Download Blacklight: Retribution Free

Download Blacklight: Retribution Free

Blacklight: Retribution is really polished and fun free-to-play shooter that looks great and is very playable. The quality is much higher than most free to play titles, and it deserves your attention if you're an online shooter fan.

Gameplay
Blacklight Retribution's controls are pretty standard for FPS games, meaning you can jump right into the game without problems. This fast paced game features a 'Hyper Reality Visor' (HRV), that allows you to see through walls and check the position of team mates and enemies. It only lasts for a few moments, but really changes how you play the game. Hiding out somewhere is much less effective when anyone can see your position!
Another interesting gameplay feature is the Hardsuit. With enough combat points, you can buy a 'laser designator' at a weapons depot, then request an airdrop of this mechanized weapon. Hardsuits are like Mechs - big, slow, really powerful and tough to beat. While not as game-changing as the HRV, the Hardsuits are a fun addition.

As its so easy to get into, Blacklight: Retribution is really addictive. You can totally enjoy the game for free, and earning points to customize your weapons and soldier makes it compelling.
What Blacklight: Retribution doesn't do is make many concessions to FPS beginners. Despite the training, new players will be cannon fodder until they learn to compete with the experiences players online!

Graphics and Sound
Blacklight: Retribution looks great - it's made with the Unreal 3 engine and on a high-end PC the graphics wouldn't look out of place in a triple-A title. The sound is equally high quality. Compared to other free-to-play titles like Battlefield Play-4-free, Blacklight: Retribution is impressive.

Lastability
If you enjoy the gameplay, the customization and promised additional content mean Blacklight: Retribution should keep you playing for a long time. The maps are good, but it will be important for more to be added over time.

Blacklight Retribution doesn't look particularly original, but the HRV and Hardsuits are significant and make the game stand out amongst FPS games. There are clearly influences from lots of other FPS games, but taking good ideas is a great way to make a good game!

Pros

• Looks great
• HRV and Hardsuit mix up the action
• Fast paced and fun

Cons

• Style lacks originality

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Download The Avengers Windows 7 Theme with dialogue Free

Download The Avengers Windows 7 Theme with dialogue Free

The Avengers Windows 7 Theme is a theme for Windows 7 PCs that provides a selection of Avengers movie themed desktop backgrounds.

2012's highly anticipated super hero action movie, The Avengers, is set for release this Spring. What better way to celebrate it than by decking out your PC's desktop background with images from the upcoming movie?

The Avengers Windows 7 Theme offers 10 Avengers desktop background images, all of which are impressively crisp and detailed. Most of the images feature a handful of avengers in a variety of different heroic poses, so you have a great variety to choose from. If you're looking for a theme depicting the Avengers from the original Marvel Comics, check out Avengers Theme for Windows 7.

In addition, dialogue is also included in The Avengers Windows 7 Theme, which plays for approximately 30 seconds in intervals with the alternating wallpapers. These sound clips really complete the feel of this theme. It would've been nice to have some customized desktop icons included too, which The Avengers Windows 7 Theme does not, but it's a minor qualm, given the quality of the images.

The Avengers Windows 7 Theme is a must-have theme for fans of The Avengers.

Pros

• 10 great looking backgrounds
• Sound clips are fun theme effects
• Good variety of images

Cons

• Theme maker's logo disrupts the feel a little

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Download Hypegram beta 1.0 Free

Download Hypegram beta 1.0 Free

Hypegram is a simple desktop application that allows you to stream and search for songs on the popular music streaming site, Hype Machine.

In this early beta version of Hypegram, you are given a very simple, well designed yet slightly spartan interface. You have the option to browse music by "Popular," "Latest," "Loved," "Subscribed," and "Twitter". You can also search for an artist or track name.

While the Hype Machine has limited streaming from their website, there is no limit using this application (at least for now). This is a great music streaming service and app for discovering new artists and remixes by artists. There are plenty of remixes and mash ups available.

Hypegram is still in very early beta so there are plenty of issues and missing features. While Hype Machine's site supports Twitter and Last.fm integration, Hypegram doesn't have either feature baked in yet. There's a Twitter tab in Hypegram but it's not clear who Twittered the songs. No Last.fm integration means no scrobbling to the popular song tracking service.

Hypegram also doesn't feature any type of normalization of songs so some songs play much louder than others. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if there were a volume slider in the app but there isn't. You'll have to adjust volume using the system's volume slider.

There are other little quirks with Hypegram like the fact that the "album art" is pulled from the specific blog post so some art is not relevant to the song at all.

