is correct. #4's and Mr. Snoozles' scan is using the original Setup.exe file, while #5's is scanned using the decrypted installer. BTW, #5's file name looks a bit suspicious, as regularly the last part of the path should say to the effects of "we2***.tmp".

As for the game, it's really flat, and isn't good for a quick play. The 3D renderings is too well, considering you can see the goalie's arm sticking out on top of his gloves. And also, such a game probably will suffice if it used regular Windows graphics, instead of DirectX (I'm thinking CubeDrift).

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

Thanks GMMan

Reply | Comment by GMMan – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#36

Confirmed!!! – this program is a Trojan Horse. Do NOT install!!!

As detected by: AVG, BITDEFENDER, EMISoft, F-Secure, EData, IKARUS and others!
http://virusscan.jotti.org/en/scanresult/e06c2dfe81a34d5fbbef64dfbe51b33f67c51aee

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

I uploaded the same file and got a totally clean sheet; pease explain that? It would imply that your computer was already infected from elswhere and you have infected the giveaway file. I used the unpacked temp file for the first scan (which has had the wrapper removed), then did it with the unpacked zip file that was downloaded from the giveaway site yesterday.

The unpacked temp file that is the setup and ativation module unwrapped from the giveaway wrapper

The Goalkeeper zip file containing the wrapped set up and activation module plus read me

Reply | Comment by Ed – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#35

Downloaded and scanned with both Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. Result: Clean as a whistle. As for the game itself, not my kind of thing, but I can see other people having fun with it. Thanks to GOTD anyway. :)

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

Thank you for your feedback.

Reply | Comment by Fretburner – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#34

Evening all. Take this for what's it worth to you...I found no trojan or virus using AVG file scans. I have the latest AVG virus database, released today at 7:00. My AVG scan results of the ZIP AND EXE files:

Scan Shell extension scan completed.
No infection was found during this scan
Folders selected for scanning: C:\Users\computer\Downloads\TheGoalkeeper.zip
Scan started: Sunday, December 11, 2011, 7:50:10 PM
Scan finished: Sunday, December 11, 2011, 7:50:49 PM (39 second(s))
Total object scanned: 929
User who launched the scan: Mr-Snoozles

Scan Shell extension scan completed.
No infection was found during this scan
Folders selected for scanning: C:\Users\computer\Downloads\TheGoalkeeper\Setup.exe
Scan started: Sunday, December 11, 2011, 7:52:14 PM
Scan finished: Sunday, December 11, 2011, 7:52:26 PM (11 second(s))
Total object scanned: 927
User who launched the scan: Mr-Snoozles

Thanks to WhiterabbitUK, GGOTD and Winter Wolves Computer Games.

Cheers.

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

Thank you for your feedback Mr Snoozles, much appreciated.

Reply | Comment by Mr. Snoozles – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#33

It's not my type of game but I downloaded it just to test my AV software, nothing was found to be wrong here.

Good luck with your appointment tomorrow.

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

Thank you Melanie

Reply | Comment by Melanie – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#32

Looked different from what I play but I gave it a go, and I'm lost :)
Vista Home -
I un-clicked full screen & direct X so I could keep an eye on System resource monitors' bandwidth to see if it was talking /shouting out on the web, and it does seem that there may be a lil chatter, but I'm not claiming this was the one-I'll have to dig deeper before I know that 4 shure-
It wouldn't run untill I went back and clicked directX,then I was off to try
I did figure out you do have to use all the skill points available in options before moving on in the game...but from there I think I'm missing the/some point of the game concept-
So, I wish the dev would consider a better play by play walk thru to get a newbie up and running, and I hope he/they take away from this days' offering that many people do get uneasy if they run a scanner & find flags & warnings-
one of the devs' has a blog, not sure if it is the author on this one, but I won't blast them there- has a cute pic of his cat in the snow ...
anyhow, did install fine & my lil onboard scanners did not flag it so I tried....guess I'll stick with things much simpler for I to understand-

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

Thank you for your feedback

Reply | Comment by T Mike – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#31

Folks, there are many different ways to obtain a false positive reading from a virus checker. Heuristic checking is usually the main culprit, especially if you have it set on a high/strong level. There are also ways to be infected by a virus or malware through your internet connection. The same goes with web security. I have received many false positives from WOT and SiteAdvisor. Make sure your security program(s) are always up-to-date and understand the options available and being used by each. Vigilance is your first and best line of defense, but remember that a positive reading does not always mean that you have a virus or malware. Every virus program has a way to send a suspect file to them for analysis. If you have doubts, send the file to the experts and always request an answer.

The moderators here on GOTD and GGOTD do a superb job of making sure that neither viruses, nor malware are sent to us! This game does NOT contain either, per MS Security Essentials, Ad-Aware, McAfee and Malwarebytes.

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

Thank you for your support Robert.

Reply | Comment by Robert – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#30

I use win xp and it will not run. I get the message 'windows cannot access the specified device, path or file. It may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item.' Please advise.
Thanks, Debbie

Reply | Comment by Debbie – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#29

Downloaded this game and have not figured out how to play it just yet.

