Village Gamer

Freelance Games‘ second title, Trailer Park King, is now available for download through Xbox Live Indie Games for 80 MS Points. Trailer Park King is a departure from the Sci-Fi Universe of Starchon, Freelance Games’ previous title, into the Redneck Trailer Park.  So you’re probably wondering, just who is the Trailer Park King? Well, he is a gamer, a bootlegger, a photographer and a connoisseur of the Ladies. Basically, the Trailer Park King is one “purty” cultured dude.

Trailer Park King features a number of unique and interesting cast members. The role of the sexy Canadian Babe is being played by Celine.  Celine is actually part of the Freelance Games marketing department.  With just a few minor alterations and a tattoo,  provided by yours truly (with some help from our artist), Celine has been transformed into a shop keeper from Montreal.

In a nutshell, Trailer Park King is a fun adventure that tells a unique story in an interesting way.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNb-awmbYmI]

Rock Hippo Productions Ltd. has officially partnered with Valve’s Steam platform to distribute its two popular free-to-play games, MicroVolts and the upcoming Brawl Busters.  Both action-packed games will soon be available to Steam users and will offer all of the exciting benefits of Steam’s strong community features to a vast worldwide audience. Steam just began hosting free-to-play games this summer, and players can look forward to adding two more high-quality titles to their library.

“The online gameplay of MicroVolts and Brawl Busters make them a perfect fit for Steam, and we are thrilled to be among the first free-to-play games to launch on the platform,” said Howard He, President and CEO of Rock Hippo Productions. “We look forward to introducing both games to the millions of Steam users so they can experience all of the fun, excitement and non-stop action our games offer with all the ease of use that Steam provides.”

MicroVolts features fast paced, third person shooter action and pits players against each other in a secret battle that has been waged and going unnoticed right in our own backyard for years.  No one knows for sure when or where the first toy declared war but rumor has it that the uprising began with four original limited edition figures, code named MicroVolts. Battle lines were drawn when Naomi, Knox, Pandora, and C.H.I.P.-the prototypes -were soon joined by an endless number of modified versions. Now, toy figures around the world are engaged in an all-out war for valuable battery resources and supremacy of the Micro World.  All we can do now is stay out of their way and wait for a champion to be declared!  Featuring a ton of weapons, fresh character designs, and a huge list of customization features,

Game modes include Free for All, Team Deathmatch, Item Match, Capture the Battery, Zombie Mode and many more featuring various maps designed by toy concept. Players can also check out the recently released Summer Recharge patch that includes a brand new map, Magic Paper Land, new weapons and hot summer items such as a Pink Polka Dot Bikini that is sure to heat up the battlefield.

Brawl Busters is an upcoming action brawler that features competitive and co-operative battle modes all in a unique third person view. With its simple and intuitive controls, this easy to pick up and play game makes team strategy a must as player’s battle against each other or team up against computer controlled enemies.

Players will find five unique character classes including the Slugger, the Firefighter, the Rocker, the Boxer and finally, the Blitzer. With its signature funky visual style, the game will offer tons of exciting maps and will also feature a huge variety of customization options including body type, gender, weapons, costumes and accessories along with the ability to upgrade weapons and costumes with new abilities. Brawl Busters will feature an intense training mode, challenge missions, leaderboards and persistent stat tracking.

Supreme Ruler: Cold War from Battlegoat Studios has been released, and the future of the world is at stake. The Korean War looms, the Arms Race intensifies, the Berlin Crisis leads to the formation of NATO, and the world anticipates a new World War. The tension and uncertainty of the Cold War is unbearable.

Now is the time to choose which faction you will control and which strategies you will employ to safeguard your way of life and that of your country’s. As leader of the United States or the Soviet Union, you must make the correct decisions to successfully navigate your country through this dangerous historical era.