Overall, Hypegram is a great, stable beta for music discovery. If you want to stream songs you know you want to listen to, there are services like Spotify, Grooveshark, Pandora, and Last.fm. Hypegram has a long way to go but they're off to an excellent start.

Pros

• Simple, easy to use interface
• Great for finding remixes and rarities
• Good music discovery
• Unlimited streaming (for now)

Cons

• No volume slider/normalization
• Lacks true Twitter and Last.fm integration
• Random album art

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Download The Hype Machine Track Downloader 2.0 Free

Download The Hype Machine Track Downloader 2.0 Free

The Hype Machine Track Downloader is a self explanatory Firefox extension that allows you to download tracks you play on the Hype Machine website.

If you're fond of the music you find on the Hype Machine website and want to save some tracks for offline listening, you could of course click through to the blog serving the file and download tracks from there. While this method works, it requires you to jump out of the Hype Machine website and forces you to search for the track.

The Hype Machine Track Downloader simplifies the whole process by showing a "download track" button on currently playing tracks. What's great about The Hype Machine Track Downloader extension is that it caches the songs the moment it starts streaming so the song is saved instantly once you click "download."

There are no options to adjust with this extension. Just install it and it works. One thing we would love to see The Hype Machine Track Downloader implement is the ability to download songs in bulk.

Overall, we love the simplicity of The Hype Machine Track Downloader but we wish there was a way to download songs in bulk.

Pros

• Simple, no fussy options
• Caches songs immediately for quick download
• Downloading songs to listen to offline

Cons

• No way to download multiple songs at once

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Download FlipToast Metro App 1.0.0.3 Free

Download FlipToast Metro App 1.0.0.3 Free

FlipToast for Windows 8 is the first Twitter Client for the Metro interface.

There is a version of FlipToast for Windows 7 and XP, but FlipToast for Metro is the first Twitter client for the touch-friendly Windows 8, which features an animated live tile. You can add a Twitter and Facebook account to the application but there is no support for multiple accounts yet.

FlipToast is targeted at the casual Twitter and Facebook user, as many powerful features are not there yet. That said, you can view comments, reply, and retweet messages from both Facebook and Twitter. You get a column for updates, news feed, photos, birthdays, inbox and "apps." It doesn't seem that FlipToast supports a column for direct messages or favorited Tweets yet.

Although FlipToast can claim the title as first Windows 8 Twitter client, there is still much work to be done. The biggest gripe I have with FlipToast is that there's no in-app browser so clicking links and even profiles will take you out of the application into Internet Explorer. It's a jarring experience and should really be integrated into the app. There are also interface quirks and inconsistencies like the fact that you can't interact with updates in the Updates column while you can in the News Feed. The games and apps in FlipToast are also nothing more than bookmarks that open up pages in Internet Explorer.

Overall, FlipToast is a good first version Twitter and Facebook client but needs a lot of polish before the official launch of Windows 8.

Pros

• Easy to read feed
• Send updates to both Twitter and Facebook simultaneously
• Animated live tile

Cons

• No in-app browser
• Apps and games are just bookmarks
• Disjointed interface

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Download Driver Performer 11.10.1.11897 Free

Download Driver Performer 11.10.1.11897 Free

Driver Performer aims to keep your PC running smoothly in a world of constantly updating drivers.

If you've noticed that your PC is buggy or slow, it may because your drivers are outdated. In Windows, there's no easy way to update your drivers other than going to the support pages of your various components and manually checking for an update.

Driver Performer simplifies this whole process by automating search and makes updating drivers a cinch with their simple interface. When you first launch the application, your computer is scanned and a performance report is generated. Driver Performer will tell you which drivers are outdated and will update them for you.

It also include a backup and restore feature so you can move your drivers to another machine and easily restore them. If you identical machines that you manage, Driver Performer makes installing and updating drivers easy.

Performersoft offers a trial version of Driver Performer but it is severely limited. It generates a report for you about which drivers are out of date but you can't update them until you've purchased a license key. There are similar programs like Driver Checker that does much the same but Driver Performer is less expensive.

If you want to keep your drivers up to date automatically, Driver Performer will make the whole process a breeze.

Pros

• Scans quickly
• Ability to backup and restore drivers
• Scheduling function

Cons

• Extremely limited trial version

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Download GTA IV Ferrari Formula One Mod Free

Download GTA IV Ferrari Formula One Mod Free

GTA IV Ferrari Formula One Mod is an unofficial mod for Grand Theft Auto IV.

