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Gary Grigsby's War Between The States Review
Gary Grigsby's War Between The States, developed by 2by3 Games and published by Matrix Games.
The Good: Streamlined unit management, a lot of the minutiae is automated, good AI opponent, robust rules options
The Not So Good: Overwhelmingly complex for novices, only three scenarios, inadequate interactive tutorials
What say you? Strategy buffs will enjoy this thorough take on the Civil War: 6/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
The American Civil War is the new World War II. Simply look at the flood of games addressing our new favorite time period: AGEod’s American Civil War, Forge of Freedom, Take Command: 2nd Manassas, plus a bunch of crappy titles I didn't even mention. Yes sir, the eternal struggle between the North and the South is popular, and it has been renewed once again in the form of Gary Grigsby's War Between The States. Obviously taking a Southern slant on the conflict, the folks at 2by3 Games, responsible for World at War and War in the Pacific, two titles known for their unflinching complexity. How will their approach affect action in the mid-1800s?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
War Between The States is not one of the most visually impressive grand strategy games, especially when you consider it against the fleet of AGEod titles. You can adjust the window size from the default 1024x768 to fill up more of the screen and display more of the map. The map lacks the flair of other 2-D maps with just a passable level of detail. Battles are conducted using simple bar graphs instead of at least some animation. Obviously, War Between The States isn’t going to win any prizes for graphical excellence. On the sound front, the game is not impressive here either: you get basic movement effects and period-specific background music that’s more understated than other games in the genre. A top-notch presentation is certainly not a requirement for a grand strategy game, especially one with wargame-like pedigree, but it would be a nice feature.
ET AL.
Gary Grigsby's War Between The States lets you control either the Union or Confederate side during the American Civil War. You can play the game against the AI or undergo a play-by-e-mail contest against another player. In addition, you can have the computer manage production if you'd like a more simplified game. Games can be customized by altering the difficulty level (which affects bonuses, positive and negative, to the players) and introducing advanced or additional rules like fog of war, leader ability randomization, and command point recovery. You can also adjust message delays, so you don't have to sit through five-minute-long computer turns. War Between The States comes with four in-game tutorials that only cover the basics and are not enough to understand what the heck is going on. Instead, you'll have to devote some time to watching the video tutorials and (gasp!) reading the manual. The game only comes with three scenarios with different start dates; War Between The States lacks ahistorical what-if missions or smaller map areas that only deal with, say, the western campaign. The lack of campaign variety does certainly limit replay value somewhat.
Wargames aren't exactly known for inviting user interfaces, but War Between The States takes some steps in the right direction. It is very easy to combine units: all of the units in a particular region are listed along the top of the screen, and a simple double-click will assign an independent militia force to a commander. In addition, using control-F will gather nearby units to the selected commander, bringing newly spawned forces to the frontlines with a simple press of a button: that's really cool and unquestionably helpful. Unit types are simplified, with straightforward types like “infantry,” “cavalry,” and “heavy artillery.” This means you don't have to worry about upgrading units with new weapons or any of that stuff your subordinates should be in charge of. Leaders, obviously, are an important aspect of your military force. Each leader is rated in a number of areas (speed, rank, command rating, attack, defense, infantry, cavalry, artillery, naval, administration, training, mortality) that should be noted in order to maximize their effectiveness. Leaders are activated over time: each has a probability of appearing during each turn (month), and you can attempt to activate two leaders each turn (there are no options to automate this process, surprisingly). Leaders will automatically advance in rank through combat experience or troop training, and superior leaders can be appointed theatre or army commanders. Unit training is also done automatically (see a trend forming?), turning sub-standard militia into effective infantry. You can also morph (It's Morphin' Time!) infantry units into mounted ones if you have enough supplies.
Each turn (with represents a month) essentially consists of two phases, although there are a lot of things automated in the background: movement and production. You can also react to an enemy offensive during the appropriately-named reaction phase on occasion. Movement may be conducted in two ways: tactical (marching) or strategic (using railroads or transport ships). There are a lot of restrictions on movement, I suppose to represent strategic options that aren't available, but not allowing large stacks of units to move into an adjacent province even if they haven't done anything this turn is annoying. You can initiate cavalry scouting or raids in addition to the typical military operation. If the enemy forces are outnumbered 6:1 (or more), you will automatically win by overrun; otherwise, it's time for combat. Combat is a complex operation that is thankfully performed in the background (albeit slowly). There is a “whole bunch” (technical term) of variables used to compute the winner: committed units, combat modifiers, critical hits, attrition, and casualty checks, to name a few. After the bar graph display ends, damaged and captured units are calculated, units retreat, and experience is gained. Militia is automatically mobilized in invaded territory, but it will obviously not stand a chance against any organized force.
Since militia is automatically (there's that word again) created, production simply concerns making large, metallic units like artillery and ships. Each state has a number of factories that can produce things, and you can go through each city and queue up some orders. All additional production points can be used to make supplies by selecting an icon, a useful feature that doesn't make you scroll through each city. Supply is, again, automated, but you can make depots to bring things closer to the frontlines. Forts can also be quickly (a bit too quickly, in my opinion) constructed for defensive purposes. The naval aspect of War Between The States shouldn't be ignored, as a robust navy is important for blockades, amphibious transport, and raiding the aforementioned supplies.
So, how do you win? War Between The States uses political points (which are also used to determine the population needed for new militia units, the Presidential election, and the Emancipation Proclamation): first one to 0 loses. The Union can also lose if you don't win the 1864 Presidential election (which is tied to political points, so you probably would have lost anyway) or if the game lasts until July 1865. The AI seems to be a good opponent, using appropriate strategies that appear to be varied in successive games. There is some weird bug with tons of leaders appearing in each province, but I haven't seen this impact the gameplay much.
IN CLOSING
Gary Grigsby's War Between The States is designed with the strategy veteran in mind. The game is more approachable than previous 2by3 titles (War in the Pacific, specifically), but I still think it will ultimately appeal to players accustomed with these kinds of games. I definitely like how many things are automated in the game: unit training, leader advancement, supply, combat, militia recruitment. This makes it easier to control your side during the war. The game is also produces some accurate results, and the strategic value of the title can't be disputed. The video tutorials are almost exhaustive, if a bit dry to watch, but reading the manual is still, unfortunately, a must. The lack of scenario variety (only three historical campaigns) and the high level of complexity will turn some new players away. In the end, I like Forge of Freedom and AGEod’s American Civil War more, but War Between The States is still a generally solid title that will appease fans of the time period and genre.
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City Life 2008 Edition Review
City Life 2008 Edition, developed by Monte Cristo Games and published by Paradox Interactive.
The Good: The ability to import height maps is nice
The Not So Good: 60 buildings and 10 maps? That’s it?
What say you? City Life returns with yet another stand-alone expansion that should have been a free patch: 3/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
At least in my book, the stand-alone expansions for City Life notorious for meager amounts of content. Take City Life World Edition, for example: the publisher of that game complained that I reviewed that title on its improvements alone instead of the product as a whole, even though I had previously reviewed the original game (that skiff led to the disclaimer at the top of the review). Well, City Life is at it again with the 2008 iteration of the series. Again, I am going to focus on the improvements made in this new version of the game rather than the title as a whole since I reviewed the original, so be prepared. And away we go!
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
City Life 2008 Edition comes with 60 new buildings that make your cities look a little bit more varied. That’s all I could find.
ET AL.
A disturbing trend in computer gaming is charging for content in expansion packs that would have been offered as a free patch 10 years ago. City Life 2008 Edition certainly continues this disturbing trend by offering the aforementioned 60 buildings, 10 maps, and the importing greyscale bitmaps for realistic heights into the game. And that’s it. None of these changes impact the gameplay at all, resulting in the same overall product that was released three years ago. I expect expansion packs to add at least something substantial that enhances the gameplay, but City Life 2008 Edition comes with nothing. Despite the fact that you can now import real height maps into the game, the developers couldn’t be bothered with putting in more than a couple of actual locations to play in. This pretty much sums up the wholly unnecessary 2008 version of City Life. It’s nice to see they expect you to do all of the work instead of the developers you paid when you purchased the game.
IN CLOSING
Do I like City Life? Yes. Do I like the additions made by the 2008 edition? No. With quality expansion packs like In Nomine and Twilight of the Arnor, the bar has certainly been raised for what's expected in an expansion and City Life 2008 Edition does not deliver at all. This is a clear attempt to make some extra money by adding some inconsequential content to a two-year-old game. City Life 2008 Edition should have taken a cue from Children of the Nile and offered the upgrades as a free patch for existing owners; that would have resulted in a much more satisfying experience, rather than requiring everybody to pay $30 for some new buildings. Why is this review so short? Since the developers of City Life 2008 Edition have insulted us with this trivial amount of content, I am providing a trivial amount of commentary. It’s only fair.