Supreme Ruler: Cold War is now available on all major digital download portals with the suggested retail price of $29.99 USD. Take a peek beyond the iron curtain and the wealth of strategy features available to ambitious world leaders, in the release trailer for Supreme Ruler: Cold War.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkJBSyS10WI]

Supreme Ruler: Cold War Features:

• Play as the United States or Soviet Union in Campaign Mode
• Control any Nation in Post-World War II Era in Sandbox Mode
• Use Diplomacy, Trade and Espionage to influence the policies of other nations
• Research new Technologies to give your nation an edge
• Grow and Modernize your Economy
• Control Military production and deployment, or let your Ministers take care of the details
• Experience the redesigned GUI with improved On-Map feedback and streamlined controls
• And when Diplomacy Fails… Sophisticated Real-Time Strategic and Tactical Control of your Military Forces!

Rock Hippo Productions Ltd. has released a “Summer Recharge” patch for its popular online cartoon style third-person action shooter, MicroVolts. The latest patch includes a brand new map, new weapons and all new content for the summer season. A new trailer and screenshots revealed today explore the new map and feature the characters sporting the new weapons, parts and accessories that are now available to players. In addition, MicroVolts is celebrating with its first-ever MicroVolts Clan Tournament, “Clan Clash”, from July 15 – August 11.

MicroVolts is celebrating summer in style with a brand new map, Magic Paper Land and all-new weapons such as the Thunder Grenade Launcher and Hornet Rifle. The “Summer Recharge” patch also includes hot summer items such as a Pink Polka Dot Bikini that is sure to heat up the battlefield! For players looking for even more bonuses and special privileges can check out the new rewards available through the Battery Charge Program. Players who complete certain objectives, such as joining a clan or reaching 100 forum posts, can unlock rewards such as a 30-day Rock Hippo Costume Set or the coveted ability to cast polls and post videos in MicroVolts forums.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvvSCvvUsfg]

“MicroVolts continues to be a huge success with its player base and clans reaching new heights. Hundreds of thousands of players and over 2500 clans have already joined the MicroVolts community with thousands more players joining each day,” said Howard He, President and CEO of Rock Hippo Productions. “We don’t want our players to experience any summer boredom, and the MicroVolts team looks forward to bringing the community even more new updates and content in the near future.”

MicroVolts is also hosting the first-ever MicroVolts Clan Tournament, “Clan Clash”, from July 15 – August 11th. Clans will battle it out for a 1st place prize of 18, 000 Rock Tokens and a 7-day Happy Pack accessory item!

MicroVolts will be at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, August 18-21st! Players are invited to meet the Rock Hippo crew, grab some neat giveaways such as an Alienware gaming mouse and participate in the on-site tournaments! MicroVolts will also be at FanExpo in Toronto, Canada, August 25-28!

MicroVolts features fast paced, third person shooter action and pits players against each other in a secret battle that has been waged and going unnoticed right in our own backyard for years. No one knows for sure when or where the first toy declared war but rumor has it that the uprising began with four original limited edition figures, code-named MicroVolts. Battle lines were drawn when Naomi, Knox, Pandora, and C.H.I.P.-the prototypes-were soon joined by an endless number of modified versions. Now, toy figures around the world are engaged in an all-out war for valuable battery resources and supremacy of the Micro World. All we can do now is stay out of their way and wait for a champion to be declared! Featuring a ton of weapons, inventive character designs, and a huge list of customization features, MicroVolts is destined to invigorate and re-energize the Free2play space.

Game modes include Free for All, Team Deathmatch, Item Match, Capture the Battery, and many more featuring various maps designed by toy concept.

Frima Studios has been traced as the source of this cryptic message that has been transmitted across the gaming universe today:

“Attention people of Earth! It is I, Commander P Jefferson, sending this message from the future to alert you that the galaxy is finally safe from alien scum. How did it become safe, you ask? Well, because I kicked their ugly alien butts!