Mods are a great way of enhancing your GTA IV experience. They can do all manner of cool things, like change the third person perspective to first person.

With GTA IV Ferrari Formula One Mod, you can drive a Formula One Ferrari through the streets of Liberty City. In fact, it's almost an exact model of the F1-90 that Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell drove in 1990. Pretty cool.

The details on the GTA IV Ferrari Formula One Mod Ferrari are nice and crisp. The only real hang-up some users might experience is figuring how to install the GTA IV Ferrari Formula One Mod in the first place. It can be a little tricky, because it requires the install of GTA IV Magic Patcher or another comparable patcher program to make the game moddable. There's a tutorial available from the creators that will help you further through the process.

GTA IV Ferrari Formula One Mod might be a simple mod, but it's fun and Formula One fans will definitely appreciate it.

Pros

• Drive a Formula One car through Liberty City streets
• Great ferrari design

Cons

• Installation is a little complicated

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Download Starter Background Changer 0.8.1 Beta Free

Download Starter Background Changer 0.8.1 Beta Free

Starter Background Changer is the solution to one of the most annoying limitations in Windows 7 Starter Edition: not being able to customize the desktop wallpaper.

Once you install Starter Background Changer on your Windows 7 Starter system, you?ll find a new Personalize command added to the desktop context menu ? the one that pops up when you right click on the screen. Select it, and you?ll be able to customize your wallpaper straight away!

Starter Background Changer enables you not only to choose a new wallpaper, but also customize the three other main elements in the operating system: screensavers, colors and sound.

Starter Background Changer is fairly easy to use, though the translation is a bit weird ? and the installation process hasn?t been translated at all.

Recent changes

• Repair of the bug ?basic Index zero?
  
• Possibility of importing several images at the same time in your collection
  
• Correction of some light bugs

Pros

• Perfectly embedded in the system
• Customizes wallpaper, screensaver, sounds and colors
• Easy to use

Cons

• Poor translation

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Download Editra 0.7.01 Alpha Free

Download Editra 0.7.01 Alpha Free

If it's flexibility you need as a programmer then try Editra, which features support for over 60 different programming languages.

Editra is not only free but can be just about anything you want it to be, courtesy of plug-ins. Editra supports syntax highlighting and the focus is on making coding as easy as possible no matter what language you're working in. At the moment, Editra can be prone to instability because it's still in Alpha stage but there's a thriving community of users on the developer forum steadily improving it.

Editra is based on the same principle as Firefox in that it can be extended with plug-ins. The developer warns, however, that it's important to choose the plug-ins that match the version of Python installed on your system. If you are unsure of which version, it is better to use the built-in plug-in downloader in Editra and let it choose for you. This is a far easier way too, because it allows you to drag and drop plug-ins in place.

Editra is still very much a work in progress but it's wide language support and extendability make it a very interesting option for programmers working across languages and platforms.

Recent changes

• Update to fix issue with translations.
  
• Fix localizations not loading correctly.
  

Pros

• Sleek easy to use interface
• Supports over 60 programming languages
• Can be enhanced with plug-ins

Cons

• Still in Alpha stage so can be prone to crashes

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Download Four Horsemen Free

Download Four Horsemen Free

Four Horsemen is a fun puzzle game for desktop PCs that runs on the Pokki platform.

If you like a challenge with your PC games, Four Horsemen can give it to you. It doesn't hurt that the graphics and concept are quite cute, despite the underlying apocalyptic theme.

Once Pokki has been installed, you can run Four Horsemen in a matter of seconds. The object of the game is simple - just drop colored balls (called "plagues" for game purposes!) onto one of four squares to connect balls of similar colors. Once you've managed to entirely fill one box with the same colored balls, you'll get your points and that box will reset.

Keep an eye up at the top of your screen though. Each ball you drop is one less you have to play with. You earn extra balls by filling a box entirely with one plague color, and that will keep you going as you level up and the game gets harder.

If you're confused, there's a helpful tutorial built right into Four Horsemen. Even with it though, Four Horsemen can be a little confusing at first. Once the game begins to click with you though, it can provide challenging entertainment for just about as long as you keep collecting balls.

Four Horsemen is an addictive game once you learn how to play it, and the cute but simple graphics really complement gameplay.

Notes

Clicking the 'Download' button will take you to the Four Horsemen game's download page where you can run the program.

Pros

• Challenging puzzle game
• Cute concept
• Nice, simple graphics

Cons

• Takes time to get the hang of it

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Download Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 (PES 2013) Free

Download Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 (PES 2013) Free

Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 is the latest version of Konami's popular soccer game for Windows. Although PES 2013 looks very similar to Pro Evoultion Soccer 2012, it includes some subtle changes designed to improved both gameplay and graphics.

