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Farm Frenzy PC Game Review
Those who have played Chicken Chase can’t help but recognize the similarities between the two games. I enjoyed Chicken Chase, but I like this one better because it has more variety and the Farm Frenzy’s bears are less annoying than the Chase’s ravens. I also don’t feel as panicky around the bears. Those ravens just made me nuts.
Every level of the 45-plus level game contains goals to meet to conquer the level and move on up to the next. Do it fast, and you can earn a gold or a silver star. What is just ducky about this one is that you can’t lose. If you take too long completing the goals, you simply don’t get bonuses or stars and you can move on. That’s one of the things about the casual game industry — it’s not always about winning — it’s about having fun and challenging yourself to earn stars and trophies.
Farm Frenzy involves taking care of the animals by ensuring they have plenty to eat. While keeping their tummies happy, you also purchase machines, upgrades, and more animals. But you may not have enough money on hand, so go to the market and sell up to nine products including eggs, cupcakes, wool, milk, and cheese.
You also buy and upgrade manufacturing buildings that can turn eggs into egg solids, egg solids into cupcakes, wool into thread and so on. Products sell for various prices, but of course those made from other products go for bigger bucks as it takes more time and processing to make them.
The trophies provide another challenge. Since you can play any level again, you can try to capture a trophy by playing the right level. There’s a trophy for never picking up a product. This means you need cats to do the work for you and they’re not always fast or reliable. So find the level where you can quickly buy cats or it comes with cats. One caveat, if you don’t earn a star for the level on the second time around — you lose the original star, if you had one.
The bears? They do what you expect them to do… steal your animals. Boy, it bugs me when they steal my more expensive animals like the $10,000 cow. It’s all in the name of eggciting fun, though. Can’t bear to deal with them? Count on farmer’s best friend, the dogs, to help hold off the bears. They’re not free, though, unless you’re lucky the level comes with them.
While my sons love watching the game, it would be too hard for them to play even for the eight-year-old. It’s a frenzied game (Gee, I wonder how they came up with the name, Farm Frenzy?) and involves multi-tasking and many steps.
Download and try Farm Frenzy.
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Viva Piñata Review
Viva Piñata, developed by Rare and Climax Group and published by Microsoft.
The Good: Great theme, good management mechanics, lots of piñatas to encounter
The Not So Good: Horribly limited console interface, absent online features, annoying in-game tutorial and cut scenes with almost constant message spam
What say you? A decent life management simulation ruined by its cumbersome interface: 5/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
Console ports are becoming disturbingly more popular: make a console game, and then bring it over to the PC two years later. Or, feature a simultaneous release while keeping the console interface intact, removing the advantages a mouse and keyboard brings to the table. This brings us to Viva Piñata, which appeared on the XBOX 360 one year ago. Not only was the game fairly popular with the console crowd, but it spawned an advertising tool...excuse me...animated series on TV. How will this colorful life management game perform on the PC?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Viva Piñata features some very distinctive graphics full of color and life. In fact, it's reminiscent of a children's cartoon in many ways, making the game appeal to a wide audience just in terms of visual style. Each of the piñatas in the game is designed well and mirror real-life animals. The environments are bright and the level of detail is good. The game does have a slightly annoying sheen during the daytime hours as the animals seem a bit too reflective. Overall, though, the game looks very good on the PC's higher resolutions. The sound is OK, with some fitting background music and appropriate effects uttered by the many creatures that will populate your garden. It's not surprising that the PC is able to handle an XBOX 360 game very well, and Viva Piñata is no exception as its bright graphics and good theme is kept intact.
ET AL.
Viva Piñata is a management game where you manipulate your garden in order to enslave (I mean attract) piñatas to your bidding. First off, the game takes up 8 GB of hard drive space, yet requires the CD to be in the drive in order to run: nice. Viva Piñata features Games for Windows – LIVE support, although I don’t know why: all you can do is send rewards to other players and gain meaningless achievements. The console roots of the game rears its ugly head in the control scheme. Viva Piñata is clearly designed for an XBOX controller and the interface is designed for a person sitting six feet away from a TV, not a person sitting one foot from a monitor. First, the game can be controlled with the mouse, but you have to select most of the options from a radial menu in the upper right corner (you know, the corner that nobody uses in PC games because of its inaccessibility). Dialogue boxes take up the whole screen and freeze the game while you read them, instead of appearing at the bottom and allowing you to continue what you were doing before being rudely interrupted. Cut scenes can’t be skipped and disrupt gameplay too often as well: you’ll find you get a new message or cut scene about every three minutes (especially at the beginning of the game) and that is quite annoying. Non-tutorial messages require four clicks to read: one to select the message bar, one to select the message, one to close it, and one to delete it. I wish the developers would have played any strategy game published in the past fifteen years before coming up with this horrible interface. I guess it shouldn't surprise me that we get a bad interface from a company that can't design a decent operating system.
It’s too bad the interface is so terrible, because the rest of Viva Piñata is actually quite enjoyable. You will encounter about fifty piñatas over the course of the game, and each mirrors a real-life animal, such as a horse, worm, butterfly, cow, or elephant. Each piñata has needs to attract then inhabit your garden; you need to search and select a piñata in order to find out the needs as the interface (of course) only lists permanent residents of your gardens and not visitors. A piñata’s happiness level affects their desirability to live in your garden, and it can be affected by constructing housing, meeting needs, and being whacked with a shovel. Since you will only have limited control over your piñatas, most of the gameplay involves building a pleasant home for them. This is done through the various tools that reside in the main menu (which, of course, takes up the entire screen and pauses the game). New items can be bought from the store, such as fertilizer, watering cans, seeds, paved paths, sweets (for stat bonuses), fruit and vegetables, produce, fencing, and various decorative items. Viva Piñata has a two-pronged approach: attract piñatas and make money through gardening, and that’s where most of the items in the shop are used. You can also purchase pets, construct housing, and hire helpers to assist with watering, weeding, or pests. There is even someone who can craft new items for a price, just like in Fury.
The gameplay of Viva Piñata is very reminiscent of The Sims, although you have generally less control over your minions and everything is done through environmental manipulation. There is a maze-like mini-game when piñatas reproduce and a number of things that make maintaining a good garden difficult, like sour piñatas and naturally opposed piñatas. There is also a limit to the amount of stuff you can have in your garden; I suppose this is to avoid an over saturation of piñatas (which would consequently make the game too easy), but isn’t a large collection of animals kind of the point? Gotta catch them all! New items are unlocked at a good pace, and if the tutorial messages weren’t so damn annoying new players would ease right in to a new game. It is fun to maintain your garden and unlock new piñatas, and if you enjoy these kinds of games (and a lot of people do, considering the sales figures of The Sims) then Viva Piñata will prove to be fun. Overall Viva Piñata is a good game, but it is clearly not built for the PC.
