Today marks one of those days that I’m really, really glad I’m a functioning video game reviewer–I’m going to review a game that I’m absolutely convinced you need to be told about.  Chances are very good that you haven’t actually heard of it, which is why I get the opportunity to use my good offices to fill you in.  It’s called Forumwarz, and it may easily be the most unique game I’ve ever played.

You’ll play as a young forum-goer, like so many other internet users out there, who’s just starting out in the world.  You’re out to make a name for yourself in the world, and as such, you go out and attempt to “pwn” internet forums, a name for causing such disruption that you make a forum uninhabitable.  Along the way, you’ll meet a series of other internet users with a series of different goals and interests who want to employ your skills to advance those goals and interests.  You’ll run into everybody from conservative talk show hosts with bizarre proclivities to furries to indie rock figures and beyond.  But what’s lying beyond all these disparate interests?  Who are you really working for?  You’ll find out in a tale of surprising depth and intrigue.

In fact, you start out so new that your opening rank is actually “Jimmy the Re-Re”.  Please don’t bother with flames—that’s a quote.  In fact, they’ve devoted such detail to this rank that your two attacks as Jimmy are “bash keyboard with helmet” and “drool on keyboard”.  After a little time spent as Jimmy, you’ll be allowed to select a new class of character, each with different kinds of attacks and defenses—you can be a hacker, a troll, an emo kid, a camwhore or a permanoob.  You can even play through the whole game as Jimmy if you’re so inclined, but this is discouraged for all but the most extreme player.

The gameplay itself is unusual, as you select an attack, resolve the result, let the forum get in ITS attack (they’ll try to flame you with varying degrees of success) and then the process repeats until either you or the forum is down in flames.  The closest analogue is a collectible card game.  Every day, you’re permitted four “forum visits” to wreak your havoc, and the number resets at a set time each day.  This may sound somewhat restrictive, but I haven’t told you the best part yet—the game is free to play.

That’s right, the entire first chapter of Forumwarz is free to play.  The second chapter, however, you’ll have to pay to play, and the cost is minimal at best—just ten dollars.  You’d pay more for a Xbox Live title, and instead, you get a game that’s fantastically fun to play, and you can play for days in small installments.  I like to start my day with a round of Forumwarz, and frankly, I think you will too.

Oh, sure…Forumwarz doesn’t have the action and the explosions of some first person shooters and suchlike, but what it does have is clever gameplay and plenty of laughs.  .  It’s almost nice to be able to play a game that I can only play for about a half-hour or so a day instead of taking a few hours at a crack, because the trade-off for that is that I can play it for weeks and still get a great experience with something new every day. Forumwarz is great fun, and in the end, that’s what counts most in a game.

North Americans are going to love this new MMO basketball game called “Freestyle”. Known to be one of the world’s popular sports today, JC Entertainment Corp. (JCE), an online game developer from South Korea, announced the launch of the MMO basketball game “Freestyle” in the North American market.

“Freestyle” is an online basketball game with streetball gameplay against other online gamers, and is one of the most popular online games in Asia since 2005. “Freestyle” was previously serviced through Sierra Online of Vivendi Games in North America market and already has more than 80 million users around the world, but JCE now provides the game service directly through its own global game portal “www.gamekiss.com”.

“Freestyle” combines hip-hop and street basketball through unique characters and gameplay. Each character has unique ability according to their basketball position, and the players can play 3 on 3 half court or 5 on 5 full court basketball game. “Freestyle” users can maximize their fun by creating multiple basketball moves through simple game interface with just A, S, D, and W key and arrowkeys on the keyboard.

In order to enjoy “Freestyle”, users can download Freestyle at www.gamekiss.com for free game client and learn more about the game in the “Freestyle” webpage.

(Source) Press

This game is one of the biggest reasons that I love Newgrounds. Seriously–I LOVE this place exactly for games like this.  It’s called Survival Lab, and it may well be one of the best little games that you’ve never played before.  But that’s why I’m here, to point you in the direction of some of these nifty little titles that you may not have otherwise stumbled upon.

Survival Lab is, essentially, a volunteer test subject locked in a small room with a variety of automated weapons, all of which will be firing various kinds of projectiles at you.  Your job is to survive and collect coins as they appear.

