This game is just cool you should take over the world

Thanks - one of the best games.

great multiple levels and skills

Solid program.

Thanks for the game. I have told others about it (and this site because of the game!)

how often do they put new games up cause this one has bin on here for days now i thought they updated every day

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

We used to get games every day, but when the recession hit the games dried up so we only got them at weekends, but even then not every weekend. They seem to go in fits and starts sometimes we may get games for several months then there seems to be a dry spell. summer is usually one of the dry spells. Please do keep checking back on a weekend.

I installed this program specifically for our twelve year old grandson. He and his ten year old sister came to our house on Thursday as they do every week but earlier since school is out for the summer. Both of them went crazy for Astro Avenger. They took turns and I thought that neither one of them would ever quit playing.

One could almost imagine being in a theater playing it. The music is spectacular and the graphics and action are exciting.

I'm not really a gamer but I did try it out when it was installed and I could see it would be a lot of fun especially for the kids. BTW I'm Seventy going on Thirteen.(-:

This was one of the best I've seen. I'll be watching for more like it.

Thanks so much for making these games available.


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


Nice one David. check out the free games synopsis and the games discussion forums. You'll find loads of space shooters some of which are as good as Atro Avenger 2.

The game was "not found" when I clicked on the icon which was the 'broken' page. I couldn't use it. The previous game given away years ago was decent, but needed some improvements.


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

Try the free version from MyPlayCity. It's the same game, just make sure during installation that you uncheck any boxes. I've linked to it at the bottom of my review @ comment #1

Pretty fun game, would be good value for $10. Awesome GGOTD.

I don't get why this game isn't available from my usual gaming sites though... GG, Steam, etc?

................Moderator Comment...............
Steam have only recently been adding arcade games and have been concentrating more on the Indie developers and the more recent arcade games. I'm sure with time they will expand their library of arcade games. I'd certainly be buying such games from Steam. Whats GG? :)

When I click 'register' nothing happens. (infact the entire registration screen is unresponsive to clicks). I have Win7 Prof in a Compaq Laptop. Is there any other way to register? Like a registry entry for example??


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

Try downloading the demo from Awems site and registering that. I can't explain why some community members (thankfully a tiny minority) are having problems with registration. I installed the game on four different computers (I always test the game on different platforms) and had no problems installing and registering the game on any of my computers. I always install to all my computers to make sure they install to different platforms. (Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit, Win 7 Pro 64 bit, Vista Home Premium 64 bit, Vista Home Basic 32 bit and a Win XP Pro 32 bit)

I uninstalled the game and installed again but this time it went straight to play??? no registration page. the same problem popped up .
0001 (11:21:11.309): Failed to load XML: C:\Games\Astro Avenger 2\\Localisation.xml
0003 (11:21:31.245): Failed to load XML: C:\Games\Astro Avenger 2\Models\XFilesMetrics.xml
0004 (11:24:32.288): Device Lost -- restoring...
This goes on until i close the program

WOW!! Thanks for a GREAT father's day gift! I feel like I'm back in high school at the old quarter arcade again. The graphics are great, controls are simple (love that), music is energetic - Where does the quarter go again? 8-)

Where can I buy this for friends and family? This game reminds me of what a good arcade shooter should have been. Very nice job, developers! I look forward to more of your work.

Peace and Long Life,
Tw0nst3r


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

I know exactly what you mean, :lol:

Great game. Been playing for hours. Perfect combination of difficulty and weapons. Thanks GOTD!

I have a debug log file that says' failed to load XML'.It seems to have tried restoring about 34 times, without success, until I shut the program down. Will that help you answer my problem.


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

Try updating your graphics drivers and Direct X as well. :) (You'll need DX9.0 for XP, DX10 for Vista and DX11 for Win 7)

Failed to Connect... >>> FIX:
1) Your Internet connection MUST be working or you WILL fail to connect - of course!
2) Your Microsoft Internet Explorer switched to "Work Offline." Even if you use Opera, Firefox, etc., you MUST open up the Internet Explorer browser and set it to "work online." (Top left of INTERNET EXPLORER browser... left click on 'File' then select at bottom of that menu 'work online'.
WHY??? Because GOTD/GGOTD uses a function of Internet Explorer for activation - EVEN IF you don't use it to browse, it IS in your computer and must be used for activation.
NOTE: If these two conditions are not met, no matter how many times you clear cookies, reset your modem or reboot your computer will do you no good. These two fixes worked for me dozens of times the failed to connect message appeared. Internet Explorer resets to work offline alot, and sporadic Internet outages can play havoc with activation.

