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Gardenscapes

Posted by Ruff on October 4th, 2009

(4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)

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I never had much experience with a garden but I do know that owning one can be a very relaxing hobby. Playrix aims to put that relaxation bottled-up into a casual game through Gardenscapes, a hidden object slash simulation game that lets you design a garden from scratch. And what does it offer that’s yet to be seen on other casual games? Well, read on and I’ll tell.

The story starts with you living in the middle of the city, filled with factories and polluted air and only having a little plant keeping you company. Then, news got to you that your deceased grandfather left the old mansion to your own care. With the mansion comes a once beautiful garden, now run-down and left with very little care, and of course, the trustworthy butler, Austin, helping you with the garden work you’ll need to accomplish from now on.

Actually, Gardenscapes doesn’t really make you tend to the garden because Austin does all the garden work for you. Your only job in the game as the mansion master is to make sure to earn enough money for all of the garden restoration work. You start with 5 coins, well yeah, that’s some puny cash, but by selling some of the mansion’s old stuff, you’ll be able to raise spending money in no time flat.

Raising money requires you to play a hidden object game through a jumble sale inside the mansion’s many rooms. The big “start” button triggers this event as you get transferred into a familiar setting – a room filled with so many random objects scattered about. Customers will come appearing at the left menu and all you have to do is to find what they want and if successful, collect coin payments after they leave.

There are timed and relaxed modes of play and as always, in the timed mode, you have to keep the game clock as well as the customer patience levels in mind at all times. In the relaxed mode, there are no game clocks but still, you have to save those slowly dwindling customer hearts. The more customers happy, the more money you’ll be getting, so find those items as fast as you can, an element that made Gardenscapes very exciting to play.

Of course, it would be very unfair to time you and not give you any aid in such a hectic gameplay. With this in mind, you get to have 3 kinds of hints you can use in case you find yourself unable to find hidden objects. The first is the basic hint designated by hidden question marks, enabling you to reveal the picture of the object needed by all active customers; second is when you find cameras, flashing all needed objects within a second; and the last is the thermometer hint, showing you when your getting near a certain object whenever the customer icon heats up.

Earning gold enables you to purchase garden upgrades for Austin to take care of. You get to choose on the quality of upgrades you want to purchase, so meaning you’ll have to get all the gold you can muster during the hidden object routine to purchase all the most expensive ones in the market. As you progress, just sit back, relax, and have a moment to setup up your own garden as a special screensaver for your computer.

Storyline is quite deep, since as the garden develops itself, Austin gets to receive calls from people getting to know your garden and even a chance to pit it against other gardens in a competition. The garden may appear in the newspapers too, and from time to time, you may also receive mail from other people for special item requests you can try to find in the mansion for extra gold when accomplished.

What’s amazing too is the animation of the garden and its inhabitants. Austin and your trusty dog travels around the garden doing work and playing really makes the whole area look like its real. Birds and butterflies fly around and you can even shoo them with the mouse if you liked. You can even make Austin work around, feeding the swan, trimming the plants and painting garden sculptures as if all of them were to collapse if not being tend upon.

All in all, Gardenscapes is a beautifully made game with unique elements embedded upon the same hidden object gameplay. It’s interesting enough to make you play for hours, with some funny quips from Austin himself whenever you add elements to your garden. Definitely a must try for all hidden object gaming fans.

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Amazing Heists: Dillinger

Posted by Ruff on July 14th, 2009

(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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With the release of the movie Public Enemies starring Johnny Depp a few days back, it’s quite a coincidence that we get to review a game also following the same plotline as that of the movie. Amazing Heists: Dillinger is a hidden object game following the life of crime of the notorious John Dillinger and his gang during the 1930’s, when even his name strikes fear to every bank owner in the U.S.

John Dillinger is a historical figure known for his criminal activities as a bank robber. During the early 1930’s, he was thrown in jail for his crimes but escaped afterwards. The game follows his path after his new life in crime, slowly but steadily paving his way to criminal superstardom starting from petty little banks to large federal ones while trying to avoid apprehension as possible.

