Home Alone - Review (NES, Sega, Amiga and Windows game)

I’m not really sure what I was expecting from a 'Home Alone' game but somehow I was still disappointed with what I ended up with. I doubt I would have ever even looked twice at this game if not for my recent Christmas/Winter game trend I seem obsessed with and, after all, what’s more Christmasy than the Home Alone films? Well, Santa and the Blackadder Christmas Special I guess but the point is is that this game fit into my theme so I played it. Ultimately, it was a mistake you should not repeat so if you’ve ever lain awake at night, staring at your bedroom ceiling, wondering if you’re missing out on a great adventure by not playing the 'Home Alone' video game… you’re not, so stop worrying about it and go back to sleep.

Developer: Bethesda Softworks
Genre: Action
Release date: October 1991
Platforms: Nintendo Entertainment System, Amiga, Sega
ESRB: E - Everyone

The premise of the game is incredibly simple though the game itself is anything but. You play as Kevin who is home alone since his parents accidentally left him behind at Christmas to jolly it up in Paris over the holiday period. Whilst Kevin is alone a couple of burglars are intent on ransacking the house but find themselves going toe to toe with an unlikely foe; you. Your general aim is to not be caught by the burglars and each game lasts for exactly twenty minutes though, unhelpfully, there is no timer unless you pause the game and navigate through menus. During these twenty minutes you need to pick up items from around the house and lay traps for the burglars to be caught in. once they’ve tripped a trap they won’t be fooled by it again so you need to lay another one half a foot away from where that last one was for it to be effective again. I guess if these guys were smart they’d have just left and found another house by now. I think the saddest thing about this game is that it sounds as though it could be quite fun and, really, I was hoping for an extremely retro take on the fantastic game series, ‘Neighbours from Hell’ which you should go Google if you’ve not heard of by now. The whole concept of sneaking around, laying traps, laughing at their stupidity then sneaking off again could be a pretty casual way of blowing off steam but there’s simply no reward in changing up the kinds of traps you use as all the animations are the same. As soon as one of the men trips one of the traps they fall over, flail, then get back up again. That’s about it. The sound effects are even the same sort of thudding noise regardless of what trap you used. It feels utterly pointless to even try something new.

Then, to make matters worse, the game is extremely difficult. To begin with, items are almost impossible to discern from the lurid surroundings as everything is so bright and colourful that it all just sort of blends together into one big headache. When you eventually do find some items you have those samey animations to look forward to again but not without a great deal of stress and anxiety to keep you on your toes first. Kevin turns out to be significantly slower and less agile than these two old men and he struggles with some basic actions such as climbing stairs, which slow him down considerably, and well, walking even seems to be quite tiring for him as he’s a lot slower than the burglars. I think stairs are possibly the worst aspect of the game as whilst they slow you down by quite a fair bit they don't affect the burglars in the slightest and they’ll storm up them with no trouble. Even at just a regular walking pace the burglars are so much faster than you and as the game progresses this problem just gets more and more apparent as they fuel themselves on, gleeful with bloodlust, hunting Kevin down without ever tiring. The faster they move the more traps you need to use but ultimately all you’re doing now is trying to stay ahead of the terminator-esque men and avoid stairs as much as possible. You cannot avoid going up and down stairs however because you are also limited to carrying a measly five traps at a time and, guess what, the place where you can restock is two flights of stairs away. I mean you might as well just give up and let them have the silverware by this point because unless you are a serious hardcore 'Home Alone' on the NES player you’re unlikely to win the game. 

Something I haven’t mentioned but which is equally infuriating as the rest of the game is the music. It’s, well, nightmarish. It’s the theme song on a continuous loop but even though it’s the same song I swear to God it was getting louder and more annoying as time went by. Combined with the punishing nature of the game and the gaudy colours I’m quite sure the whole combination would send you quite mad so I made the executive decision of muting the sound. Everything felt a bit better after that mostly because I could hear myself think. Oddly, the visuals aren’t actually that bad. The house is fairly detailed and the characters look pretty good. My only complaints really are that the colours are blinding, the patterns are rather over the top and Kevin doesn’t look like Macaulay Culkin. 