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Children of the Nile - Enhanced Edition Review
Children of the Nile - Enhanced Edition, developed and published by Tilted Mill Entertainment.
The Good: Advanced resource and needs relationships, right balance of automation, quick tutorial for those itching to play, many small improvements from the original release, scenario and campaign editors
The Not So Good: Almost trivially easy because buildings don’t cost anything other than basic collectible resources that can’t permanently run out nor require upkeep, sluggish pace can become tiresome, no intermediate mission objectives, default tutorials progress very slowly
What say you? A city builder that has partially stood the test of time: 5/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
The city builder used to be a thriving genre, with many notable titles numerous enough that I don’t have to spend time remembering their names since you should know them already. Anyway, one of those titles was Children of the Nile, the first of Tilted Mill’s efforts (which include Caesar IV and SimCity Socieites) that was apparently pretty good (I missed out on it). Since the improvements made in the Enhanced Edition are available as a free download for owners of the original game, I’m going to write this review for people unfamiliar with the city builder and evaluate the title as a whole. Sounds good? Glad to hear it!
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Children of the Nile looked OK back in 2004 when it was released (3-D graphics!), and with a couple of animation and visual upgrades, it looks, well, like an OK game from 2004. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, since the title will run on a wide range of systems, and I wasn’t really expecting a dramatic upgrade from a sub-expansion patch. You can get down to ground level and follow your villagers around as they do their daily tasks, which is a nice touch. Also neat is the small real-time view of the occupants when you click on a building. Voyeurism has never been so much fun! The terrain as a whole is pretty bland, with brown being the dominant hue. The user interface is essentially the same, with less-than-spectacular text menus for buildings and a lack of robust on-screen feedback. The sound consists of fitting background music with some quips by your residents and suitable construction noise. It’s not spectacular by any means here in 2008, but it’ll do.
ET AL.
Children of the Nile - Enhanced Edition comes with 20 scenarios that also comprise a campaign that unlocks an easy, medium, and hard scenario each time. The scenario list simply shows the name of the city you will control, and hides difficulty and objective information until you click on it: how archaic. Children of the Nile can be complex for beginners, so there are a number of tutorials to teach the basics of the game. The “normal” three-mission tutorial progresses very slowly since you can’t skip past instructions and the game is poor to detect when you’ve completed something. You’ll commonly sit there for minutes at a time staring at instructions on how to move the camera well after you’ve already done it. The Enhanced Edition adds a “quick start” tutorial that is far superior, as it quickly moves through the basics once you complete them, but it does leave a lot of content out you will need for the first easy scenario in the campaign. Children of the Nile comes with editors to make your own scenarios and campaigns, so it’s a bit odd that the Enhanced Edition didn’t ship with a bunch of user-created scenarios since the game has been out for four years. Each individual scenario takes a really long time to complete, so even with only twenty, you’ll be busy for a while.
Like most city builders, Children of the Nile gives you the task of constructing buildings to satisfy your citizens’ needs. The game is very well automated: all you need to do is place the appropriate buildings and your citizens will go collect supplies and manufacture their goods without intervention. This has benefits and drawbacks: while it makes the game easier to learn, you’ll commonly be sitting there waiting for buildings to finish and the basic game never gets more complicated than placing buildings. I suppose that’s all a city builder is, but a bit more variety is always appreciated. The reason why Children of the Nile tends to get boring is that you can’t really lose. Unlike most games where you have a budget to worry about, your buildings have no daily or annual upkeep cost and no purchase price other than bricks. You can plop down 100 buildings without penalty and simply wait for resources to accumulate, so as long as you place them in the correct order to satisfy needs, then you’ll do OK. Just spam a whole bunch of brick makers and bricklayers (which are both free) and sit back and wait. As you can see, strategy really has nothing to do with it, which is very disappointing. Maybe this is the problem with going back and playing a game after you’ve experienced more sophisticated sequels, but it is what it is.
Each citizen has a set of basic needs that must be fulfilled. Farmers grow food, shopkeepers produce goods, priests perform a range of services (medicine, worship, burial, education), military troops provide security, and entertainers are to be laughed at. There is a flow chart of education, as people progress from simple villagers to educated priests and scribes. Still, as long as you have the right structures close enough to the people that need them, you’ll be fine. Children of the Nile assumes you remember everything from the manual and tutorials, as tool-tips are short and the missions don’t provide any objectives other than the overall goal. One thing I liked in Imperium Romanum was the intermediate objectives that served as a sort of tutorial to guide you towards your overall goal. Sadly, Children of the Nile lacks this feature, so you are left having to remember all of the resource and needs relationships as you progress. The interface could be better designed: all of your citizens are organized in an approval list (a good feature), but it displays green even if they have one or two key areas of need. This makes it so that you need to constantly monitor each building in your village, something that the people report was supposed to eliminate. There’s a new icon that shows buildings that have no problems, but you still need to click through all of the others to see what the troubles are. For a game that features so much great automation, this annoying amount of micromanagement and tedium is quite unwelcome.
The basic mechanics of Children of the Nile can be quite interesting, with sophisticated and numerous needs by each of your residents. The game progresses very slowly, however: even at the maximum accelerated rate (2.5x), it was still sitting around waiting for bricks to accumulate with an entire city essentially queued up for success. There are some minor wrinkles to the time elements that make the game somewhat intriguing: you can introduce trade with outside cities, there are planting and harvesting seasons (along with damaging floods), and edicts can be issued to provide bonuses with a tradeoff. In addition to the basic suite of buildings, you can decorate your cities with plazas, gardens, and temples. These increase your town’s prestige in addition to usually fulfilling a scenario objective. Roads can also be constructed to make a more realistic town, and the Enhanced Edition’s roads make travel faster (surprising that they were merely cosmetic before). The Enhanced Edition also brings a whole bunch (48) of bug fixes, and I must say that playing Children of the Nile has been very stable with no noticeable problems whatsoever. How many games can you say that about? It also comes with a handful of new plazas and other decorative features and the brickyard to make construction even easier and faster.
IN CLOSING
I’m not sure what all the hubbub was about, because I’m not really that impressed with Children of the Nile. Maybe it’s because I’m playing the game four years after it came out, but the game appears to be too easy to provide much of a challenge. There are a lot of needs to attend do, but it’s simply a matter of choosing the right structure. The best thing about Children of the Nile is the amount of automation in the game, but it also holds the game back from being truly sophisticated. As long as you plop down the right buildings, everything will be run for you since villagers will collect resources automatically and all you need to worry about is proximity. Most buildings have no-cost, and the ones that do only cost bricks, which can be easily manufactured by placing no-cost brick makers and bricklayers. Where’s the challenge? I had the same problem with the SimCity series of games, but even they introduced some difficulty in balancing your budget early on. Children of the Nile removes any sort of trouble since most resource collecting buildings are free and those that require bricks have no other upkeep. The interface shows everything is OK with bright green lights even if there are a number of problem areas that need attention. The quick start tutorial is a great addition to the game, as it significantly speeds up the learning process. The twenty scenarios that are available either as stand-alone missions or linked in the campaign might not seem like a lot of content, but each one takes a long time to complete (thanks to the leisurely pace of the game) and the included editors allow you to make more. For $20, I might give this game a look at, but Children of the Nile – Enhanced Edition is too trivial for my tastes.
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Playfirst August 2008 Coupon
Coupon: 20% off of any Playfirst game
Code: AUGUSTAFFILIATES
Expiration date: September 1, 2008
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Game du Jour: Week of July 21
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ web site dedicated to indie and casual games:
Mon. July 21st: 65% off on Fire Flower
Tue. July 22nd: 50% off on Eschalon: Book I
Wed. July 23rd: 50% off on Blue BalloonZ
Thu. July 24th: 40% off on Virtual Villagers - The Secret City
Fri. July 25th: 50% off on My Craps Game
Sat. July 26th: 75% off on Mahjong Forests
Sun. July 27th: 60% off on The Pyramid
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Shelled! Online Review
Shelled! Online, developed and published by Red Thumb Games.