Hope this helps everyone!

Cheers - Snoozles



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

As always, thanks again. I'm almost done with the FAQ's doc that I've been working on (well not really working on, just collecting fixes). Hopefully soon you won't have to keep posting this info. :)

Downloaded and install with no problem XP SP3. Having played this now for about an hour (on cadet mode) I will say that this is definately an improvement or the first one, and that is not saying that the first Astro Avenger was bad in the least. Why the weapons feel and appear to be very much the same the enemies are definately different and the graphics seem to have been improved as well. I also like the droids that you can purchase as well. I would say that the authors have down a very good job indeed. I kinda wish that you had the option of playing it the way the intro starts out though if possible (maybe Astro Avenger III?) though I doubt if I could then do very good at all. Over all though Thumbs up and keep up the good work GOTD and Whiterabbit.

W.R.

An enjoyable game that I downloaded after reading your review-excellent as always (game).

The game throws up a red flag for me on one issue. "Plasma" is the most abundant substance in the universe by many times over any of the other substances. We do not have a lot of examples of plasma on earth but two examples are:
1. arc welder
2. florescent lights

Such a nice game and so realistic. The only mistake I could find is the relentless hunt for plasma. Blood plasma is, of course, is a whole another story.
Bigun
,

I really love this game!! First, it was very easy to download, install, and register(I had no problem copying and pasting activation code). The initial trailer was gorgeous, and the general graphics of the game continued to be beautiful. The music is perfect for this particular game, and the game playing is so much fun! It's nice to know that a game that you are playing and enjoying was created by someone who took a lot of time, effort and care creating their personal epic for all of us to enjoy. So thank you very much Awem Studio and GGAOTD.

Hi,
I downloaded this game the first time it was here and I loved it so much I played it atleast 5 times trying to beat my own score. Unfortunately my son wasnt able to complete the game even once cause something happened and while the game started ok, the moment the page for start of play came up nothing worked,we couldn t access anything =no controls/play/exit. we had to go outside the game and exit. I had to deinstall the game. I was glad when it came up again today BUT the problem still exists.I cant access the buttons. Can you tell me what s wrong. What should I do to make it work

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

Sorry for the delay in replying. I had to retire to bed earlier. It sounds like it's your screen resolution. Try changing the resolution so something a little higher. If that doesn't work you can get both versions of the game from MyPlayCity (MPC). The MPC downloads are safe. Your browser s always opened when you close the games down, but it's safe; just turn the browser off. Also during installation mmake sure if there are any checkboxes that you 'uncheck' them. These are usually asking for permission to install toolbars and rediiredct your home page to MPC.

This is definitely a step up from the previous one in the series (which was already good).

Gameplay is very fast and fun, and surprisingly, my laptop suffered significantly less slowdown in this game than it did in the previous game. It’s probably safe to say this one’s better optimized. Keyboard controls were very responsive (didn’t try the mouse or controller options).

Graphically, it looks great. There’s plenty of detail and interesting looking enemies. The intro was quite good at grabbing my attention. I felt the music fit the action pretty well, and this time I could hear it much better past the lasers firing.

My suggestions:

-Widescreen options

-Make the droids more useful. I didn’t try all of them yet, but it seemed the repair one was either doing nothing or extremely little (unless I was supposed to press something to activate it and I didn’t realize it?). The one that deflected lasers seemed at least a bit more helpful.

-Perhaps just a bit more variation in the backgrounds. It looks nice, and there’s a fair amount of variation in the things you’re flying nearby, but the backgrounds feel far too similar.

-A minor complaint… but when I was setting custom keyboard controls, I had set space as the main weapon button. The game didn’t mention that space would pause the game no matter what you had done with the controls. Either let the pause button be remapped or pop up a message telling the player that space cannot be used for any other function. Like I said, minor issue though.

Anyway, I think this is a great shmup that I’ll be playing again soon. Thanks GGAOTD and Awem Studio!


