Featured Game: Cube

Doesn't feel like a true game

Year: 2001

Genre: First-Person Shooter

Recommend: YES

Honestly, Cube feels more like a tech demo than anything else. You won't find a polished interface like pretty much all commercial games out there. What Cube is really for is allowing game developers to experiment with level design on the fly and create their own shooters. But hey, if you want to shoot some trolls, more power to you.

 What you'll need

Any netbook will do. Since Cube's open source, you don't even have to be running Windows. Linux, Wii, even PocketPC users can play the game.

Reviews and Awards

LinuxDevCenter had a postive opinion of the Cube game/engine, saying, "It may be yet another first-person shooter engine, but Cube is one that the game mod community can use, without limitations, as the basis for their own creations." The Linux Game Tome awarded Cube with the first Happypenguin award for Best Free 3D Action Game. MacUpdate users rate the game 3.5/5 stars.

Tips

Gotta have native resolution? Dig into the Cube directory and pull up cube.bat in Notepad. It should say:

bin\cube.exe -w1024 -h600 %*

Use whichever resolution you like best.

The Odyssey, the biggest, most demanding, and most advanced map in Cube.

Featured Game: Icy Tower

Fun little time waster

Year: 2001

Genre: Action, Platform

Recommend: YES

 

 

 

At first, I didn't really see the point of Icy Tower. "What's so fun about hopping up platforms?" Then I read the instructions, and, "Oh, if you run fast, you jump high!" Suddenly, it became a challenge to land on a platform at high speed and make sure Harold the Homeboy got to the next platform. Icy Tower has a small footprint, charming music and graphical style, and a very simple concept. This game'll stay on my hard drive for the foreseeable future.

 

 

What you'll need

 

Icy Tower can run on PC's from the AT motherboard days. I don't think you need to worry.

 

 

Review and Awards

 

This game can't be judged by its reviews, but by its popularity. The game makes the "Most Popular" list for PC games at Download.com, and has an estimated 11 million downloads as of 2008. There are some sites devoted to Icy Tower from the Czech Republic, Germany, and Poland.

 

 

Tips

 

If getting a higher rank is important to you, just view your profile to see what you have to do to reach the next one. (I just can't get to the 300th floor!)

 



Boing!