There was no false positives on this game, and I have not heard a peep out of the antivirus software when I installed it, so this game is clean as a whistle.

Based on the technical standpoint of what I saw and trying to figure out how to play this game, it deserves a thumbs up and rate it about 3.5 out of 5. I am not that big of a sports fan, so this game is not really a keeper for me, but a big thanks goes to Winter Wolves Computer Games for giving us this game to play, and GGOTD for hosting for us to get.

I have been only here getting and trying games for about 1 1/2 years now and so far none of the games I have gotten from here (Ones I have not missed) has had a problem. I missed yesterdays Game Giveaway due to being away from the PC.

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

Thank you for your feedback

Reply | Comment by jradams350 – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#28

Before I gave up on AVG, I had AVG (free version) reporting Windows Live mail as malware. Since then I've totally and completely steered clear of AVG in any form or shape! I use Microsoft Security Essentials (with resident shield on), which is free, the free version of Comodo Firewall,and I use Spybot browser protect and SpywareBlaster.

I try to run MalwareBytes AntiMalware weekly, SpyBot fortnightly and SuperAntiSpyware monthly, all with updated definitions. I have never had the slightest indication or even hint of any malware problem with any GOTD or GAOTD download. They are all totally clean!

Not into football management programs though! ;)

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

Thank you for your feedback

Reply | Comment by Sparkles – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#27

Clean on Win 7 x64. Full screen. Small file. Fun enough in a little
management sort of way. In arcade mode you do need to build stats since hands do move slowly at first. Using training points can increase speed a bit. Choose West Brom, England with a Michael Tyson listed on team. lol. I have to play it a bit more to decide if keeper or not since the hands routine is tough to deal with. Lose lot of matches by 1 point since my guys don't score well. A game playing as Striker would be a plus.
Roughly an 8/10 for fans. For average player more of a 7 for overall sense of 'run'. Thanks.

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

Thanks for the feedback Beergas

Reply | Comment by beergas – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#26

Just not the type of game I'm interested in. Nice looking though deleted. Maybe they will let us sample a few of the other games, one can hope.

@ whiteRabbit: As for your meetings tomorrow good luck, I've been there and done that, it's nasty in all sorts of ways.

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

Thanks for the thought. :)

Reply | Comment by mindnova – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#25

graphics card does not need updating.
I tried disabling visual themes, but that did nothing for me

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

Sorry V I didn't mean card I mean Drivers; I'm a little distracted at the moment; having to do a lot of preparation for an important meeting tomorrow. Sorry I wasn't of any help. Maybe one of the more tech savvy community members will be able to help. Make sure you check back before the end of the giveaway.

Try downloading the demo from the developers site and see if that works It could be the giveaway version that is at fault. If you get the same problem it's probably some setting on your computer or maybe a conflict with another program. If you really want the game I'd try a clean boot then turn on back ground programs one at a time until you find the culprit (assuming it's a conflict). You could also try running I Obit’s Game Booster, which turns off a lot of background programs temporarily, plus you can easily configure it to turn off other programs as well. In fact it may be wiser to use Game Booster first before you try a clean boot. You can download it from IObit’s site. WOT is giving IObit a yellow warning at the moment. I’ve downloaded Game Booster several times and have never had problems with the site:

http://iobit.com/gamebooster.html

Once you've done playing the game (assuming it works) you just have to click on a single button to bring your computer back up to normal running (i.e. with all the usual background programs). :lol:

Reply | Comment by v – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#24

ok, i now installed it in a win xp machine in virtualbox and it STILL is not running!
Am I the only one with these problems?

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

Sorry for not replying earlier. Have you tried updating your graphics cards (though this isn't a new game so that's probably not the reason. still, it's worth trying). I've just added the problems paragraph to my post ~ comment #1 that I usually post at the end of my reviews. I'm a little busy at the moment so forgot to do so today. Read that and see if there is anything that will fix the problem. It's not exhaustive, but you may just be lucky. :)

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 hopefully fix the problem, if not try disabling the display scaling on higher dpi settings and disabling the desktop composition.

Reply | Comment by v – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#23

Leider war heute für mich nix dabei...
Software & Game - Unnütze Platzverschwender. Schade.
Dennoch danke für Eure Mühe.

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

Google translated:

Unfortunately, today was nothing for me here ...
Software & Game - useless space wasters. Too bad.
Nevertheless, thank you for your efforts.

Reply | Comment by G.M. – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#22

following my post nr9 i installed it in windows 7's xp mode. The program installed but will not run...

Reply | Comment by v – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#21

not my type of game . I ran it in sandbox and checked it out and have no trojan or virus warnings....I have never had a problem with a download from GAOTD....Though I don't like this type of program I did give it a thumbs up, because it seems like a good well thought out game.
That is how I rate the games, not if I personally like it or not, but on how good its made....

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

Thank you for your feed back

Reply | Comment by meagain – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#20

Oh for Pete's sake! Get a grip, people! I have been using this site since 2006. Nothing I tell you..NOTHING.

