O. T. Testing
:D

:P

:O

XD

I downloaded this game and everything seemed fine until i went to open it up and all i got was a black screen.Anyone else had this problem?Ive never had a problem with anything from this site.Any ideas,thanks.




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


Please follow the link to the FAQ's over in the forum. (You'll find the link in my review @ comment #1). I'm sure there is a fix for the black screen problem?

On May 26, 2012 GGAOTD brought us

Wild West Story: The Beginnings

Has anybody found a working solution to the game play problems some of us had?

I ask this here because I would like to play that confounded game...

But because the game flashes continuously all except for that one little part of the woman's blond hair which for some unknown reason does not. That little section of hair stays on screen consistently

The game seemed to have installed fine but if it was not for the relentlessly flashing it shows no other problems. I wish I could solve that strobe like effect if it just wont stop it will continue to make the game unplayable


So I was wondering has anybody found a fix for that games flashing problem? Has anybody figure out why some of us have that problem and others from here did not?

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

Please post this question over in the forums. I'm honestly too tired to be able to think of a solution at the moment. It's 4.30am here in the UK and it's already Dawn. Hopefully someone will be able to answer usefully. :)

Man, do I ever feel like a idiot.

IE was set to work offline. Thanks Moderator, I never even thought to check and see if that was the problem. That's probably because I almost never use IE to surf the web, preferring to use Chrome or Firefox.

I Also have one other problem I had failed to notice it must be about 1 week or so since my IP changed. Everything I had was routing through an old IP that I no longer seem to hold

So that to was probably another source of my failure to download & install some files. Since I have now fixed the problem & set IE to use the net again.

The game installed with out a problem once the user sitting at the keyboard rebooted his main brain with a removal of the size 12 loafer in his teeth followed by a swift kick to the rear...

Ok for my review some minor problems with the game 1. It starts in full screen. I Know that's not really a problem but many of us prefer games to open in windowed mode then allow us to change it in the options menu to full screen if we want to.

2. The game could do with a a couple of additional setting. The max resolution of 1152X864. This could & should be increased to a 1280X1024 setting. Many players have monitors that support better resolutions than the current settings.

3. Control settings. There seems to be Spelling mistake it is spelled standart in game but should that not read Standard? Mind you I am a terrible one for spelling errors and have a terrible use of punctuation amongst other things (Fun little fact I failed English 2 years in a row which might have been caused by skipping class due to my smoking a variety of legal & otherwise types of herbs)

So the control section needs to be reworked to fix the spelling error & It sure would be nice to see a control pad/joystick choice. The only controls I found where for the mouse setting or mouse & keyboard or keyboard setting.

Due to my motor function abilities I find the current controls very difficult to use. I am not sure I will be able to win the levels at the rate I keep getting hit & the way I keep missing the ships coming at me

Having played only a short bit of the game & having a few complaints this is a keeper & as a old school gamer I love the fact that when this game was released it was cutting edge gaming today it is considered retro..

One thing I miss are the days of Commodore graphics I would love to see some of those games reworked for today game such as elevator action or Spy vrs spy.

Our adventure some games have come so far since the first beginnings of RPG games take the first MUD's that there used to be. Or games like Runescape gaming has come so far & I am happy to see a revival of retro games =)

7/10 for graphics
6/10 for sound
5/10 for game play the reason I rate this so low is because of issues I found with the controls & if I find them problematic those with motor skill problems are going to have a much more difficult time

Over all the game gets a 6/10 from me

My Conclusion
If you don't have this game & miss today's give away you are not missing anything special it's cheap being available for 4.95. I think it's a fun game but I also found it a bit disappointing.

If you are asking me if it is worth the 4.95 the game developer is asking then my answer is maybe it is and maybe it's not. Because that will all depend upon how much another persons feels & on how much they like or dislike space shoot em ups.

The game fills the space shoot em ups category nicely & it also fills a hole in my collection of stars & ashes games. Though I would not pay 4.95 for today's game, I would pay up to 3 bucks to have it as a portable app for my Iphone/Ipad or any other such like device.

