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East India Company Review
East India Company, developed by Nitro Games and published by Paradox Interactive.
The Good: Straightforward strategic trade, tactical battles, several campaigns with primary and secondary goals and random side missions, mutiplayer ship warfare, visually pleasing
The Not So Good: Multiplayer limited to tactical battles, goods prices could be better organized, a couple of annoying interface shortcomings, inexact targeting and movement in tactical mode, boring once you set up enough trade routes, terribly repetitive voice acting
What say you? Ship combat and commerce economics combine effectively in this historical trading strategy game: 6/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
While most of the colonial attention is paid to the West Indies (I blame those stuck-up Americans), a significant theater of hot trading action (is there any other kind?) was towards the east in India. Sending ships to a land far, far away in search of precious commodities was a source of great riches, and also great peril (insert ominous music). Nations hired private companies to handle all of the details and bring these goods into the country so rich people could drink and/or wear them (a suit made out of tea was all the rage). East India Company is a game that simulates these competitive times, putting you in charge of a country-lead monopoly with one simple goal: bring in lots of cash. And some tea.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Overall, I was content with the graphics of East India Company. The 3-D game map you'll spend a significant amount of time staring at looks good, with detailed shorelines and features like trees and mountains. The game is devoid of subtle city and environmental animations outside of the ships moving around so it looks a bit static, but it looks quite fine when compared against any other map-based game. The sea battles have some very nicely detailed ships (complete with little sailors running around on deck), although damage effects aren't as dramatic as I would have hoped: there are rarely pieces of ship flying around, only the occasional (and canned) destroyed mast falling into the ocean. Watching cannon fire fly through the air is a treat, though. Speaking of, the ocean looks quite good as well, as East India Company tries its best to make a generally flat feature look interesting with undulating waves and distant coastlines. The seas never get too hazardous, however, and the ocean scenery doesn't approach the variety of a dedicated sailing simulation like Vehicle Simulator. The sound effects are a mixed bag, however: battles are pleasing to the ears, with disturbing yells for help and the crack of damaged ships, but commander voices are terrible with only a couple of phrases that are shared by all countries (apparently everyone in the 17th Century was British). The background music is fittingly dramatic, though. An average package in all.
ET AL.
In East India Company, you lead a country's trading corporation on the trail towards profit. There are four campaigns to choose from: the grand campaign that spans the entire time period from 1600 to 1750 (including a free variation), and two 50-year smaller bites. You can choose from any major player in Europe: Britain, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and personal favorite the Holy Roman Empire. There aren't any region-specific bonuses, though, so your specific choice makes absolutely no difference. Each campaign has primary (usually two) and secondary goals (a choice of two of four) that must be completed every fifteen years (for the grand campaign). They are always the same for each country and pretty easy to accomplish assuming you are doing fairly well in the game. Despite the disappointment that these main objectives are not random, you do get a flurry of optional and mandatory missions from the crown. These missions typically come with a cash prize and involve trading specific goods, attacking ports, fighting off pesky pirates, and other stuff I forgot to write down. East India Company also comes with random events, like port needs and storms that wipe out most of your fleet (that ruined about five years of progress). In addition to the campaigns, you can play the tactical battles by themselves, or go online for some multiplayer action. Unfortunately, you are limited to tactical battles only online because of an superfluous design decision by the developers I'll complain about in a bit. That said, the tactical aspect of East India Company is strong enough to make this a usable feature. Online play comes with several game modes inspired by first person shooters: one-on-one, last man floating (see, because they are boats! ha!), team deathmatch, and domination. They are pretty fun and are a nice distraction from the main crux of the game. Finally, East India Company contains a series of brief tutorials that touch on the extreme basics of the game. They aren't terribly comprehensive, but I found the game fairly easy to learn once you spend some time with it.
Most of your time will be spent in the strategic level game, which takes place on a map of Europe, Africa, and India (all all points in between). This is where trading is conducted, as you send ships to foreign ports, purchase goods, and then sell them back home for a profit. By far the worst aspect of East India Company is sadly easily fixable: entering ports requires a load screen and a completely separate interface. It's annoying because it's completely unnecessary: you could have had the same exact options in a window along the right hand side of the main map interface. I'm a huge fan of keeping all of the information on the main screen, and with increased screen resolutions on computers these days this should be a feature included in each and every game. This is also what prevents multiplayer strategic level games, as the game pauses while you are navigating (and loading) the port menu; if the developers had simply put all of the information on the main map (there is plenty of room to do so), we could have a full-featured and less irritating game to play. Anyway, enough ranting. In each port, you can manage your fleets by resupplying ships and assigning commanders, purchase new ships, store goods to maximize profit, and upgrade structures like the trading post (which gives a discount to purchased goods) and fort. Trading is almost straightforward: each good shows the amount of profit to be gained in your home port per ton, but the overall goods list cannot be sorted by price: this needs to be better organized since trade is a significant aspect of the game. Most of your ships will be filled with main trade items like tea and silk, but you can also fill them with export items from your home city to make a small amount of profit and basic trade items if room allows. The game has a simple economic model to prevent infinite trading of a single resource: prices will drop as supply increases, so you must diversify and import several resources in order to maximize your profits. Once you set up your routes, though, you can simply accelerate time and watch the money roll in. There is a fine line between automation and tedium, and East India Company doesn't quite find the sweet spot.
Those goods can't transport themselves, so you must construct fleets of up to five ships to transport them and attack neutral and enemy fleets and ports. The eleven ships (including galleons, flytes, brigs, and the infamous ship-of-the-line) roughly divide into trading and military vessels, although most powerful ships come with ample cargo space for goods (although it will be typically reserved for marines used in boarding actions and port attacks) so they can serve multiple roles. Each ship is rated in cargo space, hit points, sail strength, speed, firepower, crew, and marine capacity; it is important to keep ships of similar speeds together, and fleets will traverse the ocean at the pace of the slowest vessel. Each fleet has a commander; commanders level up with experience and gain new skills that mostly affect tactical battles, like a temporary increase in accuracy or reduction in enemy morale, and you can choose their skills to fit the role of their fleet. There are several orders you can give fleets: move, patrol, trade automatically (useful if you have a large navy), and attack a port. You must maintain at least one powerful fleet (five galleons filled with marines seems to be the minimum) in order to take ports, as one failed port attack can ruin your game, since you usually lose a couple of ships in the process. Behavior can also be set, from avoiding everyone to attacking everyone except for allies (useful for aggressive players like myself). The commander portrait has a colored outline that indicates their current order (green for move, purple for trade), although an additional audio indication of a newly idle fleet would be nice. Typically, I have mostly trading fleets and a couple of military fleets designed for taking ports and hunting down vulnerable competition. Combat is a great way to get free cargo, although it tends to make your opponents a bit angry. You might also get attacked by pirates, but I found them to be quite disappointing as they rarely (if ever) even attempted to attack my fleets. Unlocking new ships costs money (for research, I guess), and you are charged for the cost of ships up front instead of when construction starts, so having more than one in the queue is wasting money that could be spent on trade goods. Crews earn experience through battle and sailing time that makes them move effective. Fleets on long voyages must resupply along the way at friendly and neutral ports, which makes intermediate ports valuable to own as you can lock out enemy companies from reaching the most profitable locations.