IN CLOSING
A poor interface might not be a big deal to some people, but if a game is frustrating to play because of the controls and they can't be changed, then it makes the game a lot less fun. This is the Achilles’ heel of Viva Piñata, and it makes the PC version of the game a poorly ported afterthought. Apparently it is too much to ask for an improved interface that takes advantage of the PC’s superiority as a platform. The game does offer a lot of content through improving your garden and unlocking new piñatas, so people who like this genre will be kept quite busy for a while. However, the potential of the game is hindered by some questionable design decisions and lack of multiplayer options. Frankly, I’m getting tired of half-assed ports when there is clearly room for improvement in the interface. PC games are not controlled in the same fashion as console games and you don’t need to enlarge all of the text so we can see it from a foot away. But the developers of Viva Piñata took the easy way out and just made a console game that runs in Windows. The enjoyment that Viva Piñata offers is offset by an annoying interface that will surely irritate PC veterans. Viva Piñata is not worth the effort of wrestling with the interface.
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PC Game Review Fashion Craze
In Fashion Craze, players have the ability to customize the store’s colors and change Maria’s clothes. Maria is a fashion reporter by day and a good niece in her spare time. She helps run her aunt’s clothing store while she’s on vacation since it could lead to good material for future articles.
As Maria survives each level, she eventually gets to pick one of three colors for more décor upgrades. Unlike many similar games, the upgrades don’t cost anything. The hard work comes in ordering the customers’ color and style, handing them their clothes and accessories, keeping their hearts full with bribes… err… surprises, and collecting the money after they’ve tried on their new duds.
The surprises vary from level to level. They include a soccer ball, fancy ballpoint pen, flowers, and balloons. Every level comes with a coffee maker and those levels with kids come with a doll and car to keep the kids happy.
It doesn’t take long before things get crazy in the game. At first, I thought the game was a little boring, but it gets better as I progressed. The clothes change based on the seasons from skimpy bikinis to warm and plush sweaters. Colors also change for the four lines of clothing with 21 available colors.
You must take care in seating customers when there are two seats as some customers’ heart meters will drop if you put them next to the wrong person or better yet, fill up when you find a perfect seatmate.
Thank goodness Fashion Craze prevents you from going stir-crazy by only letting you pick the right color material and the right styles. If you accidentally click on the wrong colored material (one that no one has requested), nothing happens. When customers pour in, it’s easy to click all the wrong things.
But I got annoyed with seating the customers. I’d drag a customer to the chair only to see the customer bounces back to standing up and waiting. It’s not as if I dragged the customer above or below the seating area — this shouldn’t be an issue. Sometimes I click an outfit or a customer, but nothing happens. This occurs more often when kids start coming in pairs with their parents. In this case, you must click on the person with the request.
When the customers try on clothes, they don’t look like as you would expect and that’s what makes this the most fun part of the game. Two customers could order the same thing, but they look different when they put them on. One outfit looks like a raincoat, but sometimes it looks like a robe.
System Requirements: Windows
- Windows XP/Vista
- 1 GHz or faster processor
- 256 MB RAM
- 260 MB hard drive space
- 64 MB graphics card
- DirectX 9.0 MB or later
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Chocolatier 2: Secret Ingredients PC Game Review
A family feud again takes center stage in the story mode as the Baumeisters return dealing with a mole in the business. Chocolatier 2 takes place 40 years later after the original, and the scenery reflects the styles of the 1920s and 1930s. Even buildings that don’t exist in 1920 like the Empire State Building will crop up in cities in later years.
The game, like its predecessor, beautifully presents every ingredient and finished product based on 72 recipes. Well, one ingredient might not sound pleasing to many, but it’s a delicacy in some places — fire ants. Bars, squares, infusions and truffles all return into the recipe book along with sauces, pralines, and exotics.
This time, we get to create our own recipes using secret ingredients from hidden ports around the world. However, it requires raising enough funds before purchasing a chocolate tasting lab in Buenos Aires. People we meet along the way provide clues and ideas for new recipes, but experimentation is also necessary. Pick a handful of potential ingredients, and the researcher extraordinaire will let you know what works and what doesn’t work — much in the same way Mastermind.
Chocolatier 2 comes with over 200 quests, 20 cities including Bombay, Cayenne, Paris, and Moscow, 6 factories and 4 shops. The secret ingredients hide in the new hidden ports, which take longer to access and cost a pretty cacao.
Instead of spinning circles, which make me dizzy, the circles don’t spin and instead flow differently on the product line. Sometimes another circle blocks the circle you want. The arcade portion now includes bonuses turning this into a fun game — something it wasn’t in the original.
The most disappointing part of the game is logo design. The game contains a limited choice of images and some of the colors are awful. I know the creators were trying to capture the art deco style of the ’20s, but I actually love art deco and this isn’t pretty. Some of the images are of terrible quality — like someone stretched a small image. It’s surprising considering the rest of the game has beautiful designs and images.
The basics of the game includes buying ingredients, manufacturing new ingredients, making new products, selling chocolates, buying factories and stores, and traveling the world. I love how the traveling varies based on location. Players could take a train, ship, hike, or a canoe.
Of course, we continue to use the finest ingredients, so lots of traveling is necessary. But this time we need to watch the seasons since some ingredients cost thousands of dollars off-season, and drop into the more affordable hundreds of dollars when they’re in season.
Some cities don’t have a store for selling chocolates, so it’s important to think ahead to ensure you have enough funds to get you through a trip. Also returning for an encore are gambling hot spots. I don’t play these games, but they’re there for desperate times or those who enjoy dice games.
Another improvement is the message section. This time, it only displays one big task at a time. I don’t mind seeing multiple tasks, but the message screen was too small in the original.
I’m all for a third edition of the game if it’s done right or expand it by changing the industry or products. Chocolatier 2 is addicting as chocolate that I stayed up late several times unable to pull myself away.
System Requirements
Windows:
- Windows Vista, XP, 2000
- Pentium III 700 MHz minimum
- 128 MB RAM
- 800 x 600 minimum screen resolution
- Sound card recommended
- DirectX 7.0 or later
- 25 MB hard drive space
Mac:
- Mac OS X 10.3.9 or newer
- G4 800 MHz or faster processor
- 800 x 600 minimum screen resolution
- Sound card recommended
- 25 MB hard drive space
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PC Game Review Amazing Adventures The Lost Tomb
While the game won’t blow you away with anything special, it’s a completely well-produced game from graphics and story to mini-games and bonuses. The historian’s mission is to find the Lost Tomb by completing 20 missions with each containing multiple levels.
Although the hints are almost always available, the game makes a point of mentioning when players rely on hints when reporting the score. This mention is enough to discourage hint abuse especially when using a hint takes away 4,000 points. When using a hint, the hint meter starts over again and must fill up before it’s ready to give the next hint. It doesn’t take long for the meter to fill up.
A perfect search — which is not using any hints during a level — equals 15,000 points. The game awards bonus points for finding two items quickly, even for those who opt to play relaxed mode. Too much random clicking leads to losing points. Players also have the opportunity to earn title promotions, but it won’t mean any extra pay or perks.
“Find the Lost Tomb” would be the story game mode while the “Secret Game” resembles — without giving away too much — unlimited game play. Within the story mode, you can either play timed mode or relaxed mode. Having relaxed mode helps make the game more enjoyable for many players who want to make the most of the experience rather than hurry up and go.
After finding all the needed treasures, the mini-game enters the picture. Mini-games include jigsaw puzzles, comparing two rooms for spotting the differences, tile swapping and four others. One of those is the popular memory match game except this one calls for finding same color, same type, related items such as a glove and baseball, or identical objects.