I send a big Thank You to Stars Ashes for providing this frustratingly annoying, yet fun little game. I send another big Thank You to Game Give Away Of The Day for working had on bringing us these games to play

Thank you all
Signed
Rick Frog


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

Hi Rick

Glad to know that you got things sorted. i hope you didn't think i was being stroppy with my reply. I use all three browsers though prefer the 64 bit version of fire fox (Waterfox). I use Chrome, but not got used to it fully yet.

Already had this one. It's good for a "blow up everything in sight" kinda day. But I am still playing CryptoPics from yesterday. :)

Have a great Father's Day, everyone. Enjoy your day, Wabbit! Thanks all!

Downloaded and installed fine on Vista 64-bit.

Like all the Stars Ashes games I've played, this is almost good. I wish they'd check these suggestions for all their games and make the small improvements.

The graphics are fine for me. Not so much dated as simple and fairly clean. I like the way it looks, especially the 3D. Music is fine and I like the sound effects.

Mouse control is a deal break for me, I can't hardly play it. Like an oddball, I prefer inverted mouse control for almost all games (action games, not puzzle games). Trying to play regular is like trying to play with my left hand. Would love to see an option to invert X-axis.

And like many have already said, the sensitivity is too high for the Y-axis control.

I really want to play this game because it looks awesome, but the controls are too off, more than I want to get used to.


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

Sorry to hear of your troubles. Honestly I've had no problems playing this game with my Razer Lachesis and Mamba (tried them both with the sensitivity turned down); however if you don't have a mouse with sensitivity controls check out Mikes post above for information on how to do that via Windows configuration and writing to the registry. :)

I have repeatedly tried to install this game but it fails to connect I have turned off the firewall and tried everything I can think of to get a decent coonection so I can install it & nothing works. I have given up on it. Looks like I wont get this game today & I wont be paying for it.. My loss

But I figured I would say what has been going on.. For a time I could not even access the Givawayofthday web sites tehy were listed as 404 not found for about an hour.. I dont think It is my ISP that is failing to resolve & find the address but I think that it might actually be a problem from GAOTD server side of things.

Thumbs down to the site. thumbs up fora nice program I cant enjoy.. makes 2 games I can't play wid west side story and last hero =(

happy fathers day to all


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


Did you read the FAQ's section that I link to in my review at comment #1? The failed to connect message usually means your Internet Explorer is set to offline. If you are using Firefox as your main browser then IE may very well be offline. This needs to be turned on for you to be able to download and register giveaways. Go to file and select from the drop down menu 'Work Online'

Your ISP was probably not providing DNS services; it is not the fault of the giveaway site. Why do I say that; because no one else has reported this problem. there has been a steady rate of downloads since the giveaway started this morning. You say you've been having problems for a while; that alone would indicate that something has been wrong with either your connection or your provider.

Well, not my cuppa, but for those that like to blow stuff up, have fun! Goodness knows, I am so happy with yesterday's release I had to force myself to stop and go to bed last night! Different strokes...

(And no, I don't do thumbs up or down on games I don't play. ;o) It's not fair to do that.)

RE: #17 joe

Thank you for your response Stephen. I tried each thing you mentioned. No change.
Using a pretty new computer. Win 7 Pro i3 processor 4gb ram nvidia geforce.

I would think that would be adequate especially for an old game.

Also tried it on my older xp laptop. No good.

Yesterday's offering worked fine on both machines.

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

It's strange that you can't get it to work on either computer? I've installed it to four different computers and it's worked on all of them; (Including a laptop). There's nothing else I can suggest apart from maybe trying the free version from Gametop/MyPlayCity (MPC). Just remember to uncheck the check boxes when installing the game and then create a new shortcut from the games executable instead of using the one that was created during installation. That way you only have to put up with your browser opening to MPC or Gametop when you close the game down. That's totally innocuous.

Thank you for your offer but due to my disability I can not do much more than point and click.
Have a great Father's Day, all our dads out there!

Downloaded fine, installed without a hitch. The game loads and is non-responsive after the 'loading' goes away. I have to end task every time. I tried downloading again, and re-installing fresh.... no go. I can't get it to run. Win7, quad core system. This is the first time I have had a problem with a GAOTD install, ever. Guess I'll wait for the next GAOTD game to come up. Thanks anyway.