I wouldn’t recommend anybody play 'Home Alone' for the sake of their sanity and time. It’s not at all enjoyable, extremely difficult to play and there are far too many elements that induce intense migraines. The animations are a bit weird, the burglars for instance plod about with their shoulders hunched up to their ears, and the controls are awkward to use. Truly, it’s an insult to the movie and as if Culkin’s current appearance didn’t put me off the films enough already then this game has certainly ruined a certain aspect of it. What I’m saying is that this game may as well have just ruined Christmas, we’ll have to see.

The Good: 

• The house looks ok, I guess.
• It's challenging, if you like that.
• It fits into my winter theme 
• The rope thing you use to get away in a tight spot is oddly fun

The Bad: 

• Basically everything else
• Music is awful
• Gameplay is awful
• Enemies far too difficult
• Irritating limitations on how many traps you can have
• Items hard to see
• Controls are a conspiracy to kill you quicker
• Should have a timer on screen so you know when this nightmare will end
• Animations are unusual
• Kevin doesn't look like Macaulay Culkin

The Score: 2/10

Final thoughts: “Ibeprofen is not enough, where’s that tramadol I had lying around for emergencies? ...Wait a minute, Bethesda made this game? Well they kept that one quiet didn't they.”

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The Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian - Quick Review (MS-DOS, Amiga, Atari-ST game)

‘The Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian’ was slightly behind the times at its time of release but is now a fantastic example of a text parser adventure game with a sly sense of humour and some really challenging gameplay. 

Developer: Game Crafters
Genre: Graphic adventure
Release date: 1992
Platforms: MS-DOS, Amiga and Atari-ST
ESRB: E - Everyone.  

The game was released in 1992 though it looks to be from a much earlier time due to not embracing the movement into a point and click interface that Sierra had started using. The game has been re-released as freeware so the original copy protection at the start of the game is now just for show, anybody can play the game for free. If you want to play it, you can pick it up from the developers web site here.

 

The story of ‘Maddog Williams’ is fairly standard of an adventure game; Maddog is an inventor and an antique’s shop owner who goes on a quest to rid the land of an evil wizard called Serik after stumbling along a kidnapped princess and saving her. If you’ve ever played any of the old 'King’s Quest' games by Sierra then you will feel right at home with this one and there are also plenty of humorous references to these older Sierra graphic adventure games.

The controls of the game take a little to get used to, especially the controls during combat as sword fighting is in real-time rather than being turn based. Maddog himself is moved about using the arrow keys and combat is dealt with by Maddog continually swinging his sword whilst you advance, retreat, spin and swipe by moving him about. Aside from this ‘Maddog Williams’ plays very much like a text adventure but with VGA graphics and the game revolves around the use of its text parser to interact with the game world. For those unfamiliar with these a text parser means that the player must type in commands in order to interact with things such as typing in ‘Look at drawers’ or ‘open drawers’ to see what’s inside them. Items that you pick up in the game can be used and combined together to form new ones and this is what constitutes a lot of the in-game puzzles.

There’s an instant charm with ‘Maddog Williams’ due to its vibrant appearance and interesting surroundings, the storyline is very easy to pick up and your surroundings feel open, flexible and detailed. There’s so many opportunities to die that it’s a little ridiculous and I remember, upon stumbling into some kind of cavern with a girl tied up on the table surrounded by hooded figures, that it would be a good idea to march on over to them. Unsurprisingly I didn’t live through that experience and I was treated to, in graphic detail, what happened to Maddog in text descriptions. I later realized there was a hidden passage within the wall that I was supposed to climb through. The complete lack of hand-holding is actually a breath of fresh air compared to many modern games however and it’s fairly standard to do a lot of saving and reloading with these early 90s games. 'Maddog Williams' felt very much like a point and click but with keyboard support and the puzzles, storyline and overall gameplay experience are all very enjoyable. It’s a shame the same cannot be said for the combat which is clunky, difficult to control and extremely deadly when you’re actually trying to face down an opponent. A very convenient ‘training’ option is available for you at all times to hone your sword fighting skills but I would have preferred turn based combat rather than awkwardly walking around backwards, swinging my sword. 
 

