For this weekend only, the DoSu-featured independent game Gish is on sale for $3.99 on Impulse, StarDock’s burgeoning competitor to Valve’s Steam service. Gish on Impulse usually costs $19.95 as opposed to Steam’s $9.99, which is why it isn’t linked in our database.

If you’ve never used the Impulse service before, it’s very similar to Steam. You can browse and purchase games as well as download demos either from their website or from within the Impulse client. Games you own show up within the client and can be downloaded there. One key difference from Steam is that the Impulse client does not need to be running in order to play your games; there isn’t even a background process for authentication. Pricing, game selection and community features leave a bit to be desired when compared to Steam, but it’s still a fine place to purchase games when the price is right.

To make some sense out of the second half of the title, I also wanted to bring up a relevant item from Edmund McMillen, creator of Gish. This is a Cry for Help is a CD collection of ten years worth of Edmund’s work as an independent artist. The CD includes 17 games (including Gish), 15 comics and a ton of extras including artwork and animations. While some games – such as Cunt – are flash games which can be played for free through a browser, I felt the collection was worth purchasing not only for the sake of convenience, but to support the creator as well. If you’re thinking of buying Gish anyway, I suggest getting this CD instead as Gish is included and it will only cost you $10 plus shipping.

An update for Gravitron 2 has just been released in the form of a 15 level map pack. These new levels can be accessed from the game’s main menu by cycling the “Map Pack” setting. Be advised that starting a game on the new map pack will overwrite your progress on the original map pack and you’ll have to start over.

Steam users will get this update pushed to them automatically. If you purchased Gravitron 2 directly from the developer’s site you’ll now find a patch available there.

I may have a problem. I’m noticing a trend in my gaming habits where I am being drawn to games that present seemingly impossible objectives and where guaranteed frustration is considered a feature. And I like it. I like it so much that I feel compelled to recommend these games here at DoSu. From Trials 2 and Trackmania to Love and Geometry Wars; I’m just glad that these games don’t come on discs or I may have destroyed them by now. This week’s cheap game is no different.

Created, developed and published by X-Out of Dark Castle Software, Gravitron 2 is a classically styled arcade shoot’em up where gravity and inertia are both your best friend and greatest foe.
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Back in April I wrote a bit about a few of the games that I was looking forward to most this year. That article has remained pretty popular over the months, and since the future which that feature referred to is now, I thought I would do a follow-up. A few gaming trade shows, a major merger of two gaming juggernauts and a development delay or two later, not quite all of the games on my list have been released yet, but I have gotten my hands on several.

Let’s revisit these in order, shall we?
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A game can turn out to be a failure for any number of reasons. Maybe a game is like Beyond Good & Evil where it gets lost in the shuffle of bigger releases for years before being properly appreciated. Maybe you’re a developer who’s too close to his game to recognize fundamental flaws in certain aspects of its design, as was reportedly the case with Lair. Or maybe you’re like today’s cheap game, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, and you just got a bad rap.

Originally released by Ubisoft in October of 2006 and developed by Arkane Studios, Dark Messiah didn’t have the luxury of blaming its less-than-stellar reception on other, more hyped games coming out along side it. 2006 wasn’t bad for games, but I don’t think Splinter Cell: Double Agent or Marvel Ultimate Alliance were what kept people from playing Dark Messiah at the end of October. No, Dark Messiah’s failing was primarily due to little more than a buggy launch that earned it a bad reputation. Alas, even the demo was plagued by bugs, so the game was leaving a bad taste in people’s mouths before it was even released. Despite what must have been a very frustrating launch for Ubisoft, DMMM has since been patched up quite nicely as well as had some hefty price reductions.
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As I’m sure you’ve been conditioned to know, Spore was released this last Sunday, September 7th. I really wanted to play it on release day. Normally I don’t worry about this too much unless it is a game that I am especially excited for. If I recall correctly, the last game that I was determined to play on release day was The Orange Box in 2007. I downloaded it through Steam at midnight as soon as it became available. It was incredibly convenient and it made me happy to be a Steam customer. Things are not always this easy, however, especially when it comes to games published by Electronic Arts.

My experience in obtaining Spore inspired the message of this post. EA: I want to buy your games. Please make it easier on me.
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And I’m back! I had to skip a week. I ran out of good ideas to show you guys. I have some new things in bag now, though. We’d been wanting to promote Beyond Good & Evil for a while and decided that PseudoKnight is the most passionate about it here, so it’s only appropriate that he do the post. I hope you enjoyed that, and I hope some of you ended up checking out BG&E. It really should not be missed.

Attack or defend? This is the question at the very core of any good combat strategy game, once you look past all the tech trees and resource management, diplomacy and build orders. This week’s featured game from Introversion Software entitled Defcon: Everybody Dies will have you asking yourself this question during every crucial second of gameplay.
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