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

See comment #17

software _ vertexprocessing not initialized.

Anyone with explanation please ?




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


Sounds like it has something to do with your graphics drivers. Try updating your graphics drivers also check out the FAQ's section which i've linked to in the forums. Also try changing the screen res and go into compatibility mode and switch off the graphics scaling and visual themes.. Please let me know if any of those work

Double click icon , screen goes black. Sound like a dialog box opening, heard, but none there. Had to hit esc three times to bring me back to desktop.

#4: "... the mouse is too sensitive for me to cope with the aliens’ AND my movement..."
----

"Modeator Comment………………..

Hi Lee, Maybe next time you buy a new mouse get one of those that enables you to adjust the sensitivity. I use Razer mice and three of mine (Razer Copperhead, Lachesis and Mamba mice allow on the fly adjustment of sensitivity so you’d find the control much improved..."
----

You can do just about the same sort of thing using the mouse controls built into Windows, &/or by using the adjustment/setup controls that come with mouse driver software from companies like Microsoft & Logitech. Whiterabbit's suggestion of a better gaming mouse is preferred, but when that's impractical [they are more expensive & don't have the full range of shapes/sizes/features] that simple adjustment may work for you.

Going a bit further... Once you figure out where the speed settings are stored, whether in a file or in the registry, you might be able to swap entries in a configuration file, swap a file itself, or change registry entries on-the-fly, on demand using Windows' shortcuts, Windows Task Scheduler, or a Macro app etc. -- you also might be able to map that swapping to spare mouse buttons. Using Regshot [Regshot2 in win7 64] I found the registry key that changes when I set the speed & acceleration for a Logitech mouse, then exported/saved that key twice, once with the mouse set fast & again with it set slow. In XP Pro 32 I set up desktop shortcuts [e.g. "C:\WINDOWS\regedit.exe /s low.reg" (where low.reg is the exported key for low speed)], assigned hot keys to those shortcuts, & easily mapped 2 mouse buttons to those hot key combos. In win7 64 however that brings up the UAC prompt -- to get around that I used win7's Task Scheduler [e.g. "C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe /RUN /TN MyApps\DownRezMse" (where DownRezMse is the task I set up to run as admin, merging the .reg file without the UAC prompt)].


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


Thanks for the cheaper option mike. :) Your feedback is much appreciated

I have this from the March 2011 giveaway, and like another commenter "I WANT to like it!" - but it just is too dated and lacking in finer control features I prefer, and yes, I have an adjustable DPI Logitech mouse. The graphics are dated, which isn't bad in itself - dated can be good for those of us who LIKE some of the older games (I have something like 2,000+ C64 games in my "collection"!), but this is really just a run-of-the-mill incoming-wave shooter; I played it for a couple hours and haven't picked it up since. I do like it, it's cool in 3-D, but not enough for me to play it again... so maybe if the developer updated it, or added some levels or new features... short of that, I can take it or leave it, which gives me a 5 of 10 rating for it.

Happy Father's Day Stephen! Hope you're fully recovered from your illness, and wish you a great day with your family. Enjoy - and don't worry about us commenters, we CAN get along without you for a while! (J/K!!!)
John

Enjoy your Father's Day, Stephen! I installed the game in my Windows 8 Release Preview and it plays perfectly. Good news...

I use a Razer Death Adder and I can see that I'm going to have to lower my mouse sensitivity. I atree with the comment that it would be nice to be able to lower the sensitivity in-game, but realize that the game was created long before this was an issue.

For the guy who got error message, programs by "Stars Ashes" seem sometime not too crazy about Firewall aggrssive protection ... I got this game back in Nov. 2011 (I assume this is the same version and No upgrades ... since WhiteRabbit did not mention it) ... installed A-OK on Vista Home PRem., X64 and plays well ... I personally like the game, it is lot of fun.

Thanks! G!:)

Ok. So it's a little primitive but one must gear up on eye-hand coordination skills and give it a shot(pun intended). I'm a fan of first person shooters and this one is pretty cool. It having mouse controls is a plus. I absolutely hate keyboard only games. It may require a more sensitive mouse but mine does the job for my adequately enough. Sometimes one just wants to see things blow up on a computer screen so one doesn't blow up themselves.