What’s more, the game throws a few curveballs in its word choices in the list of objects to find. That’s nothing new, but it does the job without getting carried away and while keeping things fresh. A “red hexagon” references a STOP sign. You can’t help but laugh with hints like “Flew the coop” or “Ribbit!”
Also hidden in the game are 21 ancient Egypt worshipped scarabs. Find them all to unlock the secret game. Even if you forget to keep an eye out for scarabs, it should be OK as the reviewer found all 21 despite forgetting about this little game within the game.
Hidden object games have quirks. Some make it difficult for clicks on the correct object to register. In the hunt for a spike, the viewer correctly clicked the right item and the game seemed to say, “Nope. Uh-uh, that isn’t it.” Finally, the situation called for a hint and sure enough, it was the right object. But this was a rare incident, fortunately. Another time, the list included “3 hand tools.” Hammer, boomerang, arrow, C-clamp, fork, and knife didn’t count. The name, in this case, was too broad.
While Amazing Adventures The Lost Tomb doesn???t have anything that hasn’t shown up in one game or another, it’s a nice full package with a long-lasting value that is sure to please anyone looking for an adventure of the hidden object kind.
Download and play Amazing Adventures The Lost Tomb.
System Requirements: Windows
- Windows 2000/XP/Vista
- 350 MHz or faster processor
- 75 MB RAM
- DirectX 7.0 MB or later
Related posts
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Chocolatier 2: Secret Ingredients PC Game Review
A family feud again takes center stage in the story mode as the Baumeisters return dealing with a mole in the business. Chocolatier 2 takes place 40 years later after the original, and the scenery reflects the styles of the 1920s and 1930s. Even buildings that don’t exist in 1920 like the Empire State Building will crop up in cities in later years.
The game, like its predecessor, beautifully presents every ingredient and finished product based on 72 recipes. Well, one ingredient might not sound pleasing to many, but it’s a delicacy in some places — fire ants. Bars, squares, infusions and truffles all return into the recipe book along with sauces, pralines, and exotics.
This time, we get to create our own recipes using secret ingredients from hidden ports around the world. However, it requires raising enough funds before purchasing a chocolate tasting lab in Buenos Aires. People we meet along the way provide clues and ideas for new recipes, but experimentation is also necessary. Pick a handful of potential ingredients, and the researcher extraordinaire will let you know what works and what doesn’t work — much in the same way Mastermind.
Chocolatier 2 comes with over 200 quests, 20 cities including Bombay, Cayenne, Paris, and Moscow, 6 factories and 4 shops. The secret ingredients hide in the new hidden ports, which take longer to access and cost a pretty cacao.
Instead of spinning circles, which make me dizzy, the circles don’t spin and instead flow differently on the product line. Sometimes another circle blocks the circle you want. The arcade portion now includes bonuses turning this into a fun game — something it wasn’t in the original.
The most disappointing part of the game is logo design. The game contains a limited choice of images and some of the colors are awful. I know the creators were trying to capture the art deco style of the ’20s, but I actually love art deco and this isn’t pretty. Some of the images are of terrible quality — like someone stretched a small image. It’s surprising considering the rest of the game has beautiful designs and images.
The basics of the game includes buying ingredients, manufacturing new ingredients, making new products, selling chocolates, buying factories and stores, and traveling the world. I love how the traveling varies based on location. Players could take a train, ship, hike, or a canoe.
Of course, we continue to use the finest ingredients, so lots of traveling is necessary. But this time we need to watch the seasons since some ingredients cost thousands of dollars off-season, and drop into the more affordable hundreds of dollars when they’re in season.
Some cities don’t have a store for selling chocolates, so it’s important to think ahead to ensure you have enough funds to get you through a trip. Also returning for an encore are gambling hot spots. I don’t play these games, but they’re there for desperate times or those who enjoy dice games.
Another improvement is the message section. This time, it only displays one big task at a time. I don’t mind seeing multiple tasks, but the message screen was too small in the original.
I’m all for a third edition of the game if it’s done right or expand it by changing the industry or products. Chocolatier 2 is addicting as chocolate that I stayed up late several times unable to pull myself away.
System Requirements
Windows:
- Windows Vista, XP, 2000
- Pentium III 700 MHz minimum
- 128 MB RAM
- 800 x 600 minimum screen resolution
- Sound card recommended
- DirectX 7.0 or later
- 25 MB hard drive space
Mac:
- Mac OS X 10.3.9 or newer
- G4 800 MHz or faster processor
- 800 x 600 minimum screen resolution
- Sound card recommended
- 25 MB hard drive space
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F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate Review
F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate, developed by TimeGate Studios and published by Sierra Entertainment.
The Good: Some new weapons, a new enemy, fun F.E.A.R. combat, almost lengthy campaign, very challenging
The Not So Good: Boring story with repetitive environments, can’t join non-expansion multiplayer games, no gameplay innovations, very challenging
What say you? This stand-alone expansion doesn’t offer anything new of value: 4/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
The stand-alone expansion pack: not quite enough for a sequel, not popular enough to require the original. Although F.E.A.R. was quite popular when it came out two years ago, so Perseus Mandate not requiring the original game is a bit surprisingly. F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate comes with a new single player campaign that parallels the original story line. The game is developed by TimeGate Studios, authors of Kohan, probably my favorite game of all time. So that bodes well, right?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate features the same visuals and sound as the original game. That’s not to say that F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate looks bad, as all of the nice effects (fire, grenade shockwaves) and details (character textures and animations) are intact and stack up well with contemporary games in the genre. The game still doesn’t officially support widescreen resolutions, including 1280x1024 that I use for my LCD monitor. It runs well enough, though, but having two years to fully support common settings and not doing it is questionable. The sound is the same as well, with OK voice acting (with cussin’!) and the distinctive F.E.A.R. weapon effects. F.E.A.R. featured cutting-edge graphics two years ago, so now they are slightly above average.
ET AL.
When a game lacks a manual, you know you are in for a good time. All F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate ships with is a CD sleeve with the key printed on it and a ten-day trial for World in Conflict (highly recommended, by the way). Oh, and the game requires the CD to be in the drive in order to run it even though you have to input your CD key in order to install; how I adore antiquated forms of copy protection. F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate features an eight-to-ten hour long campaign (depending on how many times you die: for me, many) that rivals the length of a lot of “full” first person shooters. This is really the only reason to get the game, as F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate doesn’t feature any additional multiplayer modes and you can’t even join matches that use the original game; you are better off just downloading F.E.A.R. Combat for free. The handful of new maps is generally bland and fit the industrial theme of the original game.
Unfortunately, the single player campaign F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate isn’t very exciting and didn’t grab my attention. In fact, if you were to line up this campaign and the original side by side, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate does offer a nasty new enemy and three new weapons (lightning gun, grenade launcher, advanced rifle), but neither of these things are reason enough to get the game. I do still enjoy the gameplay of F.E.A.R.: a focus on tactical action, with slow-mo to make tackling difficult areas easier. The game is just as difficult as the original at any difficulty level; I hope you like getting your butt kicked. I can’t help but feel like I’ve done all of this before, like two years ago: F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate doesn’t add any improvements whatsoever to the gameplay. In order for an expansion pack to be worth it, it must, you know, expand the original game, and F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate does not.