Another problem is that usually, in games that utilize text parsers typing, the game would be paused when you type. Unfortunately, in 'Maddog Williams' this is not the case so often you must type commands very quickly in certain situations where time is about to run out. It’s not unusual to have to reload the game multiple times so you already know what you’re supposed to be typing in unless you are extremely good at thinking, and typing, on your feet. The difficulty level of the game is very much set by your own personal skill in not just typing but controlling Maddog and solving puzzles but, with enough practice, these are problems that you can adjust to. Whilst the game’s graphics were by no means top-end at the time I found them pleasant, fairly detailed and very reflective of the overall feel and atmosphere of the game. The audio can be a little rough in places but the music is really quite lovely and, whilst the sound effects are in no way realistic, effort has been taken to make the game world come alive with many sights and sounds. Overall, you’ll get several hours of play out of this game depending on how versed you are with item combination focused puzzles so for hard-core point and click or retro Sierra game players this should be just the right level of challenging. 

The Good:

• Fairly challenging but not too frustrating
• MIDI music nicely ties in with the theme of the game 
• Alternate endings makes for a little replay value 
• Great humour, very likeable characters 
• Some very good puzzles

The Bad:

• Combat far too clunky with weird logic
• Quite a short game with not a lot of depth 
• Save game function can stop working, multiple saves recommended
• Lack of pausing when typing causes problems

The Score: 6/10

Last thoughts: It's a shame they never brought out a sequel, as a free game this is a really fun way of spending an evening and the humour and style is very likeable.  

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Lion Simulator - Full Review (MS-DOS game)

'Lion' is a type of life simulation game where you take on the role of a lion that may be either a solitary lion or one that is part of a larger group. If you’ve ever wanted to know what it’s like trying to survive as a lion in the African landscape then you’ll enjoy the highly realistic and highly enjoyable game that is 'Lion'.
 
Developer: Sanctuary Woods
Genre: Simulator
Release date: 1995
Platforms: PC, MS-DOS
ESRB: E - Everyone.  
 
Gameplay and game modes

Lion has two primary modes of play; a scenario mode and a simulation mode. There’s an additional mode that’s called ‘Safari’ which is actually just an educational resource about lions, presumably to make this game more attractive to parents who feared their children were just frivolously pretending to be big cats. The Safari mode is extremely extensive with voice overs, information and pictures in what is basically an interactive encyclopaedia. The scenario mode has objectives that you must complete and has a very strong roleplaying element as it also comes with background information on what has recently happened. Sometimes you are trying to find food for your three cubs who trail around behind you whilst you yourself struggle to keep going, other times you’ve been cornered by a group of hunters and must quietly slip away without being shot. The gameplay is varied due to these objectives and also pretty challenging. When you’re starving hungry, unable to find water anywhere and desperately need to sleep it’s extremely difficult to keep going and the sense of urgency that comes with it is highly immersive. 

The scenario mode and the simulation mode are both played from a birds eye view of the area which I prefer over ‘over the shoulder’ type cameras as this way you can see what’s happening around you at all times. The scenario mode’s use of objectives is really the only difference between that and the simulation mode as they require you to complete the objective before time runs out or the game ends. Simulation mode strips away these time constraints and you can just go about your business which generally means resting, drinking, eating, not being killed and living a prosperous lion life. Whilst simulation mode is generally where you’ll be advancing your social status or increasing the size of your pride you won’t have to do these things for the scenario mode, unless it’s the specific objective you have been set. 

