No, I’m not saying “huzzah” because I’m happy. I’m saying it because it’s the name of this week’s game!

Huzzah is a board game by Cheapass Games, makers of many inexpensive diversions that use interchangeable bits like dice, counters, player pieces and so on. Huzzah, which has a Renaissance Faire theme, is one of several games whose unique materials can be downloaded for free from the site — you provide the printouts and the common components. The company asks that players who like the game later buy $10 worth of stuff. They don’t enforce that, of course, but it sounds pretty reasonable.

(Image courtesy of Cheapass Games)

Some mad genius has re-created the Simpson home and neighborhood in exruciating detail as a level for the multiplayer shooter Quake III Arena. Check out the video walkthrough below (but be aware that a match begins a couple minutes in, and brings with it the bloody violence that is the game’s stock in trade).

I said I’d offer something lighter this week, and here it is: “The Ur-Quan Masters,” a free multi-platform port of the classic sci-fi game “Star Control II” (the name was changed for copyright reasons). This is a classic game of the 1990s.

Title: The Ur-Quan Masters
For: Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD
ESRB rating: Everyone

Of course, the bare-bones description of the game doesn’t make it sound anything but bleak: You’re the captain of a starship crewed by a science team that was marooned for years on an alien planet, only able to escape because your group found an ancient factory that automatically built the ship you’re in — actually, half-built, as the vessel is just the skeleton of a larger craft.

You’ve returned home to find Earth shielded under a glowing red barrier, and an automated drone informs you that humanity and its allies have been defeated by the Ur-Quan Heirarchy; Earth chose permanent isolation rather than become battle slaves for the Ur-Quan.

Who are these Ur-Quan? Well, they’re extremely mean and warlike three-eyed grub monsters that pilot huge ships on a galaxy-spanning mission to subdue or enslave all races they encounter. And they’re not even the worst of their kind — an offshoot of the species is traveling the galaxy in the other direction on a parallel mission of genocide; the game takes place as the two factions near a predetermined meeting to determine the superiority of one of these doctrines — through war, of course.

Still sounds prettty bleak, right? Well, the situation is dire, but the game has a cheeky sense of humor to the proceedings, mixing goofy races and running gags with space exploration and ship-to-ship battles. There are the hyper-cowardly Spathi, a race of mullosks who’d like nothing better than to be shield-protected slaves but are condemened to eternal battle servitude; the spaced-out hippie bird aliens called Pkunk; the disgusting Umgah, galactic pranksters who tricked the Spathi; and numerous other races.

The gameplay is relatively simplistic — in battle each ship can accelerate, turn, and employ a standard and a special weapon — but there’s a diverse arsenal spread among the many ships. When not fighting, you can explore planets for resources and other points of interest, and the story is engaging.

(Image courtesy of sc2.sourceforge.net)

What is one thing that “Aliens,” “Iron Man,” “The Terminator” and “Jurassic Park” have in common? No, not James Cameron. No, not scary monsters. No, not metallic men.

The correct answer is special effects wizard Stan Winston, who died yesterday. Winston worked on these movies and many more in his decades-long career. He was an effects pioneer — his creations were the stuff of dreams and nightmares, and though his studios will likely carry on, he will be missed.

(Image courtesy of MovieWeb)

This week’s free game came out exactly four years ago tomorrow, which I didn’t realize until after I started writing this post! That’s an odd coincidence — maybe I’m psychic.

Title: Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
Developed and published by: Midway Games
For: Windows
ESRB rating: Mature

Well, probably not. But Nick Scryer (get it?) the protagonist of “Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy” is. He’s also and amnesiac, which presents a convenient excuse for him to need to relearn an strengthen his fancy-schmancy mind powers over the course of the game’s levels.

Gameplay-wise this is a pretty standard third-person shooter from the mid-2000s — lots of guns and explosions, lots of reasonably stupid enemy forces to battle and a handful of bosses scattered about — but the mind powers give it a neat twist. Scryer’s usual enemies are the meat puppets, a legion of lobotomized and mind-controlled troops commanded by a group of terrorists. These terrorists are the bosses of the game, and each of them specializes in a paranormal power — one is gifted in telekinesis, another in mind control, and so on.

Scryer isn’t extremely strong in any one area; instead he’s a jack of all trades. He can employ telekinesis to throw objects around, send a projection of himself to scout ahead, and suck out the mental energy of enemies to replenish his own (their heads go *pop* — this is an M-rated game, after all). He can also mind-control his foes, produce and control pyrokinetic flames, and perceive things normal people can’t.

The free download requires a free or subcription FilePlanet account — nonsubscription users will have to wait in “line” behind others for a download, which took about 20 minutes in my case. And, as is the case with many free games, this isn’t largesse on the part of FilePlanet and Midway; this version of “Psi-Ops” is ad-supported. But that’s the cost of a zero-dollar price tag.

The last week of posts has been kind of grim and shooter-heavy, hasn’t it? I’ll find some lighter fare for next week’s game.

