What The Hell is Glitch?

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Nathan Meunier

“Precious few MMO games let you shotgun a virtual 12-pack of beer, run around nibbling the meat off of live pigs, and massage butterflies to extract their milk — and all in the span of just a few short minutes, no less. I knew Glitch was going to be a weird experience going into it, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the level of sheer wackiness waiting for me within its quirky depths. However odd it may be at times, it’s this free-to-play, browser-based MMO’s proclivity for the bizarre and the unexpected that makes it such a fascinating time sink.”

Check out the full article here at GameSpy.

Free Bytes –> Best Free Games

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Nathan Meunier

If you are among the folks that regularly check out my weekly indie freeware gaming column over at IGN, then awesome, you win the prize for being very stylish and sensible. Going forward, my column has been transformed — yes, like Voltron or Optimus Prime — into a slightly different animal (or robot, mineral, etc). Free Bytes will still appear each week over at IGN’s PC gaming page, though it’s now all rolled into one large feature called “Best Free Games” that’s located at the same page. Each new installment will be updated on (most) Thursdays. New picks will be featured on the first page of the article, while previous installments are available on subsequent pages. So in a nutshell: I’m still churning out the same weekly awesome selections of oddball, fun, and quirky free indie-focused game write-ups, only they’re called something different and they’re streamlined to a single location. This has been a test of the emergency column update system. Thank you for your cooperation.

This week’s installment is the crazy-tastic Cactus joint: Hot Throttle. Followed by Megazey and Demons as well as King’s Guard. You can check out all three, and future installments over here at IGN.

Free Bytes: Double Feature

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Nathan Meunier

I’ve been lousy at updating this site lately, so I’m going to make an effort to catch up. Here’s the past two installments of my Free Bytes column over at IGN from last week and the week before! Boom.

Free Bytes: I Am An Insane Rogue A.I.

“As a psychotic supercomputer that’s intent on world domination, your primary objective is to take over the planet one high-tech warehouse at a time. However, each warehouse is filled with pesky, squishy humans and sentry drones that seek to thwart your diabolical efforts. With only a limited amount of cycle power to take action with, you have to carefully herd (or brutally massacre) your human adversaries away from each building’s computer terminals long enough to hack into them and take over the mainframe.”

Read the full write-up here at IGN.

Free Bytes: Goblin War Machine

“Revenge is the sweetest when it involves rolling over your foes with a mechanical automaton of doom and crushing their civilization under the barbed wheels of sweet metallic Armageddon. The clash of cymbals, the boom of drums, and a malevolent orchestral groan sets the mood for wanton destruction quite nicely in Goblin War Machine – a game about building the biggest, gnarliest damn war machine imaginable and using it to turn the human countryside into ground hamburger.

Read the full write-up here at IGN.

Free Bytes: Effing Meteors

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Nathan Meunier

Hey, there’s a meteor. Eff that! Kidding. Effing Hail was awesome. Effing Meteors is event more awesome. It was also my Free Bytes installment over at IGN for last week. Yeah, I’m still behind on posting stuff. Here’s the linky: Effing Meteors. Wooh!

Free Bytes: Radical Fishing

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Nathan Meunier

Generally speaking, I’m not a huge fan of fishing games, but Radical Fishing is definitely more my speed. Missile launchers, chainsaws, and gatling guns make the sport a lot more enjoyable. This crazy fishing game has a lot of quirky charm, and it’s bloody enough to dial up the absurdity meter to epic porportions. You can check out my full write-up of this free game in this week’s edition of my Free Bytes column over here at IGN.

Free Bytes: Chaos Invaders

Posted on November 24, 2010 by Nathan Meunier

I’ve played tons of different Space Invader clones, but this one has got to be the coolest. Chaos Invaders riffs off the general idea and pixelated graphical style from the original, but the gameplay itself is a wild and wooly mix that goes from crazy, to crazier, to craziest. You should really check it out in my latest Free Bytes writeup over here at IGN.

Technically, this is last week’s Free Bytes, but since I’ve been trying to get caught up on posts and a new column won’t be going up this week due to the Thanksgiving holiday, I figure it’s better to post it up late than never. I’ve got some REALLY hot and wacky games coming up in future installments that kick off again next month after the holidays, so stay tuned for the next batch with new installments appearing each Thurs. in the PC section of IGN.

Free Bytes: IntoSpace

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Nathan Meunier

“If at first you don’t succeed, buy more expensive technological crap to make your ride sweeter and more rocket-tastic. That’s the premise behind IntoSpace, a simple but addictive rocket launching game about shooting for the cosmos and falling flat on your face repeatedly…at least until you gather enough green to upgrade your rig. Plummeting to the earth and crashing in a ball of fire and twisted metal hundreds of times is all but guaranteed in this strangely captivating timewaster. As with most great feats, successes in your trip to the moon only come in small increments. Fortunately, the repetitive process of gradually improving your ship to fly higher and higher with each skyward trip is seriously habit-forming.

Check out the full column here at IGN.

Free Bytes: Haunt the House

Posted on November 5, 2010 by Nathan Meunier

“In Haunt the House, you play as a seemingly docile little ghost looking to prove yourself by freaking the hell out of a the 30 dinner guests visiting the mansion you happen to be haunting. Since the only thing about the mansion that’s spooky from the get-go is the price tag for the expensive furniture, you have to really shake things up to set the right blood-curdling atmosphere. Flying around from room to room, you can possess any objects you encounter and then make them do creepy thing to freak out the guests.”

Check out the full column here at IGN.

Free Bytes: Turbo Turbo Turbo

Posted on October 8, 2010 by Nathan Meunier

“Anyone familiar with arcade-style racing games will know that one turbo is never really enough, but is there such a thing as just too much turbo? Messhof, the maker of this week’s wild and crazy freebie, doesn’t seem to think so, and we tend to agree. Turbo Turbo Turbo is all about firing up your engines, beating the snot out of bar patrons, chugging lots of “turbosauce,” and running opponents off the road. Now that’s our kind of racing game.”

Check out the full column here at IGN.

Free Bytes: Treadmillasaurus Rex

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Nathan Meunier

“Considering large carnivorous dinosaurs have been made out to be crazed eating machines capable of consuming many pounds of flesh and meat in a single sitting, it makes sense that every once and awhile they might want to find creative ways to shed a few extra pounds. Rather than sweating to the oldies with retro Richard Simmons videos to burn some calories, the lumbering dino in Treadmillasaurus Rex has opted for a more intensive workout routing that involves doom lasers, psychotic treadmills, psychedelic lighting effects and top hats.”