Using MSE. I downloaded and scanned. Sorry not my type of game to play so not keeping but I just wanted to prove a fact.

It's clean.

AVG is notorious for FP's. One of the reasons I quit using it about 5 yrs ago.

Happy Sunday, my furry Wrascally Wabbit friend!

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

Thank you Delenn. :)

Reply | Comment by delenn13 – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#19

Windows 95/ 98/ ME/ 2000/ XP only??

No VISTA e no WINDOWS 7??

Come on....looks like a very old game, doesn't it??

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

It does work on Vista and Win 7 as I mentioned in my comment @ #1

Reply | Comment by Andrea – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#18

For the record.
AVG has a well known history of false positives.
https://encrypted.google.com/search?name=f&hl=en&q=avg+false+positive

Reply | Comment by Fredward – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#17

Thanks Stephan, I'll be trying this-irrespective of some of the comments posted. I've been using this site for about as long as its been a site and never have had any virii actually exisistant(a few false positives that evaporated when checked in detail). IMO GGOTD/GOTD provides some of the safest downloads out here and I would not hesitate to download any program I was interested in from here!

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

Thank you for your support. :)

Reply | Comment by Bobby Baker – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#16

The so called trojan's is false positives, and perhaps your AV program can't recocnise the file, which will activate the game to developer's homepage. Excuse me, English isn't my native language, but I hope you'll understand my poor English spelling. Cheers from Denmark....and thnx 4 the game ;)

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

Thank you for your feedback.

Reply | Comment by JoeCool – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#15

It's a game that's more boring than soccer! LOL!

Reply | Comment by bull – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#14

I've been downloading games from this site for around 2 years and have never had any virus warnings from AVG ... Until today!

I know that not all trojan horses are bad. Some need to be installed to run certain procedures for some programs. Being an internet marketer, I have a few programs that I have to run as an exception within AVG, else it deletes them automatically.

I will not be running this game though, unless the developer can enlighten us as to which procedure needs to use a Trojan Horse.

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

Thank you for your feed back Lynn.

Not everyone is getting that warning, and out of 42 different scanners one user got no hits and one got one hit via F-secure. Those sort of statistics would certainly imply that the game is fine, still, if you are worried, it's probably best to err on the safe side. i just think it's a great pity that when someone reports a malware hit, which so far over the last five years every one has been proven to be a false positive, many users end up not downloading and miss out on what could be potentially a very good game.

As I've said countless times, all games are thoroughly tested by the giveaway team and no game would be posted if it posed a threat to our computers.

Please remember that thousands of users download these game giveaways. One or two or even ten spurious hits do not constitute a confirmation that there is a Trojan Horse. All this scaremongering achieves is to stop some users from trying the game.

Even the poorest of games, for example last week’s Bieber Kicker had three times more downloads that this game has had so far at this time of day. There has only been 841 downloads so far, which is very low and would imply that many users have not downloaded this game because of the Trojan that has been reported even though it's 99.999% sure to be a false positive. (that statistic has no basis on quantitative data and is just a qualitative assessment from my experience - I'll eat my hat if I’m wrong (hmmm, I don’t own a hat, so instead I’ll give up playing my favourite game of the moment which is Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim if I’m wrong) , because as I’ve already said in this comment, there has never been a positive result from any malware that has been reported over the last five years. Every malware hit that someone has reported has always been proven to be a false positive).

I won't comment further on this issue; I just hope that the majority of users trust in the giveaway team. Thank you for listening. (By the way I gain nothing for defending the game giveaways, I just think that posting warning such as these before they have been confirmed to be true spoils it for many users who are not willing to err on the side of trust, (when it comes to the mention of malware).

I've been downloading games from this site for around 2 years and have never had any virus warnings from AVG ... Until today!

I know that not all trojan horses are bad. Some need to be installed to run certain procedures for some programs. Being an internet marketer, I have a few programs that I have to run as an exception within AVG, else it deletes them automatically.

I will not be running this game though, unless the developer can enlighten us as to which procedure needs to use a Trojan Horse.

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

Thank you for your feed back Lynn.

Not everyone is getting  that warning, and out of 42 different scanners one  user got no hits and one got one hit via F-secure.  Those sort of statistics would certainly imply that the  game is fine, still, if you are worried,  it's probably best to err on the safe side.  i just think it's a great pity that when someone reports a malware hit, which so far  over the last five years every one has been proven to be a false positive, many users end up not downloading and miss out on what could be potentially a very good game.

As I've said countless times, all games are thoroughly tested by the giveaway team and no game would be posted if it posed a threat to   our computers.

Please remember that thousands of users download these game giveaways.  One  or two or even ten    spurious hits do not constitute a  confirmation that there is a Trojan Horse.   All this scaremongering achieves is to stop some users from trying the game.