The Good: Realistic physics, limited movement makes attacks easier and maneuvering strategic, deformable terrain, lots of varied weapons, multiple gameplay modes, easy to join online matches, straightforward controls, informative tutorials
The Not So Good: No difficulty settings for single player campaign or AI opponents, can’t adjust power scroll speed, weapon camera can’t be permanently minimized, low resolution graphics, maps aren’t random
What say you? One of the better arcade tank combat games: 6/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
I’ve played my fair share of tank combat games: Tank Universal, Think Tanks, First Battalion, T-72, Battle Carry, DropTeam. Only one of them was any good (the last one) and they seem to be decently popular; now, we are presented with Shelled! Online. Disappointingly not an Internet-based lobster simulation, this combination of the classic game Scorched Earth, a 3-D environment, and Mario-like turtle shells looks to breathe some fresh air into a generally disappointing sub-genre. First person shooters seem to be getting all of the love, but why not jump into a heavily armored vehicle to wreak some havoc? Sounds like a good time had by all, except for the guy getting blown up. Will Shelled! Online resurrect the arcade tank game?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Being from an independent developer, you wouldn’t expect the presentation of Shelled! Online to be groundbreaking, and it’s not! Shelled! Online is one of those Torque game engine titles, which typically means passable 3-D graphics (see here and here) with an independent look. The environments consist of a lot of circular hills with some peaks and rivers (very reminiscent of Kingmania, actually) and the tanks are tricked-out turtle shells of doom. The explosions, while repetitive (the tanks fly apart), are effective. The deformable terrain is nice (it also has a tactical benefit) and varies the landscape after intense matches. Shelled! Online has a maximum resolution of 1024x768, which is disappointing for users with widescreen or LCD monitors. While the game can be played in a window, increasing the resolution would result in a better overall look and not stretch the game in full-screen views. The game features a snazzy weapon camera that follows your shot; this a neat feature, but I wish there was an option to make it show the view in a mini-map (which is does once you click your mouse) instead of having to manually switch back to a view of your tank after every shot. The audio in Shelled! Online is very basic, with some explosions and other minor effects. I do like the background music, though: it is quite catchy without overriding the rest of the game. Overall, Shelled! Online delivers exactly what I was expecting for the presentation: average for an independent game.
ET AL.
A simpleton would say that Shelled! Online is merely Scorched Earth in 3-D, and they would be mostly correct: the object of the game is to set shot power and angle and launch exotic weapons at your opponents. The game comes with twenty single player missions with various objectives, such as destroying bases or gathering gold. They are an entertaining-for-a-while diversion from the focus of the game, which is the online competition. The missions can be quite hard, since it’s usually just you against a slew of tanks and stationary turrets; the lack of difficulty settings (that could have given you increased health, for example) makes trudging through the campaign a bit less desirable. In addition to competing against the AI in the scripted missions, you can encounter them in deathmatch-only skirmish games or on the online servers. The AI provides good practice for the online game as they can engage (and avoid) you pretty well, but their somewhat simplistic nature shines through during the team-based games as they don’t capture flags or bases too well. They do play fair, however, and playing against them is about the same as with other multiplayer-centric titles like Battlefield and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Like the campaign, the AI lacks difficulty settings, but they don’t really need to become any easier of an opponent.
As for the multiplayer aspect of Shelled! Online, the game features an integrated browser that makes it easy to join a match. All of the games I saw were hosted by the developer (one for each game type) and provided lag-free gameplay. The game types aren’t revolutionary by any means, but they do offer some variety: deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, hunters and prey (tag, essentially), capture the hill (domination or conquest), and destroy the base. There are a number of maps to choose from, although there is only one map for the team-based modes. The maps also are not randomly generated (something that would be seemingly possible considering the game engine), but you are given random spawn points that mix up the action somewhat. The rounds are short (3 minutes), and this keeps the game from dragging. You are also able to create your own tank design, including color, body, head, tail, and feet (or have the computer generate one for you), that will be used to represent you online: a nice feature.
Controlling your tank is standard fare if you’re accustomed to any first person shooter, using the mouse/keyboard combination we all know and love or the depraved XBOX controller. Your tank can move in three dimensions using a jet pack that adds some interesting strategy to the mix. Shelled! Online is entrenched in physics, which means you have to aim above your target in order to hit it. As you will all no doubt recall from physics class, a 45 degree angle will result in the largest distance traveled, but you also have to consider obstacles that may be in your way: the deformable terrain has a nasty habit of placing craters everywhere. The game displays your last shot power level visually; this makes is very easy to make small adjustments to your next shot. The power bar slowly creeps up the scale, and you depress the mouse button when you have reached the desired level. I’d like to have an option to change the speed at which the power increases for all players, but I understand why the design decision was made (to compliment the movement…see below).
Shelled! Online is a real-time game with a turn-based pace thanks to the movement rules: you have limited fuel and must wait until your fuel fully recharges before you can move again. While some people who enjoy twitch shooters will find this very handicapping, I like how it adds dramatically to the overall strategy in the game. There are definitely some tense moments as you are hunkered down in a crater (or, worse, at the top of a hill where everyone can see you) waiting for your fuel to accumulate. Shelled! Online comes with a lot of weapons to choose from: multiple shots, big shots, nukes (really big shots), diggers, mines, freezing, rockets, shrapnel, and first aid for teammates. These are purchased by using cash you earn by blowing up other tanks or collecting gold shells randomly scattered around the level (the single player mode gives you weapons at the beginning of each level only). In addition to simply launching shells at enemies and hitting them, you can smack them in mid-air (you can detonate a shell prematurely by pressing the right mouse button) or ram into them. When a shot is taken, the game jumps to a view of your shell as it flies through the air. While this is nice to look at and a good planning tool, it makes moving and shooting at the same time difficult. Thankfully, once you press the left mouse button to exit the view, it shows the remainder of the track as a small window in the corner of the screen. As I mentioned earlier, I’d like the option to turn this on first if the player so chooses. Overall, Shelled! Online is a fun tactical action game that strikes a good balance between turn-based planning and real-time chaos. It does take some practice to learn how far the shells fly at certain power levels, but after a while you’ll get the hang of it. Making a difficult shot is a rewarding feeling, whether it’s against human opponents or the AI. All of the issues I have with Shelled! Online are minor at best, as the game is quite solid as a whole.
IN CLOSING
Don’t be fooled by the comparatively simple 3-D presentation: there’s an addictive action game contained in Shelled! Online. It takes the best aspects of Scorched Earth and adds in a 3-D environment, tons of weapons, and methodical real-time gameplay. Gamers who enjoy fast-paced games won’t like Shelled! Online, but I do enjoy the tense limited movement and physics-based mechanics. I think if the game looked more like a AAA title, then more people would be drawn to its infectious gameplay. There are a handful of small improvements that could be made to polish up the game, but the title is good enough to be quite enjoyable.
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PC Game Review: Ranch Rush
I may be a native Texan, but I’m far from wearing 10-gallon hats and cowboy boots. Once in a while I’ll see horses, cows, and longhorns while driving around my lovely city. I don’t even like country music and don’t envy my daughter’s recent month-long trip stop to the Country Music Hall of Fame (she couldn’t care less about it either). So if anyone shouldn’t like a ranchin’ game — it’s me.
Ranch Rush and its star prove me wrong. Sara loves working in a nursery where she experiments with new flowers. Boss Jim reports that he’ll have to sell the store to the developers in eight weeks unless things change for the better.
Rather than giving up on her home away from home, she remembers they have three acres of land and decides to open a farmer’s market to raise money for the nursery. With shovel in hand and a bag of seeds, she has eight weeks to succeed in fulfilling customer orders. Each week consists of multiple customer orders and she takes care of one customer at a time.
Instead of seeing a path of your progress, we see a chart showing eight weeks with an update at the end of each week. A skill meter that looks like a grain silo tower also appears on the progress report page. This identifies your rank.
You start with clovers, corn, and tomatoes. Then add a cow for milk (hey, animal rights folks — it’s all pixels — no animals get hurt in the game). Feed clovers to the cow to produce milk. Next come the bees that hang out at their hives and digging in the clovers. Make your move while they hover the clover or else get stung and no honey. Eventually, you’ll get a machine like the cheese maker. It takes two jugs of milk to make cheese.
The week begins on Monday with a customer’s order. Once you finish that, you move through the week until Saturday, Farmer’s Market Day. Here you race to turn in as many products as you can for a chunk of cash. Sunday is a day of rest as you’ve earned it. New crops, animals, machines, gear, and other useful tools pop up at a nice pace throughout the game.