The interesting part of this is, the longer you survive, the more you’re allowed to “learn” from your time in the lab.  You can purchase upgrades for yourself that allow you to move faster, jump higher and take less damage.  It’s a small, very simple game that manages to pack a lot more gameplay and variety than you’d expect, and thus, it’s well worth playing.

Water Rocket, one of the newest games at Newgrounds, poses an interesting problem–how to maneuver a small rocket through a collection of obstacle traps in search of water.

That’s also the entire plot of the game–your home is running out of water at a catastrophic rate, therefore you’re off to collect it in your rocket ship, which you’ll be able to upgrade to improve shield dynamics and fuel consumption of your lateral thrusters, as well as your rate of fall when the thrusters are cut.  You’ll also be able to repair any damage you’ve taken, but at the cost of not being able to upgrade rocket components, so there’s a real premium on avoiding damage.

It’s a strange mix of action and puzzle as you figure out how to negotiate levels of progressively greater difficulty , and this highly unusual combination adds up to plenty of fun for anyone willing to give it a try.

If you remember the fun of eighties classic Bionic Commando, where you swung across platforms via an extendible bionic arm, then you may enjoy a new game I spotted on Newgrounds, a fun little platform hopper called Ninja+.

There isn’t a whole lot of story in Ninja+–you run around and jump on platforms gathering gold coins as you go.  You’ll be able to throw unlimited kunai (those small ninja daggers that may or may not be attached to a chain, in case you don’t watch Naruto around the clock) and you’ll be able to swing on a line.

The idea is fun, but I found I had a tough time with some of the controls.  Hopping from platform to platform was as fun as advertised, but switching to the space bar to throw kunai was a difficult move for me.  In retrospect, I almost wish that the grappling hook had been weaponized instead, completely leaving out the kunai and thereby eliminating the problem, but that’s just me.

But people who like their action games fast and agile will definitely find plenty to love in Ninja+.

If you’ve ever played Patapon, you’ll be happy to know there’s a free to play version of Patapon 2: The Art of War out there, and you’ll be happy to know that it’s available on Newgrounds.  Not in fact stolen, but rather created as a public service for Sony to use to promote Patapon 2.

In Patapon 2: The Art of War, you’ll take command of a legion of tiny little creatures and send them marching off to battle.  You’ll have essentially two commands, executed by a drum rhythm–march forward with pata pata pata pon (left left left right on your keypad) and attack with pon pon pata pon (right right left right on the keypad).  You’ll gather an army, take out a tower and kill a dragon in your three-stage sample quests.

Simple, clever and catchy beyond all reason or common sense, this short game should get somebody a job with Sony, because it’s pretty sweet.  It’s got ME interested, and music games are not normally my speed.

One caveat, however–the title is NOT just hyperbole in headline form.  The tune WILL lodge in your head.  Good luck getting it out; took me nearly two days to forget pata pata pata pon…oh great.  Now it’s BACK.

If you happen to be looking for a frantic, fast shooter with lots of different powerups and hordes of things flying at you in desperate need of blasting, then what you need is to get over to BubbleBox and try a round of Luminara.

Basically, it’s Geometry Wars, if Geometry Wars were a heavy drug user and paranoid to boot, because everything around you in Luminara is out to get you.  For what reason, we don’t know, so we can once again insert one.  This time, I think your little ball with a stick gun was a rogue enforcer for the Random Shape Drug Mafia, and once they discovered he’d been skimming product, they sent every triggerman they could find to get him.  Of course, being as gifted a shot as our little enforcer is, he won’t go down quietly.  I made it through twenty six rounds of fighting my first time through, so you know there’s lots of things out to kill you.

It’s fun, and a great little casual game that’ll keep your attention riveted for a couple minutes at a stretch.  And isn’t that the point of all casual games, in the end?

And sometimes, the games on Newgrounds can get kind of weird in their sheer simplicity, this is why we’ve got games like John Citizen to talk about.