Staying alive isn’t necessarily easy however as you live somewhere between the Masai tribes and the wilderness of the savannah. You could always try stealing the Masai cattle but it’s not recommended as they have spears and they want to keep their cows. Since the Masai don’t want to share their food with lions you need to either scavenge off of already dead carcasses or hunt down your own meals, though that requires a great deal of energy. Thankfully you don’t just have to rely on what you can immediately see on the screen; you have access to a plethora of lion senses to help you survive in this harsh wilderness of a landscape. These senses can be used via either keyboard hotkeys or by using the bar at the bottom of the screen that also includes your stats and a mini-map. By using the bar the game is automatically paused so you can click around and freely use your mouse without moving your lion who is usually controlled by the mouse, not the keyboard. Hearing and scent are extremely important as they will point you in the direction of valuable resources like food and water. Some animals are far too large for you to catch on your own and are more likely to crush you than nourish you. When you’re just a single, solitary, hungry lion you need to be a little selective about which animals are worth wasting your energy on. The easiest way to catch prey by far is to sneak up on them. By using your mouse you control how fast your lion is moving and you can also make them crouch so that rather than walking up to a giraffe you’re sneaking up to them, making use of the environment’s natural cover like trees and bushes. If your prey notices you then you’ll have to sprint, full pelt, and try to slash them as soon as you’re on top of them, this is no easy task as lions have fairly low stamina. The game also employs a tally for each lion, which is basically how many animals they’ve killed that’s broken down into individual species, meaning you can see which member of your pride isn’t pulling their weight. 

Of course, all that running to catch a zebra is going to tire you out and make you thirsty. Sleeping is easy, you can sit or lay down whenever you want to though you should make sure you’re in a safe area first or else have to groggily escape from a group of tribesmen or poachers. Water on the other hand is rare, we are in the savannah after all, and you can quite literally spend days trying to find a watering hole or river. It’s an incredibly realistic representation of the struggle that African animals have to go through and, when you finally find the water, the sight of dozens of other species of animal also quenching their thirst there is not only surprising but really quite lovely. Keeping yourself fed and watered as you try and complete your mission objectives sounds easy, but it’s not and it does require a bit of practice to realize just how far you can push yourself before you become too weak to survive. To make matters worse there’s also mankind to contend with. From time to time you will encounter hunters who, if they spot you, will most certainly shoot you. They’re incredibly dangerous but fairly slow moving so as long as you’re aware of where they are at all times you should be ok. 

The simulation mode has the exact same form of gameplay only without objectives or time restrictions. At the beginning of a simulation mode you can adjust the settings for each new game such as the weather, the density of prey, the number of poachers on the map and how long the game will run for which can be anywhere between six months to infinity. You then select which lions you’d like in your pride by looking through a number of female and male lions each with their own strengths and weaknesses in the fields of endurance, hunger and strength. These lions are all named and have backstories to make things a little more immersive. In simulation mode you have greater freedom and can try and improve your own social status if you like. That means for male lions starting your own pride or taking over a pre-existing one. You can find and then try and overthrow the leader of another pack before mating with others and having some cubs. You can then raise those cubs; keeping them safe, fed and watered so that they may grow up to be lions themselves and to keep your pride going strong. There are not many games that require you to take on the role of a hungry lion who is desperately trying to impress a lioness in order to mate with her, but then again there are not many games like Lion.

Overall

If you’ve ever fancied trying out what it’s like to be a lion for a bit then you may as well give this game a go. The graphics are reasonably attractive with highly detailed animals and some nice little features like vultures above carcasses and scrubby bushes. Whilst they are just normal VGA and nothing spectacular the game still looks fairly appealing, nicely coloured and detailed enough to do the job. The transition between day and night is brilliant with sunrises and sunsets whilst the change in weather adds a much need variation to the otherwise dry and yellowed landscape. Though I find the simulation mode a little boring due to the repetitiveness of gameplay I found the scenario mode interesting and varied enough to play through a couple of times. Since I kept dying I can only assume I’m either a terrible lion or the game is actually pretty challenging but it’s still a great game that you can get a few hours play out of before it loses its initial edge. Overall though this game is such an old gem that it’s instantly appealing for those who like a good simulation game or who just really like animals. 