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



Thanks for the feedback Angel; much appreciated. Sorry for the delay in replying. I had to go to bed and no one else moderates, so the later posts are always moderated late. I do try to get back beforte the giveaway ends just in case someone has a problem. (I should have warned the community, but I was so tired I forgot)

This is a great game, in the aspect that it has upgraded graphics but still retains the same system requirments. It runs just as fast (if not faster) on my craptop (700mhz) as AA1. The gameplay and maps/enemies also provide much better variety than its predecessor. Thanks Awem, WR, and GGAOTD for this game.

#23 Marshall: Ensure your screen resolution is at least 1024x768 (or 1366x768 if you use widescree), and that any custom windows themes are disabled (i.e. revert to default/classic theme). If your themes are set to larger fonts/window sizes, it can push graphics beyond display limits.

P.S. For anyone intrested in the racing game of my namesake, EA is now offering a version for free now (if your machine can handle it):
http://world.needforspeed.com/intro?wfvar=wfctrl
They also have Battlefield and a few other games for free now. I'm kicking myself for actually buying Battlefield a year ago...


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

Thanks for the info about the EA games. I purchased all of them previously, but it's great that they arte giving them away. I'll have to check which version of Battlefield is being given away. If it's a permananet thing I'll post details of the giveaways in the free games project later today. :)

This is a neat game! Running great on Win 7 x64 bit. I like the droids you can buy and the weapons are pretty neat.

Sorry it's 10 pm, just got into the house and I have been up since 4:40 am. TIRED!

Downloaded and setup the game, WinXP SP3, with no problems. The music and graphics(liked the short movie at the beginning) are awesome. I like the addition of being able to buy Droids. But just to tired to really play. I had no problems with my icons being moved when I closed the game.

Thanks Awem and Gotd for a fun game. Thanks Wrascally Wabbit too.

Night Night!


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

I fell asleep at the keyboard about 2.15 am (had been talking to a giveaway friend via Skype) and woke up an hour later and dragged myself off to bed. Forgot to check to see if there had been any comments so these wern't moderated until just before the game giveaway ended. Thanks Delenn

I've been trying to download this program for hours and I keep getting please report to author error code LP5.I give up because apparently there is a bug in their software.Shame I looked forward to checking out this game.

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

hi gamer; I very much doubt that it's a fault with the game. It's wrapped by a giveaway wrapper. Also there have been thousands of ownloads and no one else has reported this problem. It's more likely to have been a problem at your end, or your providers. Did you try rebooting your modem and/or router. Doing that can often clear a problem. It's too late now to fix it, but you can download the game 24/7 from MyPlayCity. Check my review at the end for a link. :)

Downloaded and installed perfectly on 32-bit XP Pro (SP3) - no 'shifting desktop'.

'Z' (or the scroll wheel) cycles through whatever rocket types you have (and if you run out of the one you're using, the game SOMETIMES scrolls to the next). The rockets are fired by the right-mouse-button.

'X' cycles through your 'lazers'...

Odd, that layout. I suspect it would be more intuitive if the 'Z' cycled the laZer, it being the left-most of the keys, the laZers being on the left-hand-side of the screen, AND them being fired by the left-mouse-button...

The 3rd (or 4th???) lazer type gives up to 5 'zig-zag' beams that automatically lock onto individual targets, only letting go once the target is destroyed, if you take your finger off the trigger, or if there are closer targets that pose a greater threat.

Your ship's responsiveness is good - just enough to let you dodge most of the stuff 'aimed' at you.

The droids are a nice addition, but a little disconcerting and occasionally ineffective.


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

Thanks for the control options. It's the third weapon that locks onto enemy ships. :)

The desktop icon rearranging thing, I think, is not really the developer's problem. No matter what app that changes the desktop resolution, in my experience if you activate the Desktop (either clicking on it or Windows-D), Explorer is going to save the layout. I suppose developers rather focus on making their games than worrying about how to keep your desktop the way it is. It would be handy, but it's not their job to figure it out. Microsoft's the one to ask (just like almost anything else related to Windows).

I love this Game!!!!!!! Thanks Game Giveaway of the day!

First off this game is addicting. I installed it on both my Windows XP and Windows 7 Home Premium x64 and it works with no issues at all. Game display looks great, sound is great, ability to use the mouse instead of the keyboard is also a very big plus.