You are given basic diplomatic actions in East India Company: pacts to refuel at ports and alliances to access ports for trade. You can also declare war (though you are free to attack any enemy at any time) and trading goods for cash. Typically, opposing companies need to be bribed into accepting alliances and pacts by using goods stored at your main warehouse, and the game gives a clear indication of how likely they are to accept a proposal. As with most games that involve multiple nations, being at war with only one enemy at a time and keeping one ally seems to be a viable strategy for victory. The AI will not attack unless they are provoked; I've never seen an enemy company attack one of my fleets or ports without me attacking them first. The AI does do a good job maintaining trade routes and maximizing profit, though, providing a nice challenge on normal difficulty levels. The game speed can be accelerated once you establish your trade routes, which makes the 150-year scenario length a bit more digestible. Victory is gained by having the most money at the end of the time frame, eliminating all enemy companies, or controlling all of the ports in India. The strategic aspect of East India Company is quite addictive and the multiple layers of planning make for an entertaining game: which goods to choose, how to design your fleets, where to attack, who to attack. You are also rarely just sitting there waiting for things to happen, as the almost constant stream of side missions keep you busy.
The tactical aspect of East India Company is less interesting but still a solid gaming experience. If you are not in to hot ship-on-ship action you can auto-resolve the outcome, although this never results in capturing enemy ships and subsequently their cargo. Tactical play comes in two flavors: real time strategy and direct command. In the RTS mode, you can give basic orders like move, stop, hold fire, board, join formation, flee, and surrender (if you win you keep the ship; cheaper than having to build a new one). You can also use specific ammo types: solid (for hulls), chain (for sails), and grape (for crew). The RTS mode doesn't come with the precision I was expecting, as ships don't attack as regularly as I would expect and have a difficult time moving to points that are close to their current location. Plus, giving an attack order will overwrite any movement orders; I would like to be able to designate a target and still tweak their movement to take advantage of the wind conditions. You will most likely have to switch to direct command mode when things get more hectic, as you can specify speed (through the sail setting) and direction using the WASD keys. You can also fire cannons using the Q and E keys and change the spread of your cannon fire, which partially determines who are are aiming at (thankfully, a firing cone on the minimap shows likely targets). Direct command mode is almost required to move close enough to an enemy ship in order to board it, which you need to do if you want their cargo (stuff doesn't float!). Getting close enough to board can be exceedingly difficult in the larger, slower ships; finishing a battle you've already won involves a lot of wasted time chasing down wounded ships. Not surprisingly, whoever has the better ships usually wins, although the quick ships can usually flee before bigger ships come into range. The AI is decent enough in this part of the game: although they lack surprising, advanced tactics, they will engage your ships effectively and use the wind direction for maximum closing speed. The tactical game of East India Company isn't any better than the host of other period-specific naval combat games because of the imprecise nature of the RTS mode, but it's fairly enjoyable nonetheless.
IN CLOSING
East India Company is fun. What, you want more details than that? You are so needy! The four campaigns that cover the time period provide some replay value despite the fact that the primary and secondary objectives remain the same every time thanks to the numerous optional and mandatory side missions. I would like a little more variety in starting conditions; something like Europa Univeralis III's pick-any-date feature (although here any year would have been specific enough) would be a nice feature. Multiplayer, despite featuring a number of modes, is sadly limited to the tactical battles because of an annoying and completely unnecessary interface limitation: entering ports. Maybe I am blowing this out of proportion, but I find having to wait for ports to load in order to complete actions that could have been done from the main map screen is frustrating. This is a shortcoming in an otherwise initially addicting strategic level game with numerous interesting decisions to make regarding fleet composition, trade routes, and diplomacy with rival factions. The game truly has that “one more turn” feeling as you expand your company throughout India. However, once you get things set up after the first fifty years or so, the game runs everything for you. You could manually trade, but the loading screens would make this option way too tedious for the large navy you'll typically have at this point. The tactical game is no more sophisticated as any other naval combat game set in the same period, as you must use the wind and your ship strengths to your advantage. You are given some basic orders and ships will fire automatically, which cuts down on micromanagement. The RTS mode lacks the precision I expect, as targeting enemy ships and moving to specific points is a hit-or-miss affair. You can enter direct command mode and specify orders yourself (useful for the typically powerful flagship) and commanders have abilities that can grant temporary bonuses for more varied combat. The AI is passable in both aspects of the game; computer companies aren't aggressive enough if you are at peace, though they are adept at getting the economics running well. If the premise of a combat trading game sounds appealing, then East India Company fits the bill.
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Big Fish Games Daily Deal
You can get a new game for $2.99 daily. The catch: Must download and install the Big Fish Games toolbar. The tool bar provides special offers — not just the Daily Deal and it keeps you updated on new and popular games.
Toolbar system requirements: Windows 2000, XP, or Vista operating system, dial-up or high-speed Internet connection, Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6.x, 7.x, or 8.x, Mozilla Firefox version 3.x
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Big Rig Europe Review
Big Rig Europe, developed by SCS Software and published by Meridian4.
The Good: Authentic European trucks, career mode
The Not So Good: Sparse map with few cities and exits induces large amounts of boredom, no online play
What say you? This trucking simulation retains all of the features of previous titles but introduces nothing new and progressive: 4/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
The call of the open road has seduced many a young man, wanting to see the country from the comfort of a truck and use fun phrases like “breaker breaker” and “candy cane” on CB radios. For those of us without the advanced technical training required to drive one of these behemoths dangerously close to civilian vehicles at high speeds on the Interstate, we have computer simulations to fill the void. The developers behind the 18 Wheels of Steel series has adapted their simulation with a more international flair in Big Rig Europe. Formerly known as Euro Truck Simulator, how has the game improved and added to the formula?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
The graphics are improved from previous efforts, offering up some nice, albeit repetitive, visuals during your time in the cab. The trucks themselves are nicely detailed, although most of the time you'll be sitting in the cab and won't notice (unless you switch to an alternate camera angle). The roadside attractions have pleasing varied terrain with high-resolution textures that avoid the washed-out blandness of before. Most significantly, the severe pop-in has been eliminated, producing a more fluid and consistent presentation. You also get the same weather, time of day, and animation effects from before. I suspect this is the area of the game that got the most attention, and it's nice to see that Big Rig Europe is able to compete with contemporary racing games in terms of visuals. The sound in the game is minimal: engine sounds and a handful of effects are all you will experience, as your truck lacks music for the radio (the game simply states “there are no songs to play”). The improved visuals, though, are the highlight of this new version.
ET AL.