After playing the whole game, you may want to play it again with a new ranch. It doesn’t matter if you have $100K and all the upgrades available, you only have so much space to store it all. That’s the beauty of the game — there’s no way to have two of everything (not counting crops) so you have to decide what you need and how many. Arrange your crops and objects in any way you desire and take a snapshot. Playing it again with a new ranch gives you an opportunity to play with different layouts and discover most efficient way to run your ranch.
Nontheless, Ranch Rush has roped me in with its charm, unpredictability, constant introduction of new features, and super whoopin’ production values. Yee haw! Ya gotta try Ranch Rush.
Get it from your favorite site:
Big Fish Games
Reflexive
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Ancient Quest of Saqqarah Review
Ancient Quest of Saqqarah, developed and published by Codeminion.
The Good: Many variations on the basic match-three mechanic, lots of puzzles with diverse layouts, don’t need to complete a game type to unlock the next, good presentation for the genre, subtle hint system
The Not So Good: Not a fan of the bonus rounds
What say you? Variety highlights this impressive match-three puzzle game: 7/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
We all know the match-three game: move stuff around and get adjoining webs, superheroes, gems, more gems, records, blocks, or music. Blah blah blah. Most of the titles in the genre are one-note offerings with repetitive gameplay that will surely bore you to tears within minutes. But wait! Codeminion returns with their “major puzzle game” entitled Ancient Quest of Saqqarah, or Saqqarah for short (wonder if he got picked on as a child for that crazy name?). All right, Ancient Quest of Saqqarah, do your best to take me out of my match-three-induced slumber.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
For a match-three puzzle game, Ancient Quest of Saqqarah offers up an above-average presentation. While the game is in 2-D, I certainly don’t have a problem with that as long as the game looks decent, which Saqqarah certainly does. The game is full of effects from making matches and a straightforward interface that makes navigating the game easy as pie (pumpkin is my favorite). The colors are distinct and the completed sections of each puzzle are clearly marked in two ways: by highlighting the path and the background, Saqqarah makes sure you know where you need to make matches next. Even better than the graphics is the sound. Ancient Quest of Saqqarah comes with fitting Egyptian background music and some great effects, such as when tiles hit the ground and excited reactions when you make impressively large matches. The voice acting is a bit over the top, but that’s nothing to complain about. Overall, the presentation of Ancient Quest of Saqqarah is well-done.
ET AL.
While Ancient Quest of Saqqarah (I think that's the last time I'm going to use the full name...unless the review looks short) is, at its heart, a run-of-the-mill match-three puzzle game, the title introduces a level of unmatched variety that makes it stand out. Your goal in each puzzle is to make a match along each path on the board, and since the boards have some interesting arrangements, this is an interesting task beyond a simple high score or clear the board objective. There are seven different flavors of matching in Saqqarah, each of which has 24 unique layouts for each of the three difficulty levels: that's 504 puzzles total (I did the math).
So, what are the seven varieties? “Swap” is the standard move-adjacent-gems mode that we've seen before. “Logic” mode gives you no new gems and you must switch existing pieces to make matches in each of the shapes of the game: I like it. “Pop” mode requires the least amount of thinking, as you just need to click on a match and it disappears: no moving required. It's odd, then, that “pop” is one of the last ones to unlock, since it seems more appropriate for beginners. “Select” requires you to trace a path over an existing match: an advanced version of “pop.” “Paths” requires you to move gems along a clear path to an open spot and new ones spawn if you don't make a match; this is one of the more difficult offerings that requires a lot of planning. Thankfully, you are shown the new gems that will spawn in the next turn, and that makes planning easier. “Rotate” makes you click on shapes to rotate (surprise!) the gems around them to make matches. And, finally, “in hand” swaps a given tile to make matches, sort of like Tetris. The sheer amount of variety in Saqqarah is awesome and the different modes prevent the game from getting repetitive, as a lot of puzzles games tend to do.
Thankfully, you don't need to complete all 52 levels in a series to unlock the next (or even 24 at the easiest difficulty level): just four will do it. That means you won't be spending much time at all on the puzzle types you hate before you can move on to the next. What a great feature. My only complaint about Saqqarah is the bonus rounds: I don't like them. It involves searching for hieroglyphs and I think it's too different from the base gameplay and does not flow well with the remainder of the title. Of course, if Saqqarah did not feature some change of pace, I'd probably complain about that, too. You can never win!
IN CLOSING
How many ways can you do a match-three game? Apparently more than I thought, and Saqqarah packs them all in to one game. This game features the most variety of any matching game I can remember, with seven distinct versions of the classic mechanic to choose from. The 504 puzzles aren't simply repeats of the previous level with a slightly more difficult goal: they are genuinely different. The layouts are also varied, and the objective of matching matches all across the board is more advanced than simply clearing the level of getting a minimum score. The presentation is top-notch, thanks to memorable sound and pleasing graphics. This, my friends, is how you do a match-three puzzle game. If you have any interest in the genre, then Ancient Quest of Saqqarah should be at the top of your list.
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Peggle Fan Scores 18 Million on One Shot
From Popcap release (shortened): Steve Day was a man on a mission – now he’s the proud possessor of the world’s highest-scoring Peggle shot. A currency trader from Portsmouth on England’s southern coast who previously spent a dozen years as a software developer, Steve achieved his 18-million+ point shot after being inspired by a video of the previous best shot, a 13-million point shot by Max Daube of Australia, using the same level and power-up. Steve’s YouTube video of his shot, along with a shot-by-shot “video tutorial” of the entire level on which the shot occurred.
After buying Peggle Deluxe and completing most of the game, Steve did a Google search looking for tips on scoring 750,000 points on one level – generally considered the toughest of the game’s 75 “Challenge Mode” hurdles. “If I hadn’t found the YouTube replay of Max’s wondrous shot, I don’t think I’d have ever thought of it myself,” Steve admits. “I’d already managed to clear all of the pegs on that level (”Beyond Reason,” the last level in the game, known less formally as “Zen Frog”) using the “space blast” power-up, but thanks to the videos on You Tube I finally achieved the 750K challenge. However, having completed the game I felt somehow robbed of what had become my working companion, and having read some of the comments on You Tube regarding the ‘impossibility’ of clearing the side pegs, I decided to see if I could find a way, and perhaps set a new scoring record in the process.”
“First, I set about finding a way to clear all the pegs – orange and blue – from the sides of the level without creating holes in the central ‘DNA strands’ of pegs due to ricochets,” he recalls. “As it turned out I achieved this in only an hour or so. I employed the same technique I’d used obtaining the ‘100% clear’ on some of the harder levels, namely picking logical landmarks on the screen to use as mouse position markers. In this way I could easily replicate the shots, and when combined with a little ‘bucket timing’ could be guaranteed of getting a free ball to boot. Clearing the hole at the bottom of the helix proved more difficult though, since it was a moving target; and it took awhile longer to work out some shots that had at least a 70% chance of getting a free ball.”
Steve continues, “By this time I was regularly getting 5 million point finishes, and completing probably 1 in 5 attempts, and I had decided I wanted to beat the 13.5 million by a decent margin, and make a video to put on YouTube. It had also become apparent that the highest scores were dependent on having a large number of blue pegs left to clear after the last orange peg had been hit. So having got 14 Million a couple of times, the extremely lucky 18 Million point shot came about through a combination of the law of averages and 3 ‘lottery winner’ type lucky shots, each being the result of miss-timed shots that ended up kicking the bucket, taking out an extra peg or two, and miraculously ending up back in the bucket where I had originally intended them to go. It was these extra pegs, and a lucky final shot, that secured the very pleasing Cool Clear and Ultra Extreme Fever - though I don’t think that this added greatly to the final score. Of course getting an extra ball off of Reinfeld was just the icing on the cake and did add 300K to the score board which was a nice touch.”
As for the painstakingly shot and edited “how-to” video that follows the footage of the shot itself in Steve’s YouTube video, “I wanted to make a ‘live play’ tutorial section to show that it was indeed possible to clear the side pegs without touching the inner helix,” Steve explains. Indeed, Steve’s exhaustive video tutorial provides details on each and every shot of his record-breaking effort, including exactly where to position the cursor prior to launching each shot AND location and direction of the bucket below the playfield when each shot is launched.
When asked whether he believes his record will stand the test of time, Steve is realistic to say the least. “I’m under no illusion that my score is somehow ‘unbeatable’ – and in fact would love to see someone top it,” he grins. “That was the intention behind the tutorial in the video, to see if collectively the Peggle Deluxecommunity could compile enough information to achieve and even better shot and score. However there must be an absolute theoretical ceiling on the maximum score possible. Hopefully someday we’ll get to see what it is!”
