Desert Fear

In Brief

This is the 30th game we've been given since August last year that was created by Jurij and distributed by Falcoware. The Falcoware installer has been removed from the game, so there are no in game adverts when you boot the game up, and your browser will not be redirected to Falcoware's site when you close the game down apart from the first time when the game has finished installing. The four non-game shortcuts that are installed to the desktop are internet shortcuts and do not affect your system. They can be deleted with no effect on the game. See the results of my virus scan at the end of this short review.

The game is based around the Unity engine and is a first person zombie/monster shooter that give you a selection of several weapons, which can be accessed via the mouse wheel or the number keys.

Game play is similar to most of Jurij's previous giveaways, where you explore and attempt to survive a single arena, where monsters attack you constantly. There are no waves like the last few games, instead monsters respawn randomly. Once you've figured out where all the ammo and health packs spawn, it's relatively easy to survive until you get bored. You start with an ample supply of ammo right from the outset. The first health pack gives you 20+ health, thereafter you get 25+ health; health packs are stackable up to a maximum health of 200

Key bindings are not editable; and you can access a list of the key bindings via F1; e.g. WASD or Arrows for movement, space for jump, mouse wheel for weapon selection G for grenade, C for crouch, R for reload. To gauge the size of this arena, If you run around the perimeter, it takes about 60 seconds.

You can adjust the quality of the graphics from low, medium and high. It’s mainly down to shadows and shading; the higher the quality, the more shading and shadows.

If you don't have many FPS/zombie games and/or you missed the first one last week, it's probably worth downloading, but don't expect Battlefield/Call of Duty graphics.

You can see a video of game play HERE

The latest game from Epic is the excellent Lovecraftian Steam punk roguelike and atmospheric top down RPG Sunless Sea; i.e. Take the helm of your steamship and set sail for the unknown! Sunless Sea is a game of discovery, loneliness and frequent death, set in the award-winning Victorian Gothic universe of Fallen London, with 84% of over 6000 community reviews giving it a positive thumbs up. Definitely a game worth having, especially if you like any of the descriptive words I've used to describe this game, and, more importantly for free; usually costs £13.99. There is a dlc for the game available called Zubmariner, which isn't free (I think)? This Tursday 4th March the free game changes to the excellent RTS game Wagame: Red Dragon

Please see Delenn's threads for Steam and Non Steam freebies HERE and HERE respectively. It’s worth adding these to your favourites and checking regularly for available freebies. Most are only free for a specific time. If you miss the deadline you’ll miss out. Once added to your account, it’s yours to keep.

I'm posting the following information about another game series i.e. the ArmA/Operation Flashpoint FPS franchise, which I highly recommend you check out. The sale on these games ends later today (6pm UK Time) They are among my all-time favourite games (ever since I bought the original Operation Flashpoint game back in 2001) and in my opinion is still the number one first person shooter series available today (far better than the Battlefield and Call of Duty franchise games which tends to be quite linear'). All versions of ArmA (stands for armed assault) are on sale at the moment from 75% to 80% (apart from the later Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, which is dirt cheap anyway (i.e. £6.99 when not on sale; I paid £30 when it was released). Sadly Operation Flashpoint Red River (the sequel to Dragon Rising) has been removed from sale at the behest of the developer (don't know why)? .

If you want a brilliant but very cheap FPS game, the original 'Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis' and it's expansion ' Operation Flashpoint: Resistance', released in 2001 (the spiritual successor to the 1995 Gravon: Real Virtuality); renamed ArmA: Cold War Assault, is on sale for only £0.69/$0.99/0,79€ It's a massive game with an open world feel, but with loads of missions, and the ability to drive vehicles and fly helicopters. It includes all the original extra's which I think included three expansion packs. You'll find it HERE, better still you can get the original, plus ArmA Gold Edition (contains ArmA 1 plus expansion called Queens Gambit and ArmA 2 with all dlc's. ArmA 2 is still an amazing looking game and has hundreds of Steam workshop items available to download for free once you have the game. You'll find the ArmA X: Anniversary Edition HERE, for £5.99 (I paid that for just one of the four DLC's for ArmA 2 when they were originally released. It's still one of my top five FPS games ever and is more a true simulation than an arcade shooter.

If you want the latest ArmA 3, which has amazing graphics that are up to date you can get it for 75% off for £5.99 HERE. There are hundreds of workshop items available for free, though may of them require various dlc packs for them to work. But there are still a massive choice just for the base game. There are quite a lot of dlc's for the latest game, most of which are also on sale; however, the base game is still an amazing game and for the discount price amazing value.

Notes on Security

I scanned a zipped copy of the installed game and it found zero hits from 59 antimalware engines. The downloaded executable may include some low level adware that only opens your browser to Falcowares home page after the game has installed, but does not inject any malware into your system. When your browser is opened to Falcowares home page it earns them some money, part of which is given to the developer of the game for allowing the game to be given away free. You can see the results of the scan via the following link:

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/a1f4ffc6f2770b343830fdfb3385c89cb1dfdb3c7f69ed8a1f52aa34068711e9/detection