In Big Rig Europe, you will start out as a rambunctious (I am assuming) new driver scouring Europe for fame, fortune, and gas stations. You'll begin a career by selecting a fancy new truck, a laborious process made so by an inefficient truck selection process. There are twelve trucks overall, spread over four makes and three classes. I did not notice any significant differences between the trucks, although subtle changes in horsepower and handling are probably there. The single player career mode is the only way to experience Big Rig Europe, as the game lacks online play (which would be really neat). You can unlock feats and ranks and upgrade your truck as you unlock additional countries during your career, but this is no replacement for cooperative (and competitively) playing against other human truckers online. The game offers some tutorial messages when you run the game for the first time, easing you into the relatively complex dynamics of driving a large truck.
Being American, I can't be as anal retentive about the game map as I was when reviewing 18 Wheels of Steel simply because I am less familiar with the geography. However, I do know that there are more than three towns in Germany, so I can say with certainty that Big Rig Europe contknues to disappoint in terms of map detail. This becomes a problem because there is a big lack in visual variety as you drive the lonely roads around Europe. Where are the small towns between major cities? All we get is the occasional gas station. This is simply not enough to keep you interested, and this comes from somebody who is interested in roads and enjoys expressway driving, so I imagine the situation is a lot worse for less interested individuals. It's time for the developers to put in some intermediate towns and increase the amount of content the game world contains. I am less able to ascertain whether the terrain is correct (before, coastal cliffs were common in Florida...oops!), but it seemed to be accurate enough for me. Europe is populated with cargo depots in each city (between which you will transport goods), in addition to parking lots for sleep and petrol stations for petrol (whatever that is). Job offers come with a destination and a good to transport, the profit of which depends on how much supply there is in the target town. This is a neat, abstracted system that prevents exploiting the same route over and over. You are also given more money for transporting hazardous or fragile goods, although thresholds for damage are much lower.
Big Rig Europe offers keyboard controls for most driving actions, like turning on the engine, setting the parking break, and using the turn signals. It takes a couple of trips to memorize the correct buttons for headlights and windshield wipers, but it becomes fairly intuitive after a while. The game leans on the simulation side of things, delivering (that may be a pun) seemingly realistic turning, braking, and acceleration. It's probably as close to driving a real truck as most of us will get. During your adventures, you will have to worry about getting tired (periodic naps in parking lots are required, although the lack of motels and truck stops are strange missing features), damage to your truck and trailer, and fuel. You must also obey the traffic rules, as running a red light or significant speeding results in an instantaneous ticket. Most of Big Rig Europe is quite boring, though, thanks to long transit times across the continent. The only thing that makes driving somewhat bearable is cruise control, but the lack of interesting sites and smaller interchanges makes Big Rig Europe appeal to only the most interested constituency.
IN CLOSING
Big Rig Europe suffers from the same problem as before: monotony. There simply is not enough between major cities: where are the exits at small towns? Having only three cities in France shows how barren the terrain really is. This causes a large amount of boredom in an already snooze-inducing game. You really have to make the trip interesting in a trucking game, because most everyone will find the premise extremely dull. This is frankly disappointing, as this is really one of the major areas in the series that needs improvement but never seems to get it: the developers are apparently comfortable with single roads and the occasional gas station between the few major cities. The cities themselves are caricatures, too, as Paris has about three roads and no distinct architectural features. For a road geek like myself, this is a disappointing limitation that's been in the series for far too long. The core of the game is fine, delivering the realistic driving you would expect. The career mode is mildly interesting as you ship goods around Europe, although online multiplayer would be the true goal for a game such as this. Sure, the graphics have been updated, but this is a small consolation prize in what is otherwise a retread of past efforts. The series Big Rig Europe is a part of has been around long enough to expect that auxiliary features, like map detail and multiplayer, should be present by now.
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Game du Jour: Week of 26 July 2009
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:
Sun. July 26th: 60% off on The Blackwell Legacy
Mon. July 27th: 60% off on The Shivah
Tue. July 28th: 50% off on Puzznic
Wed. July 29th: 50% off on Summer Session
Thu. July 30th: 50% off on College Romance:Rise Of The Little Brother
Fri. July 31st: 50% off on SPIRITED HEART
Sat. August 1st: 50% off on Scary Forest
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Released: Passport to Perfume Plus a Freebie
Sounds like Chocolatier does perfume. I’m gonna give it a look.
Playfirst is having a special. You can buy Passport to Perfume with PlayPass and receive The Great Chocolate Chase FREE!
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World War II: General Commander Review
World War II: General Commander, developed by Games GI and published by Matrix Games.
The Good: Well organized and accessible order of battle, great emphasis on roads, large map with detailed terrain, fantastic intuitive editor, varied scenario sizes
The Not So Good: No tutorial, no online matchmaking, inconsistent overaggressive AI, fixed screen resolution
What say you? A battalion-level real-time wargame perfectly suitable for novice strategy gamers: 7/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
Wargames have a dedicated following on the PC, gamers who enjoy starting at tiny counters on virtual battlefields. This subgenre has been notoriously difficult to get in to, thanks to less-than-useful interfaces and large unit counts spread out over huge maps. There have been beacons of light, though, with more user-friendly offerings like Advanced Tactics that have attempted to streamline the process for those of us that are easily confused and terrified of complexity. From wargame-friendly publisher Matrix Games comes World War II: General Commander, shortened from its original moniker (deep breath!) World War II: General Commander: Operation: Watch on the Rhine. So many words hurts my brain! This game was on my radar a while back when it was originally released, and with an additional coat of polish applied by the new publisher (namely a better manual and much less intrusive DRM), it is ours to review. Well, mine, really, you can't have it unless you pony up.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
You can come at the graphics from one of two perspectives: real-time strategy games, or wargames. For a wargame, the use of 3-D graphics is much appreciated in a land populated by 2-D maps with hexes. The tactical advantage of seeing the actual elevations in a very useful feature. If you are used to games such as Demigod or Men of War, then World War II: General Commander looks pretty ugly. The first strike against it is the resolution: it's fixed at a lowly 1024 by 768 and can't be changed. This makes the game look rather ragged on large displays. In addition, while the terrain looks fine, the textures are a washed out, poorly detailed mess. Some of the unit models look OK, but the animations are sporadic. Of course, real grognards will be playing with NATO counters anyway, so they won't even notice. Battle effects are also underwhelming: most of the time you'll see floating damage numbers rather than spectacular carnage on the battlefield. The sound isn't any better, with very subdued effects that are too soft to hear when zoomed out. The usually chaotic battlefield is quite quiet in this game. While traditional wargamers might tolerate the presentation, those wanting a more polished experience are left wanting.
ET AL.