Even the poorest of games, for example last week’s Bieber Kicker had three times more downloads that  this game has had so far at this time of day.  There has only been  841 downloads so far, which is very low and would imply that  many users have not  downloaded this game because of the  Trojan that has been reported even though it's  99.999% sure to be a false positive.  (that statistic has no basis on quantitative data and is just a qualitative assessment from my experience - I'll eat my hat if I’m wrong (hmmm, I don’t own a hat, so instead I’ll give up playing my favourite game of the moment  which is Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim if  I’m wrong) , because  as I’ve already said  in this comment, there has never been a positive result from any malware that has been reported  over the last five years.  Every malware hit that someone has reported has always been proven to be a false positive).

I won't comment further on this issue; I just hope that the majority of  users trust  in the giveaway team.  Thank you for listening.  (By the way I gain nothing  for defending the game giveaways, I just think that posting warning such as these  before  they have been confirmed to be  true spoils it for many users who are not willing to err on the  side of trust, (when it comes to    the mention of malware).

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Reply | Comment by Lynn – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#13

Downloaded with McAfee / MS Security / Zone Alarm & none of them set off any bells - talk to you later - PS - back after my first surgery (hope it's my last - HO HO HO (from Canada's great white north - dam it's cold here!)

Reply | Comment by Thomas Roberts – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#12

@5 moderator

I have noticed, that you didn't have followed the link, that's given.
Not 20 or so scanners but 42 scanners. So you didn't read the result at all; a moderator should be thorough. Now i have problem's to believe your message, that every thing is scanned and no virus have been found. By the way, last year it happens 4 times, that a program of Giveaway was false. Hidden backdoor problem's.

I couldn't read Scott message, because al is under moderation.
AND you have blocked my other message, that de exe-file of the game itself triggered 4 scanners. 3 of them have the same result. On a localized site were also comment, that this game is doubtful.

Ootje

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

You make a bold assumption just because I estimate the number of scanners to be 20. I checked both links and saw that one had one hit via F-Secure, yet the other by Scott had none. Why would I lie about a thing such as that? I'm just not good at estimating any more. Please consider that I’m doped up with morphine every day, which really does affect my short term memory, also I didn't actually bother to count the number of different scanners on the page; all I saw was a relatively long list of scanners. I was just interested in checking the last column to see if there had been any hits.

As for blocking your previous comment it just hadn't been moderated. I can't sit at the computer all day waiting to moderate users comments, I have a family to attend to as well as other things that interest me like playing my favourite games or in today’s case getting ready for an important meeting tomorrow after my hydrotherapy session. A Queens Council, a barrister, my solicitor and one of the consultant surgeons who has been dealing with my compensation claim are coming to my home for a very important meeting tomorrow so today’s game or moderating isn't really as high a priority as it would normally be on my agenda today.

@5 moderator

I have noticed, that you didn't have followed the link, that's given. 
Not 20 or so scanners but 42 scanners. So you didn't read the result at all; a moderator should be thorough. Now i have problem's to believe your message, that every thing is scanned and no virus have been found. By the way, last year it happens 4 times, that a program of Giveaway was false. Hidden backdoor problem's.

I couldn't read Scott message, because al is under moderation. 
AND you have blocked my other message, that de exe-file of the game itself triggered 4 scanners. 3 of them have the same result. On a localized site were also comment, that this game is doubtful.

Ootje

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

You make a bold assumption just because I estimate the number of scanners to be 20.  I checked both links and saw that one had one hit via F-Secure, yet the other by Scott had none.  Why would I lie about a thing such as that?  I'm just not good at estimating any more. Please consider that I’m doped up with morphine every day, which really does affect my short term memory,   also I didn't actually bother to count the number of different scanners on the page;  all I saw was a relatively long list of scanners.   I was just interested in checking the last column to see if there had been any hits.

As for blocking your previous comment it just hadn't been moderated.  I can't sit at the computer all day waiting to moderate  users comments, I have a family  to  attend  to as well as other things that interest me like playing my favourite games or in today’s case getting ready for an important meeting tomorrow after my hydrotherapy session.  A  Queens Council, a barrister, my solicitor and  one of the consultant surgeons who has been dealing with my  compensation claim are coming to my home for a very important meeting tomorrow so today’s game or moderating  isn't  really as high a priority as it would normally be  on my agenda today.

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Reply | Comment by Ootje – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#11

In reply to comments about trojan's

If two people tested their TheGoalkeeper_GOTD_Setup.exe on virustotal.com and for one of those people it shows to be infected than there is a very good chance that the infection occurred after the file was downloaded.
The fact that in the two virustotal reports for the file TheGoalkeeper_GOTD_Setup.exe there are two different hash codes reported, means the files are actually different. Therefore one of these files is the altered one and most likely the one that is reported by virustotal as infected (sorry Ootje and Greg)

Reply | Comment by ajabo – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#10

Funny thing these false positives...

Nod32 says clean

my.jetscreenshot.com/8610/20111211-flvp-128kb.jpg

here's the result from virustotal, completely different from the
previous entry by Ootje #5

My educated guess, it is ok!

ojoj

Reply | Comment by ojoj – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#9

Installed without warning (avast free edition), but when running it I get a first screen (play full screen, direct X option). Whatever I choose here, both my screens go blank and there is no way to get back into windows without restarting.