Peggle review.
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Pro Cycling Manager 2008 Review
Pro Cycling Manager 2008, developed by Cyanide Studio and published by Focus Home Interactive.
The Good: Interesting strategic gameplay, around 400 stages to choose from including the full Tour de France, comprehensive team career mode, fun and easy to join multiplayer, track racing adds some variety, course and rider editors
The Not So Good: Initially long load times, shallow tutorials don’t cover general race strategy or career mode, deliberate pace won’t appeal to some, repetitive commentary, minor bugs
What say you? You can’t find a more complete cycling management simulation, but it is quite a niche product: 6/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
The month of July brings Le Tour de France, a French phrase that means “I am the State.” The most prominent cycling event in the world features heart-pounding excitement and non-sexual uses of the world “peloton.” The Pro Cycling Manager series has been around for several iterations since the first game in 2001, showing the European obsession with both sports management games and cycling. Rather than doing all of the cycling yourself, Pro Cycling Manager puts you in charge of a team of riders that will work together to finish well and bring in huge stacks of cash. I downloaded the demo of last year’s version so I am somewhat familiar with the game, and as both a sports fan and a strategy gamer I find the premise interesting. Will Pro Cycling Manager 2008 race to a podium finish, or crash in a spectacular display of ineptitude?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
The graphics are improved over last year’s, featuring almost believable terrain and quality rider animations. While the bikes look somewhat out of place with 2-D tires, the riders look good with some fancy lighting effects and a pack of cyclists is visually impressive. The locales are generated automatically according to the 2-D height profile, so France looks the same as Georgia and Australia, but there is some variety in the towns and crops you will travel through. I’m not expecting accurate geography, especially when the game includes 400 stages from around the world, but having region-specific graphics would be nice. Obviously these improved graphics come at a price, as the system requirements have been increased, so low-end machines might have trouble with the 3-D races. Pro Cycling Manager 2008 does feature some very long load times: you can wait upwards of several minutes before jumping into the race. Fortunately, the game does cache each locale for future use, if you so happen to visit the same stage. Of course, with 400 stages to choose from, this feature is somewhat superfluous. The sound design is just average: some generic background music (which I quickly turned down) and the incessant whine of bicycles dominate the title. The commentary in the game is annoyingly loud, abrupt, and repetitive, consisting of ten phrases total (I don’t know how the commentary folder has almost 2,000 files, because the game certainly doesn’t use them all). At least almost every rider is mentioned by name. Overall, I found the graphics and sound of Pro Cycling Manager 2008 to be pleasant enough, though, as the game does a good enough job of immersing you into the gameplay.
ET AL.
In Pro Cycling Manager 2008, you are the manager of a pro cycling team (imagine that!), no doubt in the year 2008. The game features some very basic tutorials that only touch on the basics of the game, such as counter-attacks and setting the pace. More advanced maneuvers, in addition to navigating through the career mode, are only covered in the manual, and we all know reading is for suckers. The tutorial also doesn't tell you basic race strategy for those unaccustomed to cycling (such as myself) who may not know when is a good time to attack during a race. The manual also references a non-existent blue bar on occasion, adding to the confusion. Once thing Pro Cycling Manager 2008 does not lack is racing content. The game features around 65 multi-stage races (the game calls them “stages,” which is really confusing since I thought they are made up of stages), 400 individual stages (which the game calls “stage races”) from those events, and over 80 classic stages from the past. All of these stages have seemingly authentic elevation information that results in quite a large variety of strategy. In addition to classic road-course-based racing, Pro Cycling Manager 2008 adds in track racing against other drivers (like in the Olympics) where you directly control one competitor's effort level and steering. It's a nice diversion from the main focus of the game and typically results in some exciting, close racing.
If the default content isn't enough, Pro Cycling Manager 2008 features a couple of editors that allow you to create custom riders (for filling out the few missing real-world riders) and races from existing events. You can also edit stages yourself, since they are simple XML files, so the game is really quite unlimited in its potential. The career mode lets you control a single team on its way to world domination. You will have to control your finances by signing sponsors and adjusting rider contracts, scout new talent around the globe, and improve your existing squad by running training camps. There is certainly enough here to keep you busy for quite a while if you are more interested in a longer experience. Also, Pro Cycling Manager 2008 uses an outside program (by the same developer) for multiplayer matches that are both fun and easy to join. It's always better to play against unpredictable human opponents rather than the boring ol' AI, so it's nice to see well-implemented multiplayer.
So the features are robust, how about the gameplay? The races of Pro Cycling Manager 2008 play out like a simple strategy game where you, as team director, will instruct your riders when to attack and when to conserve. Before each race, you will need to assign a team leader, team-mates to back him up, a sprinter for capturing points, and free riders to do their own thing. During the race, each driver will be given a maximum effort level and an order. You won't actually control any rider directly (except in the track racing mode), but the AI will follow your orders well. Orders include holding position, applying a specific effort level, relaying to the front of the pack, feeding, attacks, counter-attacks, and sprints. While this isn’t a whole lot to choose from and you don’t have the direct control over your riders that a lot of micromanagers would like, it is enough to run a race. Each rider has three energy bars: green for the entire race, yellow for high-speed sections, and red for attacks. In order to break away from the peloton (the gigantic group of riders where almost everyone hangs out), you'll need to have almost full yellow and red bars. The strategy comes in when you attack: you have to consider how much energy an attack will use (your rider will not be able to hold a fast pace for the entire race), the upcoming geography (attacking on a hill is tough), your rider's stats (some are better on flat sections), and other factors. It's pretty interesting, I think, since most of the tracks don't have obvious places to attack and the races play out differently each time. The peloton will also increase its pace near the end of the race, so you don’t want to wait too long to launch an attack. The AI does a good job offering up varied attacks, but they can be beaten if you execute a sound strategy. Your computer opponents also do a good job at being conservative in the first couple of stages of an event and going for it all later on when it counts. It took me a couple of races to find out how often and how hard you can attack (since the tutorials and manual don't really cover this), but once I got the hang of it, Pro Cycling Manager 2008 provided some good action. You have more options during sprints (adjusting aggressiveness), but in general you will be simply messing with hold, go to front, or attack commands. Reacting to other riders and planning out your race can be quite fun, if you enjoy these kinds of games. Thankfully, the game does not unfold in real time (even at the slowest setting), and you can accelerate the game even further in single player mode to get past those boring times when you aren't planning anything. Pro Cycling Manager 2008 does suffer from some sporadic bugs, such as deleting messages and adjusting efforts when multiple riders are selected, but these aren't major by any means.
IN CLOSING
Pro Cycling Manager 2008 is designed well, but you have to like cycling to enjoy the game to its fullest. Because of this, I think Pro Cycling Manager 2008 lacks the widespread appeal that would bring newcomers to the series that aren't already accustomed to the sport, but maybe the Tour de France will drum up interest and bring some more fans into the fold. What you get in Pro Cycling Manager 2008 is a fine elementary strategy game where you must decide the right time for an attack. Although your options are realistically limited since you can't directly control your riders, the limited options of attack and hold makes the game easy to learn, even with the inadequate tutorial and manual. The game certainly has a lot of content, with over 400 races to choose from, including the granddaddy of them all, and the roster of cyclists seems to be pretty complete as well. The addition of track racing is neat as well, and it’s a highlight of the overall package thanks to its interesting mechanics. While the sound design is unimpressive, the graphics are good enough to a sports management title. If you are looking for a complete cycling game, then Pro Cycling Manager 2008 is for you. However, the unique focus makes the game a little tough to recommend to a widespread audience.
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Game du Jour: Week of July 14
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ web site dedicated to indie and casual games:
Mon. July 14th: 50% off on Groschengrab Deluxe
Tue. July 15th: 40% off on Super Text Twist
Wed. July 16th: 65% off on Discovering Nature
Thu. July 17th: 55% off on Deep Blue Sea
Fri. July 18th: 50% off on Lethal Judgment 4 - Deluxe
Sat. July 19th: 40% off on Sally’s Spa
Sun. July 20th: 75% off on Linx0r
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The Political Machine 2008 Review
The Political Machine 2008, developed and published by Stardock Entertainment.