On July 28, you will be able to recreate my epic battles with the forces of evil (a.k.a. anything that isn’t human) by downloading A Space Shooter for Free!, an exciting shooter that takes place in—wait for it—space! I bet you humans from the past are neither smart nor handsome enough to grasp that concept. A Space Shooter for Free! costs nothing to try and features an infinite supply of aliens to obliterate. The big ASS version, with more special weapons, more bosses and more power-ups can be unlocked in-game for only $0.99.

Within this epic and critically acclaimed game, previously available for the PSP, yours truly will yet again demonstrate how to kill aliens dead by blowing up their ships, earning loot to upgrade the USS Eradicator, and blasting even more aliens dead.”

Hothead Games has unleashed strategy card game Kard Combat upon the world of iOS devices, complete with a Launch Special. Players can download the game for free from iTunes and join this ancient tournament of cards and magic. Entrants into the tournament grow powers and their Kard collections by battling their way up the Black Tower. On every floor there is a new opponent to fight using the cards at hand. There are rewards to earn to help defeat the Arch Mage, Harkus, and the many other magi to be encountered online.

From now through to July 20th, Kard Combat will be featured as OpenFeint’s Free Game of The Day. Players who download Kard Combat during this first week will receive Catastrophe, one of the most powerful cards in the game, and a +1 Life Crystal Shard.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wa2Z1Fesk0&hd=1]

The free download includes:

* All 4 mage classes, each with unique strategies: Holy, Death, Machine and Dominator
* Over 40 Kards to use in battle
* Unlimited, turn-based multiplayer battles
* 5 Tower battles, complete with rewards
* 3 Single Duels
* 3 Difficulty levels to match any player’s skill
* OpenFeint and Game Center enabled, with achievements and leaderboards

For the minimum in-app purchase price of $0.99, players will also receive:

* The full, 33 battle Tower campaign
* Unlimited Single Duels
* Access to over 100 incredible, hand-crafted cards
* The ability to run up to 20 simultaneous multiplayer games

Lending his vision to co-design the game, Richard Garfield, creator of the wildly popular card game, Magic: The Gathering, stated “for years I’ve wanted to create a Magic-like experience for people who play video games. Kard Combat on iPhone and iPad does this and is simple enough for anyone to pick up and play, but with plenty of depth for the hard core player. Hothead has created a truly magical game.”

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcjfDJvq-Vc]

Kard Combat is rated 12+ for the following:

Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes
Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
Frequent/Intense Horror/Fear Themes

Device Requirements:

Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1.3 or later

Independent game developer Spooky Squid Games has released the debut trailer for They Bleed Pixels, a fast-paced, “gothic lo-fi” platforming beat-em-up coming to Xbox Live Indie Games in Summer 2011.

Featuring a distinct visual style that blends pixel art with paper and ink textures, They Bleed Pixels is a singular mix of intense platforming and fierce beat-em-up action.  It tells the story of a young girl haunted by a mysterious book and her violent Lovecraftian nightmares.

They Bleed Pixels uses a simple one-button combat scheme with surprising depth at its core. Button mashing is discouraged while kicking shadowy monsters into saws, pits and spikes is rewarded thanks to a unique checkpoint earning system: instead of being evenly distributed at set locations, players must earn and place checkpoints through stylish kills.  The more and better you kill, the faster you fill your checkpoint meter. Avoid combat or button mash mindlessly and you’ll find checkpoints uncomfortably far apart.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF4Pygb9nXY]

“We’re crafting They Bleed Pixels with a healthy respect for the player’s abilities and the belief that action games should offer a genuine challenge,” says Miguel Sternberg, Creative Director at Spooky Squid Games. “We wanted to create a game that demands that players excel at both combat and platforming. Want a checkpoint before you take on that series of spike-lined pits? Then dash into the nearest enemy launch him in the air and juggle him into that nearby skill saw.”