The Good:

• An actual lion game! Where you're a lion!
• Varied objectives and levels
• Very customizable sandbox level
• Lovely, quaint graphics
• Suprisingly challenging
• Responsive, intelligent AI
• Scoring system adds in competetive play
• Very detailed use of lion senses

The Bad:

• A little difficult to control your lion
• Could do with a greater variety of sounds
• Sandbox mode becomes boring after a while

The Score: 7/10 

Last thoughts: "I never knew animal simulation games could be this well made, I wonder if Wolf is just as good..."

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Disney's Hercules: Action Game - Quick Review (PS1 and PC game)

Unless you are an extreme fan of the Hercules Disney film or Disney video games in general I wouldn’t recommend you add this game to your collection any time soon. It breaks my heart a little to say that as this game holds a great deal of nostalgia for me and, at the time, Disney's Hercules: Action Game was one of my PS1 gaming staples. 

Developer: Eurocom
Genre: Platformer

Release date: November 1997

Platforms: PS1 and PC  

ESRB: E - Everyone

When I first played this game I did find it genuinely fun and, on my second playthrough as an adult, I admit it has its charms but only on account of the nostalgia. When judging it based on its merits it’s hard to see beyond the boring and linear gameplay, annoying film clips and rehashed soundbites taken directly from the film. Overall, it’s an extremely short game and has very few levels that look better than they play, and they don’t look particularly exceptional.

The game is almost entirely in 2D though there are times when you have to walk backwards or forwards into an additional layer of the environment, before continuing with the regular side scrolling that the game exists on. There are ten levels overall but the last two, in the Underworld and the Vortex of Souls, are only available if you’re playing the game on either medium or hard difficulty though their addition does help to bulk the game out a little. There are a couple of levels in the game where you are unable to fight and instead must continually run forward, slowing or speeding up, whilst avoiding obstacles. One of the earlier levels features this rush type gameplay where you must avoid Phil’s hero training obstacles such as sharks, sword wielding dummies and giant stone fists that violently drop from above. This is, admittedly, quite fun to play through on the first attempt especially on the higher difficulty levels since it’s such an iconic scene from the film that you kind of enjoy playing through it, even if it is just for kicks.  

There are plenty of power ups and collectibles to collect during the levels. Your energy bar can be increased by picking up Hercules action figure dolls whereas your health can be replenished by drinking ‘Herculade’ that you probably remember from the film. Generally, you’re stuck with a regular old sword but you can also pick up power ups for it to give it magical abilities. I’m not sure where they got this idea from but I guess they can add a little creative embellishment in an attempt to make things more fun. These weapons are called ‘Gifts from the Gods’ which basically adds on stuff like a long stream of lightning that you can move about, fire balls that shoot off in any which direction and a sort of sonic blade that sends out a dangerous circular sonic blast, killing anything nearby. Finally, you can grab an invincibility helmet that makes you impervious to damage from a few seconds. There are two forms of collectibles in the game, for starters there are the letters of the name ‘HERCULES’ which are hidden throughout the level in admittedly really good hiding spots ( I haven’t actually found them all yet). Lastly, there are four vases that when found will give you the password to that level so you can replay it. 

Even when trying to find all these collectibles you’ll probably be able to complete this game in just a few hours, and it won’t necessarily be a fun few hours either. Though the game has its quirky moments that are fun for a bit it’s not really a substantial amount of enjoyment and it’s unlikely you’ll ever want to play the game again. Graphically, the game is reasonable and it has some really nice levels such as the early training levels and the dangerous jaunt through the city called ‘The Big Olive’ which has a few moments where you smile and go, ‘oh yeah’ as you remember the context from the film. The audio is a little irritating and the music is very repetitive, but good quality. The inclusion of low quality clips from the film to help explain the storyline can thankfully be skipped as they’re quite frequent and juts feel like a bulking agent to make the game last longer. Overall, there’s nothing particularly offensive about the game, it basically stands as a good little game for children or for those who enjoy knocking out a couple of hours on an old 90s Disney game without high expectations.