IN CLOSING
Short reviews are usually a bad indicator, and F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate just doesn’t offer enough content to justify buying it. If you missed out on the original F.E.A.R., just find it at a cheap price. If you need a multiplayer fix, then just download F.E.A.R. Combat for free. The single player campaign of F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate is not interesting or different enough to pay attention to. F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate offers no changes from the original game in terms of mechanics. In fact, I wouldn’t know the difference between this and the original game if put side by side. If you reallyreallyreally like F.E.A.R., then you will probably like Perseus Mandate somewhat. The rest of us can ignore it.
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PC Game Review Amazing Adventures The Lost Tomb
While the game won’t blow you away with anything special, it’s a completely well-produced game from graphics and story to mini-games and bonuses. The historian’s mission is to find the Lost Tomb by completing 20 missions with each containing multiple levels.
Although the hints are almost always available, the game makes a point of mentioning when players rely on hints when reporting the score. This mention is enough to discourage hint abuse especially when using a hint takes away 4,000 points. When using a hint, the hint meter starts over again and must fill up before it’s ready to give the next hint. It doesn’t take long for the meter to fill up.
A perfect search — which is not using any hints during a level — equals 15,000 points. The game awards bonus points for finding two items quickly, even for those who opt to play relaxed mode. Too much random clicking leads to losing points. Players also have the opportunity to earn title promotions, but it won’t mean any extra pay or perks.
“Find the Lost Tomb” would be the story game mode while the “Secret Game” resembles — without giving away too much — unlimited game play. Within the story mode, you can either play timed mode or relaxed mode. Having relaxed mode helps make the game more enjoyable for many players who want to make the most of the experience rather than hurry up and go.
After finding all the needed treasures, the mini-game enters the picture. Mini-games include jigsaw puzzles, comparing two rooms for spotting the differences, tile swapping and four others. One of those is the popular memory match game except this one calls for finding same color, same type, related items such as a glove and baseball, or identical objects.
What’s more, the game throws a few curveballs in its word choices in the list of objects to find. That’s nothing new, but it does the job without getting carried away and while keeping things fresh. A “red hexagon” references a STOP sign. You can’t help but laugh with hints like “Flew the coop” or “Ribbit!”
Also hidden in the game are 21 ancient Egypt worshipped scarabs. Find them all to unlock the secret game. Even if you forget to keep an eye out for scarabs, it should be OK as the reviewer found all 21 despite forgetting about this little game within the game.
Hidden object games have quirks. Some make it difficult for clicks on the correct object to register. In the hunt for a spike, the viewer correctly clicked the right item and the game seemed to say, “Nope. Uh-uh, that isn’t it.” Finally, the situation called for a hint and sure enough, it was the right object. But this was a rare incident, fortunately. Another time, the list included “3 hand tools.” Hammer, boomerang, arrow, C-clamp, fork, and knife didn’t count. The name, in this case, was too broad.
While Amazing Adventures The Lost Tomb doesn’t have anything that hasn’t shown up in one game or another, it’s a nice full package with a long-lasting value that is sure to please anyone looking for an adventure of the hidden object kind.
Download and play Amazing Adventures The Lost Tomb.
System Requirements: Windows
- Windows 2000/XP/Vista
- 350 MHz or faster processor
- 75 MB RAM
- DirectX 7.0 MB or later
Related posts
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Interpol: The Trail of Dr. Chaos PC Game Review
Travel to Paris, London, New York, Rome and many other countries as you follow Dr. Chaos’ trail to thwart his plans. When you arrive in a country, seek out the hidden objects in different locations the run from the gamut of museums, coliseums, and churches. The game is very up to date as it includes objects like a USB drive, Bluetooth headphone for cell phones, and laptops for finding.
Each level requires finding a set number of objects — and the number goes up as you advance — and ends with solving the puzzle by seeking 10 specific objects or things wrong with the picture in a picturesque scene. You could be in China looking for 10 Chinese flags, in Italy looking for things that don’t belong such as an alien ship or clothing on a statue, or in Paris looking for differences between two of the same scenes.
As you inspect a room, a green box like those you see in spycams acts as your mouse pointer. Even with the box, the game might not recognize that you’ve clicked the correct hidden object. Sometimes object clicking works well and others it doesn’t.
If you find multiple objects in a row, you must wait a second or two for the previously selected object to disappear before the game accepts your next found object. I appreciate the game retains the names of the found objects for those times when you luck out and don’t know what you found. I also pick up a couple of new words and remember forgotten words. One new one is fasces, which is a bundle of rods bound together.
As for hints, you get four per level and you pick which item you want to find. I prefer this to games that randomly select the object for you. Also be ready for unexpected music. Music pops out of nowhere while you inspect a scene. For example, expect to hear either orchestra music or applause while reviewing the scene at a theater. The music grates after a while, so just turn it down or off.
System Requirements: Windows
- Windows ME/98/2000/XP/Vista
- Pentium III 800 MHz or faster processor
- 128 MB RAM
- 75 MB available hard disk space
- 16-bit graphics card with minimum 80000 resolution
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Alawar Entertainment Goes Mobile
Alawar Entertainment, publisher of casual games like Snowy the Bear series, Magic Shop, and Magic Ball to name a few, announces the creation of Alawar NewEdge Mobile. This company specializes in publishing games for smartphones and mobile devices. The new company will launch over 1000 games for mobile devices including Magic Ball 2, Treasures of Montezuma, Snowy, and more.
NewEdge will continue and focus on developing games while Alawar does the publishing and distribution. With more companies producing games and applications for handheld devices, we won’t have to wait till we get home or to the office to get things done or have fun. Just do it while you fly, ride (not drive, of course), or wait in a doctor’s office.
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Astraware Launches Boardgames
- Chess
- Checkers
- Snakes and Ladders (aka Chutes and Ladders)
- Reversi
- Ludo (similar to Trouble and Parcheesi)
- Tic Tac Toe
- Nine Men’s Morris
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Heroes of Hellas PC Game Review
Now what makes Heroes of Hellas different from the zillions (maybe not quite that many) of match threes? For one, instead of a typical square grid, the grid appears in honeycomb style with hexagon shapes. With the honeycomb-shaped grid, you go in different directions in making a match instead of just up and down, and sideways. Here you can go six directions. The grid’s outside shape changes with each level as you travel through Ancient Greece and Hades to find the scepter.
Along the way, you earn help from the heroes. Their help is what most refer to as a power up. Zeus, of course, is the first and he shuffles the grid when you need more matching objects. The others have special powers that do different things: Achilles can destroy rocks that block your way. Jason opens a path. Once you discover multiple heroes, you get two heroes per level plus Zeus.
The objective for each level also changes. It can be that you need to clear the gold tiles behind the objects, release the jewels from the grid by helping them make their way down to the bottom of the grid, or both. With the grid changing shapes, the changing heroes and the change objectives, the game can turn monotonous especially since you’re on the clock through all of this.
While the game only comes in one mode, it offers three difficulty levels: easy, medium, and hard. In playing easy level, I run into trouble by level four. Some reviewers believe the game is too easy — I differ. I may not have needed the heroes’ help in the first few levels, but needed them in later levels. Several levels took at least five tries before I conquered them.