The first thing you'll notice about World War II: General Commander is that it loads really fast: a one-second splash screen and you're at the main menu. Frankly, I am getting sick of having to skip through five intro movies just to play a game, so I am glad that World War II: General Commander carries a more minimalist approach. The game concerns the last-ditch German attack known as the Battle of the Bulge (or, by its Canadian name, “We fought too, eh!”). You get fourteen scenarios ranging from small engagements between a couple of regiments to the full battle across the huge game map that spans the entire region. The map itself is continuous and impressive in the amount of elevation detail. You gain points for holding cities and causing enemy casualties; the offensive side needs to accumulate points before time runs out. Before each skirmish, you can set up your troops anywhere in your third of the map, in addition to placing paratroopers and garrisons in cities. Fourteen scenarios not enough? World War II: General Commander has a marvelous editor that is both powerful and easy to use. Everything is done from the main screen and placing units is point-and-click. Once you add a division, you can include subordinate regiments and battalions by adding them to the unit hierarchy. It's easy to make small or large battles in a matter of minutes. The editor even names all of the units for you and automatically adds cities as objectives within your boundaries, and calculates potential victory points from casualties. Very nice. It actually surprises me that the Internet isn't inundated with scenarios since it's so easy to make them. The features are not all wine and roses, however: the game lacks a tutorial (although the manual admittedly does a good enough job explaining the basics) and online play requires you to know IP address in advance since World War II: General Commander lacks a game browser.
One of the most important aspects of any strategy game is the interface: you must be able to access your units with one click. Most wargames fail dramatically in this aspect (leaving you to scour the map for tiny squares representing units), but I am glad to report that World War II: General Commander does not. The most important feature of the interface is the unit list, displayed in the order of battle with an icon for each unit and selectable icon for every regiment and division. While these icons do not display unit information (health, stance, under fire), it makes it oh so easy to find every unit on the map. You can only select a single unit or group at a time, so this means you can't box select a bunch of units and give them identical orders simultaneously; this is only a minor inconvenience since ordering around regiments and battalions doesn't require that much in the way of micromanagement. You can give a number of different orders to your units: move, long range attack, short range assault, defend, retreat. Units seems to fortify rather quickly (or maybe just the icon displays fast) and the defending side will remain in this position for most of the battle. These options don't give the deep flexibility veteran players are used to, but you have to keep in mind that you can controlling a battalion rather than individual companies or squads, so those small-scale strategies are being done automatically. The game takes place in real time, and you can change the game speed from real time all the way up to 200x. There seems to be a sweet spot right around 25x that provides a good balance between not waiting and not missing anything. World War II: General Commander also comes with a number of alternative display modes, such as shaded contours, supplies, and NATO icons for the true grognard in all of us.
World War II: General Commander features the usual assortment of military units from the time period, although since we are talking battalion level, you won't have to worry about specific tank or rifle types. You get several types of infantry (motorized, assault, paratroopers) and tank (light, medium, heavy) battalions, in addition to more specialized troops like artillery and engineers. Every battalion unit is rated in terms of efficiency (morale), resistance (armor), speed, and weapons. Each regiment is composed of up to four of these battalions, and four regiments makes up a division: it's all so symmetrical! Each regiment can be given a formation (square, vanguard (for offensive action), support, column) and more attacks are automated: if you are in range you will fire. This removes a lot of the micromanagement that could have been insurmountable in a real-time game. You are also given a suite of airplanes that can bomb enemy positions, bring supplies to cut-off troops, or transport paratroopers for sneaky operations. You must have nice weather in order to use your air assets, and World War II: General Commander uses the actual weather conditions experienced during the conflict.
World War II: General Commander makes roads a more significant feature of the battlefield than almost all other wargames. These are the true chokepoints since supplies must travel down roads, instead of having a simple radius from each supply source. It never really made sense to me that tons of supplies could be carried through a deep forest, and I'm glad the developers shared my concern. Supply is automated (thank goodness) and all you need to do is keep the roads under your control. Most of the battles will take place in cities or important intersections because of this reason, instead of them simply being objectives. Roads are also very important for moving units, especially motorized ones. Normally, you could just move that mechanized division through a forest and don't worry about it, but not here. About the only other game to pay attention to roads as much was Conquest of the Aegean. The maps come with a large variety of terrain, from urban areas to dense forests. Weather is also a concern: not only do clouds and rain prohibit planes from taking off, but they make combat much less fun. In addition, engaging the enemy during night is not recommended.
The AI in World War II: General Commander is a mixed bag. Its very aggressive nature is a two-edged sword, providing a challenging foe that's always on the attack, but one that attacks for too long. It's very aggressive even when supposedly defending. The AI is very good at encircling your position and cutting off supply lines, and thus puts up a better match when the computer is on offense. The difficulty of the AI cannot be adjusted, so players of every skill level will content with the same foe. I suppose difficulty could be manually tweaked by creating custom scenarios with imbalanced forces, but this seems to be a convoluted solution. The game is not terribly sophisticated because all you are doing is ordering units around (not that a lot of tactical games are very different), but it's great for beginning players. The interface and relatively simple control scheme makes it much easier to handle than most (if not all) traditional wargames.
IN CLOSING
World War II: General Commander does what it set out to do: provide a nice introduction to wargaming for beginning players. This is due in large part to the interface: listing all available units in their hierarchy on the main screen at all times makes handling large numbers of units in real time possible. One of the things keeping new players from entering the world of wargaming is being intimidated by so many units at once (like this...yeesh), and World War II: General Commander does a wonderful job making the game accessible to all skill and experience levels. The game comes with plenty of scenarios of varying sizes on the huge continuous map that spans about 400 by 400 kilometers in Western Europe. In addition, the game comes with a very easy to use editor that lets you create your own custom scenarios literally in minutes: it takes the same approach as the game interface, using simple point-and-click mechanics and containing all of the information on the main screen. While the game overall lacks the depth veteran strategy gamers would like, since you are playing at a battalion level and most actions are automated, I do like the use of roads in the supply network. The graphics could use some higher resolutions and crisper textures and the lack of a multiplayer browser limits online gaming as you must coordinate matches ahead of time. The computer is much better an an attacker than a defender, since it plays both roles the same way: overly aggressive. Still, the AI will provide some good competition when given superior numbers, cutting off supply lines and making life more difficult. Hopefully these minor issues will be rectified by the developer in the future (they seem to be quite active on the game's forums). Simply put, gamers looking for a more straightforward strategic wargame should immediately direct their attention towards World War II: General Commander.
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Released: Passport to Perfume Plus a Freebie
Sounds like Chocolatier does perfume. I’m gonna give it a look.
Playfirst is having a special. You can buy Passport to Perfume with PlayPass and receive The Great Chocolate Chase FREE!
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Released: Dream Day Wedding: Viva Las Vegas
- Try your luck in the casino to earn and spend points
- Adventure and escape puzzles
- Mini games and wedding crisis levels
- All-new “Choose a Story” – your decision could affect the path of the game
Try Dream Day Wedding: Viva Las Vegas.
Game du Jour: Week of 21 June 2009
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:
Sun. June 21st: 30% off on Farm Frenzy 2
Mon. June 22nd: 30% off on Farm Frenzy -Pizza Party!
Tue. June 23rd: 30% off on Alex Gordon
Wed. June 24th: 30% off on Beach Party Craze
Thu. June 25th: 30% off on Magic Ball 3
Fri. June 26th: 60% off on Nanotron
Sat. June 27th: 60% off on Lucky’s Puzzle Carnival
PC Game Review: Faerie Solitaire
The story told in Adventure mode makes little sense even though the game delivers most of it in small bites. So I won’t even go into what it’s about. I’m not sure myself. But the game more than makes up for it.
