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Free Game Ultrocatchup
Written by Alec Meer on October 24, 2008 at 7:45 pm.
The Rock, Paper, Shotgun inbox, monitored with terror and suspicion by all four us, has a tendency to fill up. Now, we’re very diligent about deleting anything that isn’t about getting a bigger willy or inheriting a South African fortune, but occasionally emails about videogames nonetheless manage to reach our eyes. It’s almost like people expect us to write about games on this games site. The cheek of it.
Unfortunately, being SeptOctNovember, it’s silly season for big game releases, which means we’re getting a mite behind on all manner of interesting indie and online fare. Huge apologies to those developers and sites who’ve sent us these that we are too weak to give each its own post, but let’s hope we can make some amends by grouping a few mini-treasures together below for your esteemed delectation.
Karoshi Suicide Salaryman has been speaking deeply to me, given that I’ve spent pretty much the entirety of this week bed ridden and praying for release from this snotty mortal coil. It’s a – hey! there aren’t many of these- 2D puzzle-platformer, superficially with the trad. goal of reaching a level exit. The twist is that you can only end a level by killing your character – bad sitcom stuff, where an unhappy protagonist keeps getting interrupted just as he’s finally going to the deed. Only with more giant spikes and falling crates. It’s kinda crude, but super-clever and there’s some excellent ingenuity in making obviously fatal traps as hard to reach as as possible. Particular favourite: firing a gun at a sequence of trampolines then jumping into the ricocheting bullet. It’s like Portal, but with more Farewell, Cruel Worlds. Also, it appears to use the incidental music from the Adam & Joe radio show’s Text The Nation segment, which is really confusing. (Thanks to Kevin Veale for the tip-off.)
Sanctioned Renegades is an in-browser (using the Unity webplayer thingy, which I’m sure will make someone moan about Linux support or something) mutliplayer FPS with something of a Far Cry (1) aesthetic, somehow squeezed into just 10 megabytes. Quite the technical achievement and… and that’s all I can tell you, because the Unity plugin repeatedly crashes on load on my PC. I’m going to speculatively blame Vista 64 for the time being, and hope you have more luck.
Game Krunch is a new webgame portal with myriad broswer-played delights lurking within. I’ve particularly enjoyed Tactical Assassin Substratum, which is sort of a browser Hitman with stickmen. Your perspective is that of a sniper rifle scope, with everything around it black – so it’s a matter of locating your target more than it is of shooting him. With everyone a stickman, your victim is rarely obvious – you need to read to supplied intel to find out what actions will give him away. Dead good, this’un.
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Tags: free, karoshi suicide salary man, sanctioned renegades, tactical assassin substratum
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Marcin says:
Bah, mission 5 is a reflex test which I suck at. There’s no control over the knife. :/
October 24th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Klaus says:
Well, something’s gone wrong here. We’re assuming it’s your fault.
Nuh uh
The assassination game appealed to me immediately. I’m not sure what that says about me…
October 24th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
CrashT says:
This is like the third Tactical Assassin game I think you can find the other two (All three infact) on Kongregate. The first has slightly more challenging missions, and the second allows you to upgrade your weapons an such.
I shall have to check out this new one. Cheers.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
hydra9 says:
@Marcin:
I had to give up at the ‘knifer’ mission, as well. Seemed pretty cool, up to that point.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
pepper says:
Yeah the knifer mission isnt too easy, i forgot to note down the next mission, but i think someone here will do that for those that cant get past it!
October 24th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
pepper says:
Alright, the mission after KNIFER is called GUARDS
October 24th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Klaus says:
Woohoo, completed the tactical assassin game with a score -2030. Bow to my supreme skills.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
pepper says:
So your bringing people back to life? ^_^
October 24th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Klaus says:
Ok, I misread. It was actually 0, I was looking at something different. I got 7384 the next time. It helps to metagame.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Senethro says:
I’m sitting on Karoshi #22. Any suggestions?
October 24th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
AlexW says:
I believe the next code is ‘GUARDS’. Good luck, and yes that level is a pain in the arse.
October 24th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
teo says:
the sniper game is really inspiring
October 24th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Little Green Man says:
Karoshi Suicide Salaryman, isn’t that the flash one? In which case bleh, the Gamemaker ones are much better.
October 24th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
roBurky says:
That suicide game is a flash remake of the the excellent Karoshi. I very much suggest everyone ever also check out the even better Karoshi 2.
October 24th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
SanguineLobster says:
That man in the hat didn’t know what hit him.
October 24th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
D says:
Theres a striking similarity between man with hat and Yahtzee. Maybe the assassin is working for Eidos?
October 24th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Klaus says:
I actually shot the other guy several times just for the hell of it.
October 24th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Ian says:
I found and liked the assassin games a while ago but wish there as a little more to them.
Not that I’m really griping, because they’re good fun and some of the missions are done really well.
October 24th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
OJ287 says:
Sniper game is good. Theres a pattern to the wobble on the knife. Theres at least one point in each one where youve got a 50/50 shot of clicking at the right time.
October 25th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Marcin says:
I got past the knifer using OJ287’s anticipation method.
However, I’m stuck on Karoshi #13. There’s only one button and nothing happens when I press it … halp!
Senethro, which one is #22?
October 25th, 2008 at 12:53 am
rabbitsoup says:
Sanctioned renegades is great fun, the only problem is the weapons are all upgrades so once the other guys is better equipped your knacked
October 25th, 2008 at 12:56 am
Pags says:
Never been a big fan of the tactical assassin games. I’m a Flash-gaming elitist.
Intrigued by Sanctioned Renegades though, so far I’ve been quite impressed by the Unity player’s capabilities.
October 25th, 2008 at 1:04 am
Aftershock says:
The Assassin missions are in such short supply because of the time it takes to make them such quality.
Also, having played all three, i’d say that the first is the best, closely followed by the third. The second isn’t all that good, especially with the weapons purchasing. AND DISTRACTING GUARDS.
October 25th, 2008 at 1:07 am
Pheonix K says:
Silly *season*, perhaps?
October 25th, 2008 at 3:33 am
Down Rodeo says:
Linux support moan moan geekery moan moan Windows slaves moan moan.
I tried my best, ok? It’s too late for clever humour. I don’t think I’ll be missing much anyway. These are fun diversions – fun, but not as good as (for instance) Freespace 2! Thank you GoG!
October 25th, 2008 at 3:47 am
Corbeaubm says:
Sanctioned Renegades is an interesting experiment that could eventually become awesome. At the moment, it feels like one of the earliest shooters. No ducking, no jumping, no running, and little feedback to tell if you’re hitting your target. Plus a weapons promotion system that tilts the game into a blowout after a bit in favor of the better side (debate the merits of this at will).
October 25th, 2008 at 7:16 am
Donald Duck says:
BUT DOES IT HAVE THE DRM????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:( :( :(
October 26th, 2008 at 3:57 am
alphaxion says:
for those stuck on suicide salaryman.. I found a playthru when I got stuck on a levelhttp://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pG1QIpfCXkc&feature=related
October 27th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Holly says:
Would love to pick up Fallout and Fallout2 again, and I remember enjoying Messiah enough to possibly play it again.
Thanks for the link~
October 29th, 2008 at 12:55 am
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The Game Krunch link doesn’t work, but the Tactical Assassin Substratum one does.
October 24th, 2008 at 7:56 pm