The game play was just okay. After 10 rounds, I began to feel extremely limited with what I could do and everything had become so competitive. I'm sure adding some story every 5 rounds might help, but the occasional gun upgrade and animation was not enough to keep me playing.

Of course, it was also disheartening to find that you can't just play a couple rounds and then save it. That would have gone a long way in keeping me playing just because I could play a bit and then come back to it when I wanted to give it another try.

A tutorial level with interactive suggestions might also help as the big blob of text on the help portion of the menu is a little unwelcoming and perhaps border-lining on disorderly.

Although I didn't sound so positive about the game above, I do want to add that the basics of this game are very clean and polished.

Just read in some earlier comments that some are having trouble with controls.

FWIW I play using just the mouse, but have to put the mouse in its slowest (1000d.p.i) mode. If you have a single speed mouse you may have to slow it down via Control Panel>Mouse (or whatever the equivalent is for Win7?)

If you can get the craft moving comfortably left and right without hitting the side every time you flinch then you're set. The vertical is much finer but deliberately so; it's tricky to get the elevation right for distant enemies.

It works fine for me - of course it would be much better if there was an in-game sensitivity adjustment though!


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

Got to agree with you there on the sensitivity issue. This gae was creaed before the latest batch of mice were made so being able to change the sensitivity on the fly via your mouse was only available to those who could afford the most expensive of mice. I use my Razer Lachesis or Mamba to play this game and have no problems at all with mouse sensitivity. ;-)

I love this game and have played it frequently since it was given away some time ago.

It is rather repetitive after you've played it a hundred times (der me! lol), but I find it a good way to unwind. I s'pose like target shooting; it can be repetitive but still challenging, and relaxing too - the rhythmic "pchew...pchew...pchew..." doesn't hurt in that respect!

As far as I know it's quite unique in style, and takes a little getting used to, but if you like shooters it's definitely worth a try - and maybe a little persistence too. I wasn't overly impressed the first time I played it, I thought the predictable movement of the alien craft and relatively slow pace would make it too easy, but it does get harder and it certainly grew on me.

Thanks to the developers for giving this away again, if they ever put their mind to a sequel I'll be snapping it up!

PS as a side note, thanks once again to the Great Bunny for your ongoing work, week after week. The site would be much poorer without your synopsis and honest commentary... not to mention the 'others to consider' links... I just realised there may be some I'd missed! (one reason I'm particularly inspired to write today! ;) )


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

Thank you for your feedback. :)

10 years ago this one would have made me happy. Nowadays it is back of its time. Gameplay and graphics have worn out.

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

There has been a massive resurgence of retro games over the last few years with games going back to the 1980's now being resold on sites like Good old Games and DotEmu. I recently re-purchased one of my favorite games from the early 90's called Darklands, which has very basic graphics but is still in my opinion one of the best RPG games I've ever played, with a depth to it's game play that games like Skyrim could only dream of (b.t.w. I love Skyrim too) :) Just because graphics aren't using the latest game engines and aren't HD quality doesn't mean they are tired and worn out. Personally I love this take on Space Invaders. It's been executed well and has given me many hours of pleasure over the past several years and still does. Then again we are all entitled to our opinion. :)

Please forgive my lack of moderation this morning. As yesterday my internet connection was down for most of this morning. We've been having intermittent poblems with it for a few days now.

I'll endevour to answer any questions later. We have my wifes parents here for fathers day. so I'll be on and off sporadically. :)

A really good game! when i started, i couldn't stop!
But if you go die, you must start over...
but that's just so funny :)

I originally downloaded this (as WhiteRabbit mentions, above) from Gametop - and I WISH I could like it..:-(

I've (sort of) tried all 3 control methods available, but the mouse is too sensitive for me to cope with the aliens' AND my movement, the keyboard is far too slow, and my joystick doesn't seem to register anything other than 'Fire'.

For me, this is crying out for a different - much higher-end - control system, but would at least benefit from the ability to adjust the sensitivity of what's available.

I'd like to see the option to swap between guns, rather than being 'forced' to use the one you've just picked up.