The Good: Fairly straightforward strategic gameplay, lots of issues, flexible custom candidate editor and a bunch of real-world candidates, competitive AI on higher settings, easy to join multiplayer, use of negative ads is improved
The Not So Good: No core gameplay changes from the four-year-old original, only one historical scenario and no map editor makes the game repetitive, redundant map views, non-interactive tutorials
What say you? One election later, the political simulation returns with new graphics and not much else: 5/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
Apparently, there is a presidential election coming up. Yeah, I know, they hardly ever mention it on the news. Along with a new election comes new computer games about the election, and the more casual The Political Machine has returned with a 2008 version for your campaigning enjoyment. While there are certainly disturbingly in-depth simulations available, The Political Machine series has tried to broaden its audience with colorful graphics and more straightforward voter manipulation. How has four more years treated the series?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Clearly, the area that has gotten the most improvement in The Political Machine 2008 is the graphics. The game is now rendered using all three dimensions, from the base map to the characters and various things you will place in each state. There is a cartoon atmosphere to the game as exemplified by the character models: big heads, small bodies, and exaggerated features show that The Political Machine 2008 certainly does not take itself too seriously. The game does look better than its predecessor, and being able to zoom in and rotate the map makes finding the elements in each state a lot easier, especially since it can get quite crowded at the end of the game with ads, activists, and operatives. Overall, I am pleased with the graphical upgrade and the game looks much better than the more hardcore political simulations on the market. While the sound effects are minimal at best (just some small celebrations when you give a speech) and none of the in-game interviews are voiced, the game music is catchy and goes along well with the graphics. The Political Machine 2008 does deliver at least $20 worth of value in the well-done presentation.
ET AL.
The goal (obviously) of The Political Machine 2008 is to win the presidential election by accumulating the most electoral votes across the fifty states. The campaign model from before is intact: choose any of the initially unlocked candidates and progress through six increasingly more difficult opponents. Making your way through the campaign unlocks additions characters (once you defeat them), so there is a point. All of the campaign games use default values, but you can customize the game through the quick play mode. The game length, starting funds, and overall difficulty can be customized, in addition to choosing one of four maps: the 2008 U.S. election, the 1860 election, a unification of Europe, and a fictitious planet based on the Galactic Civilizations universe. This is certainly more content than the previous game (which only featured one map, if I remember correctly), but having more historical scenarios would be a good feature. Why have Bill Clinton if you can’t play any of the elections he was actually involved in? It seems like shifting electoral votes around and changing the important issues would be relatively easy to do, so it’s surprising that The Political Machine 2008 doesn’t offer more historical content. Having more maps, especially the United States from the 18th or early 20th centuries, would be cool, but The Political Machine 2008 lacks a lot of maps and doesn’t feature a map editor so that you can create your own. This means you will use the same exact strategy each time you play the same map, focusing on the same states. In addition, The Political Machine 2008 doesn’t have a primary system, even with the extremely long (121 turn) scenarios. It would be cool to have several Democrats and Republicans playing in the same scenario (this would also allow for more than two competitors in multiplayer), but, again, four addition years of development did not add very many new features.
However, one new feature is the custom candidate editor. Before, you could alter a text file and import a bitmap image to add new people to the game, but The Political Machine 2008 lets you do this in-game now. You can choose the name, party, and home state, in addition to a number of characteristics that will impact the game: stamina (the number of actions you can perform per turn), wealth, fund raising ability, charisma (for ads and speeches), comeliness (TV appearances), credibility (for negative ads), experience (cost of endorsements), and intelligence (number of responses for TV). You are limited in the number of total points you can allocate, so you cannot create a super-candidate. You can also set your initial stance on a variety of issues; since you do not know exactly which issues are going to be most important, it’s somewhat of a stab in the dark. The Political Machine 2008 also offers a number of body parts to choose from to customize your look: very cool. Multiplayer in The Political Machine 2008 is the same as before: easy to join one-on-one matches using an in-game browser. Turn length settings can be introduced to speed up the action, and games against human competition are generally enjoyable.
So, how do you get those precious 270 electoral votes? Essentially, you make the voters aware of your stance on the most important issues to them. Simply visiting a state, giving speeches, or placing advertisements can increase general awareness. Each state will have different issues of importance, so you can target specific battleground states or place national advertisements for nationally significant matters. The Political Machine 2008 gives you clear numbers and icons on your candidate’s standing in each state, along with the alignment of each party for every issue. National polls are less concrete as you are given percentages, the meaning of which is never clearly explained. The first thing you’ll want to do is establish campaign headquarters in key states: these will not only bring in weekly income, but they will increase your candidate’s awareness and show you the important issues for the state. You can also place consulting offices that will give political capital (used to hire operatives) and outreach centers for PR clout (used to gain endorsements). Any of these buildings can be upgraded, which brings in more income and information. Speeches will produce a large increase in your stance ratings on a specific issue, while ads will have a more gradual effect over time. You can do negative ads in the game; before, there wasn’t much difference between saying “I like cheese” and “my opponent hates cheese,” but now your credibility rating will affect the effectiveness of negative ads. More expensive advertisements (radio and TV) reach more states and should be used for nationally important issues.
You will have to fund all of these ads (and travel expenses), so fund raising rallies can be activated for a short-term cash solution. Endorsements produce a short-term, issue-specific boost to your ratings (like the NRA will affect gun control), but they are clearly separated by party lines so you are never fighting your opponent over them, which makes them not that interesting. Activists, which can be activated by visiting a state with a question mark, will provide a permanent positive or negative bonus to that particular state. You can also hire operatives, which will raise and lower stuff like awareness and issue ratings in the states you choose. There are a couple of new operatives in The Political Machine 2008, but they do not drastically improve the gameplay. You will also go on TV for interviews, going head-to-head against knock-offs of Stephen Colbert and Larry King. All of these things were present in the original game, and the same interface problems are still around: why do we need both polling data and popular vote, as they show the same thing? The map overlays could be combined better or streamlined, and it seems the developers took the easy way out by keeping information delivery the same. The overall strategy remains the same: lower opponent awareness while raising your own, and push your issues while downplaying theirs. Because of this, games in The Political Machine 2008 play out exactly the same as before, since this newer version doesn’t offer anything that changes the gameplay. Stardock has done expansions that change the game more a year or two after the original was released than this four-years-later offering. The AI is very solid (a hallmark of any Stardock game) and a good opponent that clearly understands the mechanics, but the feeling of déjà vu never disappears. When you finish your game, you are treated to the same bare presentation as before: states slowly light up with no ongoing suspense. Where are the “close calls” like Ohio or Florida? Where is the media coverage? This sums up The Political Machine 2008: a four-year wait for these underwhelming improvements?
IN CLOSING
While The Political Machine 2008 is clearly the most intuitive election simulation available on the market, geared towards a general audience, we’ve played this game before four years ago. The game offers more scenarios, but even more would reduce the repetition of the campaign. The way it is, you use the same strategy each time you play (since the same states will be most important: those with lots of votes and an even split of voters), so when you play one of the four maps once, you've played it enough. The additional operatives aren’t game changing and the presentation is definitely better, but these are minor improvements in my opinion. I do like the custom candidates and the appearances you can produce, but you could do that before with a text editor. Frankly, I was expecting much more. We get a lot of candidates to choose from, but why get Richard Nixon when you can’t play the 1960 election? Since the core gameplay is identical, you are much better off paying $5 for the 2004 version, because it’s almost exactly the same at this version (except for the graphics and new candidates). The Political Machine 2008 feels like one of those annual EA Sports games that improves the graphics and adds a new feature or two, rather than a game released four years after the original. There is room for a lot more improvement, even for a $20 price tag. Simply put, the enhancements made in The Political Machine 2008 aren’t worth it.
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25% off Mac Games at Diamond Games
Diamond Games is helping out Mac gamers save money this summer! Why pay a premium for being a Mac user? Save $5 (25% off) now on Mac Games from Diamond Games. Apply the coupon code MACDIAMOND at checkout to receive the discount. Coupon is valid thru July 31st, 2008 at The Diamond Games.
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Like adventure games? Do a review and get one for free!
I hate adventure games. So you can imagine my dismay when I received one in the mail yesterday. I feel bad not doing a review of a game that a publisher spent money on sending me, so I have decided to outsource a review someone like you. Here are the rules:
1. You must like adventure games. Because somebody has to.
2. You must live in the U.S. because I'm not shipping this thing internationally.
3. You must like to write about games and get the review done in about a week or so.
4. You get to keep it after you are finished.
I'm not going to say which game it is to sway the requests, but if you are interested, contact me through e-mail. A small sample of your non-plagarized writing skills might be nice to make you more noticable against the tons (couple) of entries I am bound to receive. Plus, you should be fairly familiar about the format of the reviews I write. Other than that, start filling my inbox!