(Image courtesy of PsiOpsGame.com)

Konami’s “Metal Gear Solid” series of stealth-action games have an incredibly devoted following, even if the jabbermouthy dialogue and esoteric turns the overarching plot has taken over the last decade have been off-putting for some. (Arm-transplant mind control! Secret world-influencing societies! A.I.-spearheaded information control!) The release of a new entry in the series is a big event.

And hey, would you look at that — a new one is coming out tomorrow! “Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots” is notable not only for being the presumably final and hopefully loose-end-tying chapter in gravel-voiced operative Solid Snake’s story. It’s also an exclusive for the PlayStation 3, which has been gaining steam since late last year but still needs a game that people will buy the system to play. The series has been a PlayStation staple since 1998’s “Metal Gear Solid,” so “MGS4″ will likely be that game.

It’s also a video game with an old hero. Solid Snake is chronologically in his mid-40s — already older than average for a game protagonist who’s not an immortal vampire demigod or something. He was cloned in the 1970s from the genes of Big Boss, an extremely proficient warrior whom Snake would eventually kill.

But imperfections in the cloning process mean Snake is aging rapidly — he was never a spring chicken in these games, but now he looks at least 20 years older than he is, and that mustache doesn’t take any years off. I’ve been tired of playing as teenagers in video games since I was a teenager — it’s good to see a capable, tough old dude in the lead role, especially when he’s taking over for that sissy boy Raiden from “MGS2″ (who looks like he redeems himself in this installment as a badass robo-ninja).

“Guns of the Patriots” has been a long time coming for gamers who want to know what happens next in this twisting tale — “MGS3″ took a trip back to the 1960s to explore the origins of Big Boss and his warmongering vision, so Solid Snake’s been hanging in Schrödingerian limbo for almost seven years. I hope it was worth the wait; guess we’ll find out tomorrow!

(McClatchy Tribune handout photo)

Gaming Web site GamesRadar went and re-created the opening titles of “The Naked Gun” in “Grand Theft Auto IV.” And, of course, posted the video online. Here it is (consider it, like the movie, rated PG-13):

This week we have another free title from GameTap, and if you missed this game at the turn of the century you really ought to check it out now. Of course, I’m talking about …

Title: Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition
Developed by: Ion Storm Inc.
Published by: Eidos Interactive
For: Windows
ESRB rating: Mature

Yes, Deus Ex. This classic shooter makes a big show of providing several possible solutions to almost any problem. The player can augment J.C. Denton, the cyborg hero they control, with numerous upgrades, allowing him to specialize in combat, hacking and stealth tactics or a combination of the three. Situations can be resolved through gunplay or subterfuge, or even conversation — how to proceed is up to the player, as is how to improve Denton’s abilities.

The story is futuristic sci-fi goodness, featuring a “Blade Runner”-like world in which practically every secret society and popular conspiracy theory — from the Illuminati and the Knights Templar to gray aliens and Area 51 — is threaded into the plot, which can end in several ways. It looks a little rough nowadays, of course, but it’s a solid piece of work whose influences still crop up in shooters today.

As with “Psychonauts,” players will need a GameTap account to download and play the game, and a short ad is shown before each session.

(Image courtesy of Amazon.com)

I’ve talked about Web comics here before, vis-a-vis the recently released Penny Arcade video game. But today I’m here to talk about a different comic — one that has nothing to do with video games.

(What, you didn’t expect me to talk about video games here all the time, did you? Good. That would get boring for both of us.)

Anyway, the comic I’m talking about is a fantastic creation called Gunnerkrigg Court, written and drawn by Tom Siddell. That link will take you to the most recent page; if you haven’t read the comic before, it’s best to start at the beginning. (For the print-inclined there’s also a new hardcover book that collects the majority of the comic’s run so far.)

Gunnerkrigg Court follows the adventures of Antimony Carver, a young girl who attends the vast but mostly empty boarding school of the title. This facility is huge and mysterious, and seems mostly dedicated to teaching technology and practical mysticism to its relatively few students.

Across the bridge from the school there lies an equally enormous forest teeming with fairies and gods and other strange creatures. The story of the comic so far has been a slow reveal of some of the conflicts between these two sides — nature and technology — and Antimony’s place in them, with plenty of lighter stuff going on in between. The main plot shows signs of being drawn out for some time to come, but the comic never drags and never gets dull.

The feel of the Court and its inhabitants is part Neil Gaiman, part Harry Potter and part Invader ZIM. It’s often bizarre and creepy, though never really frightening or gory. Siddell’s world is one where the unexplainable is commonplace, where a student can cobble together a thinking robot from spare parts and see it come back to her possessed by a shadow, where an angry wolf with a wooden body accompanies the deity Coyote on a trip to the Court to argue with its administrators over a mechanical bird.

In other words, it’s a great read. Check it out!

(Artwork courtesy of Gunnerkrigg.com)