I also think the aliens can do too much damage with very few shots (and I'm struggling on 'Easy', so forget about 'Suicide'!).


.............................Modeator Comment....................

Hi Lee, Maybe next time you buy a new mouse get one of those that enables you to adjust the sensitivity. I use Razer mice and three of mine (Razer Copperhead, Lachesis and Mamba mice allow on the fly adjustment of sensitivity so you'd find the control much improved (the latter two have two buttons for reducing and increasing the sensitivity that are esily accessible while using the mouse normally and the copperhead has a button on the bottom. I use the different sensitivities when for example I want to play as a sniper in a FPS game; an overly sensitive mouse makes it harder to get an accurate shot off so i'll just turn the sensitivity down a few notches.


http://store.razerzone.com/store/razerusa/en_GB/DisplayCategoryProductListPage/categoryID.35208800

You can get all of the Razer mice cheaper via Amazon.

Seven year old game?!

You can tell by the graphics that its that old.

no - thx- but there are games avail for free with much better graphics than this one.

A little bit old fashioned - like nothing has changed in the last 7 years.

Brian

G'morning Stephen and all GGAOTDers hope everyone enjoys their day.
Game installed to my netbook win7 home with no problems, runs rather well, took me a bit to get used the the controls, normaly i dont care for keyboard controls but since my husband got me playing WOW im getting better at them. Game play is good but it can get very monotonous (sp - feel free to correct lol), but all in all it plays well on the hp mini. I would give it a 7 out of 10 stars, mostly because of the controls and not the gameplay. Suggestion to the devloper, make an option for mouse, game pad control or even a joystick option.

Thanks

~Wildspirit~

Introduction:

Last Galaxy Heroes was originally given away back in Dec 06 and then again twice in 2008 (version 1.2.02). It’s a space shooter reminiscent of a 3D space invaders clone , though in reality its nothing like space invaders. It received a positive 85% of 149 votes the first time it was given away shortly after the game giveaway project started. Then 51% of 330 votes in January 2008 then again in November 2008 it received a positive 41% of 548 votes. It was also given away twice last year where it received only a 54% positive vote out of 295 with 32 comments. Back in March 2011, then again in November 2011 where it received a positive 56% of 304 votes with 27 comments. The latest version is V1.3.01, which is the same version as the one given away earlier this year. You can check out all the comments from the

http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/last-galaxy-hero-3/


Nov 11, March 11, Nov 08, Jan 08 and Dec 06 giveaways

Get ready for the galaxy mission! Hard times fell upon the galaxy and you are the only one to save it. The problem is that you have only one space tank to destroy the attacks of space shooters. The planets wait for you to save them!

Reference: Accessed HERE 28th Nov 08

Installation:



The downloaded zip file is 12Mb in size (the previous giveaway was 11.7Mb, but as already said, the version we have been given is the same as the one given away in March of this year) and unpacks to a 'read me' document that give you the 'terms and conditions' and information about installation plus a dual activation and set up module. The installed game is 19.3Mb in size. If you are new to the game giveaway project all you ‘usually’ have to do is double click (unless you’ve set the clicks to single click) on the module and it’ll install and activate automatically. I’m not entirely sure where the default installation is because the game tries to install to different locations depending which computer I’m installing it to. On one it tries to install directly into the root directory (i.e. C: on another it tries to install to last week’s game giveaway and on yet another it installs to the path below.

The game installs to C:\Games\LastGalaxyHero

There is no shortcut installed; however, during the installation wizards progress you are given the opportunity to select your own installation path if you wish; (it's highly recommended, especially if you have a second HDD or a partitioned drive as it will help to keep your system running smoothly - the more you fill your root drive (usually the C: drive), the slower your computer will run – if you’ve got a decent sized hard drive of more than a few hundred Gigabytes it’s always a good idea to partition it into at least two drives so that you can keep the operating system and other essential applications separate from other programs and games.