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PC Game Review: Wedding Dash 2: Rings around the World
This one retains much of the original Wedding Dash features including most of the guests, Bridezilla, funky dancing guests, and fires for Quinn to put out. The action remains the same: You seat the guests based on their preferences whether it be at a specific table or with (or NOT) someone. Take their gifts and put them on the bride and groom’s table then serve them a three-course meal.
New in this one is Groom-Kong who comes out when he sees his bride not happy puts an end to the level. We also meet a couple of new guests including two pairs that must always have two seats together. Social butterfly Chloe and her daughter, Kathleen make a pair. Chloe isn’t as popular as she used to be since becoming a mom. We also have twins who don’t have much patience and don’t act very social.
Forgetful Grandpa won’t order anything unless you wait too long to serve him. So you must keep track of what he has eaten and what to serve next. The Conan O’Brien look-alike who might be a hot dog eating champion returns as do Diane, Derek, and Uncle Ernie (the drunk). We have another uncle — a handsome one and everyone wants to sit next to him.
We also have to tell Joe when to snap a picture. At the end of the level, you can view captured snapshots — but it’s really just head shots of the guests. Still, adding Joe works well.
The planning stage also returns with decorations, food choices, and bride and groom transportation. Sometimes the bride’s request doesn’t provide enough information to make a decision. Nonetheless, we receive more varied options from brides with stomach problems and actors to nature lovers and lovers of ’50s movies. Even when you pick a wrong item, you’ll see your incorrect selection appear in the level. So it’s nice to see we have control over customization — right or wrong.
The top notch graphics and swinging music compel you to keep trying no matter how many times it takes. Plus, the game brings about lots of smiles in watching the comedy while you frantically meet guest requests and stop disasters.
Wedding Dash 2: Rings around the World comes with two modes: story and endless. I never bother with endless as it doesn’t appeal to me. With five locales at 10 levels each, we get 50 fun-filled levels of battling and keeping brides and guests happy.
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Build In Time Review
Build In Time, developed and published by Reflexive Entertainment.
The Good: Straightforward and informative interface, randomized customer requests, optional goals are neat, numerous upgrades, fitting music
The Not So Good: Very repetitive, speeding up construction is annoying, can’t queue build orders
What say you? A click management game that suffers from tedious gameplay: 5/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
With the U.S. economy in a slump, one industry that has been hit hard is real estate. Homes are dirt-cheap (well, not that fancy store-bought dirt loaded with nutrients) and most likely your home isn’t worth what you paid for it. Wouldn’t it be nice to go back in time, when the economy was strong, men were men, and women were subservient? Say “hello” to Build In Time, a click management game where you build homes for people throughout American history, or at least the past 50 years of it. If only real homes were just a mouse click away. Is Build In Time a beautiful mansion of awesomeness, or a disappointing double-wide of failure?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
The 2-D graphics offered up in Build In Time are OK. The caricatures of towns and streets are good enough to be functional, although obviously nobody will mistake them for real locations. The homes themselves could be a lot more detailed: it can be difficult to tell the difference between two styles; this not only makes your village look blander, but it also impacts the gameplay. There are some nice effects present in the game: the reactions of your customers when you complete their abode are humorous, and the interface is generally well designed, making it easy to navigate through the game. While the overall sound is average for the genre, I do like the period-specific music that adds to the theme of each era. So while Build In Time won’t win any awards for its presentation, the design is not complicated to handle and that’s all you really need in a click management title.
ET AL.
As the protagonist of Build In Time (you ARE Mark Retro), you are in charge of constructing new homes for customers. Each level corresponds to one year from 1950 to 2010 (how futuristic!) where you must complete each house in a timely manner before your customer storms off in a fit of rage. You are gradually introduced new game elements along the way, and each decade comes with a different interface theme. All customers will require a house of a specific color (as indicated by an icon next to their picture, and some houses will also need garages and decorations. Each of these steps must be completed one at a time, meaning you cannot queue your painting team up on a house that is under construction. While this does increase the difficulty of the game, it also makes Build In Time much harder to manage. Most click management games lets you execute three or four orders in a row, so that you can be better organized. However, Build In Time limits you to one order at a time per team, and that limitation feels arbitrarily restrictive. I mean, the FedEx guy knows about other packages in his truck; he doesn’t need to return to the depot after every delivery, right?
Customers have a satisfaction rating that slowly decreases over time: the quicker you build their home, the more profitable it is. Cash then can be spent on a number of upgrades: additional building or painting teams (since you can’t queue, they are a necessity), appliances to increase buyer approval, and new or upgraded designs to bring in more straight cash, homey. Build In Time makes it easy to tell which upgrades you can afford by highlighting them, so the upgrade procedure is very painless. In addition to simply building houses, you can also earn stars for earning a minimum amount of money or placing specific customers at specific locations on the map (like that cowboy that’s afraid of water). These optional side missions are a nice addition to the game. In addition, you can unlock a bonus if you put three houses of the same type, color, garage, or scenery item in a row. This bonus involves what I feel is the most annoying part of the game, and that’s speeding up production. In order to hurry along your workers, you can repeatedly click on the house to give a small boost towards completion. While this is a novel idea, it quickly becomes very irritating and not fun at all. And you have to do it, because if you don’t, you could potentially miss the customer deadlines. I would much rather be planning my layout to maximize bonuses and scores than clicking my left mouse button over and over again. The aforementioned three-in-a-row bonus speeds up production even more when you click on a house, so then you really need to do it. I just simply got tired of clicking after a while, and wanting to quit the game is never a good sign. The customer requests are randomized each time you play, so if there was a reason to play Build In Time over again, the layout would be different. But once you go through the game once, the game doesn’t really hold any replay value unless you really like it.
IN CLOSING
While the basics of Build In Time are fine, the game’s wearisome nature is a detriment to the overall experience. Not only is the game repetitive (as a lot of puzzle games tend to be), but also speeding up your work crews by clicking away on them is downright bothersome. That’s too bad, because the remainder of the game can be enjoyable if you are a fan of this genre. I really like how each request is randomized so that you never know what’s coming next, even if you play the same level over again. The overall time-based theme is well done, from the subtle changes in the interface to the musical shifts. There are many things to unlock and multiple components (up to four) to each construction project, but you can’t queue up all four in a row, which makes managing your company much more difficult. Build In Time is one of those games that has potential to be entertaining in many areas, but a couple of questionable design decisions makes the game less than enjoyable.
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Game du Jour: Week of July 7
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:
Mon. July 7th: 70% off on Constellations
Tue. July 8th: 60% off on Singularity FPS
Wed. July 9th: 40% off on Mystery PI: The Vegas Heist
Thu. July 10th: 50% off on Crooked Money 1: The Endless War
Fri. July 11th: 50% off on Gaia 3D Puzzle
Sat. July 12th: 50% off on Blackjack Suite
Sun. July 13th: 60% off on Troll Wizard
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Final Blog Birthday Bash Prizes
All the guest bloggers have blogged. All the post-related prizes awarded. That leaves the winners from last week’s entries and the final prizes (announced July 8). But it’s not over yet! You have one more week (July 15) to get a chance to win one of the following remaining prizes:
- One $80 gift certificate to Amazon
from Meryl ($10 for every year).
- One $100 gift certificate to Amazon from Mark Wegner of The Diamond Games.
- Peter Shankman: copy of his book, Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work–And Why Your Company Needs Them.
- Lou Rosenfeld: Rosenfeld Media’s Luke Wroblewski’s Web Form Design.
- Lou Rosenfeld: Rosenfeld Media’s Indi Young’s Mental Models.
- Problogger Darren Rowse provides a copy of his book, Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income.
- AWAI’s Nick Usborne’s Million Dollar Secrets for Online Copywriting.
- Two copies of PowerReuse by Softpowerhouse, a document assembly software designed for boosting productivity for professionals.
- Access to Teaching Sells for two months from Copyblogger Brian Clark.
- How to Make a Living as an SEO Writer from Yuwanda Black.
- Tara Calishain-authored book.
- Ted Demopoulos: One copy of Secrets of a Successful Blogging System digital audiobook with What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting (in which Meryl appears).
- Airport Mania: 3 copies (2 Mac and 1 PC).
- One copy of Business Daffynitions: Humor from the Workplace from Joe Heuer, the Rock and Roll Guru.
- One copy of Wit and Wisdom of a Regular Joe from Joe Heuer, the Rock and Roll Guru.