First, here how the Golf solitaire works: You take cards off the table that are one up or one down from the card in the pile. So if your pile card shows a king. You look for any open aces or queens (they can’t have a card on top of them). Let’s say you find an ace, put that on top of the king.
Now you need either a king or two. Keep taking cards off the foundation until you have no more moves. Then take another card from the stock pile and repeat. Clear the table for a perfect game, a goal you’ll need to reach in order to move on in some levels.
Every level consists of nine rounds of solitaire and has its own goals. You need to reach those goals by the time you finish the nine games. If not, you’ll replay the level. Otherwise, you move on to the next location (it’s that story thing again). Goals can be X number of perfect games, X amount of cash, fill purple meter within X minutes or make X moves in a row (without taking a card from the stock pile). You get cash for every play you make.
Some columns won’t budge because they’re locked in by a thorn. To unlock the thorn column, you need to clear out the column that has a rose over it. Same goes for frozen cards. You need to clear the cards in front of the fiery one so you can use it to melt the frozen cards, which are always face down.
When you clear a column, you might find a surprise. It could be an egg or one of three elements that you need to evolve your new pet. Eggs appear randomly throughout the game. Finishing Adventure mode won’t ensure you find all the eggs. That’s where the replay value comes in. You’ll want to replay the different modes so you can uncover more eggs.
You can buy special power ups from Faerie Land and visit the Hatchery to hatch your found eggs. Once hatched, the creatures are babies. Each creature has a required amount of elements you need to collect to be able to evolve them. The creatures on the lower end require fewer elements than those on the higher end. It’s not clear what it takes to evolve a creature because I’ve collected the things it needs, but it’s not evolved right away. Nonetheless, it’s still a fun and cool feature.
Special power ups give you another undo (undo the last move), help your pets evolve faster, see the next card in the deck, reveal more cards on the table and so on.
I never once replay a level in Adventure mode. It was a breeze for the most part. The hard part doesn’t come in until near the end and when you unlock and play the five challenge levels. Now those called for a lot of replay until I could beat them. You can also replay any level.
The game had one annoying bug that comes and goes. When you start a new level, it needs to give you the objectives. Sometimes it pops up on the screen before you play and others nothing happen. You can always access the objectives by going to the menu. The game should let you view the objectives without leaving the game.
Download Faerie Solitaire.
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PC Game Review: DinerTown Detective Agency
While the hidden object piece doesn’t introduce anything new, the game takes a different approach by treating each level as a single case. Bernie investigates a couple of scenes, collects clues and puts together puzzles. Upon completing a review of the scenes, Bernie completes several puzzles to eliminate suspects and then determine the culprit.
Bernie has 25 cases to solve spread throughout 20 DinerTown locations from the gym to the — where else? — diner. Fans of other PlayFirst games will recognize many of the characters, which adds to the charm. Not knowing the characters won’t affect the experience.
Every case also has an interactive feature such as dusting for fingerprints, using a magnifying glass to find tiny objects or squeezing an eyedropper to find evidence. There is no rhyme or reason for where you need to click — it’s purely a guessing game. It’s fun at first, but quickly turns old.
After completing the scene investigation, Bernie eliminates suspects in mini-games such as matching fingerprints or putting cards onto a grid where the columns and rows have a common theme. When down to three suspects, Bernie uses logic to identify the culprit. Each suspect has a Yes / No column and you check them off based on interviewing witnesses. Whichever suspect meets all three criteria identified earlier is the culprit. Case solved! Celebrate. Next case.
Download of DinerTown Detective Agency free.
Game du Jour: Week of 5 July 2009
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:
Sun. July 5th: 50% off on The Wonderful End of the World
Mon. July 6th: 50% off on Probe
Tue. July 7th: 50% off on Inclinerate
Wed. July 8th: 100% off on Break-Out The Bible
Thu. July 9th: 50% off on Spectromancer
Fri. July 10th: 60% off on H-Craft Championship
Sat. July 11th: 100% off on Turning The Tide
Game du Jour: Week of 28 June 2009
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the first ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:
Sun. June 28th: 50% off on Battles of Norghan
Mon. June 29th: 50% off on Crazynoid
Tue. June 30th: 50% off on Boulder DashREpisode II: Jive-n-Cave
Wed. July 1st: 50% off on Smiling Bubbles
Thu. July 2nd: 50% off on BoXplosion
Fri. July 3rd: 50% off on Jet Ducks
Sat. July 4th: 50% off on Solitaire Studio
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Game du Jour: Week of 19 July 2009
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:
Sun. July 19th: 60% off on Aveyond: Lord of Twilight
Mon. July 20th: 50% off on 3D Pirate Barrels
Tue. July 21st: 47% off on Kari 3 PRO
Wed. July 22nd: 50% off on Science Girls
Thu. July 23rd: 70% off on Frog Bound
Fri. July 24th: 50% off on Pioneer
Sat. July 25th: 100% off on Blackwell Unbound
PC Game Review: Magic Encyclopedia: Moon Light
Fans of the original will be surprised and delighted by the follow up, which has surpassed the original in terms of size, adventures and puzzles. This one tells the story of Katrina who had a strange (what else?) dream and her brother asks her to look into his professor’s disappearance. She finds herself traveling the world collecting scrolls and gems to figure out what happened to the professor.
Also, parts hide in little black holes that you zoom in on when the mouse rolls over these spots. This neat feature is a little bit of a curse, too. Sometimes the spot sits very close to an interactive item and the interactive item keeps lighting up instead of the spot. Those teeny-tiny parts will have you relying on the crystal ball for hints. You have unlimited hints, but must wait for it to fill back up. But sometimes the crystal ball doesn’t cooperate though it looks full.
The only thing below quality is the font used. The font looks like the oft-used font that comes with Microsoft Word and other software. It’s as tired and amateur as Comic Sans. Magic Encyclopedia: Moon Light delights, charms and challenges with its graphics, audio and game play. Go download and try Magic Encyclopedia: Moon Light.
Game du Jour: Week of 12 July 2009
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:
Sun. July 12th: 50% off on 3 Stars of Destiny
Mon. July 13th: 50% off on Laxius Force
Tue. July 14th: 50% off on Boulder Dash Episode III: Final Blast
Wed. July 15th: 50% off on Boulder Dash Episode IV: Rockford Return
Thu. July 16th: 50% off on Grimm’s Hatchery
Fri. July 17th: 50% off on Aveyond: Rhen’s Quest
Sat. July 18th: 50% off on Aveyond: Ean’s Quest
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Vehicle Simulator Review
Vehicle Simulator, developed and published by Quality Simulations.