There is no uninstaller included; so, if you decide the game isn't for you, remove the game by manually deleting the installed folder. It's self-contained which means there shouldn't be any entries in the registry and there are no files written to other areas of the computer. (I’ve checked the registry and found no registry entries related to the game) If you still wish to check the registry for yourself to see if there are any orphan entries you can use the registry editor by typing regedit in the run command (in XP) or typing in the search box (in Vista or Win 7) you will open up the registry editor. It's always a good idea to create a restore point before you make any changes to the registry just in case you mistakenly delete something you shouldn’t have. (I've been editing the registry for many years and to my knowledge have never caused a problem due to deleting registry keys). Once the registry editor is open, click on the computer icon that’s situated above the five registry hives ( HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, HKEY_CURRENT_USER ....... etc.; then click on Edit, (which is situated in the toolbar along the top of the editor); from the drop down menu select Find or Find next then type in the key word/s, in this case Last Galaxy Hero, then click on Find next. If any registry keys associated with Last Galaxy Hero are found (right click on the entry in the left hand pane of the editor and select delete, or in some cases in the left hand pane (if in doubt, leave the key - you can always post a request for help over in the forums).

I’ve tested the game in Win XP 32 bit, Vista Home Premium 64 bit, vista home Basic 32 bit, Win 7 Pro 64 bit and Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit and the game works well on all platforms with no installation issues (apart from the lack of a shortcut).




The Game:

Once installed you are presented with a hard to see main menu options and help menus, well that is if you are red – green colour blind. I can see it okay, but my son who inherited the condition from his maternal grandfather said he couldn’t see the menu very well. It doesn’t help that it’s superimposed over a screenshot of an in game image. That said the game is quite enjoyable; at least from my point of view; one of my favourite arcade genres is space shooters.

The main options menu allows you to change the screen resolution from 640 x 480, 800 x 600, 1024 x 768 and 1152 x 864 in 16 and 32 bit formats, as well as sliders for music and sound effects. The music is okay if turned low and the sound effects are what you would expect of such a game as this. (The music files are OGG; you can change them for music you like if you find the music annoying, but you must convert your preferred music to the OGG format as well using an audio converster (you can find a couple of decent ones in the giveaway freeware section). You can also select the difficulty from this window as well as choose to play the game in windowed mode. The second options menu is accessed while in game by using the Esc key, which brings up a menu that allows you to abort the mission and restart, exit the game or enter a second options menu that again allows you to change the music and sound effects volumes and also allows you to change the X and Y axis speeds of the mouse as well as select between two control modes. Both use a combination of Mouse and Keyboard, though with the standard control you can use both mouse and keyboard, though you have to use the arrow keys when using the keyboard. The second option called A D and Mouse utilizes the A and D keys as opposed to the arrow keys for left and right. Both modes have their advantages, which is probably personal to each of us.

The help menu is basic, but that’s all you need. It details the power ups you can collect and bonuses of which there is a limited number, these comprise of weapon upgrades (as you would expect from a space shooter) and armour improvements as well as bonus points of various sizes. Bonuses are gained when you destroy one of the 12 different enemies that you will find in this game. There’s a simple HUD (heads up display) that shows you your weapon and armour strength as well as the number of lives (repair droids) you have at the bottom of the screen (plus a few others detailed in the help menu) as well as the number of bonus points and your score, which are found at the top of the HUD. To progress to a new world you have to attain a specific number of bonus points; for example, to get to the second world you require 15000 bonus points and to get to the third world 20000 bonus points etc. (I’ll let you discover the rest); before you enter a new world though you have to fight one of the five bosses that you’ll meet on your journey to becoming the Last Galaxy Hero :lol: You must move your gun emplacement left or right to capture the bonuses and power ups, which remain where they are until you move directly beneath them. the danger here while you wait for the bonus to drop down to you is that you are vunerable to alien weaponry. The enemies shoot back at you and only need to hit you a few times to destroy your emplacement unless you’ve collected plenty of armour bonuses. These are easily missed though as they move towards you from the lowest axis of the guns vertical movement, which you are usually pointing at the sky, so watch out for those bonuses. You start with 3 lives on all difficulty settings, but there are power ups in the form of repair droids that you can collect, which give you extra lives. You lose a life when your shields are reduced to zero, see the in game help pages, (which are accessible from the main menu when you first start the game up), for details of each power up and bonus'. There are three difficulty settings Easy, Medium and Suicide. Aliens shoots back at you faster on the higher difficulty settings. :lol:

The game is quite easy for the first few levels, but gets harder as you progress through the levels; that is, unless you are a seasoned 'galaxy hero', :lol: especially when playing it on the suicide mode.