- One copy of New Idiot-Proof Guide to Customer Loyalty from Joe Heuer, the Rock and Roll Guru.
- One copy of Andy King’s Website Optimization.
- One full copy of Astraware Classic Collection, which includes Astraware Sudoku, Astraware Solitaire, and Astraware Board games. Astraware is one of Meryl’s favorite — if not the best — developer of handheld software.
- Full copy of First Class Flurry PC game from Chanon Sajjamanochai of Viquagames. Meryl’s First Class Fury review.
- Two copies of Unicorn Castle Game PC games from Oleg Kuznecov of Meridian’93. One copy for a reader and one copy for a guest blogger.
- Full copy of Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper PC game from Mark Kanter of Bang Out Games. Meryl’s Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper review.
How do I win?
You’ll get the following amount of entries based on the following guidelines:
- 10 entries: Become a twitter follower for MerylKEvans
- 10 entries: Link to:
- Any meryl.net page
- CSSCollection.com
- Bionic Ear Blog
- 10 entries: Subscribe and activate to our RSS feed by email.
- Subscribe to both meryl’s notes blog and games
- Subscribe only to meryl’s notes blog
- Subscribe only to games
- Subscribe to Bionic Ear Blog
- Subscribe to meryl’s notes, the newsletter (not the same thing as the above)
- Subscribe to the games newsletter (contact me with your email address and I’ll add you — doesn’t seem to be a way to add yourself. Crazy.)
- 10 entries: Link to any meryl.net blog entry.
- 5 entries: Link to any of the following pages from a twitter tweet:
- Any meryl.net page
- CSSCollection.com
- Bionic Ear Blog
You can do the above anytime between May 21 (date of birthday bash announcement) and July 15. To guarantee your entries, please email us by 11:59pm on July 15 what you’ve done and include links. Who can keep up with hundreds of entries? Also let me know if you have a Mac — gotta make sure we have winners of Mac prizes!
Remember, you can only win one of the above prizes — so it doesn’t hurt your chances to tell others about it — it increases them!
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Disabled Gamers Comprise 20% of Casual Video Games Audience
Snippets taken from long press release.
According to a new survey conducted by Information Solutions Group on behalf of PopCap Games, more than one in five (20.5%) players of casual video games have a physical, mental or developmental disability.
Those with disabilities report that they experience more significant benefits from playing and view their game-playing activity as a more important factor in their lives than do non-disabled consumers.
The most common types of disabilities and medical conditions cited by respondents, by category, were:
- Physical: Rheumatoid Arthritis/Osteoarthritis (14%); Fibromyalgia (11%); Multiple Sclerosis (7%).
- Mental: Moderate/Severe Depression (41%); Bipolar Disorder (16%); Anxiety Disorder (15%).
- Developmental/Learning: ADD/ADHD (46%); Autism (15%); Dyslexia (11%).
The majority (61%) of those survey respondents with a physical disability are age 50 or older, while slightly more than half (52%) of those with a developmental/learning disability are under 18 years of age.
Perceived Benefits of Play
Fully 94% of disabled players of casual games said they believe playing casual games “provides physical or mental benefits” — compared to 80% of casual game players overall. The most common benefits cited by disabled gamers (when asked to choose as many as applied) were stress relief (81%), mood lifting (69%), distraction from issues related to disability (66%), improved concentration (59%) and mental workouts (58%).
Interestingly, the top benefits varied significantly based on the type of disability; the top three benefits by disability type were:
- Physical: Stress relief (84%) and distraction from issues related to disability (73%)
- Mental: Stress relief (87%) and mood-lifting (78%)
- Developmental/Learning: Improved concentration (79%) and improved coordination/manual dexterity (73%)
Those with developmental/learning disabilities cited learning (pattern recognition, spelling, typing skills) far more often (61%) than those with disabilities that were mental (26%) or physical (23%).
Furthermore, 77% of disabled players said playing casual games provides them with “additional benefits over and above what a typical non-disabled player might experience.”
Of the “additional benefits,” responses were numerous and varied, often citing deeper sensations of achievement and “belonging,” or distraction from loneliness and/or chronic pain. As one respondent put it, “Our son with Attention Deficit Disorder does not really remember he has a disability when he is playing.”
Dr. Carl Arinoldo, a Stony Brook, New York-based psychologist of 25 years’ experience who has treated patients with a range of physical and mental disabilities, agrees: “With some forms of depression, a person may be very focused on something that clearly amounts to a misperception of reality. So the chance to distance themselves from the perceived negative situation and relax may allow them to think more clearly and consider the situation later in a more realistic manner.”
You get the idea… casual games rule!!!
If you want all of the gory details, GamesIndustry has posted the entire press release.
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New: Jewelleria
Experience the sheen of diamond rings and the bold of solid gold. Build a brilliant career as Elly, a young girl, in the luxury business. She’s her father’s last hope to branch the family business into a mega Jewelry Center. The events of Elly’s life develop as you progress through this Time Management business. Meet an eclectic mix of personalities and even an attractive prince who steals Elly’s heart. Levels in Jewelleria include a Souvenirs Sale, St. Valentine’s Day, and carats full of bliss.
New: Build-in-Time
Bulldoze your way through Americas past from the 1950s to the 21st century. Earn cash and Life Rewards for Mark Retro, a young kid with big dreams. Build a construction business from the ground up and create homes for movie starlets, hippies and more. Buy upgrades like observatories and pirate ships throughout six stylized decades. Use your innovative Click Assist feature and become the Craftsman of the Century in Build-in-Time, a Time Management quest.
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New: The Lost Treasures of Alexandria
A mystery is buried deep within the sands of time and it’s waiting to be discovered. Join the adventures of Christine, an Archaeologist, whose fun-filled journey takes her through the ancient modern times in search of invaluable treasures. Unlock the first chapter of the story and continue the epic quest until the mystery is resolved in The Lost Treasures of Alexandria.
New: Etch A Sketch
Grizelda the witch has shaken things up inside the Etch A Sketch, and Knobby must restore “draw and order” to his world. Help Knobby save his kidnapped friend and stop Grizelda’s evil plan to turn everything in the Land of Aha! to Dullsville! Full of creative art tools, four unique game modes, tons of unlockable hidden items and a cast of hilarious characters, Etch A Sketch is innovative fun for the whole family! Check out this digital upgrade to the World’s Favorite Toy today! (Etch A Sketch for Macs)
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New: The Lost Treasures of Alexandria
A mystery is buried deep within the sands of time and it’s waiting to be discovered. Join the adventures of Christine, an Archaeologist, whose fun-filled journey takes her through the ancient modern times in search of invaluable treasures. Unlock the first chapter of the story and continue the epic quest until the mystery is resolved in The Lost Treasures of Alexandria.
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New: Build-in-Time
Bulldoze your way through Americas past from the 1950s to the 21st century. Earn cash and Life Rewards for Mark Retro, a young kid with big dreams. Build a construction business from the ground up and create homes for movie starlets, hippies and more. Buy upgrades like observatories and pirate ships throughout six stylized decades. Use your innovative Click Assist feature and become the Craftsman of the Century in Build-in-Time, a Time Management quest.
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New: Jewelleria
Experience the sheen of diamond rings and the bold of solid gold. Build a brilliant career as Elly, a young girl, in the luxury business. She’s her father’s last hope to branch the family business into a mega Jewelry Center. The events of Elly’s life develop as you progress through this Time Management business. Meet an eclectic mix of personalities and even an attractive prince who steals Elly’s heart. Levels in Jewelleria include a Souvenirs Sale, St. Valentine’s Day, and carats full of bliss.
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New: Etch A Sketch
Grizelda the witch has shaken things up inside the Etch A Sketch, and Knobby must restore “draw and order” to his world. Help Knobby save his kidnapped friend and stop Grizelda’s evil plan to turn everything in the Land of Aha! to Dullsville! Full of creative art tools, four unique game modes, tons of unlockable hidden items and a cast of hilarious characters, Etch A Sketch is innovative fun for the whole family! Check out this digital upgrade to the World’s Favorite Toy today! (Etch A Sketch for Macs)
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Game du Jour: Week of June 30
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:
Mon. June 30th: 65% off on Brickster
Tue. July 1st: 60% off on Bee Oh Bee
Wed. July 2nd: 60% off on Tiki Trouble
Thu. July 3rd: 60% off on June 22 - Enemy at the Gates
Fri. July 4th: 40% off on Peggle Deluxe
Sat. July 5th: 60% off on Crime City
Sun. July 6th: 60% off on Galactic Justice
