Okay, so that header may be a little misleading since it's not me that's giving anything away - I'm merely advertising the fact that, by clicking here, you can download Iwanaga, a stunning little Japanese PC shooter, legally, for absolutely nothing!
I know there are absolutely loads of terrible games floating around on the net free of charge - they're usually free because nobody would pay for them - but believe me, Iwanaga is very different. In fact, if it had been released a few years back for the Saturn or Megadrive, every shoot-em-up addict in both hemispheres would have gone mad over it.
The game is controlled by the directional, z and x keys; holding z moves your crosshairs and fires at enemies above you, while tapping it swishes your sword to clear certain types of bullet and ground-based foes. pressing x makes you jump, pressing it twice makes you high-jump. Pressing the down key and z changes weapons. There's a bit more to the controls than that, but if you've played many retro games (golden oldies Cabal or Rambo III aren't disimilar) you'll pick it up in no time. I've heard the game also supports joypads - though I haven't tried this myself.
Like all the best Japanese shooters, Iwanaga's plot makes no sense at all - it appears to be set in the fifteenth century or something, and the shadowy graphics and zen-like music gives the game a creepy atmosphere. Iwanaga's control system and gameplay touches are also very reminiscent of Treasure's 16 Bit efforts, and the nicely designed monsters recall stylish MD blaster Gynoug.
All in all, a pretty good pedigree, I'm sure you'll agree.. enjoy!
Looks a good one - thanks!