At first I thought it was like those old space shooter games but this totally blew my mind and looks great. I really do not have any complaints about this game.

Installed fine on Vista x 64 but registration failed (I think) game said the key was invalid or stored? Firefox opened to the 'successful' activation page and the game took over my monitor. Had to try 2x to shut it down and upon reopen there is no option to enter the key again.
Also the home page was blocked by MBAM.

@19 There are lasers you can unlock that will auto-target.

I only intended to try for 5-10 minutes, turned into 40 or so! Great weapon selection, which can be purchased. I prefer mouse control, smooth and responsive. Forgot sys specs: 3 Ghz P4, 2G RAM, Intel integrated graphics card (forget #). No lags, even had email open. Had one problem when tried to access internet, and firewall did a popup, you may want to run once before getting heavily into it, if you have firewall on learning mode.

copying and pasting your key does work, you just have to know the shortcut keys. Using Ctrl-v allows for pasting of the key into the window

Installed fine on Vista Home Premium. Excellent game! I'm not a huge fan of this genre, but this game gets it all right, thanks, GGAOTD!!

Nice game. Improves on the original quite a bit. As for the desk top after exiting the game. mine was also disarranged but I have a program running that remembers my set up so it was restored. It may be some thing the developer may want to look into. Also please make the two icons that are placed on desk tops optional. I know they can be easily deleted but a polite program will ask before deciding they are needed or wanted. Thank you GGAOTD team and the moderator for all of your efforts. Thank you to the publisher, Awem Studio, for your gift.

Just listening to the soundtracks separately from the game right now, and it seems that if you arrange the songs in the right order, you get a nice flow that makes the songs sound like one big track instead of several shorter ones. The "pad" songs were a bit disappointing though, because they all seem to sound the same (and I have no idea where they're used).

@21 "todayistheday": what a coincidence, yesterday someone posted something about this particular problem a bit like WhiteRabbit's comment.

COMMENT #46 june 17th http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/aiseesoft-blurayripper/

Quote:
@31 “Rich” “Failed to Connect. Please try again later”

This might be an incidental error or a structural error.

First try if it is incidental by just trying again later. It might be too busy right now. (I guess you’re past this one).

If it is structural try any or all of the following:

clear out your temp-folder.
clear out your temporary internet files and at least clear out your cookies
reboot your router
flush your dns-cache (dosbox: ipconfig /flushdns)
refresh your IP-address (dosbox: ipconfig /release followed by ipconfig /renew)
start IE even if you use another browser and check IE is set to online browsing and don’t close while activating.
just for now close your firewall or set to inactive/open
.
Now try activation again.

Hopefully this helped.

Comment by Alois Wright — June 17th, 2011 at 5:45 pm

All thanks to Alois.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it took me the better of three hours trying to unwrap the game. 20 minutes was spent on actually unwrapping the game, while the rest was trying to strip out the Armadillo leftovers while still allowing the game to run. I've taken up the middle ground of leaving the Armadillo crap in and just changing a couple of things in the PE header.

I think Awem should leave giveaways as DRM free. All the other major companies who contributed game giveaways that I know of left their games DRM free (Playrix, Realore, Merscom, a couple of indies), with the only exception of a major company being Gambana (they use Thermida, but I don't pay much attention to them because they make Flash games (pfft), and plus I did manage to extract the SWF file). Give us modders some slack, and don't make us have to unwrap your stuff in order to do something interesting with it. (And to be honest, Armadillo is actually pretty weak.)

Game editing time!

All game assets are stored in the AstroAvenger.grp file. You can extract it using QuickBMS (get it here: http://aluigi.altervista.org/papers.htm#quickbms), using the Sahmon Group BMS script (http://aluigi.altervista.org/papers/bms/sahmon.bms). Remember that if you do extract the files and throw away the original .grp, you'll need a dummy file to replace it or else the game infinitely throw internal exceptions (which is exhibited as the game not loading and freezing). Download the dummy file here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/4e5n06ya1lrn3km/SahmonGroupEmpty.grp (rename it to AstroAvenger.grp for the game to recognize it). It's just 14 bytes of zeros, with the exception of the first byte being 01 (01 00 00 00 -> int grpVersion = 1;).