Game publisher Wicked Interactive has announced that the popular, free-to-play, online first-person shooter Mission Against Terror (M.A.T.) will begin commercial launch today. Wicked Interactive’s SUBA Games platform, best known to shooter fans for such titles as Cross Fire, is hosting M.A.T. With the official commercial launch of M.A.T., SUBA Games endeavours to blow through expectations of all SUBA Games’ Cross Fire and M.A.T. fans.

“We are delighted to be launching M.A.T. 2.0 today,” said Sam Ho, Director of Wicked Interactive. “M.A.T. 2.0 comes with a massive amount new content and updates.  The biggest change is that the game is no longer in Open Beta status.  M.A.T. 2.0 strikes hard with its commercial release; rocking a new user interface, a new game mode, an expanded crafting system, seven maps and over a dozen weapons.”

Hybrid Invasion is a brand new game mode that is being introduced with this patch, expanding on the need to band together as team mates to survive.  Players will survive wave after wave of hybrid creatures that are a combination of AI robots, mummies and biological weapons.  If players survive long enough, they will encounter the Tyrant; a hammer-swinging monstrosity that’ll take a well trained and well armed squad to put down!

The expanded crafting system will allow players to create a variety of items out of multiple types of materials.  Before the patch, players had to collect just a robot part from AI Mode and use a Weapon Casting Machine on it to create one of several weapons.  With the new patch, players will be able to use all kinds of materials like PCB boards, diodes, metal, nylon, leather, dyes, etc to create not just weapons, but clothing and items as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Hothead Games producer Hamish Millar (heyyyy, we know that guy!) provides an in-depth tutorial of the gameplay from the Tower Mode in this new Kard Combat video.  Kard Combat, which is already available for Canadian iOS gamers will be unleashed upon the masses in the iTunes App Store on July 13th.

Watch the video to learn how players can earn upgrades for their mage, items, and additional cards by completing the Tower campaign.  The walkthrough covers basic strategy, offensive and defensive tactics, card combinations, and powerful spells.  This particular battle is fought out on the Master difficulty level, but nothing less should be expected from the producer of the game.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcjfDJvq-Vc]

Kard Combat is rated 12+ for the following:

* Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes
* Frequent/Intense Horror/Fear Themes
* Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence

Device Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices running iOS 3.1.3 or later.

Rock Hippo Productions has announced a series of short educational Brawl Busters Lessons for its upcoming down and dirty title, Brawl Busters.  Players can head to the web site for a chance to win a coveted invite to become an Original Buster in the Closed Beta. Brawl Busters, a Free2Play online multi-player action combat game, has already received tons of positive feedback after its initial announcement. These lessons just might keep impatient players in check while they wait to get into the game.

The first Brawl Busters Lessons, showcasing four of the five character classes feature the Rocker, the Boxer, the Firefighter, and the Blitzer, have already been released. Check out the fifth character class, the Slugger today, Friday June 24^th, when it launches this afternoon. The newly released videos show some of the many strategies and combinations players can use to beat down their opponents and come out on top of the slug-fest.  Players can equip their character with the best gear around, including matching spiffy head, body, and leg armor then pick up a weapon and get ready to hose enemies, bust heads with a variety of gloves, groove out on a choice of guitars and much more!

Brawl Busters is a dynamic new action brawler that features competitive and co-operative battle modes all in a unique third person view.  With its simple and intuitive controls, this easy to pick up and play game makes team strategy a must as player’s battle against each other or team up against computer controlled enemies.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy3bCFZW3VA]

“Brawl Busters looks and plays unlike anything else on the market today, and we love that,” said Howard He, President and CEO of Rock Hippo Productions.  “We’ve had phenomenal fan support since announcing the game last month, and we want to thank those fans by bringing them even more updates leading up to the Closed Beta.  Check back every Tuesday and Friday for a new lesson revealing various game play features.”

Currently, the Free2Play PC title is still in its pre-Closed Beta stage. But rest assured, Rock Hippo is working extra hard to bring the game out as soon as possible. If you want to be one of the first brawlers to try out the game, drop us your email address at via the game’s web site.