One thing that drives me crazy is slipping up and missing a hexagon or two. People who have a hard time navigating with a mouse won’t like this. Heroes of Hellas requires careful mouse movement and tile selection. You must keep the mouse button pressed while you select the tiles — instead of just click on each one. This is a good and bad thing. It’s harder to keep the mouse down and select, but it’s faster. To keep clicking might get tedious. Maybe the next edition — if there is one — can provide this as an option.
Regular players of match three games may recognize features here and there from other games. Heroes of Hellas incorporates the features nicely to create an all-around fine match three package.
System Requirements: Windows
- Windows ME/98/2000/XP/Vista
- 400 MHz or faster processor
- 128 MB RAM
- Hard drive space 40 mb
- Video card: 16 MB VRAM
- DirectX 8.0 MB or later
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Puzzle City PC Game Review
Meet no nonsense boss, Mz. Towers and the friendly foreman who shows you around. Mz. Towers sets the goals and expects their successful completion. Both characters pop in with dialog to motivate me, to insult me, or to provide a little comic relief. The foreman loves to order pizza while Mz. Tower questions hiring me. Usually, I’m too busy to read the dialog, but it mostly repeats a handful of phrases.
A level consists of a grid that varies in sizes. Some grids are narrow while others are quirky and full of angles. A conveyor belt sits on the bottom of the game screen rolling out the blocks for placing on the grid. These blocks range from one to four pieces creating different shapes.
Mz. Towers might give orders where you must build a 2ײ police station or a 3׳ hospital. I’ve blown that a few times especially when there were no highlighted areas. Since the conveyor belt stops for no one, I feel like Lucy at the candy factory when trying to manage pieces that I forget about the objectives leaving no room to build a 2ײ or 3׳ building. Sometimes I want to throttle the grid or Mz. Towers, but it’s all in fun as Puzzle City offers a diversity of challenges.
The game contains two types of power ups. One affects items on the conveyor belt and the other affects pieces. The latter power ups include a tractor for destroying buildings to make room for more, a recycler for changing the shape of an existing piece, and a trash bin for recycling pieces (This is a very green company!).
Conveyor belt power ups appear just below the belt (OK, I can just hear the quips flying). Dynamite blows away all pieces currently on the belt. Spray paint randomly changes the color of the current pieces. Other power ups include freezing the conveyor belt for a few seconds, reversing the conveyor belt, and (my favorite) the hammer for converting pieces into one-block pieces. Some levels spoil me with power ups while others have me dying for one or the right one.
My favorite part is the mysterious “special building.” Its brown pieces only come in single blocks. When all the blocks fill in the highlighted space, the building materializes and angels sing its praises. These special buildings should come along more often.
The second game mode, untimed, requires reaching a specific score rather than completing objectives. I don’t care for this mode especially since I could not move pass level 3-4 even after reaching the minimum score many times. Story mode is the stronger of the two, but I wonder if I would want to play the game again once I finish it. With Puzzle City’s having an arcade element, it should be possible to create an arcade version without a story.
I ran into a technical glitch where the game freezes when the puzzle pieces cover all of the squares. Other than that, Puzzle City’s colorful cartoon characters and upbeat music give it a neat spin on Tetris while bringing something novel to the casual games arena.
System Requirements: Windows
- Windows ME/98/2000/XP/Vista
- 600 MHz or faster processor
- 128 MB RAM
- DirectX 6.0 MB or later
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Build-a-lot PC Game Review
Rub elbows with the mayors of eight locales where you buy and sell land, build and upgrade homes and special buildings, and help communities make their dreams a reality and thrive. The settings take builders from ornery towns and the countryside to the not-so-wild west known as Granite Springs and to Palm Grove, a Hollywoodish spot aiming to have its own film festival in hopes that it rivals Cannes.
The key factors involve buying blueprints, training workers, purchasing materials, inspecting houses to stave off damage, and building, of course. The steps to take depend on the goal and resources available. Two special buildings, the Workshop and the Sawmill provide added bonuses in lowering the cost of training workers and the price of lumber. It still takes money and workers to build these and these don???t bring in any rent money.
In Career mode, what most know as story mode, buildings must meet all the goals for the level to move forward. The mayor is the boss and sometimes the boss makes requests in the middle of a job. But rewards will follow upon successful execution. A level begins with a specific cash amount, available workers, and units of material. And the hard work comes in carefully using these resources while obtaining more.
The interface uses tabs for easy switching to get the needed information. The all-important goals that take you to the next level always appear at the top of the screen complete with checkboxes letting you know when you???ve met the goals. This lets you spend more time focused on the other tabs that keep the work moving.
Most games have a second game mode to extend the game’s playability. Usually, the casual or endless game mode doesn’t interest me or they look like an afterthought in meeting gamer expectations of a second mode. Build-a-Lot gives players more freedom for creativity.
Rather than endlessly building and selling homes and lots, you can do whatever you want as long as you reach the financial goal. With many possibilities for reaching the goal, the casual game mode compels builders to play again after conquering all the goals. Furthermore, after completing Career mode, you can return to any level and play it again especially for those that don’t have a star indicating you beat the deadline.
I’d like to see more buildings to include a special feature like the one that comes with the post office. After building the first post office, you’ll get mail at any of the places you own. These letters are usually the bearer of great news and added funds — small but helpful. Perhaps, the cinema could send movie rentals and a much needed break from hard labor. OK, maybe that doesn???t have much to do with the game, but you get the idea.
System Requirements: Windows
- Windows ME/2000/XP/Vista
- 500MHz or faster Processor
- 256MB RAM
Gamezebo has tips and tricks for surviving the more challenging levels of the game.
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Alpha Prime Review
Alpha Prime, developed by Black Element Software and published by IDEA Games and Meridian 4.
The Good: Impressive visuals
The Not So Good: No multiplayer, very short, exceptionally unfair difficulty, vague objectives, generic weapons, sporadically intelligent AI, clichéd and broken bullet time, endless, boring, and frequent cut scenes with stiff voice acting
What say you? A derivative first person shooter with great visuals but not much else: 4/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
When trying to come up with an introduction to this review, I was alternating between talking about first person shooters or the 1980’s. Why the 80’s, you ask? Well, Alpha Prime sounds like Optimus Prime, so that was going to be the connection. The problem with doing so many reviews is that I sometimes can’t think of anything original to say in this introduction; games in the same genre tend to get the same kind of introduction. I already referred to the 80’s in my World in Conflict review and the FPS is very common. But then I thought I could write an introduction about writing an introduction. Brilliant! Too bad I can’t use it again…well, for a while. Anyways, Alpha Prime is a single-player first person shooter. Is it any good?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Clearly the highlight of Alpha Prime is the graphics. The game features a nice level of detail, from the environments (though they are repetitive) to some nice facial animations on each human character. The animations are a bit off, though. There are some nice lighting effects and each of the game’s areas look like real locations. There are even some pleasing weapons effects and explosions in the game. Alpha Prime gets dangerously close to the level of quality seen in BioShock in terms of the graphics. The sound in the game is a bit worse off: there is some missing dialogue from the cut scenes, most of the effects are generic, and there are some weird fading issues with stereo sound: people not directly next to the camera almost whisper when talking. Alpha Prime features typical music for the setting that’s fairly enjoyable. So Alpha Prime is pretty to look at: how is the gameplay?