Music is in the "music" folder. Here's a listing of all the music files:
menu.ogg
action_world1.ogg
action_world2.ogg
action_world3.ogg
action_world4.ogg
action_world5.ogg
pad_world1.ogg
pad_world2.ogg
pad_world3.ogg
pad_world4.ogg
pad_world5.ogg

To replace the music, make a "music" (without the quotes) folder in the same directory as the game EXE, and copy your Ogg Vorbis file to the folder and rename it to the music you want to replace.

The game is largely driven by XML, but not in a form you can read. All of the *.lbm files are in their own binary format, and each file has a set of two checksums at the end (each checksum appears to be an int). I would make a converter, but I'm too lazy to do so. Also, some of the game's logic are in the form of Lua scripts, but those are compiled. They cannot be successfully be decompiled by luadec 0.6 either. The game's mesh format is the binary Direct3D mesh format (*.x). That should be easy enough to change. I did notice the game's textures are fairly low resolution. Some objects have textures that are as small as 64*64. I've only seen one large model texture, and that's for a platform.

For the game play: My computer is too laggy for it, so I barely completed level 1. I did get lucky with getting invincibility withing 10 seconds of me starting to play, so I took advantage of that and just ran over the ships. The music sounded pretty epic. And the main menu was great. That's all I can say.

That purple ship on the main menu reminded me of Halo Banshees. Can't figure out what it's really called, since I see three ships with purple textures.



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

Thanks for the info re changing the music GMMan. I'm sure most who like this game will like the music, but there's always some who would want their own music.

vast improvment over the original, i love the game play, however it does have a few issues that i have seen so far, on hard mode about every 3 or 4 levels , and 3 times on medium, the game started tracking my keystrokes, i am running it along side of my diagnostics progs and the program is having a bit of trouble running in tandom with multiple processes, this shouldnt be a big issue with most people, but if your multitasking and running programs like msn, yahoo msgr, bittorrent programs, and your own music tracks, then it becomes an issue, as it will not only track and lag, but also freeze, once it freeses the program itself stops until it can catch up, which can be minutes instead of seconds

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

Thanks for your feedback.

Woohoo! I've been waiting for this since Astro Avenger was given away. The intro video and music set the tone of the game very well. As to the gameplay, it's very similar to the original of course but much more colourful. The music is quite, how can I put it, like driving music, it's perfect for the game.
I found no problems with the gameplay controls, I tend to use my mouse for shmups, as with the previous Astro Avenger scrolling the mouse wheel changes the selection of the big guns, straight rockets, smart rockets etc... which I found out by accident when playing Astro Avenger :)
The droids is a nice addition to the original game. The anti laser and rocket being particularly helpful. The battle droid tends to get destroyed a bit easily (fair enough I guess) and the repair droids needing you to stay still for a length of time to do their job can be a bit tricky, AKA nearly impossible :)
Overall an enjoyable game which will take me, probably, several hours to complete, and for re-playability it looks like it'll be as good as the original.
For improvements I agree that some dramatic music is needed for when a boss is about to show up, also when some of the enemy seems to get behind you they keep disappearing off the bottom and side of the screen whenever you get near them.
As others have mentioned when playing full screen I found other windows will be moved and/or shrunk and they don't return to the original place and size after exiting the game. As of yet I have noticed no pattern to this. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't, even with the same game. Of course when playing the game in a window this doesn't happen. The game also remembers if you played it in a window last time, and starts that way next time which I liked.
Running Vista Home Premium 32bit.


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

Thank you for your feedback, it's muuch appreciated.

This is a GREAT game! Another winner from Awem and Gamegiveaway. Thank you whole bunches. It is trials like these that makes me actually BUY these things.

RE. # 22, I did as you said but it didn't work. Still no Green Register button. It did remember who I was after the uninstall & the install of Awem Demo. I have played it a fair amount, but maybe not 60 minutes. I guess I will just have to get it from MyPlayCity.com if I have more trouble. This isn't the only GGAOTD that never installed right on my machine. Brickshooter of Egypt, when it was given away time before last never worked right but the copy from Gametop.com worked fine.