OS: Win 7 ultimate 64-bit

Reply | Comment by v – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#8

useful game review...
http://oldgametunnel.com/the-goalkeeper-game-review.php

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

Already referenced the game tunnel review.

Reply | Comment by Sentyent – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#7

avg internet security detects a trojan . maybe f/p?

Reply | Comment by bry68 – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#6

Just downloaded it. Checked with MSE and ZoneAlarm.
Perfect. Nothing found.

Reply | Comment by Bill – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#5

I installed the game and i received a warning from AVGfree2012:
see:
h.t.t.p://dl.dropbox.com/u/10366431/GOTD/TheGoalkeeper/VirusMelding1.png
h.t.t.p://dl.dropbox.com/u/10366431/GOTD/TheGoalkeeper/VirusMelding2.png

I send the setup-file to virustotal.com and there was only 1 warning
http://www.virustotal.com/file-scan/report.html?id=d61d918407907d3fb2d04696090df790ef3fe5c429d1eea07282a68e955167f7-1323593008

Ootje

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

Scott had already done what you did and the results came back clean, so why your's has a warning when Scott's didn't and only one out of 20 or so different malware programs would lead me to believe it is a false positive.

It could be that yours and computers was infected by your own computer. That's only a faint possibility, but you can't rule it out. Please remember that since the game giveaway started back in December 2006 there has never been a game given away that was infected. the giveaway team are very through in their testing because they don't want to lose standing with the big search engines such as Google as that would be disastrous for their project. (Once real virii start appearing in a project such as this users will leave in droves. They rely on us to keep the project going).

Reply | Comment by Ootje – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#4

In reply to comment #3.

While i would never consider playing this sort of game after reading the comment that the file contained a trojan horse i decided to download the setup.exe and run it through virus total, a web site that allows you to check out files with a multitude of different anti virus engines. the report can be found here'

http://www.virustotal.com/file-scan/report.html?id=139ce801533f63e3e4708b04803d5349a613571a3cf0d3c62e62ee3083f9da47-1323592235

I wont rate this game as i wont install and play it because it jujst doesn't interest me, i just needed to prove that game giveaway will NEVER offer infected software.

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

Thank you Scott. :)

Reply | Comment by Scott – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#3

Confirmed!!! - this program is a Trojan Horse. Do NOT install!!!

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

ALL game giveaways are rigorously tested for all malware types. The giveaway project has never in its five year history (the first game giveaways started on the 2nd Dec 2006) given away a game with any malware. The occassional user who states that their software has thrown up a trojan horse or other malware has always discovered that the positive result was a false positive.

Reply | Comment by Greg – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#2

Well, looks interesting enough, but I definitly have to read all of Whiterabbit's review first. I'm a bit lost here.

But there is something good, very good I might add, I got to choose my startup mode: full screen or windowed. Thanks to Winter Wolves, thats great.

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

:) good

I'll be back later with a review.

Reply | Comment by ALF – 12 years ago – Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

#1

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

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

The Goalkeeper:

Installation:

The Goalkeeper downloads to a 7.02 MB zip file that unpacks to a read me document that details the ‘Terms and Conditions as well as basic installation information. There is also a dual activation and set up module that will automatically install and activate the game. If you have any problems installing today’s game, (this is especially for newcomers to the game giveaway project), please check the other information section below for help. The game installs to:

C:\Program Files\Winter Wolves\The Goalkeeper - (or Program Files (x86) if you have a 64 bit system)

You can easily change this during the installation wizard. There is a shortcut installed to the desktop. The installed game is 7.2Mb in size.

I’ve tested the game in Win XP Pro SP3 32 bit, Vista Home Premium 64 bit, Win 7 Pro and Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit installations and the game worked on all platforms. If you don’t like the in game music unfortunately unless you are adept at editing data files there is no way of changing the music. I also did a viral check and it came back negative.

Introduction:

Ever wanted to take the role of a great goalkeeper?

Now with The Goalkeeper game you can!

Create your own goalkeeper, choosing between Handling, Reflexes, Jumping and Charisma skill. Then select your starting team from 6 different leagues: England, Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Netherland.

The game features the Training Screen, where you can train yourself to increase your skills and your chances to do well in the next match. Then there's the Statistics Screen, where you can take a look at every possible stats you want! Lastly, the Contract/Coach Talk Screen will let you choose your attitude towards the team, if you want to stay there or move, and also talk to your coach to convince him to make you play the next match (in case he doesn't think that way!).

The match itself show stats for each player of both teams, like goals, injuries, substitutions, etc. The commentary describe what's going on: when the opponent striker tries to score, you have 3 options: Arcade Save in which you must intercept the ball using the mouse, Strategy Save in which you choose between three options, and Instant Save that, as the name suggests, is calculated instantly.

Reference: Accessed HERE on the 10th December 2011

The Game:

I was too tired to write up an original review today, so have basically copied a review that was originally posted over at Gametunnel with some edits. I play most genres of games with relish but to be honest, I don’t particularly like this type of management game, so would have found it difficult to write an unbiased and in depth review.

