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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.