The Good: Ability to create and control ground, air, and naval vehicles with lots of add-on content ready to be downloaded, straightforward controls perfect for beginners, online multiplayer
The Not So Good: Small disparate scenery areas, little emphasis on driving, few included missions
What say you? A sandbox flight, boating, and driving simulation stressing custom content creation: 6/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
“All-inclusive” is the buzzword for modern PC gaming, with developers attempting to cram in as much content as they can and combine genres to produce the most complete products possible. The latest entry into this combination extravaganza is Vehicle Simulator, which unites previous efforts Virtual Sailor and Micro Flight into one cohesive package. Now, we get both flight simulation and naval adventures, with a sporty car thrown in for good measure. Does Vehicle Simulator successfully combine several kinds of simulations, or do too many sims spoil the pot?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
The graphics in Vehicle Simulator are really designed for distant viewing, either from an airplane or from sea. That's not to say that the game doesn't look good, as it does for an independent product. The textures are OK, though repetitive and blocky when viewed form ground-level, but the terrain is quite detailed and the developer has chosen interesting areas in which to fly and drive. You can clearly tell the trees and other foliage are 2-D bitmaps, as they rotate to always point towards you. While this works well from a distance, it looks pretty hokey and archaic up close. Mountains in the far distance have some sort of fuzzy, hazy pixel effect that detracts from the game; I'm not sure if this is fog or draw distance or what, but I don't like it. The weather and time of day effects are pleasing, and the ocean kicks up scary looking waves during inclement conditions. The vehicles have nice designs as well. While Vehicle Simulator won't compete with X-Plane or the now defunct Flight Simulator, the graphics are fine enough. The sound design is generic, with the usual appropriate effects for each vehicle. The game uses the default Windows computerized voices in the rare instances where they are used, and the music seemed out of place and was turned off in short order. If you have played one of the previous games in this series, you know what to expect with Vehicle Simulator in terms of graphics and sound design: moments of excitement but average overall.
ET AL.
Vehicle Simulator simulates vehicles. Didn't see what one coming, did you? The default content is a bit underwhelming: only ten “situations” (missions) in one setting (the island of Corsica). Each mission starts you in a vehicle in specific weather conditions and gives you a couple of waypoints and some other planes that fly around automatically: not that exciting. Vehicle Simulator is really more of a sandbox title rather than one that features structured play. Lucky for all of us, content created for any previous Quality Simulations title can be imported, so new players can start by grabbing four additional locations in exotic settings. This still falls short of offering around-the-world coverage like the more mainstream flight simulators offer, so there are no long-distance flights in truly custom locations. You can make your own scenery files using height maps downloaded from the Internet, though, so the truly dedicated can venture into the world of custom content. You cannot, however, make your own missions yet, as this is a planned feature for later in the year.
A lot of vehicles have been produced throughout the years of Virtual Sailor and Micro Flight; I was able to download around fifty. The game places more emphasis on aircraft, featuring a nice variety of gliders, airplanes, helicopters, balloons, and more exotic creations like auto-gyros and microlight trikes. Boats and submarines are brought over from Virtual Sailor, from large container ships to small personal yachts. Disappointing is the ground-based vehicle selection: you get a Porsche, and that's it. I suppose this part of the game warranted the most work, since cars weren't in any previous product, but the lack of interesting and varied automobiles is troubling. I mean, where's my tank? Of course, since you can edit your own, it shouldn't be long until they crop up (get on it, modders!). Also included in Vehicle Simulator are various animals to populate the landscapes, mostly fish for the oceans but also cows and cats (complete with semi-realistic animations). Finally, a range of weather conditions can make life outdoors more exciting, with settings for precipitation, wind, waves, visibility, clouds, time of day, and thermals readily available and adjustable in real-time.
Vehicle Simulator is not a hardcore, authentic game with tons of vehicle-specific controls. You still get keys for landing gear and flaps, but there's no thirty-step process to start up a plane. While the more realism-oriented people might scoff at such shortcomings, I like the simplification as it makes Vehicle Simulator much more approachable to novices. Most of the planes handle stiffly and are greatly affected by wind direction, especially up- and down-drafts (something not noticeably simulated in other games). Boats handle as you would expect, and cars are a superficial add-on with arcade performance. You do get technology to mess with: GPS, maps, radar, auto-pilot, towing (mainly for gliders), and weapons. Also, Vehicle Simulator features online play with up to twenty people, and finding people is easy with the in-game server list.
IN CLOSING
Vehicle Simulator is exactly what I expected: a mostly successful combination of Virtual Sailor and Micro Flight. These two aspects of the game (boating and flying) perform almost identically to their predecessors, which is not a bad thing. The arcade tilt means that Vehicle Simulator is great for beginners, and jumping online in the sandbox mode of the game is inviting. The game's lineage means lots of custom content is already created, waiting to be downloaded, which expands the basic game's scope. There is much room to grow, however. The textures could use more variety and detail and even more scenery locations (with more missions) would be appreciated. The automobile aspect of the game is quite limited: I'd like to see some military vehicles and racing modes (the waypoints are in place already: how about some checkpoint races?). The planned additions of a mission editor and sailboats should complete the package more thoroughly. Vehicle Simulator is not quite on the same level as big-budget flight sims, but considering the custom content angle of the game, I suspect Vehicle Simulator will grow into a more complete product as time goes on.
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Game du Jour: Week of 19 July 2009
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:
Sun. July 19th: 60% off on Aveyond: Lord of Twilight
Mon. July 20th: 50% off on 3D Pirate Barrels
Tue. July 21st: 47% off on Kari 3 PRO
Wed. July 22nd: 50% off on Science Girls
Thu. July 23rd: 70% off on Frog Bound
Fri. July 24th: 50% off on Pioneer
Sat. July 25th: 100% off on Blackwell Unbound
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The Tomorrow War Review
The Tomorrow War, developed by CrioLand and published by 1C Company on Gamer’s Gate.
The Good: Large universe, nice marriage of arcade and simulation physics, pleasing combat, space-to-planet transitions, lengthy campaign
The Not So Good: Strictly linear, LAN-limited multiplayer, missing audio files, vague objectives
What say you? A space combat adventure game limited by its linear campaign and translation issues: 5/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
You know, tomorrow is always a day away (and this concludes the musical portion of Out of Eight). But, we will never reach tomorrow, because tomorrow will eventually be today and then the day after tomorrow will be tomorrow. Before our collective brains explode, let’s move on to the inspiration behind this apparent paradox: The Tomorrow War. This game is based on a series of books unknown outside of Russia (meaning I’ve never heard of them). The space combat adventure genre has been fairly strong on the PC, assuming you look in the right place, and The Tomorrow War is another game that aims to let you reach for the stars by blowing up a bunch of stuff.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
The Tomorrow War was apparently released in Russia several years ago, but the visuals are still impressive enough. The ship designs are nice and varied with high-resolution textures, although most of the time you’ll be far enough away from everything that you won’t notice. Space is also plausibly rendered, with lots of stars but no cheap, showy nebulae. Passing through the rings of Saturn for the first time is an impressive act, as the asteroid belts are impressively populated with tons of dangerous rocks. Explosions are nicely done, as are the combat effects. The textures used for planet surfaces could be more detailed, though. In all, though, I was satisfied with the graphics. The sound, on the other hand, is underwhelming. A lot of the audio seems to have not made the transition from the original language, as most of the radio chatter and ship communications effects are either completely missing or entirely in Russian. You will have to rely primarily on the subtitles to understand what to do, and reading is for suckers. The remainder of the effects is pretty generic in nature: nothing notable here. While translation problems limit the sound design, the visuals of The Tomorrow War hold up very well.