The gameplay in Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 is more manual than the previous version, making it more like a proper soccer simulation, rather than the arcade-style action of PES 2012. Though some elements seem to be heavily inspired by FIFA 12, this is no bad thing.

Gameplay

The rather restrictive control system of PES 2012 has been given an overhaul for Pro Evolution Soccer 2013. Developer Konami calls the new control system, ?PES FullControl?. There's a new dynamic first touch feature, where a player can trap the ball using the R2 button in order to gain instant control of the ball.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 offers manual passing, and manual shooting is introduced to the game for the first time, allowing you to modify the height and power of each. FullControl also improves dribbling, slowing down player speeds and allowing players to add various styles to their close control using the R2 button.

The manual control tweaks delivered by the FullControl system in Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 definitely makes for an improved gameplay experience, which will delight experienced PES fans. However, novices will still be able to pick up and play the game without a problem.

Graphics

Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 focuses on improving player likenesses so that players in the game behave like their real life counterparts - a system dubbed as 'PlayerID' by the developer. Famous players will run, turn, trap, move the ball and even celebrate like they do in real life.

In terms of player likenesses, PES 2013 is the closest to reality we've seen from a soccer game - better even than FIFA 12. The graphics as a whole in Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 are fantastic, from the slick team entrances to the detail of the kits and footwear.

Unfortunately, player animation in Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 is patchy in places. The way players turn feels clunky and unrealistic and goalkeeper throw-outs are laughably exaggerated and jerky. In fact, the supposed improvements to the goalkeepers from the previous version seem to have not worked at all - actually goalies seem more calamitous than ever!

The Player Impact engine in Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 is quite impressive; you notice how players hang into each other and how that influences your (freedom of) movement. However, it still lags behind FIFA's engine in terms of the extent of the collision animations.

Room for improvement

Those who were disappointed by PES 2012 will appeased somewhat by the changes made in Pro Evolution Soccer 2013, but there's still plenty of room for improvement in the game.

The tactics screen from the previous version hasn't been added too - and it still feels a little puny. Having said that, the in-game strategy changes have been made a lot cooler by the fact that the coach appears in a little box in the corner of the screen to shout instructions when you summon him.

There are still some plays in Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 that make it very easy to score. For example, you can still get behind a defense effortlessly with a long through-ball/chip combo.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 is a good quality soccer sim which looks great and now gives you more control than ever over the gameplay.

Review last updated: 25/07/12

Pros

• Great player likenesses
• Lots of manual control options
• Varied gameplay
• Realistic player impact engine

Cons

• Terrible goalkeepers
• Some poor animations

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Download ISO Workshop 3.4 Free

Download ISO Workshop 3.4 Free

ISO Workshop is a simple, free utility that will help you create and modify disk images.

A disk image is a file that stores a complete copy of various types of media. They not only store the media itself, but also the structure, which makes it perfect for doing things like backing up your DVDs and Blu-ray movies. ISO Workshop is a very simple application, but it will let you create disk images, burn them to physical media, create back-ups and extract files from existing disk images.

The ISO Workshop is really simple. Pick the feature you want to use, add the file you want to work with and pick the location for the finished product. ISO Workshop has very few other options ? although there are a few disk check/validation features ? and when you burn a disk, you can ask ISO Workshop to eject it once it has finished.

If you want to do anything even remotely advanced with your disk images, ISO Workshop probably isn?t the app for you. It has no advanced features or extras, and doesn?t encourage you to do anything but the basics. That said, many people only want the basics, and if you know what you are doing ? and know that you don?t need anything complicated - it could be just the application you need.

If you know that you only need the most basic disk image tool, ISO Workshop is a simple, free option that you may want to take a look at.

Recent changes

• Disc burning engine has been updated
  
• Improved burning and reading process
  
• Fixed bug with application crash while burning
  
• Fixed few minor bugs

ISO Workshop supports the following formats

ISO, CUE, BIN, NRG, MDF, CDI etc.

Review last updated: 26/09/12

Pros

• Easy to use
• Extract, backup, convert or burn

Cons

• Not many extras
• Very basic

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Download Discourse Metro App 1.0 Free

Download Discourse Metro App 1.0 Free

Discourse is a minimalist app designed to let you read your customized news feeds without being distracted by its interface.