ET AL.
Alpha Prime is a single-player only first person shooter that takes place in space: something has gone horribly, horribly wrong and it’s up to the protagonist to shoot things and make it all happy again. The first disappointment with the game is the lack of any multiplayer features. It’s disconcerting to have a FPS released in today’s market that lacks cooperative or competitive multiplayer, especially a title that has a very short single player campaign. Sure it might not be original, but it would at least extend the life of the product beyond the basics. As I mentioned, the game is short: only ten missions and they go by fairly quickly; good thing Alpha Prime is only $20 because you sure don’t get many features. The levels are linear by nature and green doors show the way to go. Sometimes finding the right way to go or getting turned around during combat can be a problem since Alpha Prime lacks a map or indicated objectives. I’m sorry, but “unlock the door” is not specific enough for me, and I don’t appreciate having to backtrack in order to find out specifically where to proceed next. The setting of Alpha Prime is very generic: metallic mining operations and alien planets straight out of Aliens. While BioShock shows how to come up with a unique environment, Alpha Prime shows how to use recycled locales for your game. The cut-scenes that drive the story are too frequent and just plain bad. I could only take the opening cut scene for four minutes before I had to skip it, due to poor acting and agonizing exposition. Another “feature” of Alpha Prime is the lack of alt-tab support: I normally make notes while I play for my review, so I alt-tabbed out of the game. I guess you can’t do that, as the game locked up and had to be manually shut down. Alpha Prime gets very jealous.
Anyone familiar with a first person shooter will feel right at home with the controls. The generic setting of the game extends to the rest of the presentation, from the weapons to the gameplay enhancements. You can equip yourself with a hammer, pistol, shotgun, machine gun, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, flamethrower, and grenades: nothing original there. You will need to frequently visit health and oxygen stations to replenish your, well, health and oxygen: these locations are plentiful in some areas and sparse in others, creating an imbalanced level of difficulty. There are some alternative methods in the game beyond simply shooting things, but all of these are either “borrowed” (stolen) from other games or not worth the effort. You are equipped with a hacking tool that can be used to access locked doors, use remote camera, and control vehicles. While this sounds cool and the possibilities are numerous, its use is highly scripted and not as dynamic as it should be. Alpha Prime also “borrows” (steals) bullet time, although it screws it up. While the game does slow down when you activate it (energy is gained by finding hubbardium scattered in scripted locations in each level), your complete movement is slowed down as well, including aiming. Usually, you walk slower but you can still aim just as fast as in real time, which gives you a distinct advantage. But in Alpha Prime, it all slows down so bullet time makes absolutely no difference. Even if they fixed this problem, bullet time would still be unoriginal; you should at least make it more varied like in TimeShift. The hubbardium is also scarce and it’s used up very quickly, which makes the use of bullet time even more questionable.
Alpha Prime tries to offer up some good AI, and your computer opponents will sometimes search and use cover and throw plenty of grenades. However, you will still encounter dumb AI about half the time: ignoring you, running away instead of firing, and general implausible behavior. Alpha Prime is also a very difficult game: you are usually up against a number of enemies at once with the same weapons you have and health decreases rapidly. Although you will usually be able to replenish your health frequently, you will die more often than necessary. Because of this, you need to save frequently; it should be noted that “quick save” and “quick load” isn’t very quick, yet another strike against this generic shooter.
IN CLOSING
Alpha Prime has good graphics, but everything else in the game is taken from another first person shooter. A short campaign, lack of multiplayer, generic weapons, tired bullet time, spotty AI, underutilized hacking tool, linear level design, and common setting all add up to a very unexciting experience. The cut scenes that promote the story are annoying and poorly acted and the action is very standard for the genre. The budget pricing of Alpha Prime (only $20) almost makes me want to bump the score up another notch, but the game is simply too unoriginal to warrant its purchase, even at a reduced price. There is purely no reason to play Alpha Prime, as you can pick up Max Payne, F.E.A.R., Half-Life, or any number of other titles and experience a better overall game for essentially the same price. Nice screenshots might bring in some customers, but don’t be fooled by the pretty pictures: Alpha Prime is not original in any aspect of the gameplay.
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Storked Review
Storked, developed and published by Graduate Games.
The Good: Varied abilities, straightforward controls, informative tutorial, numerous obstacles and levels, level editor
The Not So Good: Sluggish pace, usually only one solution
What say you? A puzzle game with diverse designs, effortless controls, and tons of objects, but it’s too linear and played at an arduous pace: 5/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
Mutualism is a symbiotic cooperation between two organisms that benefits each participant (don’t say you never learned anything by reading a game review). And example of this is the collaboration between the shrimp and goby fish: the shrimp digs a home for both creatures while the goby fish warns of incoming predators. One of the least recognized examples of mutualism is between the penguin and the stork. Sure, they live in completely different climates and never come into contact with each other, but I’m glad that Storked has highlighted this important relationship in the form of a puzzle game. A team of four penguins must safely guide a stork’s egg to a basket, avoiding large drops and various obstacles along the way. Environment manipulation puzzles are fairly popular, with Professor Fizzwizzle and Eets being a couple of notable examples. How will Storked stack up?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Storked looks and sounds like it was put together by a couple of guys, and that’s mostly because it was. The game looks like what you would expect a 2-D puzzle game to look like: generally static backgrounds, simple environments, and a moderate amount of detail with the characters and effects. This is a purely 2-D game with icons and effects that seem to be straight out of Paint. There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with that, but nobody will be wowed by the graphical prowess of Storked. The sound is sparse at best, with some sporadic effects related to movement, switches, and the like. I do, however, like the background music, so there is a plus. While Storked is not the most visually impressive game to come out this year, it is playable and you don’t have to worry about camera angles.
ET AL.
In Storked, you must use your army of one to four (depending on the scenario) penguins to transport an egg to a basket, usually by kicking it. You must avoid allowing the egg to fall great distances and try to complete each puzzle quickly in order to earn medals. There are a lot of puzzles to choose from (over 100) and each is unlocked by completing a previous test. The controls in Storked are straightforward: arrow keys to move, shift to kick, and control for special abilities. A decent tutorial makes learning the game even easier. The camera automatically pans depending on which penguin is currently selected. Each of the four penguins has a specality: Murray throws snowballs to activate switches, Milton uses gadgets (rocket packs, diving suits, jackhammers, egg transports), Tony throws the egg and picks up boxes, and Lilly jumps. Having all four of these penguins at your disposal can make for some pleasingly complex puzzles, and each level is chock full of obstacles like geysers, pillows, cannons, crates, doors, bear traps, trees, bombs, and barriers. The levels in the game are designed to take advantage of the penguins’ attributes and there are definitely some interesting solutions to figure out.