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

I can't figure why you don't see the register button. It's the bottom of three buttons when you first boot the demo up. Still, there's nothing wrong with the MyPlayCity version. Just be sure to uncheck ony boxes otherwise you may find an extra toolbar in your browser and your home page opening to MyPlayCity. Both easily rectified, but it's still an annoyance. Also the MPC version always opens your browser when you close your game down. Still, it''s totally safe.

Liked the game, but for a beginner, like me it could use more instructions on how to use the controls. Example: after round 1 I bought upgraded missiles but then couldn't use them because I didn't switch missile types. Minor installation problems with Win 7 x64 SP1 Home prem. After installation in a non-standard location, some of the intro played with a totally black screen but sound was OK. Reinstalled with "recommended settings", & reset visual size from default 800x600 to 1280x1024 & all of into played OK. Green Register button never has shown up so no way to register game. I guess it is pre-registered.


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

No it's not pre-registered. We had the same problem with the previous Awem game - well some community members did. You have to register it on the first try after install otherwise the registration button doesn't always reappear. (Or so it seems). The way around this is to download the demo from Awems site, uninstall the giveaway version then install the Awem version, then follow my instructions re registration above. I've posted images of what you should see when the game first boots up.

There are basic instructions available by clicking on the help button. I meant to post an image of the help page, but ended up deleting it.

I have attempted to download this several times now. When I open the Setup file, it tries to activate it, but then displays a 'Failed to Connect. Try again later' error. I wait a while then try again, but after 3 times I'm baffled.


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

We get this every week with a couple of community members. That said, have you actually managed to open the giveaways wrapped setup? You say you're having problems activating the software. That shouldn't be a problem becasue you have the registration code in the read me however if you mean you can't install the game from the setup file then try one of the following:



1) ... Rebbot your Modem
2) ... Reboot your router
3) ... Reboot your computer
4) ... clear out your internet cache, in particular the cookies associated with the game giveaway
5) ... your AV software is blocking the activation, set it up to allow the giveaway activation.
6) ... check back to last weeks giveaway and look for MrSnoozles fix. He posted quite late in the day, so his post is near the end of the comments.

FWIW & in case it helps, registration info is stored in the current user section of the registry, so you might want to install & register Astro Avenger 2 on any/all Windows profiles where you want to play it. Also the game's registry key [HKCU\ Software\ Sahmon Games\ Astro Avenger\ 2.0] includes values for display settings. If you uninstall, check the game's folder under User App/Application Data to make sure it's gone.

For those commenting on changed desktops after running, I think that has to do with your display hardware & drivers -- one example off the top of my head is installing/updating ATI's graphics drivers, where during the process your system stops using the drivers & instead uses a Windows display mode, which can have similar results.


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


Thanks for the info Mike,I'll use that in the FAQ's I've been working on for the past several months (doing it very slowly, lol). You'll be acknowledged, :)

I installed and played today's game. My system specs played on are as followed:

Intel Pentium 4 1.5ghz
Running a Geforce 4 MX 440 AGP 8X

For the most part, the game runs smooth. I do run into some times where the game gets a little choppy but its not as bad as some off brand games I have played seen sold in stores. The enemies are well drawn and some of the geometry designed throughout the level looks top notch along with its lighting effects. Being that my card does not support Pixel or Vertex Shading, I'm surprised this game can compensate for this. As for comparing this game to others... There is this game called Rayforce from Taito Legends 2 (named Gunlock in other countries) that I suppose you can compare it to, except you don't have the lock on system. I would like to see an Astro Avenger game where you can target multiple enemies with a laser or similar weapon to get a chain reaction of points. Not bad for a space shooter game...


................moderator Comment.........................

Thank you for your feedback.

Ah yes, I'm familiar with Gunlock You can download the gunlock ROM for free. You'll need a MAME emulator to get it to work though. I've been meaning to add such games to the free games project, butt need to post details of the emulators first; there are jut too many games available that work straight from the PC without emulators (thugh we do post DOS games and I have posted others, but they have the emulator integrated into the game).

Although I'm not really into arcade games, this one I find addictive. It's reminiscent of Galaxian, although this game allows you to buy additional firepower. There's a few differences between 1 and 2, most notably the drone ships one can add. Although they did remove my favorite lazer which was the one with the straight white lines.

