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.
“Back when I was a young kid with an overactive imagination, nighttime was the most ominous stretch of the day. When the lights went out, it felt like every creak of the house signaled my impending doom at the hands of some slathering, flesh-eating beast thing waiting for me in the dark – to suck out my guts with a vile proboscis, I would assume. Thankfully, my trusty flashlight was more powerful than a broadsword in its ability to ward off my impending monstrous death with its illuminating beams. Mother Robot takes that idea and runs in a different direction. This crafty little game is about staying alive by keeping the lights on…by using lots of robots and laser umbilical cords.”
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 
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 
Nathan Meunier - Freelance Writer / Author / Indie Game Developer 