The design of Discourse follows the aesthetics of the Windows 8 Metro interface. Your different news feeds appear as tiles, and clicking on a feed will expand it into another page of scrollable tiles of news stories. While reading, users will have the ability to save articles to view offline.

While Discourse has the ability to import RSS feeds via URL, there is no Google Reader integration, which is a major let down. You will have to build your feeds manually by browsing their collection of feeds and sites. This is a pain, especially if you are an avid Google Reader user. Hopefully Discourse will integrate importing Google Reader, Facebook, and Twitter feeds in an update. Applications like Reeder, Flipboard, and Pulse provide a much richer and personalized experience.

In this early version of Discourse, there were a lot of missing features. There is no ability to share articles at all. Many feeds will only give you a couple of sentences, forcing you to click out to the story. In doing so, Discourse will open up Internet Explorer, taking you out of the app. This is distracting and inelegant. Photos also don't expand when you tap on them. Reading articles is enjoyable for the most part but would be massively aided by pagination.

Overall, Discourse aims to be a minimalist newsreader but is too minimal for its own good. There are just too many missing features that prevent Discourse from being a good news aggregator.

Pros

• Minimalist interface focuses on text
• Import RSS feeds via URL
• Save articles for offline reading

Cons

• Too minimalist and lacking features
• No pagination
• No sharing features
• No Google Reader integration

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Download Bad Piggies 1.0.0 Free

Download Bad Piggies 1.0.0 Free

Bad Piggies is a spin-off of the popular Angry Birdsgame. This time the pigs take center stage in a physics-based puzzle game that plays out very differently to Angry Birds.

The swines in Bad Piggies are on the hunt for eggs again. This time they're on a desert island and must construct vehicles to help them negotiate the mountains, caves and other hostile terrain. It's your job to help the piggies piece together their makeshift craft to guide them through each level.

There are 60 levels in Bad Piggies, set in the same format as Angry Birds (i.e. you need to complete a level and try to get three stars in order to progress to the next). At the start of each level you're given various materials with which to construct a vehicle. These objects include crates, wheels, umbrellas, fans, and TNT.

The idea of Bad Piggies is to make the construction at the top of the hill, then release the vehicle towards the goal line. As it flies down the hill you can use the objects you attached to help manipulate the craft and guide the pigs to the stars and ultimately to the goal.

Bad Piggies is a completely different challenge to Angry Birds. The hit-and-miss approach of the catapults has gone and instead Bad Piggies requires more mechanical thinking. This in turn makes the game less appealing for some. You can no longer just turn on the game and start wildly flinging your fingers around.

Bad Piggies is more of a labored process of working out what materials you have and how to join them together to deal with the obstacles facing you and collect all the stars. Some would argue that the satisfaction you get out of Bad Piggies doesn't warrant all this brain energy.

Graphically, Bad Piggies is bright and colorful and in keeping with the Angry Birds style. There are fun cut scenes featuring the hapless piggies, and the music is chirpy and catchy.

Bad Piggies is a challenging physics-based puzzle game, though it's often complex tasks may put some people off.

Review last updated: 01/10/12

Pros

• Bright, colorful graphics
• Original, mechanics-based gameplay
• 60 varied levels

Cons

• Annoyingly difficult

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Download Traktor Pro 2.5.1 Free

Download Traktor Pro 2.5.1 Free

Traktor Pro is a professional DJ application for mixing digital music as well as CDs and Vinyl.

Whether you want to rock your bedroom or the club, Traktor Pro is a very complete program that does pretty much everything you might want. It's highly configurable, which makes it very flexible but also pretty inaccessible to beginners. There is extensive documentation for Traktor Pro, but even that is pretty scary!

As well as controlling external sources, Traktor Pro allows you to mix from your computer on up to four decks at once. Importing your music library is really simple, and it works with iTunes libraries too. Tracks are analyzed when loaded into a deck, and appear as a wave form that can be moved with the mouse, alongside the beats per minute (BPM) and much more information. Traktor Pro is pretty accurate when it comes to finding BPMs, but if it is wrong, you can set them manually.

All the usual mixing tools are present, with pitch control, crossfader effects, and levels. There is extensive hotkey mapping, which is fully configurable, but takes a lot of time to do. Once you get used to Traktor Pro, it reveals itself as an incredible DJ tool. With some practice you'll be able to create fantastic mixes, which you can record from within the program.

Traktor Pro is an excellent and incredibly powerful DJ application with a steep learning curve that is worth climbing.

Pros

• Four decks
• Set hotkeys
• Advanced filters and effects
• Comes with full documentation

Cons

• Configuration options can get very complex

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