Boxhead the Nightmare on Facebook: A bloody good time

Boxhead Nightmare
There's been a niche in Flash and casual gaming that has endured a litany of adaptations and interpretations on the legion of Flash gaming websites. It's called Boxhead and its designer, Sean Cooper, has brought his baby to the next frontier for Flash games, Facebook, with Boxhead the Nightmare. Far more action-driven than most social games, Boxhead the Nightmare, or "Boxhead" for short, is immediately reminiscent of games like Jackal released by Konami on the original NES in 1988. From an isometric perspective, you assume the role of a Boxhead whose mission is to fend off hordes of zombies, mummies, fire-breathing demons and more "Baddies." And it's not easy.

Especially when playing on a laptop with just a track pad. That limitation aside, Boxhead is one difficult game. Before diving into the battlefield, players can customize their character's appearance and weapons load out. The game only provides you with a few options to start like the weak, inaccurate pistol and the powerful Uzi. Yes, the guns in Boxhead have accuracy ratings--it can border on infuriating when you aim directly for an enemy with your mouse to see your shot whiz past its head.

Boxhead Customization
In fact, all of the weapons in the game have statistics attached, like accuracy and damage, that can be upgraded after certain amounts of play time. However, you also need to add friends to increase your weapons' stats, which is at least more appealing than requesting their help every few days. Of course, all of the weapons, defense structures like barricades, and their upgrades can be bought outright for Bollars, the game's paid currency.

With such intense menus, Boxhead could be described as complex. Though, that's right about where the complexity ends and the mindless, gory fun begins. Players control their Boxhead on the battlefield by moving with the arrow keys, aiming in all directions with the mouse and switching between weapons with the number keys. Making the blood splatter is as easy as clicking the mouse, and you'll be doing plenty of both.

Boxhead blood shed
In traditional Facebook games, you're always well aware of the task at hand. It's difficult to get lost in a game like FrontierVille when every action is driven by the next Goal or achievement. In Boxhead, there is only survival, hours and hours of survival. The hordes of undead and demons stop at nothing to destroy your small entrenchment. Well, except for leveling up, which allows you to reload and customize your weapons selection. And this is exactly the hook embedded in Boxhead.

For each of your weapons, you're only given one clip of ammunition for each wave of enemies. This forces players to aim, move, and shoot smart, though all of which can prove frustrating when trying to fend off hordes of flame-belching, horned devils. Yet you might feel just the right amount of frustration to be pressured to become stronger through, well, playing more. This is exactly Cooper's intention. When you see a squad of 50 some mummies approaching your encampment, explosions rock the ground and bullets and blood fly with not even a stutter, you'll want some more Boxhead the Nightmare.

PETA wags the finger at Nintendo for Mario's taste in furry power-ups

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, has chosen a peculiar target for its next pro-animal campaign. You all likely know him quite well: Super Mario. The organization has created a highly suggestive Flash game that essentially calls developer Nintendo out for what it claims is a message that says it's OK to skin animals and wear them as suits.

You could also say this for Mario's less popular Frog Suit, but that just wouldn't have the same sting as "Mario Kills Tanooki." That's the title of the game, which throws players behind the controls of--literally--a skinned tanuki. You can probably already guess the game's objective: Capture Mario ... who happens to be flying away with your fur coat. So much for subtleties.

"Tanooki may be just a 'suit' in Mario games, but in real life, tanuki are raccoon dogs who are skinned alive for their fur," the PETA game's website reads. "By wearing Tanooki, Mario is sending the message that it's OK to wear fur."

The timing of Mario Kills Tanooki is spot on, as Nintendo just released Super Mario 3D Land in which the plumber's famous Tanooki Suit is a prominent feature. Frankly, we've never seen a more menacing Mario than within PETA's interactive call to arms in defense of the tanuki. Now, you gotta' wonder how the organization would feel about this guy.

[Via Kotaku]

Have you played the Mario Kills Tanooki game? Do you think Mario's famous Tanooki Suit might send the wrong message to Nintendo fans?