As requested, here is the list of freeware PC games. None of these games have malware/spyware, nor will any of them otherwise screw with your computer.
1) Hero Core - http://www.remar.se/daniel/herocore.php
I finished this game last night in an hour and 23 minutes, but I didn't get everything in it. I would estimate that it should take 2 hours to get 100%. Despite the Atari graphics, this is an incredible Metroidvania game that sort of also plays like a space shooter. There's no blood, and no language. Totally worth downloading. Walkthrough unnecessary.
2) The Journey Down: Over the Edge - http://www.bigbluecup.com
/yabb/index.php?topic=41648.0
This game is rather short, and it must be played full-screen at a 320x200 resolution, because it's much too small to be played in a window. Despite that, the animation is beautiful, and the puzzles are decent, but it's otherwise no different from any other point-and-click game. It's still worth playing, though. Walkthrough required. Takes about 2 hours to complete.
3) The Yahtzee Quadrilogy - http://jayisgames.com/archives/2007/12/the_chzo_mythos.php
You know the stuck-up Australian dude who talks too fast when he reviews games on The Escapist? This is that guy. These are the very best freeware games I've ever played. WARNING: Intense pixellated violence.
The order is:
5 Days a Skeptic
7 Days a Stranger
Trilby's Notes
6 Days a Sacrifice
Each takes about an hour or 2 to complete. Also, a walkthrough is required.
4) The McCarthy Chronicles: Episode 1 - http://www.bigbluecup.com/games.php?action=detail&id=1243
This is second only to Yahtzee's work. It's absolutely amazing. There is even voice acting, and its surprisingly good! WARNING: Instense violence. Walkthrough required. This one takes maybe 2-3 hours to complete, if I remember correctly.
5) A Second Face - http://www.bigbluecup.com/games.php?action=detail&id=1115
This is a bizarre story of an archaic totalitarian regime. I kind of forget the point of it, but I remember it being really, really good. The voice acting is a little off though, so bear with it. It's also a bit longer than the previous games I've listed, maybe about 4-6 hours. WARNING: Nudity/sex. Walkthrough required.
6) The Marionette - http://themarionette.game-host.org/downloads.php
Unfortunately, I forget a lot about this game, but I remember enjoying it a lot. WARNING: Violence, disturbing themes. It should take about 2 hours to complete. Walkthrough required.
7) Cave Story - http://www.miraigamer.net/cavestory/
This game was released recently on the Wii, and so I played it on the computer for free. It's a Metroidvania game that can be intensely frustrating under its cutesy exterior. Every time you get hit, your weapon power gets reduced, and this can really SSSUUUCCCCCCKKKKKK. WARNING: Intensely frustrating. Accounting for the number of times you will die, I would estimate completion time at about 10 hours. Walkthrough recommended.
8) Ever Eternal Winter World 1 & 2 - http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?topic=3737.0
I haven't finished either of these yet, so I can't say how long it should take you to finish them. They are much like Cave Story/Hero Core.
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There are many games I've downloaded but haven't started yet, and a few that I wouldn't really care to pass on. These should get you guys started though :D
Monday, September 13, 2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
September 11th, the Wound We Don't Want to Heal
It has been 9 years since 3,000 people were horrifically killed when two planes deliberately crashed into the WTC as the result of religious nihilism. Since that time, America behaved just as perhaps to be expected, much like a traumatized psychiatric patient, who makes bad decisions and hurts himself and others in order to protect himself from the pain. This person may engage in heavy drinking, drugs, and self-mutilation. America, just the same, retreated into bigotry and misguided policies, including wire-tapping, the abandonment of habeas corpus, and the preemptive invasion of another country.
For 9 years this pattern of irresponsible behavior continued. Like a drunkard, America proudly defends itself by defecating on everything it should hold dear. "Thish ish 'Merikuh, and we dun like yer kind, sho get outta mah countreh..." In response to WTC, we have only given more ammunition to those who would destroy us, and shown the rest of the world that sometimes we aren't so great.