The idea behind the game is great. Most football/soccer-fans probably have two favourite positions goalkeeper or striker. I myself have tried my hands at goaltending, only to find out that a guy measuring 5 feet and 6 inches probably isn’t cut out for that occupation. So naturally I jumped with joy when I realized that this game could fulfil my dreams of one day actually saving a ball.

You have the option to play in 6 different leagues. I chose to start playing as goalkeeper for Everton in the UK.

As you create your goaltender, you get to set his skill-levels for four different skills: handling, reflexes, jumping and charisma. At first, you will start out as an 18-year old kid (ah, those were the days!) who still needs some development before he’s ready for the big leagues. At least, that is what you’d think.

Even though your skills are pretty low to begin with, the games present little difficulty. The ball comes towards your goal, and you have to place your hands correctly to save it. Using your mouse to control your hands, you are unlikely to let in more than a few goals. In five games, I let in one goal, but saved two penalty shots with no trouble at all.

You can also improve your skills by training. You will receive reputation points and training points for making high-quality saves during the games. The training points are used to buy training programs that will improve the skill of your choice or to play a friendly game to improve all skills by a little.

Reputation points are used to get on the good side of your coach, so you’ll be his number one in goal. A nice feature that could have benefited from having your coach’s like-you-meter (a bar of your reputation) ranging from 1 to 100, instead of from 1 to 10. When you have 10 in reputation, you are the clear-cut number one goaltender in your club, and it is all too easy to reach. Set it to 100, and you would need time to become a star player on the squad.

Another issue is that every opposing player seems to be the next Totti if they enter the goal area, they will fall down faster than the American dollar, always resulting in a penalty that you, the goalkeeper, will have to face. Judges seem to have been paid off by the opposing coach, and you can’t help but wonder why your coach isn’t doing the same thing.

After every game, a news reporter will give a short report of the game, including a comment on whether you performed well or not. For some reason, she seems to have a speech impediment. After a game in which I got away with a 2-0 win with Everton against Leeds, she said: With two goals taken, Leeds defence played very badly today! The coach at end of the match said that was disappointing.

Graphics: 7

The graphics are nice especially the models of the goaltender and the coach, that can be seen in different menus. But there’s no real movement in the game, except for the movement of the goaltending hands, so graphics are often restricted to menus and statistics. However, the colours chosen for the game (background, text, menu bars etc.) work well for this sort of game.

Sound: 7

The game has the regular sports sounds, with the fans cheering and screaming in the stands when you make a brilliant save. It doesn’t get too advanced, though, and I would’ve loved to hear some background music when you are not playing a soccer game, just checking stats, talking to the coach, or practicing.

Gameplay: 8

An extra point here because of this being a very user-friendly game, with a quick tutorial, and explanations of all the skills. Also, having three options for what to do when a striker tries to score really helps up the score for this game. You can use an arcade save, during which you move your mouse/hands to stop the ball, but you can also use a strategy save, in which you choose from three different options for how to stop the ball, or an instant save where the game calculates your chances of saving. If you chose instant save, you will either save the ball, or you won’t, but you won’t be involved in actually making the save which kind of takes away the entire meaning of the game, but that’s ok it’s kind of the lazy boy option of the game, and not really recommended, because you will definitely be scored upon more often.

Options: 9

Since this game is about getting your goaltender through a long career, you will have many choices to make in the game, including if you want a transfer to another team, contract negotiations, etc. You also have the opportunity, as mentioned above, to choose from three different ways to save the ball. The game also includes the three basic difficulty settings easy, normal or hard.

Concept: 10

Love the idea of having a career as a goaltender, and to follow just one character. The idea also has the opportunity for sequels on another position. Playing as a striker would definitely bring me back for a second go at this game.

Fun: 8

There’s lots to do in a game like this one, and no game will be like the previous one, if you want to start over once you’ve completed it. After all, you’ve got six countries to work your way through, and a goaltending ranking of the world’s best goaltenders and to further your career, you should try to work your way up to the top! The score here is lowered by the little problems with the news reporter who suffers from the speech impediment, and the many penalty shots faced. I also think the game could be improved by, for example, having used the left mouse button to click at the appropriate time to try and hold onto the ball. If you fail to hold onto the ball, the opponents might be able to get a second shot at you, and you’d have to try for another save. As it is, you never hold on to the ball, and that way the opposition should at least manage to snatch one or two of them up during a game but they never do.

Overall: 8

I’m sure that I’ll play this game again. Its one of those games that you are sure to play if you have nothing better to do. I can picture myself sitting by the computer, having completed all the things I wanted to do, and feeling not really up for playing Warcraft or NHL 2005 and then having The Goalkeeper come into the picture. Easy to start, no loading times, and easy to start with. However, the minor flaws mentioned earlier, and a cost of 20 dollars to buy the game, might scare some people off. (Thankfully it’s free today).