One thing I value in computer games is replay value: being able to experience the same game in a different way during subsequent sessions. Unfortunately, Storked fails in this area as almost every puzzle in the game has one and only one solution. This tends to not be the case in some of the more advanced puzzles, but normally most of the time is spent trying to figure out what the developers want you to do. Changing the difficulty level doesn’t make the puzzles any easier (just a decrease in egg damage) so you can, and probably will, get stuck a number of times. Storked doesn’t penalize less coordinated puzzles as the game lacks “timing” puzzles that require precise synchronized movement (Eets was like this). In fact, the pace of Storked is very deliberate, bordering on tedious. Each puzzle moves very slowly as the characters can’t move the egg very far and a lot of your time is spent just kicking the egg over and over and over again. I prefer shorter solutions in games like this and Storked just has some grinding that isn’t really that necessary. That’s too bad, since the game definitely has some potential with interesting designs and abilities: Storked is too slow and too limited for my tastes.
IN CLOSING
Storked is one of those games that has good overall design but falls behind in a couple of key areas that hold the game back. The basics of the game are fine: the different penguins with specific abilities, the numerous varied puzzles, the controls. However, almost all of the puzzles have only one solution and the game progresses very slowly; both of these things make Storked less enjoyable than it could be. But the game still has moments of fun when your plan comes together and you finally figure out what the developers intended. Storked is a typical result for a first-time outing: a good idea lacking complete execution. And that’s OK, as I suspect puzzle fans will have some fun with the game and its editor (which can produce more streamlined puzzles).
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You Are Empty Review
You Are Empty, developed by Digital Spray Studios and Mandel ArtPlains and published by 1C Company and Atari.
The Good: (this heading is unavailable at the moment…please leave a message)
The Not So Good: No tutorial and no objectives, repetitive enemies, poor AI, bland weapons, outdated graphics, not scary, generic linear level design, questionable physics, can be quite difficult due to overly powerful enemies
What say you? An archaic zombie fest with no redeeming qualities whatsoever: 2/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
Zombie movies, and computer games, have been around for quite a while now. You know the story: man wakes up, must fight the undead single handed, shoots things, the usual deal. There have been quite a number creepy zombie titles released on the PC (and those evil consoles) and the curiously named You Are Empty can be added to the list. Another Russian import (second in a row), this title is a shoot first, ask questions later kind of action title, where you are armed with your heart, brain, and large machine gun. Will You Are Empty prove to be a worthy addition to the genre?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
You Are Empty features some very old graphics that look like they were lifted from Quake 2, or the original Half-Life at best. Some of the buildings have a good level of detail in their architecture, but they become repetitive and bland rather quickly. The character models are poorly animated and also repetitive. The violence effects aren’t even that impressive, with red textures overtaking foes like a plague instead of chunks of flesh flying around like in most zombie settings. If the game is going to be rated “M,” make it rated “M!” The best part of the game are the cut scenes, which have a nice sketched quality to them, like that a-ha video. Unfortunately, the developers can’t even get a cut scene right, as there were a lot of linear artifacts present and very laggy performance. The sound doesn’t fare much better: sporadic grunts and minimal effects are the rule of the day. You Are Empty does not provide an overly gruesome or compelling presentation for your zombie hunting needs.
ET AL.
You Are Empty is a single player first person shooter where you go around killing the undead. The game assumes you are familiar with how to play a first person shooter, as the game lacks a tutorial and even objectives on what to do next. I’ve gotten lost and turned around multiple times because the game didn’t show in any way where to go next, either through a map or on-screen prompts. This is an inexcusable absence in today’s competitive gaming market. You are simply given health and ammo and put in a room: good luck figuring out what the game wants you to do! The level design helps somewhat, since most of the levels offer only one path, but multiple doorways (most of which are locked and some which can be opened) exacerbate the confusion dramatically. You will encounter a variety of monsters along the way, most of which just look different and deal increasing amounts of damage from different ranges. The enemies are highlighted by a big chicken, but sadly a gigantic cock doesn’t satisfy my needs...for good gameplay, of course. The AI is pretty dumb, as they simply charge at you while shooting. The enemies also seem to spawn at random around corners and in areas you’ve already been to; nothing like adding an air of authenticity to the game.
The weapon selection is very linear and each new tool is better than the last. They are given to you in order and there is no reason to switch to previous weapons once you have gotten your shiny new toy. You start out with a wrench (that you must find in a bathroom, I think) and eventually graduate through a pistol, shotgun, nailgun, rifle, and electric gun (where have I heard of those before?). There are also Molotov cocktails, and first aid kits are plentifully scattered around the levels. Still, the game is quite hard as the enemies usually outmatch you in terms of weaponry: you always have to defeat two or three enemies with inferior weapons before you are allowed to get upgraded tools. The gameplay is unoriginal shoot-only action, and this is quite old these days. In fact, Wolfenstein 3-D (a fifteen year old game that ran on a 386) has just as sophisticated gameplay (and probably more so). The game has some semblance of rag-doll physics, but all of the objects weight about two ounces and bounce like rubber balls across the floor. Watching a chair float and bounce across a room doesn’t make for a believable environment (maybe there was a gravity anomaly in 1950’s Russia). While You Are Empty might have been a decent (but still not good) game fifteen years ago, nowadays its bland gameplay, unoriginal brain-dead enemies, recycled weaponry, linear and confusing map design, poor physics engine, lack of multiplayer, maladjusted difficulty, and general lack of scariness makes it a title everyone can avoid.
IN CLOSING
Usually I can find one thing good about a game, but You Are Empty offers nothing that hasn’t been done over and over and over again. Everything about this game is old: the graphics, the gameplay, the AI, the features, the weapons. The game isn’t exciting at all to play, and its unnecessarily high difficulty and confusing layout makes for a rough experience. When I am making comparisons to games from 1992 and 1996, that’s not a good thing (unless it’s in a nostalgic sense, which this is definitely not).The game is right: I Am Empty after playing this game. You Are Empty receives the dubious honor of being tied as the worst game I’ve ever reviewed.
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Advanced Tactics: World War II Review
Advanced Tactics: World War II, developed by VR Designs and published by Matrix Games.
The Good: Reduced micromanagement, very easy to transfer and group forces, straightforward production with infinite building queues, streamlined research, random map generator and comprehensive editor, fantastic AI, adaptable engine not entrenched in World War II, play by e-mail
The Not So Good: Insufficient tutorial, not many included scenarios, lengthy turn resolution
What say you? Very flexible and user-friendly, this is one of the best wargames: 8/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
You would think by now that World War II has run its course, but new games keep cropping up, like an undead zombie hungry for more brains (feel free to create your own similie). This trend has permeated through the first person shooter and strategy genres the most, and Advanced Tactics: World War II is yet another wargame that takes place in World War II. Or does it? In reality, Advanced Tactics is a varied engine that can simulate pretty much any period of modern and historical combat, so the World War II tie-in is actually unnecessary. While it does mostly feature scenarios that take place using World War II equipment in World War II locations, the developers have not pigeon-holed themselves in the time period, so let’s find out if Advanced Tactics expands beyond the simple World War II wargame.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Wargames are not known for their cutting-edge graphics and sound design, and Advanced Tactics is no exception. The game is played from the classic 2-D overhead view that’s prominent in many wargames. The graphics don’t look bad necessarily, as they are clean and easy to understand; the icons are large enough to see on the map and relay basic information at a glance. The interface is well designed, as everything is accessible from the main screen and organized decently enough. So as wargames go, the graphics of Advanced Tactics are good, they just are not up to the 3-D standard that many strategy games achieve these days. The sound is very basic, with only the occasional combat effect and brief background music. Overall, the presentation of Advanced Tactics is quite typical for a wargame, although its forthcoming interface does put it a step ahead of more jumbled titles.