ET AL.
In the future, the universe splits into two factions, one of which goes way old-school and starts to worship Zoroaster (finally!). You are a lowly fighter pilot for the good guys (the ones obviously not bowing down to some guy who lived thousands of years ago...get real, people), jetting throughout the galaxy to visit strange, interesting people and shoot them (in the face). The Tomorrow War has a long campaign consisting of over thirty missions that takes a while to complete (especially if you encounter one of many bugs that break a mission or otherwise inhibit your progress). This game is combat-heavy, featuring none of the trading or alternate occupations that many space adventure games feature. So you will be spending all of your time shooting things and flying in formation. There is no character growth and the missions are very, very linear. This becomes quite an issue as it's easy to “break” the game if you don't do exactly what the developers want in exactly the right order. These arbitrary limitations are something I would expect to find in a mediocre point-and-click adventure game from ten years ago, not a more modern space sim. Not helping things are the vague objectives and subtle hints to join formation, only relayed in the subtitles at the top of the screen. When in doubt, always join a formation. You will spend a lot of time in formation, flying around, waiting for the next trigger point and wave of enemies. The first ten minutes of The Tomorrow War is boring as heck: just let me fly around and shoot stuff already. Although I must say that navigating through the rings of Saturn is visually stimulating, if a bit annoying. You can save your progress at any time, a bright spot in the features list. In terms of multiplayer, you can play over a LAN, but that's it.
Your ship's HUD is generally quite useful, putting all of the pertinent information right on the main view: all of your systems (life support, navigation, power, engines, fuel, temperature) and a list of ships, separated by allegiance and type. You are given multiple autopilot options, from flying to an object to docking with an object. You will use autopilot almost all of the time your aren't engaged with enemy aircraft. The game will also inform you of fires and you can access the map to be completely confused as to where you are located. Your trusty ship is outfitted with a variety of weapons: guns (lasers, plasma, shells), missiles, torpedoes, and bombs for planetary targets. There isn't that much of a strategic difference between the various weapons, although more powerful targets require more powerful weapons.
The Tomorrow War features lots of hotkeys, like any good space flight simulator. You can pilot your ship using the keyboard, mouse, or a joystick; the inclusion of mouse-driven piloting is always welcome. It takes a couple of hours to digest all of the controls (lots of pausing the game and checking the key bindings), but there are options for any action you would want to perform. The controls are standard for the genre, although your ship is equipped with both planetary and orbital engines; this is initially confusing, as you must hold down “control” to go fast in space, but once you realize the distinction, it becomes a useful separation.
The gameplay of The Tomorrow War is a nice combination of arcade and simulation and fairly easy to learn. The third-person camera jumps around a bit too much, leading to some disorientation. Combat is chaotically fun when a lot of ships of different sizes are involved; it is quite reminiscent of Freespace 2, and that is meant as a high compliment. It's too bad the rest of the game can't hold up to the enjoyable fighting. The transition from space to planet has been done before, but it is still impressive in its seamlessness. Despite the highlight of the actual space combat, the rest of the features and the issues with translation limits The Tomorrow War to an also-ran in the genre.
IN CLOSING
The Tomorrow War has a nice outline for a space game, but it falls short in a couple of areas. First, the good news: the game strikes a nice balance in difficulty between arcade and simulation and the lengthy campaign will keep you busy for a while. The graphics have also held up quite well in the couple of years since the original Russian release date and they compare favorably with any other recent space simulation. The universe of The Tomorrow War is filled with planets and other objects that contain a nice level of detail, and the transition between open space and planetary atmospheres is smooth and believable. Unfortunately, you cannot freely explore any of it because the game limits you to the task at hand: you are not able to do anything outside of the mission parameters, such as docking with space stations or landing on planets. If it's not in the mission, it's not allowed. This type of linearity is simply outdated in today's realm of open worlds. On top of this limitation, The Tomorrow War has constrained multiplayer capabilities to shorten the shelf life of the game. In addition, the mission objectives are commonly vague and don't clearly explain what to do next. The Russian roots of The Tomorrow War become an issue with many bugs related to missing audio files and an incomplete movement to the English language. The potentially engrossing gameplay has been lost in translation.
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PC Game Review: Magic Encyclopedia: Moon Light
Fans of the original will be surprised and delighted by the follow up, which has surpassed the original in terms of size, adventures and puzzles. This one tells the story of Katrina who had a strange (what else?) dream and her brother asks her to look into his professor’s disappearance. She finds herself traveling the world collecting scrolls and gems to figure out what happened to the professor.
Also, parts hide in little black holes that you zoom in on when the mouse rolls over these spots. This neat feature is a little bit of a curse, too. Sometimes the spot sits very close to an interactive item and the interactive item keeps lighting up instead of the spot. Those teeny-tiny parts will have you relying on the crystal ball for hints. You have unlimited hints, but must wait for it to fill back up. But sometimes the crystal ball doesn’t cooperate though it looks full.
The only thing below quality is the font used. The font looks like the oft-used font that comes with Microsoft Word and other software. It’s as tired and amateur as Comic Sans. Magic Encyclopedia: Moon Light delights, charms and challenges with its graphics, audio and game play. Go download and try Magic Encyclopedia: Moon Light.
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Game du Jour: Week of 7 June 2009
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:
Sun. June 7th: 50% off on Dark Souls
Mon. June 8th: 100% off on Battles of Norghan
Tue. June 9th: 50% off on Titan Attacks
Wed. June 10th: 50% off on Ultratron
Thu. June 11th: 50% off on Droid Assault
Fri. June 12th: 50% off on Boulder Dash Episode I: Dig The Past
Sat. June 13th: 50% off on Kudos 2
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Released: Dream Day Wedding: Viva Las Vegas
- Try your luck in the casino to earn and spend points
- Adventure and escape puzzles
- Mini games and wedding crisis levels
- All-new “Choose a Story” – your decision could affect the path of the game
Try Dream Day Wedding: Viva Las Vegas.
Game du Jour: Week of 21 June 2009
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:
Sun. June 21st: 30% off on Farm Frenzy 2
Mon. June 22nd: 30% off on Farm Frenzy -Pizza Party!