The Good:

• Iconic scenes from film fun to engage in.
• Decent levels, nice variety and very detailed.
• Well animated enemies
• Collectibles for the purists is always a good thing.
• Powerups mean you can cleave through enemies quickly. 
  

The Bad:

• Often you're just running to the side of the screen, continuously. 
• Repetative audio and music.
• Quite a bland experience.
• Very short.
• Lack of analog sticks means your fingers will hurt because of stubborn controls. 
  

The Score: 5/10

If you want to play this you can check out my passwords for all levels in all difficulties here. 

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Zeus, Master of Olympus - Full Review (PC game)

As city building games go ‘Zeus, Master of Olympus’ is an extremely enjoyable game with hours of good quality content and a fairly robust series of campaigns plus some sandbox maps. This game has great playability due to the dozens of different maps, continually challenging and enjoyable scenarios and the ability to play in sandbox mode. The liberal amounts of humour such as overly dramatic voice acting and amusing plotlines further enhances it making this game the master of city building games. It can be quite difficult to get the hang of due to all the different elements and conditions that need to be met but, once you’ve got the hang of it, it’s an extremely enjoyable experience with lots of opportunity for perfectionists to build the ultimate city.

Gameplay

The game is all set in Ancient Greece and has a strong emphasis on the worship of the Greek Gods, Heroes and mythological monsters. You’re unable to actually directly control any of those as it’s not an ‘Age of Empires’ type game but instead they’ll lend you a hand if you meet some specific requirements. The campaigns take place across different maps that vary in size and efficiency. Sometimes you’re stuck in a tiny little rocky map with barely any shoreline for fisheries and no farmland. Other time you’ll find yourself in a huge expanse of flat land with rivers, ocean, ore covered mountains and plenty of wildlife and farming areas to use to your heart’s content. There are essentially two types of city you’ll be building; a parent city and a colony. The colonies are built partway through a campaign and are used to support your parent city through trading in resources you couldn’t get before. After you’ve built it up from scratch and you go back to your parent city you’ll be able to continue trading with it, though you can’t flip back and forth between cities as you wish. If you’re not in the mood for a campaign with specific missions and a storyline then you can also play in the open play maps which come in three different modes; open play military, open play economic and open play sandbox that allow you to build up a huge city with all the buildings relevant to which mode you’re playing in. After you’ve picked what it is you’re doing you’ll be plonked into an empty map that will have particular resources, allies and rivals, depending on the map. Sometimes you’ll have a bountiful access to farmlands and rivers overflowing with fish, or sometimes you’ll get barely any means of getting food but instead a rich supply of copper ore and marble quarries, leaving you to figure out how to sustain your population. 

There are 7 campaigns which vary in difficulty and length. Some have only a handful of episodes whereas some have up to 8 episodes and which are generally tougher with more complex challenges. Challenges may include things like having a certain population in a certain type of house, collecting materials to start up a colony city or to send back to the parent city, building a temple to a God or slaying a mythological creature. The objectives of a mission will relate strongly to what the storyline is for that campaign and the reasoning behind the missions will be described in the narrated beginning of each one. You may have accidentally angered the God Poseidon for instance, who unleashes the mythological creature the Kraken. Your mission may then be to build a Hero Hall and to attract a hero to the city in order to defeat the beast. Heroes may include figures such as Achilles, Perseus, Hercules, Odysseus and so on. These heroes require specific conditions different to each individual, once you have met those conditions you can call for him to come and save your city from the monster. On the flip side, by worshiping particular Gods you will gain access to their specific beast who can aid you in protecting your city or invading other settlements. If you’re able to worship Poseidon then you’ll gain access to his Kraken. Who you’re able toworship or not worship varies from map to map and building a sanctuary for Gods is no easy feat due to the sheer quantity of rare resources that go into them such as marble and bronze statues.