Reference accessed 11th Dec 2011

System Requirements:

Windows:

Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP
CPU 1.2 Ghz - 256 MB RAM
OpenGL/DirectX Graphic Card
with 16mb of memory

Mac:

MAC OS X CPU 450+ MHZ / 256MB RAM
OpenGL Graphic Card
with 16mb of memory minimum

Conclusion:

If you like management games this is probably going to be a decent giveaway and well worth keeping. If like me you like to play something with graphics or a puzzle game or one of the many match threes or plethora of Indie games that are being released in droves, then it’ll probably not be staying on your computer. Either way I would definitely give the game a go to see what you think. There’s obviously been a lot of work put into the game.

I won’t score the game today because I don’t feel that I’ve put much effort into reviewing the game.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 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 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, but didn't like the interface for some reason, so hardly ever use it.

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

The Goalkeeper:

Installation:

The Goalkeeper downloads to a 7.02 MB zip file that unpacks to a read me document that details the ‘Terms and Conditions as well as basic installation information. There is also a dual activation and set up module that will automatically install and activate the game. If you have any problems installing today’s game, (this is especially for newcomers to the game giveaway project), please check the other information section below for help. The game installs to:

C:\Program Files\Winter Wolves\The Goalkeeper - (or Program Files (x86) if you have a 64 bit system)

You can easily change this during the installation wizard.  There is a shortcut installed to the desktop. The installed game is  7.2Mb in size.

I’ve tested the game in Win XP Pro SP3 32 bit, Vista Home Premium 64 bit, Win 7 Pro and Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit installations and the game worked on all platforms. If you don’t like the in game music unfortunately unless you are adept at editing   data files   there is no way of changing the music. I also did a viral check and it came back negative.

Introduction:

<blockquote>Ever wanted to take the role of a great goalkeeper?

Now with The Goalkeeper game you can!

Create your own goalkeeper, choosing between Handling, Reflexes, Jumping and Charisma skill. Then select your starting team from 6 different leagues: England, Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Netherland.

The game features the Training Screen, where you can train yourself to increase your skills and your chances to do well in the next match. Then there's the Statistics Screen, where you can take a look at every possible stats you want! Lastly, the Contract/Coach Talk Screen will let you choose your attitude towards the team, if you want to stay there or move, and also talk to your coach to convince him to make you play the next match (in case he doesn't think that way!).

The match itself show stats for each player of both teams, like goals, injuries, substitutions, etc. The commentary describe what's going on: when the opponent striker tries to score, you have 3 options: Arcade Save in which you must intercept the ball using the mouse, Strategy Save in which you choose between three options, and Instant Save that, as the name suggests, is calculated instantly.</blockquote>

Reference: Accessed <a href= http://www.winterwolves.com/thegoalkeeper.htm" rel="nofollow">HERE</a> on the 10th December 2011

The Game:

I was too tired to write up an original review today, so have basically copied a review that was originally posted over at Gametunnel with some edits. I play most genres of games with relish but to be honest, I don’t particularly like this type of management game, so would have found it difficult to write an unbiased and in depth review.
<blockquote>The idea behind the game is great. Most football/soccer-fans probably have two favourite positions goalkeeper or striker. I myself have tried my hands at goaltending, only to find out that a guy measuring 5 feet and 6 inches probably isn’t cut out for that occupation. So naturally I jumped with joy when I realized that this game could fulfil my dreams of one day actually saving a ball.
 
You have the option to play in 6 different leagues. I chose to start playing as goalkeeper for Everton in the UK.
 
As you create your goaltender, you get to set his skill-levels for four different skills: handling, reflexes, jumping and charisma. At first, you will start out as an 18-year old kid (ah, those were the days!) who still needs some development before he’s ready for the big leagues. At least, that is what you’d think.

Even though your skills are pretty low to begin with, the games present little difficulty. The ball comes towards your goal, and you have to place your hands correctly to save it. Using your mouse to control your hands, you are unlikely to let in more than a few goals. In five games, I let in one goal, but saved two penalty shots with no trouble at all.
 
You can also improve your skills by training. You will receive reputation points and training points for making high-quality saves during the games. The training points are used to buy training programs that will improve the skill of your choice  or to play a friendly game to improve all skills by a little.
 
Reputation points are used to get on the good side of your coach, so you’ll be his number one in goal.  A nice feature that could have benefited from having your coach’s like-you-meter (a bar of your reputation) ranging from 1 to 100, instead of from 1 to 10. When you have 10 in reputation, you are the clear-cut number one goaltender in your club, and it is all too easy to reach. Set it to 100, and you would need time to become a star player on the squad.
 
Another issue is that every opposing player seems to be the next Totti if they enter the goal area, they will fall down faster than the American dollar, always resulting in a penalty that you, the goalkeeper, will have to face. Judges seem to have been paid off by the opposing coach, and you can’t help but wonder why your coach isn’t doing the same thing.
 
After every game, a news reporter will give a short report of the game, including a comment on whether you performed well or not. For some reason, she seems to have a speech impediment. After a game in which I got away with a 2-0 win with Everton against Leeds, she said: With two goals taken, Leeds defence played very badly today! The coach at end of the match said that was disappointing.