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

Here's a remake of the original Galaxians. It works on my XP and Win 7 installations. (got to reboot my win 7 to try Vista, which I couldn't be bothered doing). http://www.classic-retro-games.com/Galaxian_341.html

You can also download the original Galaxian from Abandonia though you'll need DOSBox for it to work. There's a thread on installing and setting up DOSBox in the Game discussion forums. There's hundreds of brilliant DOS games that are available that work with DSBox.

http://www.abandonia.com/games/820/

Outstanding gameplay,graphics,and sound. Nice variety of ships and weapons. Kids love it and so do I. Due to the low system requirements, should play well on the netbook/laptops too. Thanks GOTD and Awem. Cudos to the develpoper. 9.5 out of 10 here.

Had to stop play just to post couple comments. For forget, WR #1, are the ratings below the 20 range based on 1-20 or something else? On a 100 scale (for a freebie shooter) I have to give it 90. This hits the 90s area esp if a fan of original AA. Played that boss boy thru to end and will do so on medium setting.
Offers 3 player skills levels. Medium throws a lot at first but take the hits (can't avoid them, lol) and just keep at it. Soon you can get the goods to switch amongst for payback. Original AA seemed to allow for more dodging of incoming fire. Here they hit you from all sides but use of missiles is equalizer. Esp of those nasty skitter types.
In the shop, hover mouse over weapon for description of it. Thanks for the tips on what not to bother with like the droids. Original seemed the droids did more, and lasted longer but haven't bought any yet. Will do so for kicks when have the loot.
Escape key seems to be way out of game. Assume remembers place. I just docked out from shop to here.
Loved the intro. Made me want an AA3.
Music isn't bad at all, adds to the mood. Graphics tight & flashy.
Gameplay smooth, engaging - allows mouse, keys, joystick - tho few keys required thank goodness. Too darn busy for all that Flight Sim or cave fighting game memorizing anymore. Just give me a fast diversion before I set out for real life living.
Thanks truly GOTD for a very fun brain wash!

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

Hi Beergas, yes the ratings are out of 20. I'd agree with you on the 9 out of 10. I love these games; but I've tried to consider the community as a whole, which is why the the Target Group was scored only 10 out of 20. I don't think that all of the community will like the genre. (I've just checked the number of downloads and my scoring seems to bear me out as the number of downloads is roughly half of what it usually is by this time of day {5350}). The community tend to be more into HOG's, Time Management and Match 3 (again going off the number of downloads that are made - all three of the mentioned genres 'always' get double the number of downloads Astro Avenger 2 has managed to get so far). Shmups tend to be on the edge when the community as a whole are involved. If they were popular we'd be getting more commercial games from this genre released. The most recent shmup that I can think of w.r.t. new releases is the add-on to Beat Hazard, but it's not a vertical shooter like this one. I've only seen Indie Freeware developers release Shmups of late. Anyway, that score of 10 skews the whole rating. I'd have liked to give a 10 for some of the ratings, but in all honesty I have better arcade shooters than today's giveaway, so have to base my scoring on my experience with other shooters.

I bought Astro Avenger when it came out and have enjoyed playing it immensely. Absolutely brilliant to have Astro Avenger 2 as a freebie today. Fantastic game! Thank you Game Giveaway! :)

What luck with this game, I had it for a trial from another site & LOVED it but didn't want to buy it just now. Today is my lucky day so I downloaded it for free!!! THANK YOU!!!

This game takes about six hours to complete. Longer than some of the newer games that cost six times as much, from what I understand. I can't play first person shooters, they make me queezy. I've been playing this game since it first came out. Because I grew up in the arcade generation where quarters flew out of my pockets, this is one of my favorite kinds of game. It is a vast improvement over the original.


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

That's an interesting observation. I also grew up through the arcade period, (though I was already into my mid to late 20's when the decent stuff arrived). I used to spend all my spare cash in the universities arcade cavern, which was set up in the students union building. This game is highly reminicient of many of the games I used to play and is probably why I love them so much.

fun game thx gotd

Loved the first one, and the second looks even better!

Interestingly, the second one picked up the name/account I set up in the first one. (It shows "Welcome Rick, if this isn't you click here" on the main screen.) I guess since I never uninstalled AA1, AA2 must see the same registry keys or something and use that same name for me. Just a neat little side-note.