The Manifesto Games Edition..

This week's column has been christened the Manifesto Games Edition for one reason - a fairly in-depth interview with the maverick publisher's CEO Greg Costikyan is offered within its pages. Greg is a fascinating individual who has some strong opinions on the interactive entertainment industry at large and who is committed to providing both developers and gamers a small space of rela estate where innovative games can get the respect they are often denied. But before you skip to the end, take a look at this week's highlighted games!

Catnap Games' Devastro is a fun little game where you combat alien invaders with a small squad of soldiers in a myriad of bright and colorful environments using everything from machine guns to grenades. You can command the entire squad or control each soldier separately as you evade or charge into a multitude of aliens that want to make you one with the landscape.. It's a fun little arcade experience that looks great, uses liberal amounts of humor and uses just the right amount of gore..

What's worse than a zombie chicken with a grenade? How about puppies with shotguns, Kung Fu kittens, or hacker chickens with tasers? In DVIDE Arts' Animals of Mass Destruction you take on the role of a specially trained and enhanced elite animal to take on a terror group who is conducting disturbing experiments on animals. Using one of three weapon toting creatures, you use stealth, technology or good old fashioned brute force to take out the bad guys and save the day for the forces of freedom. While the gameplay is simple, straightforward and bite sized, it's also a lot of fun, worth spending some time with.

Finally, a new version of Arctic Stud Poker Run has been released this week, adding new and tighter gameplay, including new game modes, progressive betting, no-limit poker and "all-in" options, improved bot settings, user-customizable controls, remote server controls, new game duration options, additional incendiaries, secret incantations, instant access to online matches, enhanced AI, and more. It also doesn't hurt that version 2.0 has a lower price point. You can buy it from Manifesto Games or GarageGames .