July 13 Game Giveaway ArchMage 1.03

Think Raiden (or Xevious) with a medevil twist and you’ve got ArchMage 1.03 game giveaway of the day for July 13, 2008. After downloading and installing, which was a brief and smooth process for me, the game starts with a short history of Lake Shire and the creatures attacking. You can skip past that and then choose from a Mage or a Witch to play. I chose the Mage.

Then click one of the three red circle stages to play and click ’start’

Using the mouse to fire, you ride a large winged dragon and fire at oncoming enemies. Some enemies take more than one shot to kill. The game is fairly easy and the power-ups dropped are standard fare for this type of game. Press the spacebar and you can mix a spell to deploy. Watch the dragon’s tail bar to determine how much life you have left.

ArchMage normally sells for $19.95, but you can snap it up today, Sunday July 13, for the low, low price of NOTHING if you hurry. There is a ticker at the top of this post that will tell you how much time is left in the offer (removed, the offer has expired). I’d add the Game Giveaway RSS feed to your favorite RSS Reader. Sometimes they have some good giveaways.

ArchMage is not bad for a basic PC game. Music is alright. Stages are varied with some interesting, albeit somewhat easy bosses. Could have used a little more variation in the early stages with enemies, but some of the stages are creative.

The asteroid stage shown above is kind of cool, although how this is medevil I’m not sure. Hit the big falling asteroids and they break into smaller rocks.  There is another stage with approaching soldiers who take damage and show a hit point over their shoulder. In summary, ArchMage works for those who like Raiden/Xevious type games, but don’t expect this to be very challenging.