Graphics: 7

The graphics are nice especially the models of the goaltender and the coach, that can be seen in different menus. But there’s no real movement in the game, except for the movement of the goaltending hands, so graphics are often restricted to menus and statistics. However, the colours chosen for the game (background, text, menu bars etc.) work well for this sort of game.
 
Sound: 7

The game has the regular sports sounds, with the fans cheering and screaming in the stands when you make a brilliant save. It doesn’t get too advanced, though, and I would’ve loved to hear some background music when you are not playing a soccer game, just checking stats, talking to the coach, or practicing.
 
Gameplay: 8

An extra point here because of this being a very user-friendly game, with a quick tutorial, and explanations of all the skills. Also, having three options for what to do when a striker tries to score really helps up the score for this game. You can use an arcade save, during which you move your mouse/hands to stop the ball, but you can also use a strategy save, in which you choose from three different options for how to stop the ball, or an instant save where the game calculates your chances of saving. If you chose instant save, you will either save the ball, or you won’t, but you won’t be involved in actually making the save which kind of takes away the entire meaning of the game, but that’s ok it’s kind of the lazy boy option of the game, and not really recommended, because you will definitely be scored upon more often.
 
Options: 9

Since this game is about getting your goaltender through a long career, you will have many choices to make in the game, including if you want a transfer to another team, contract negotiations, etc. You also have the opportunity, as mentioned above, to choose from three different ways to save the ball. The game also includes the three basic difficulty settings easy, normal or hard.
 
Concept: 10

Love the idea of having a career as a goaltender, and to follow just one character. The idea also has the opportunity for sequels on another position. Playing as a striker would definitely bring me back for a second go at this game.
 
Fun: 8

There’s lots to do in a game like this one, and no game will be like the previous one, if you want to start over once you’ve completed it. After all, you’ve got six countries to work your way through, and a goaltending ranking of the world’s best goaltenders and to further your career, you should try to work your way up to the top! The score here is lowered by the little problems with the news reporter who suffers from the speech impediment, and the many penalty shots faced. I also think the game could be improved by, for example, having used the left mouse button to click at the appropriate time to try and hold onto the ball. If you fail to hold onto the ball, the opponents might be able to get a second shot at you, and you’d have to try for another save. As it is, you never hold on to the ball, and that way the opposition should at least manage to snatch one or two of them up during a game  but they never do.

Overall: 8

I’m sure that I’ll play this game again. Its one of those games that you are sure to play if you have nothing better to do. I can picture myself sitting by the computer, having completed all the things I wanted to do, and feeling not really up for playing Warcraft or NHL 2005 and then having The Goalkeeper come into the picture. Easy to start, no loading times, and easy to start with. However, the minor flaws mentioned earlier, and a cost of 20 dollars to buy the game, might scare some people off. (Thankfully it’s free  today).

Reference accessed   11th Dec 2011

System Requirements:

Windows:

Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP
 CPU 1.2 Ghz - 256 MB RAM
 OpenGL/DirectX Graphic Card
 with 16mb of memory

Mac:

MAC OS X CPU 450+ MHZ / 256MB RAM
 OpenGL Graphic Card
 with 16mb of memory minimum

Conclusion:

If you like management games this is probably going to be a decent giveaway and well worth keeping.  If  like me you like  to play  something with   graphics or a puzzle game or one of the many match threes or  plethora of Indie games that are being released in droves, then  it’ll probably not  be staying on your computer.  Either way I would definitely  give the game a go to see what you think.  There’s obviously been  a lot of work  put into the game.

I won’t  score the game today because I don’t feel  that I’ve put much effort into  reviewing the game.

Problems installing, activating and running today’s game:

<blockquote>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 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 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 <a href="http://7-zip.org/" rel="nofollow">7-Zip</a>, <a href="http://www.jzip.com/" rel="nofollow">J-Zip</a>, <a href="http://www.camunzip.com/" rel="nofollow">CAM UnZip</a>, <a href="http://ziparchiver.hamstersoft.com/en/home" rel="nofollow">Hamster Free Zip Archiver</a>, <a href="http://www.gzip.org/" rel="nofollow">GZip</a>, <a href="http://bzip.org/" rel="nofollow">B Zip2</a>, <a href="http://www.peazip.org/" rel="nofollow">peazip</a>, <a href="http://www.info-zip.org/UnZip.html" rel="nofollow">ZipUnzip</a>, <a href="http://free-rar-extract-frog.pwpw.de/" rel="nofollow">FreeRAR Extract Frog</a>, <a href="http://www.rar-file-open-knife.com/rar_file_open_knife.php" rel="nofollow">RAR File Open Knife</a>, <a href="http://www.altools.com/ALTools/ALZip.aspx" rel="nofollow">ALZip</a>, <a href="http://theextractor.org/" rel="nofollow">The Extractor</a>, <a href="http://www.philipp-winterberg.com/software/rarzilla_free_unrar.php" rel="nofollow">RarZilla Free Unrar</a>

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, but didn't like the interface for some reason, so hardly ever use it.</blockquote>

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