A handful of games

Now, there are a decent handful of Buffy the Vampire Slayer games out there, right? The console games are pretty ok although from all accounts the handheld games are in the oh-my-god-when-will-the-hurting-stop category. Still, what if one was really gaming on a budget? What BtVS games are there out there for free? A quick Google search will turn up a handful of fan-made flash games to experience. Let’s take a look at them, shall we?

Ok, first up there’s Be the Slayer, available here, amongst other places. Frankly, this thing is pretty horrible, largely because it’s so unbelievably taxing! You will have a sore clicking finger after about five minutes of this thing, if you even give it that long. The gameplay basically involves throwing stakes (?) at vampires who spring from out of graves and from behind tombstones, essentially making this a very simple kind of first person shooter. The problem? Those vampires are just too fast! If you don’t stake them the very moment that they appear, they will slash out at you with their claws (??), doing you a lot of damage. How on Earth they can reach you with their claws when you’re halfway across the graveyard and throwing stakes is anybody’s guess. Anyway, after a few attempts at this, all ending in your swift death, you’ll soon realise that the only way to beat the game is to learn the pattern in which the bad guys appear in order to pre-empt them appearing and slashing at you (!!!). Trust me, this is a game for people with a lot of time on their hands. Time that they don’t mind spending on horrible but mercifully short games. Here, let me save you the trouble of playing: this is the screen you’ll see most often:

Next up, there’s Chronicles of the Slayer by Chromeshark. This is actually a fairly fun little fan-made game that was clearly made with a lot of affection for the show and its characters. The game also features a couple of different game modes, multiple characters, weapons... In essence it’s like a simple, fan-made version of one of the console games. Still, the emphasis here is on simple, as this thing really could do with a bit more polishing all round and the gameplay is, once again, definitely going to end up hurting your fingers after about five minutes of play. Pressing Q, W, A and S in rapid succession in order to hack away far too slowly at wave after wave of vamps and other monsters is going to end up killing your left hand. Still, I can’t fault Chromeshark for his cute takes on the characters. With the artwork it seems as if he just deliberately decided to eschew realism and go straight for making things cutesy and, well, square.

Cute!

Chromeshark has several other flash games available at his website.

Phew! After all that I need to give my hands a rest. They are dog tired! Ooh, here’s a simple, relaxing little ‘game’ (or so it calls itself): Dress Up Buffy. If you’ve ever spent a spare second wondering what an almost-featureless Sarah Michelle Gellar decoy would look like in a series of blander-than-bland outfits, please, feel free to give this a try. Believe me though, it gets painfully dull after about thirty seconds. What’s next?

Ooh, it’s good to see that the BBC Buffy site is still around, and it includes a ton of quizzes and a couple of games. Well, one ‘which character should you date’ quiz, something that’s hardly exclusive to the BBC, and one simple Top Trumps game (that appears to be impossible to lose, might I add). It’s not too flashy, but I still have some affection for this site, so can’t find myself being even remotely harsh towards it.

Ok, now let’s see whether the Dark Horse Comics Buffy page has any...

Gahh!!

Eek; I’m never going there again. I’m really not in a hurry to see a super-deformed, ghostly pale ‘Buffy’ looming at me like that.

So, in summary, if your curiosity regarding free Buffy games just cannot be sated, I guess I’d recommend Chronicles, but you may need some kind of futuristic, high-tech prosthetic left hand before even attempting to start.