There are a lot of different resources in the game but not every map will give you access to them, for instance when placing a farm you’ll likely only get one of several so either carrots, onions or wheat. You can get other food resources by trading with neighbouring, friendly allies. Other food sources include cheese, obtained from goats which you place individually in a field, urchins and fish which are found in the sea or rivers and pork which is obtained from wild boars that roam the forests. You distribute food and other supplies to your citizens via an ‘agora’ which is a building placed alongside a road where you may place 3 stalls on top of it or, if you build a large one that takes up both sides of the road, 6 stalls. There are two distinct forms of housing the game; regular and elite. Regular housing houses regular citizens who make up your workforce whereas the elite citizens are a mix of noblemen and your military. Whilst regular citizens can form a sort of vigilante rabble who throw rocks at enemies, these elite military guys are fully equipped with weapons, armour and horses if you supply them with such. Regular civilians, who live in a simple 2x2 house, require access to different things in order for them to improve their house which increases the number of people within that house and which generally improves the workforce and appearance of your city. By giving them food, fleece, olive oil, water and access to different ‘arts’ buildings you can have them renovate their house all the way up to a large three story townhouse.

For those who look for lots of military action in a city building game I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. There’s basically no strategic military action and, with the inclusion of a Hero, mythological creature or divine troops that some Gods may grant you, there’s very little chance of losing your city to the opposition. By bumping the difficulty level up you’ll find a lot more challenge in defending your city but you’ll only be invaded if you’ve really irritated a rival or if it’s pre-set in the mission you’re playing. Invading rivals basically includes building up a large army using the elite housing, not an easy task admittedly, then navigating to the map and selecting which city you want to invade before selecting which troops will be sent there. Then they’ll travel off by themselves whilst you wait to hear how it all went, if you win then you’ll receive goods or money every month from the conquered city and open up a trading route with them. If you lose you’ll just really irritate them and they’ll sometimes retaliate back whilst your troops are still recuperating. Overall, the military side of the game is lacking but it depends on what you’re looking for in a game.

Graphics and audio

For a city building game of the 90s it looks really nice. You can see a lot of detail such as people walking with their unique appearances, crops and grain growing in the fields, stall vendors walking back with a trail of workers ladened with goods following along behind and hunters killing wild boat in the forests. The buildings are highly detailed and lovingly crafted to look as close as possible to traditional Greek architecture whilst the people who inhabit those buildings such as the workers are visibly working or waiting to work. 



The audio is great with some really funny one liner’s on most buildings and people such as, by hovering over a theatre you’ll hear a dramatic actor exclaiming, “Has anybody seen my spear? How can I be a spear carrier without my spear?'' The narrator is a continual source of amusement for me but genuinely the voice acting is really well done and everything has a lovely sound with no irregularities anywhere. The music is very faint, subtle and relaxing and is quickly muffled by the increasing loudness of your bustling city and farmlands but for what it is, it’s certainly pleasant.

Overall

This game is rather like a balancing act between all sorts of elements such as the number of jobs, the population size, how much food you’ve got and how much money is in your coffers. It can be difficult to get used to but the tutorial is very substantial and detailed for new players and, if you’re already a veteran of city building games, you won’t find it difficult. It also helps that there’s a toggle-able difficulty level if you’re finding it too hard or too easy. This is my favourite city building game due to the unique position of it being set in Ancient Greece and without too much emphasis on fighting which, for me, should be reserved for games like ‘Red Alert’ and ‘Age of Empires’. This is the type of game where you can drop in, spend a couple of hours building something absolutely perfect, then drop back out again and leave it alone for a few weeks. It’s a nice, challenging but casual game that’s very easy to fall in love with and which looks and sounds great. If Zeus doesn’t have enough for you still then it also has an expansion pack called Poseidon which basically adds a new game onto it with a more ‘Atlantis’ theme running through it which doesn’t detract from the original game and really only enhances it.

Score: 9/10

To discover more of my old PC game reviews, check out this page here. 

Alternatively, if you're currently playing this game then you might want to check out the list of cheat codes for the game, found here.

