Game du Jour: Week of 2008-01-14

Wow! Two superb games in one week and one on my birthday. Remember the deal is good on Game du Jour for one day only.

14 January: Swarm Assault 60% off

15 January: Build-a-Lot 40% off

16 January: GeBall 60% off

17 January: Determinance 50% off

18 January: Jumba 50% off

19 January: Twistingo 50% off

20 January: Jewel Quest Solitaire II (Review of original Jewel Quest) 40% off

The Woot for Games

Game du Jour offers “one deal a day” for indie and casual PC games. For 24 hours, a game is available for a much lower price than its regular price. The nice thing is that you can first try the game for free to see if you like it. Remember to play and buy it by midnight Central Standard Time before the deal is gone.

The site sells action, board, card, puzzle, and strategy games. You can get an idea of the games sold from the PC Game page.

Like Woot, the game isn’t available once the 24 hours passes. To avoid missing a game that you might love, you can subscribe to the newsletter or RSS feed. Some sites publish the lineup for the week — but I could not find one that does it on a consistent basis.

Cradle of Persia PC Game Review

I enjoyed, Cradle of Rome, the predecessor to Cradle of Persia, so I was excited when I heard this one was coming. It took longer to get into Cradle of Persia. Eventually, it hooked me, but not as much as its ancestor hooked me.

The major difference between the two comes in how you make the match three. In Cradle of Rome, you select three or more items to make the match. Cradle of Persia not only requires selecting three or more items in a row, but also deciding which direction to go in making the match. If you make the match starting with the first object and moving to the right, the objects behind the first match will move right to replace the matched items’ spots. The same goes for all directions.

It took time to get a handle on this new thinking because the direction you move in can create a new and needed match or break an existing match. Despite the need to use the brain in making the right move, I still prefer Cradle of Rome.

What made Rome appealing was the process of building the city and adding citizens. It’s a great feeling when the screen pops up saying, “You’ve earned a new citizen!” Persia does the same and changing the theme, of course, and the music fits well with the Persian backdrop.

Unlike Rome, Persia lets you know what you need to do to add a citizen with an associated building. In Rome, you had to hope you made the right move. Right-click any building and Cradle of Persia provides the details including the building type, what you earned, and — if applicable, as not all buildings have one — what task to complete to add the citizen. Having this knowledge does not make the game too easy as some tasks are HARD.

Power ups are included, but they work differently. The power ups are not the same as the original and they each have four levels of power. Level 1 provides the least amount of power. For example, dynamite at level 1 only explodes one box while it explodes more at level 4 power.

The good thing about the four levels of power is that you can gain level 1 quickly and have something to use. In Cradle of Rome, you had to wait until the power up filled up to use it. Waiting for each level to power up can make a person antsy. A power up has a thin green line that glows as you destroy its associated power up. The green line proceeds around in a circle. When the circle completes, you gain another level of power.

Some gamers complain about developers releasing a similar version of a hit game, but Awem Studio did a lovely job Cradle of Persia with giving fans of Cradle of Rome the opportunity to get more of the same game play without being too similar. Awem took care to change the power up types, themes, objects, and tasks for earning citizens.

I’m all for Awem doing another. Maybe the company could explore a different one than the often-used Greek (though I do love Greek myths) or other frequently used themes. American history? African theme? Shakespeare theme?

Cradle of Rome fans will enjoy Cradle of Persia and those not having played Cradle of Rome will discover playing Cradle series as fan as a magic carpet ride (well, unless you’re afraid of heights then it’ll be like discovering a Genie in a bottle.).

• Windows 2000/XP/Vista



• 1.0 GHz processor



• 256 MB RAM



• DirectX 8.1 or later



• 81 MB hard drive space