We have been blinded by the pain and anger we were right to feel on that day, but we failed to understand--as bigots typically do--that what a few people do is not representative of an entire group of over a billion people. That is to say that there is more to Islam than political leaders in the Middle East would have us believe. Tragically, they are doing this to us--and themselves--deliberately.
It works in their favor if we hate them, it works in their favor if we appease the least among us and deny Imam Feisal Rauf his project, and it works in their favor if Terry Jones burns their book. It works because that is what they want. They are exactly like some of us, who emphasize what they perceive as dangerous differences and dreams of domination, who justify discrimination and fear. The more we are given reason to hate Islam, either by ourselves or the Wahhabis, the worse off everyone is. Paradoxically, immediately after Sept 11th, a large portion of the American population drove bigger and more gasoline-demanding vehicles. This, of course, fed right into their hands as we were essentially paying also for the other side of the wars we were waging. Is it American to fund both sides of a war, especially when one side of that war was none other than us?
Nine years later, and the wound is still festering. We are as resistant to tolerance as some of those in the Middle East. Why should we be afraid? Of what must we be afraid? Are we really afraid of some moron who shoves incendiary substances into his underwear, or some ignorant kid who leaves a blatantly suspicious vehicle in the busiest and most vigilant area of NYC, complete with a long paper trail so specific it takes law enforcement just two days to find him? I can only laugh!
But here's where our bigotry really begins to hurt us. In a Pew poll released last month, 18% of Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim, and what's more than a little worse is that they believe that because they view both as alien1. Couple that with--if Soledad O'Brian is truly correct--the fact that 71% of Americans now believe that Imam Feisal Rauf's project is a bad idea. It is abundantly clear at this point that Imam Rauf is precisely the kind of person we should empower in order not only for us to present a better America to the Middle East, but also in order for us to learn more about Islam itself and begin to heal the wounds we suffered on 9/11.
I was a bigot once, and it took a full year in college for me to even begin to understand not only myself, but others as well, and it's only now that I've really engaged others in constructive dialogue, and just now understood to the point of deciding to do something I never before thought I could ever do in order to help someone else through the same thing. I cannot imagine how long it could possibly take for an entire nation to forgo its prejudices, even though it has repeatedly gone through the same cycle several times. Some sociologists say that every "new" group of immigrants goes through a phase where the Public (in Heidegger's terms) is immediately intolerant of them.
But Muslims have it perhaps more difficult than most groups, as, in the eyes of the Public, Muslims (or Islam itself) killed 3,000 people on American soil, and all America knows is the despotism and misanthropy of small-minded Middle Eastern leaders. What America likes to forget is that Christianity also is prone to exhibit the same kind of misanthropic and despotic charlatans who feed on the blood of their followers. Have we so soon forgotten Terry Jones?
"Hey! That's not fair! I thought you appreciated Christianity now!" I do, but it's true all the same. Here, I will repeat what I said in "A Mosque? In MY NYC!?" Is Terry Jones representative of all Christianity? No, he is absolutely not. So if we accept that Terry Jones for all intent and purpose has nothing to do with Jesus, what right does the public have to still believe that Osama bin Laden (and by extension the 9/11 hijackers), Hezbollah, Hamas, and Ayatollah Khomeini are representative of all Islam?
The point is, and this is also from that same essay, that Islam and Christianity (The Bible itself is often keen to describe the fate of "wicked prophets." See Micah 3:9-12) exhibit entirely equal amounts of beauty and depravity. If we are able to see beauty in Christianity, what could possibly prevent us from seeing beauty in Islam?
The only way we could ever heal this wound is for Imam Feisal to build his Islamic Cultural Center, though I doubt that anyone outside of his supporters and the Muslims who live in the area would ever visit. So I have just one question for Imam Feisal: How would you try to reach out to those 71% of Americans who do not want to heal September 11th, 2001?
1) http://hotair.com/archives/2010/08/19/pew-poll-18-think-obama-is-a-muslim/
For 9 years this pattern of irresponsible behavior continued. Like a drunkard, America proudly defends itself by defecating on everything it should hold dear. "Thish ish 'Merikuh, and we dun like yer kind, sho get outta mah countreh..." In response to WTC, we have only given more ammunition to those who would destroy us, and shown the rest of the world that sometimes we aren't so great.