The game controls include mouse, keyboard and joystick. You can use a combination of each one or individually, which makes the controls very versatile. There is an option to change the control keys, but this is very basic I’ve detailed the differences in the second paragraph of the ‘intro and game section’ above. There are 5 different worlds to explore (see the Googled images below to get an idea), and at the end of each world you encounter a boss. I've taken about 15+ screen captures from the November 2008 review and added another 25 captures from the latest giveaway.


If you miss today’s game, lose it to a format or decide you want it after the giveaway has finished, the good news is that it’s available for free 365.25 days a year over at Gametop, though it’s had a name change to Star Gunner. You can download it via the link below. For those who are not familiar with Gametop games, your browser is always opened when you shut the game down, though there’s no malware installed. Gametop have recently been adding a toolbar and or asking if you want your home page changed to Gametop, so ensure the appropriate boxes (if presented) are unchecked. I recently checked to see if there were any toolbars etc. and the file appears clean of any extras:

Download link for Gametop version:

You can download a free version of the game 24/7 from Gametop HERE

Video & Images:

You can see what the game looks like by checking out THIS you tube video or looking at THIS and THIS slideshow of in game images or THESE Googled images


System Requirements:


• CPU………………………………..........Pentium III 700

• Operating System…………….……Win98/2000/XP/Vista (The game was released in 2005 and hasn't been updated since it was updated for Vista, but it works in win 7

• 3D emulation………………………....DirectX 8.0 or higher ….

• Computer memory…………………128 MB RAM

• Video Card memory………………..32 MB Video RAM

Conclusion:

This is a decent 3D space shooter on the lines of a three dimensional space invaders, where you have to destroy wave upon wave of oncoming space craft. Okay, it’s a little dated by todays standards so some may find it a little retro in its graphics and design when comparing it with many other games that have been released over the last few years, but the game play is solid.

I had loads of fun playing this the first time it was given away and was pleased to see it in the first re-run as I’d lost it to a format. It’s worth a good 6.5 out of 10 for its game play, which is very basic. Despite it being fun I did find it soon became a little stale if I tried to play it for longer periods due to the repetitive nature of the game. That said it's definitely good for some mindless fun when all you want to do is turn off for a while.

========================================================

Suggestions and Helpl>

If you have any problems running the game please refer to the FAQ's over in the forums. You can access the FAQ's via the following link:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/11647

Or as mentioned above post a comment over in the forums HERE. hopefully someone will reply with advice and or suggestions. You could also post links to any puzzles you create and upload using the levels editor and share them with the community.



Alawar has changed it's free game of the month to Land of Runes and Realores game this week see's the return of Turtle Odyssey 2. Looks like Realore are doing the same as Sandlot did and cycle through a small group of games. I've not seen a new one in some time now. Still, if you're new to the project, here's your chance to get a reasonable game fro free. you do have to create a free account with Realore to be able to download the free games, which are changed every Friday and are usually available all weekend.

Steams weekend deals include the excellent city building game Cities XL 2012; in my opinion the best city builder available at the moment (though I think the new Sim city game which is still under development may be better. There's also a free weekend for Napoleon: Total War and if you decide you want to play after the weekend free play is finished you can get the game for 50% off (it doesn't include the two dlc's which would cost almost a smuch as the discounted game if you decided to purchase those as well). There's also 66% off Counter-Strike source (£4.67). This is a useful game to have as it gives you access to some excellent free mods.. Steams 24hour deal is Worms Crazy Golf. At 75% it's only $2.49/£1.57.