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Zoo Tycoon 1 - Quick Review (PC game)

This game is Zoo tycoon the way it should have remained; good, simple fun. If you read my review of the latest Zoo Tycoon game for the Xbox consoles, found here, you'll know I hated it with a passion due to its lack of customization options. In this original game, that's one of the best features.Though everything may not be extensively detailed and with 3D interaction it’s still a fantastic and addictive game. This classic tycoon game is about building up a zoo and managing it to success, there is no limit on what you can build and the animals you can keep so you can fill your park right up. It’s all shot in an isometric view which makes it easy to see what’s going on and, despite the camera being fairly limiting on how much detail you can see it’s still enough to know where everything is at any given time. The graphics were, for its time, really good and even though they’re dated now they still look pleasant enough and is very similar in style to simulation games like Rollercoaster tycoon 1 and 2. Despite some graphical drawbacks the game is still nice and detailed and every animal looks just like the real thing. Guests differ from each other in only in their shirt colour and generally they just meander around and make gasping and ooh’ing noises at the animals.   

Not only fine looking but fun and educational. If you don't want to be educated, just ignore it.

Money isn’t a problem in this game as there are plenty of cheats to bolster your funds but if you want to play the game as it was intended then there are plenty of campaigns to keep you occupied, many of which are genuinely challenging. The campaigns often revolve around a theme such as conservation or trying to breed extremely rare and exotic animals like pandas or panthers. The variety of animals is immense and you very quickly unlock more, along with different kinds of foliage, buildings, exhibit features and decoration as time progresses. The addition of the expansion packs makes everything that much better and allows you to keep dinosaurs in immensely robust enclosures or, if you have the marine expansion pack, keep aquatic creatures like dolphins, sharks and whales. You can fund research into developing new, special things like additional shows for animal houses, rare animals and foliage, staff improvements and special toys for your animals that are necessary to keep them happy and occupied.

The game is surprisingly educational and you will most definitely learn a lot about animals from playing this, though it’s not in your face informative so it doesn’t feel like you’re being bombarded with facts about things. All in all, the educational aspect of it is optional as most information is contained in a separate tab. Keeping your animals and guests happy can be a bit of a struggle if you’re not used to this type of gameplay though as they often require very specific conditions. The happiness of the animals depends on the suitability of their exhibit and often requires an exact amount of foliage, terrain level, rocks, terrain types, animal house and a toy if they’re a playful sort of animal. To help you build the exhibit you will see the animal approve or disapprove of things you add to the exhibit and you can add and remove until it’s satisfied. It can be quite hard to get an exhibit perfect for particular animals who seem designed to be ultra-fussy, especially the mountainous creatures.

Unintrusive menu system, lovely isometric camera, fashionably dressed guests.

Guests are pretty easy to manage; they get hungry, thirsty, tired and bored by walking around in the park for long periods of time. You can keep them entertained with restaurants, fancy scenery, gift shops and interactive buildings like a petting zoo or elephant ride. All guests have a favourite animal, which is a nice addition, so they’ll be extra excited to see if you’ve got one of those in your zoo. There’s so, so many different items you can put in the park and you can very easily set themes across your zoo with special items and buildings for styles such as Japanese, snowy, jungle ruins, Mexican and desert. There’s something nice about being able to put down Aztec style temple restaurants and flaming torches among your Jaguars and Orang-utans.

Choosing where to put your own paths, what a revolutionary idea!

Overall this game has aged brilliantly and is as much fun now as it was when it was first released. It plays great on newer operating systems so there’s no worry about compatibility. Though the graphics and ability to interact directly with the animals is not present in this original version it just goes to show that you can strip away all the fluff and still be left with a game that is fun to its very core; no frills, just a great game. If you like simulation games that include animals or a system of management
then you’ll likely enjoy this retro pc game.

Score – 8/10

If you're currently playing Zoo Tycoon (Complete Collection or otherwise) then you may want to check out my list of cheats, codes and unlockables found here. 

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