We have been blinded by the pain and anger we were right to feel on that day, but we failed to understand--as bigots typically do--that what a few people do is not representative of an entire group of over a billion people. That is to say that there is more to Islam than political leaders in the Middle East would have us believe. Tragically, they are doing this to us--and themselves--deliberately.
It works in their favor if we hate them, it works in their favor if we appease the least among us and deny Imam Feisal Rauf his project, and it works in their favor if Terry Jones burns their book. It works because that is what they want. They are exactly like some of us, who emphasize what they perceive as dangerous differences and dreams of domination, who justify discrimination and fear. The more we are given reason to hate Islam, either by ourselves or the Wahhabis, the worse off everyone is. Paradoxically, immediately after Sept 11th, a large portion of the American population drove bigger and more gasoline-demanding vehicles. This, of course, fed right into their hands as we were essentially paying also for the other side of the wars we were waging. Is it American to fund both sides of a war, especially when one side of that war was none other than us?
Nine years later, and the wound is still festering. We are as resistant to tolerance as some of those in the Middle East. Why should we be afraid? Of what must we be afraid? Are we really afraid of some moron who shoves incendiary substances into his underwear, or some ignorant kid who leaves a blatantly suspicious vehicle in the busiest and most vigilant area of NYC, complete with a long paper trail so specific it takes law enforcement just two days to find him? I can only laugh!
But here's where our bigotry really begins to hurt us. In a Pew poll released last month, 18% of Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim, and what's more than a little worse is that they believe that because they view both as alien1. Couple that with--if Soledad O'Brian is truly correct--the fact that 71% of Americans now believe that Imam Feisal Rauf's project is a bad idea. It is abundantly clear at this point that Imam Rauf is precisely the kind of person we should empower in order not only for us to present a better America to the Middle East, but also in order for us to learn more about Islam itself and begin to heal the wounds we suffered on 9/11.
I was a bigot once, and it took a full year in college for me to even begin to understand not only myself, but others as well, and it's only now that I've really engaged others in constructive dialogue, and just now understood to the point of deciding to do something I never before thought I could ever do in order to help someone else through the same thing. I cannot imagine how long it could possibly take for an entire nation to forgo its prejudices, even though it has repeatedly gone through the same cycle several times. Some sociologists say that every "new" group of immigrants goes through a phase where the Public (in Heidegger's terms) is immediately intolerant of them.
But Muslims have it perhaps more difficult than most groups, as, in the eyes of the Public, Muslims (or Islam itself) killed 3,000 people on American soil, and all America knows is the despotism and misanthropy of small-minded Middle Eastern leaders. What America likes to forget is that Christianity also is prone to exhibit the same kind of misanthropic and despotic charlatans who feed on the blood of their followers. Have we so soon forgotten Terry Jones?
"Hey! That's not fair! I thought you appreciated Christianity now!" I do, but it's true all the same. Here, I will repeat what I said in "A Mosque? In MY NYC!?" Is Terry Jones representative of all Christianity? No, he is absolutely not. So if we accept that Terry Jones for all intent and purpose has nothing to do with Jesus, what right does the public have to still believe that Osama bin Laden (and by extension the 9/11 hijackers), Hezbollah, Hamas, and Ayatollah Khomeini are representative of all Islam?
The point is, and this is also from that same essay, that Islam and Christianity (The Bible itself is often keen to describe the fate of "wicked prophets." See Micah 3:9-12) exhibit entirely equal amounts of beauty and depravity. If we are able to see beauty in Christianity, what could possibly prevent us from seeing beauty in Islam?
The only way we could ever heal this wound is for Imam Feisal to build his Islamic Cultural Center, though I doubt that anyone outside of his supporters and the Muslims who live in the area would ever visit. So I have just one question for Imam Feisal: How would you try to reach out to those 71% of Americans who do not want to heal September 11th, 2001?
1) http://hotair.com/archives/2010/08/19/pew-poll-18-think-obama-is-a-muslim/
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