Tue. June 23rd: 30% off on Alex Gordon
Wed. June 24th: 30% off on Beach Party Craze
Thu. June 25th: 30% off on Magic Ball 3
Fri. June 26th: 60% off on Nanotron
Sat. June 27th: 60% off on Lucky’s Puzzle Carnival
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Game du Jour: Week of 5 July 2009
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:
Sun. July 5th: 50% off on The Wonderful End of the World
Mon. July 6th: 50% off on Probe
Tue. July 7th: 50% off on Inclinerate
Wed. July 8th: 100% off on Break-Out The Bible
Thu. July 9th: 50% off on Spectromancer
Fri. July 10th: 60% off on H-Craft Championship
Sat. July 11th: 100% off on Turning The Tide
Game du Jour: Week of 28 June 2009
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the first ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:
Sun. June 28th: 50% off on Battles of Norghan
Mon. June 29th: 50% off on Crazynoid
Tue. June 30th: 50% off on Boulder DashREpisode II: Jive-n-Cave
Wed. July 1st: 50% off on Smiling Bubbles
Thu. July 2nd: 50% off on BoXplosion
Fri. July 3rd: 50% off on Jet Ducks
Sat. July 4th: 50% off on Solitaire Studio
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Game du Jour: Week of 12 July 2009
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:
Sun. July 12th: 50% off on 3 Stars of Destiny
Mon. July 13th: 50% off on Laxius Force
Tue. July 14th: 50% off on Boulder Dash Episode III: Final Blast
Wed. July 15th: 50% off on Boulder Dash Episode IV: Rockford Return
Thu. July 16th: 50% off on Grimm’s Hatchery
Fri. July 17th: 50% off on Aveyond: Rhen’s Quest
Sat. July 18th: 50% off on Aveyond: Ean’s Quest
PC Game Review: DinerTown Detective Agency
While the hidden object piece doesn’t introduce anything new, the game takes a different approach by treating each level as a single case. Bernie investigates a couple of scenes, collects clues and puts together puzzles. Upon completing a review of the scenes, Bernie completes several puzzles to eliminate suspects and then determine the culprit.
Bernie has 25 cases to solve spread throughout 20 DinerTown locations from the gym to the — where else? — diner. Fans of other PlayFirst games will recognize many of the characters, which adds to the charm. Not knowing the characters won’t affect the experience.
Every case also has an interactive feature such as dusting for fingerprints, using a magnifying glass to find tiny objects or squeezing an eyedropper to find evidence. There is no rhyme or reason for where you need to click — it’s purely a guessing game. It’s fun at first, but quickly turns old.
After completing the scene investigation, Bernie eliminates suspects in mini-games such as matching fingerprints or putting cards onto a grid where the columns and rows have a common theme. When down to three suspects, Bernie uses logic to identify the culprit. Each suspect has a Yes / No column and you check them off based on interviewing witnesses. Whichever suspect meets all three criteria identified earlier is the culprit. Case solved! Celebrate. Next case.
Download of DinerTown Detective Agency free.
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PC Game Review: Faerie Solitaire
The story told in Adventure mode makes little sense even though the game delivers most of it in small bites. So I won’t even go into what it’s about. I’m not sure myself. But the game more than makes up for it.
First, here how the Golf solitaire works: You take cards off the table that are one up or one down from the card in the pile. So if your pile card shows a king. You look for any open aces or queens (they can’t have a card on top of them). Let’s say you find an ace, put that on top of the king.
Now you need either a king or two. Keep taking cards off the foundation until you have no more moves. Then take another card from the stock pile and repeat. Clear the table for a perfect game, a goal you’ll need to reach in order to move on in some levels.
Every level consists of nine rounds of solitaire and has its own goals. You need to reach those goals by the time you finish the nine games. If not, you’ll replay the level. Otherwise, you move on to the next location (it’s that story thing again). Goals can be X number of perfect games, X amount of cash, fill purple meter within X minutes or make X moves in a row (without taking a card from the stock pile). You get cash for every play you make.
Some columns won’t budge because they’re locked in by a thorn. To unlock the thorn column, you need to clear out the column that has a rose over it. Same goes for frozen cards. You need to clear the cards in front of the fiery one so you can use it to melt the frozen cards, which are always face down.
When you clear a column, you might find a surprise. It could be an egg or one of three elements that you need to evolve your new pet. Eggs appear randomly throughout the game. Finishing Adventure mode won’t ensure you find all the eggs. That’s where the replay value comes in. You’ll want to replay the different modes so you can uncover more eggs.
You can buy special power ups from Faerie Land and visit the Hatchery to hatch your found eggs. Once hatched, the creatures are babies. Each creature has a required amount of elements you need to collect to be able to evolve them. The creatures on the lower end require fewer elements than those on the higher end. It’s not clear what it takes to evolve a creature because I’ve collected the things it needs, but it’s not evolved right away. Nonetheless, it’s still a fun and cool feature.
Special power ups give you another undo (undo the last move), help your pets evolve faster, see the next card in the deck, reveal more cards on the table and so on.
I never once replay a level in Adventure mode. It was a breeze for the most part. The hard part doesn’t come in until near the end and when you unlock and play the five challenge levels. Now those called for a lot of replay until I could beat them. You can also replay any level.
The game had one annoying bug that comes and goes. When you start a new level, it needs to give you the objectives. Sometimes it pops up on the screen before you play and others nothing happen. You can always access the objectives by going to the menu. The game should let you view the objectives without leaving the game.
Download Faerie Solitaire.
PC Game Review: Wedding Dash: Ready, Aim, Love!
She is planning the biggest wedding of her life — her own to Joe, the photographer. One hitch: he doesn’t know about it! An opening came up in a hot spot and it was either grab it in six weeks or wait years. She asks cupid for help, but he has a backlog of his own. If she helps him through his backlog, he’ll help her with her situation.
Like the previous games, your job is to seat guests and keep them happy or else face Bridezilla and Groom Kong. Of course, Quinn has a few tricks for managing manage guests when the food doesn’t get to them fast enough. She has cocktail tables and bells that bring out the cherubs.
She holds weddings in interesting locales beginning with an aquarium followed by a barn and two others. The game receives a few new features to make it the best one in the series. The cherubs can add one or two hands in helping Flo carry food and gifts, but they’re upgrades.
Guests may request champagne, the microphone to share a special message to the new couple, a song request or seating change. These give you bonus opportunities as well as chaining (doing the same actions in a row). Of course, Quinn has to deal with disasters ranging from over-celebrating bridesmaids and birds at the table to falling gifts and a missing dog.
The guests have personality traits to vary the pace. Some eat fast, others eat slow, one eats two of every course and one forgets to eat. While all of this sounds overwhelming, the game introduces new guests and features over time rather than all at once. The challenge level also slowly works from easy to tough.
Every venue comes with one cupid mini-game. Cute, but kind of pointless except to earn more coin. Cupid needs to shoot one man and one woman to match the given couple. Not only do you control the location of the arrow, but the strength of the shot.
PlayFirst knows how to put on a great wedding and succeeds again with Wedding Dash: Ready, Aim, Love!
Download Wedding Dash: Ready, Aim, Love!.
Game du Jour: Week of 14 June 2009
The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:
Sun. June 14th: 65% off on Holiday Bonus
Mon. June 15th: 65% off on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Tue. June 16th: 50% off on Xmas Bonus
Wed. June 17th: 50% off on Easter Bonus
Thu. June 18th: 50% off on Dark Souls
Fri. June 19th: 50% off on Magic Ball 4
Sat. June 20th: 50% off on Farm Frenzy