ET AL.
Advanced Tactics is a slightly more advanced tactical strategy game: instead of getting a set roster of troops, you do have some decisions in their production. The game comes with thirty scenarios, which may sound like a lot but they are divided among several categories (multiplayer, tutorial, fictional) and Advanced Tactics: World War II only contains ten World War II scenarios (and four are for human players only). While the number may not be as huge as some other wargames, some of the scenarios are very unique: take for example Random Towns, in which a town appears somewhere on the map each turn. I don't think I've ever seen that in a strategy game before. Advanced Tactics also comes with an excellent random mission generator and an editor to make your own scenarios. The engine is flexible enough to allow for large continent-wide wars and small intimate battles, perfect for satisfying a large audience. Personally, I prefer smaller battles, as a large quantity of units tends to confuse my simple brain. For a random map, you can customize the size, geography (land/sea ratio, rivers, forests, mountains, roads, towns), research speed, and even create a mirrored map for balanced multiplayer matches. The random maps are well designed and use a good algorithm to produce some realistic and interesting locales. Games can support from two to ten players as well, and support for play by e-mail games is present. There are a couple of small features I would like to see added to random maps: team games and the ability to easily import units from custom scenarios. Unlike games such as Commander: Europe at War that are locked into one map, Advanced Tactics lets you create the scenario that’s right for you. The game allows for different time periods other than World War II as well; downloads of alternative scenarios are already available, including scenarios set during the American Civil War, World War I, colonial times, and a place eerily similar to The Lord of the Rings. Advanced Tactics also allows for a whole range of custom rules and scripts, from reinforcements to automatic supplies and more; the included scenarios just scratch the surface of the potential of the game. This amount of flexibility is great and it shows how powerful the underlying engine is.
While Advanced Tactics is easy to learn compared to other wargames, the tutorial is woefully inadequate. It only teaches the basics and leaves a lot up to the manual, and we all know reading is for suckers. Advanced Tactics strikes a happy medium between the unit production of real time strategy games and the military maneuvering of tactical games; the game gives the user a lot of freedom without bogging them down with too much stuff. One of the highlights of the game is how production is handled. Units are produced in friendly cities located within your borders. You can queue up to four units at once and set a percentage to determine how much effort is dedicated to that particular unit. This is a great system that eliminates the need to “check up” on your unit-producing structures: once you set the queue, you can leave it alone for the rest of the game. Units that are produced will automatically be sent to a headquarters unit of your choice; this is another wonderful decision to removes a lot of the micromanagement typical in strategy games. Once present in the HQ, you can then instantly transfer units to any subordinate company; units may be able to be transferred on their own, but most infantry units will need a fleet of trucks present in your HQ to expedite their travel. Long-distance transport will require more trucks in your HQ unit, so you have to plan your reinforcements well. This also keeps units together: instead of having insane stacks of individual units (a single tank or infantry unit), they are grouped into divisions, which act like the containers in Forge of Freedom. Initially empty, new divisions can be placed anywhere within your borders and are filled with units you transfer from your HQ. Advanced Tactics features a fantastic system for getting units to the frontlines and it is very easy to handle realistic quantities of units without having hundreds of square icons you need to deal with each turn.
There are a number of units you can queue at your cities. HQ units need staff units for more effective subordinates and supplies to distribute to the troops. Most of the units in the game are differentiated by their ratings, and each unit can usually engage one specific enemy unit most effectively. Infantry units include troops equipped with rifles, sub-machine guns, machine guns, mortars, bazookas, horses, plus scouts and engineers. Vehicles include trucks (used for transporting units between containers), tanks, armored cars, half-tracks, and anti-tank guns. You are also given artillery units, various planes, and ships. The unit list is generic enough where it could fit a wide range of time periods and Advanced Tactics doesn’t cement itself too much in the World War II setting. Each unit is given a number of attributes: action points (used for movement and attacks), readiness (which determines the action points through supply levels), experience, morale, entrenchment, and more. More advanced units can be earned by spending political points produced at towns (political points are also used to make new containers). There are a number of activities that units can undergo other than moving: paradrops, air supplies, air recon missions, and blowing and repair bridges are all available for your strategic enjoyment. Obviously, a wargame wouldn’t be a wargame without combat. Using a system similar to the Decisive Battles series, Advanced Tactics lets you attack with multiple units and the combat is completely automated using all of the stats I alluded to earlier. Units can become casualties or retreat, and each battle can result in a victory for either side or a stalemate.
The result of all this stuff is a very fun game and one of the better experiences I’ve had playing a wargame in quite a while. The level of customization goes a long way in making Advanced Tactics an appealing title that can be tailored to each individual user’s liking. The AI opponents are very good: they will cut off supply, flank your armies, and prove to be quite a good foe. Advanced Tactics is also easy to manage thanks to some great streamlining of production and the ability to have large grouped units instead of unmanageable stacks. The end of games can get a bit drawn out with small units running around the map, but at least you know where the cities are so that you can shut down production. Advanced Tactics can also get bogged down due to stalled battles; good strategy can usually overcome this, however. The pace of the game can be anywhere from quick to slow, depending on how many units you have to control. The turn resolution can be long for large games involving lots of AI opponents, but I suppose it results in better AI so that can be forgiven.
IN CLOSING
Advanced Tactics takes the wargame and simplifies it into an entertaining package featuring enough freedom and randomization to keep people of all experience levels interested for a long time. Compared to other wargames, Advanced Tactics is much friendlier to new players as the interface is generally intuitive and there is less to keep track of. I really enjoy the superb production mechanics: units are automatically produced in a queue you set and transported to HQ units and then manually transported to your companies under their command. It’s also appreciated that Advanced Tactics allows for large single units of mixed types instead of stacks of single infantry groups that must be moved individually. The engine is also flexible: this allows for future (and current) expansions into different time periods without much trouble at all. I'm quite excited in seeing where the modders take Advanced Tactics; the realm of possibilities matches that of The Operational Art of War; with the random map generator, Advanced Tactics actually has more longevity. The random map generator produces some nice battlefields and the editing options allow for great customization. While the game doesn’t ship with a lot of scenarios, we should see (and already do) new, varied maps soon. The gameplay of Advanced Tactics is a lot like The Operational Art of War, but a lot easier to handle. I prefer the varied scale of Advanced Tactics to the larger, fixed battles of The Operational Art of War and the Decisive Battles series; since I gave both of those games 7/8, that means Advanced Tactics gets the rare and highly-coveted (sure it is!) 8/8. My issues with the game are so minor (essentially just the turn resolution length) that I don't feel at all hesitant giving out a perfect score. Advanced Tactics gives the player the freedom to play his (or her…yeah, right) way in a streamlined model and it is a highly recommended title for strategy fans. You can have huge battles reminiscient of The Operational Art of War and you can have small skirmishes involving a handful of units: Advanced Tactics allows for both ends of the spectrum. This highly addictive wargame is an absolute bargain at $40 and Advanced Tactics should be a part of any strategy gamer's collection.