You'll also find loads of sale items via the didimatic site (though there are a couple more sites that list even more games but I've lost the links), in particular there's 75% off Real Warfare 2: northern Crusades, 64% off the void (£2.48) no US price. There's also 50% off Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad, a superb first person shooter with several modes of play and major support from the developers. If you want to go mad there's 92% off the complete 1C catalogue that includes 82 games (loads of Strategy, sim and vehicle based games - Kings bounty, Necrovision, Pacific Storm, Men of War, Hard Truck Apocalypse, Death to spies, A.I.M. Racing plus many more Star Wolves 3, Theatre of War, UFO Trilogy, 13th Century, Space Rangers 2, ) all for $99.99 or £79.99. That's just over a dollar per game. Over on GameStop you can get the Far Cry bundle for only $4.99. That's an amazing deal for two great games with expansion, you can aso get darksiders for 75% off at only $2.49, the original assassins creed for only $.99 and assassins Creed 2 for $9.99 plus other great deals.

http://didimatic.com/dd/en/about/


There's a new Indie Royale bundle called The Junebug bundle is out. You can find details via the following link. At the moment there are Four games available, three of them with Steam codes, three with Desura codes and 3 DRM free versions. Escape Goat (Desura and DRM), Auditorium (Steam Desura and DRM), Noitu Love 2: Devolution (Steam, Desura and DRM) and PixelJunk Eden (Steam)

http://www.indieroyale.com/



Other Free Space Oriented Games:

There are loads of other space themed shooters that you can get for free from Game top, MyPlayCity and FreeGamePick, (there were 11 full version commercial games at Gametop the last time I looked) which are linked to via the free shoot ‘em ups thread posted over in the forums. Make sure you check out all the posts in the thread though because I’ve posted several in different posts, plus others have posted suitable games as well. I would beware of MyPlayCity because recently they have changed their policy with respect to including toolbars, even when you uncheck toolbar installation they still install them.

Most of the freebies from these free games sites are in my opinion more interesting to play than today’s giveaway, but if you like space invaders, it’s a great 3D version. One of my favourite free space games is Universal Combat, which was converted to freeware a few years ago by its developer. It’s a 3D space shooter/simulation of epic proportions which is well worth the download if you like space orientated games. You can find details and a link to the download page via the Space Shmup thread thread that I posted some years ago over in the forums:


I'd also check the Free Games Synopsis which has most of the games listed in the forums, though I've not updated it since before Christmas (week 100), so there are a lot of games not listed (we are on Week 162), but you can find these by sifting through the Game Discussion Forum and specifically looking for the free games project posts which always start with a Week number. There have been several excellent freeware space shooters posted recently since I last updated the synopsis. The list below isn't exhaustive. i've only selected those games that have been posted over the past several weeks. There are loads more hidden in the game discussion forums from week 100 to the present (week 162).

Mike Studyform suggested that the game was reminiscent of battlezone. You can download the full version of Battlezone for free HERE


Here’s a nice selection of shmups and other vertical and horizontal shooters with a few top down shooters, all of whch have previously been posted in the game discussion forums and all are free:

Dreadlock
Strange Adventures in Infinite Space
Darius Gaiden
Vacant Ark
War Machine Overload
wAive
Sim War 5
Haritama
Lunaria
Pheon
Earth Jets
Space Corps 3 Armageddon
Die Slave
Alien Deathmatch 2
Kerbal Space Program
Solace

If you have spare cash to spare you'll find loads of space oriented games available on the net. There seems to have been a resurgence of these games recently. Check out Steam and Desura for loads of games of this type.


Please note that if you get any games from Gametop or MyPlayCity you need to watch out for toolbar installations and home page hijacks. Just un-check the check boxes. with MPC games you may need to do this every time you boot a game up unless you create a new shortcut from the installed executable.

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A Request for helpl>:

Developers rely on good feedback to improve their games. If you download this game please take some time once you’ve played it a while to leave some constructive feedback either positive or negative. The more constructive feedback we get, the more likely developers are going to give more games away. The giveaway site already has a very good standing with the search engines. Developers want their products out there on the WWW, this site has the potential to do that. The game giveaway project gives away on average between 9 to 17 thousand downloads for each game depending upon what genre and how obscure the game is. That’s a lot of homes these games are being downloaded into and a lot of 'potential' cash that’s being lost by the developers. If we get better games because of better feedback, the community are likely to continue to benefit from the generosity of the developers. Satisfied community members are then more likely to visit the home sites of those developers and purchase games that they may not have bothered with before they discovered the developer via the game giveaway site, thus giving the developers more incentives to give away even more decent games.

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

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

Regards

Whiterabbit aka Stephen

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