Basically, the aliens have landed one of their own on the planet Earth.  Charged with the duty of planting a series of Doomsday Devices all over the planet, he’s come to kill us all.  He’s armed to the teeth, ready to kill, and indistiguishable from anyone else.  He’s John Citizen.  And we’re not going to be happy to see him.

The gameplay is pretty simple, run, jump, blast things, avoid spikes–and the worlds all look vaguely similiar with some odd differences.  For instance, why do Dubai and the Netherlands look so much alike?  And last I knew, Ottawa in Canada was NOT comprised entirely of a long row of spikes with a series of platforms suspended via invisible restraints directly over them.  I’m baffled on that one, really.

But one thing is clear enough–John Citizen is a fairly fun and fairly quick casual game that’s worth a few plays.

Congratulate me, kids, because I may have found the single most pointless new game on Kongregate, a little title called Do You Fell Lucky today ????.

I swear that is a total quote.

From the sheer number of misspellings and grammatical manglings in this game I’m forced to wonder if the creator speaks English as his or her first language.  But anyway, the game play is shockingly simple–first you decide whether or not you feel lucky today, and select yes or no depending.  Ironically, it makes little difference, as you’ll then go into the next stage of a game, confronted with what seems to be a flipping coin with the legends “Yeah! You won” and “You loose” on either side.  And yes, that “you loose” is actually how it’s spelled.  If you manage to lose, which from my attempts is pretty much done by saying that you DON’T feel lucky in the beginning, you get nothing.  Winning, meanwhile gives you “lucky points” which are redeemable for absolutely nothing except a general good feeling.

Just for more fun, here are some of the end messages you get after clicking that you DON’T feel lucky.  Warning to all grammar nazis in the audience, stop reading these immediately and seek medical attention if your head at any time feels about to explode:

“Is any problem with you ? stop thinking that you don’t fell lucky”

“She or he don’t like you …. (Push YES and she or he will start to like)”

“I guess you rated 1/5 …. go back and push YES, this will make you change your rate and humour”

“Stop pushing NO, go to get some good vibes clicking on the YES button”

I’m sorry, but did you just tell me my bad luck is my OWN fault?  Because I’m not FEELING lucky?  Because I didn’t rate you sufficiently highly on an arbitrary five scale?  Oh, but this is not where the poorly worded fun ends, kids–check out what happens when you actually manage to win a game, done literally every time by clicking that fabled “yes” button:

Congratulations!!  You had won 10 lucky points to have an awesome day here on Kongregate, to use it you just need to say “I will use xxx lucky points now to help me do xxx” just before you do the xxx.  Here are some examples: To earn that impossible badge that is taking all the time of your life.  To think in something good to say to the pretty girl that just came in to the chat.  To crush your kongai challenger with only intercepts.  To avoid clicking in fu**** non-games of non-senses. To have a better life. To win in the lottery. To realize that this game really works, so it deserve a 5/5 And remember to use your points wisely, but when you use all, just come here an play again!! : )

If by “fu**** non-games of non-senses”, you mean this ridiculous crap you’ve wasted perfectly good bandwidth on, then man, I wish I’d had your lucky points in advance so as not to have wasted time on this.  And how many lucky points does it take to send you a DICTIONARY so that you can see just how horrifying a crime against the language you’ve committed here today?

I echo the sentiments left in the comments section of this.  I too want those twenty seconds of my life back.  Except I didn’t spend twenty seconds on this—I played the game ten times total, five times either way so I could prove the rigging.  And I tell you this—I want all that time back.  This game is easily the most pointless thing I’ve played in MONTHS.

I have to admit, I’ve played a lot of games on Newgrounds, and some of them are better than others.  But if you’re into action games that’ll make you think like a puzzle game, then you could definitely do a lot worse than Blackboard Squash.

In Blackboard Squash, you play a tiny little chalk outline of a man on a chalkboard.  Meanwhile, chalk hazards are continually drawn into life to fall onto you or attempt to crush or skewer you.  You’ve got just enough fortitude to withstand five injuries, and after that, it’s game over.

You’ll be playing on different sides of the board every so often, and you’ll have to adjust your control perceptions to match.  You’ll have to constantly think and dodge, so you’ll need to be fast and clever to get through this one for any length of time.  It’s fast, casual fun.