Amazing Heists: Dillinger follows a hidden object setting wherein you get to choose whether you would like to play Gangster Mode (timed) or Lightweight Mode (non-timed) at the start of your profile creation. Afterwards, you’ll be greeted by a cinematic sequence narrating Dillinger’s escape from prison. Settling at a remote inn away from the monitors of cops, you will then have to plan your next move to gain some money.

First in the order of things, you get to choose which bank you plan to rob and an extra gang member to help you accomplish the work. Each gang member has his own special bonuses, like extra time in the actual hidden object game or the safe cracking mini-game or both. You get more bank and gang member choices as you progress through the game; therefore, it’s wise to upgrade your cronies to ensure success as the game gets more difficult.

The actual bank heist is divided into four parts. The first part is preparation wherein you scout outside the bank for clues about what’s in store inside the bank. The clues do not really implicate what will happen inside the bank though. For example, one level will tell you that there might be cops inside, but ends in disappointment after you just breeze through the level like you normally would.

Keep a lookout for special items too. There are 7 wanted posters, 9 DILLINGER coins, mini-game time bonuses and scattered money all over the scenes. If you manage to collect all of the former two, you get a total of $10,000 bonus at the end of the level ($5,000 each), and of course, more money if you collect the latter items. This is aside from the bonus money you get from finding three consecutive items, and since every level is a heist, the objective is to get as much money as you can.

Second part deals with keeping all bank patrons inside the facility. This is quite the boring task of the game since you just have to place gang members on their way and have the remaining one collect coins and block the unguarded halls. Third part is another hidden object game just like the first, wherein you get to collect the remaining coins and wanted posters you failed to collect during the first part of the game.

Finally, the fourth part is the safe-cracking mini-game. In here, you make use of your memorizing abilities to find the colored key combination that will open the vault within the time available. In all of the parts, just make sure you check the time in Gangster Mode or else, you fail and restart the game over again.

What makes Amazing Heists: Dillinger special is that the actual hidden object scenes are depicted from vintage banks all across Midwest United States. Also, even if the storyline is not that historically accurate, you’ll get a crack out of the funny dialogues between the characters in the game. It’s like as if bank robbery is just a light job to pull when gang members make funny comments against each other.

All in all, even if Amazing Heists: Dillinger plays as your average hidden object game depicting such a serious character, it never lost the fun elements that make it enjoyable to play. It has a great timing of release making it appealing, but don’t expect to learn much about John Dillinger as you might wish.

Amazing Heists: Dillinger Download

Virtual Families

Posted by Ruff on April 25th, 2009

(37 votes, average: 4.65 out of 5)

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When I was informed about the Virtual Villagers game way back, it amazed me how casual games evolved into a new level wherein you can already simulate people in them, even living separate lives while you are away from the computer. And now, with Virtual Families, you are again given godly control as Last Day of Work releases this much awaited sequel to their well known virtual simulation series.

Instead of some tribe of people trying to settle on a new patch of land, the setting of Virtual Families is put into a much smaller scale (so it seems). The story tells us that there are so many needy people living in your computer and each of them would love to be adopted by you. Choose one from the many random creations and have the virtual character started living on a big house with a potential to hold his/her legacy as well.

After choosing your first character with its corresponding likes, dislikes, career path and other status, you are greeted by the tutorial level of the game. After a brief rundown of the controls and how you will be interacting with your characters, it is much evident how Virtual Families is derived from the same engine that made Virtual Villagers a very successful game. Mouse dragging and clicking functions are all familiar to the fans of the series, but still convenient too for those who are new to the gameplay.

One thing different is how characters are already given a career path for you to progress and level up. While this deprives you of an option on how you would like to grow your character, it holds no big deal on the progress of your growing family. Of course, a certain career path can pay more than others, but the same is true that they are mostly just for financing your virtual family.

Personally, I liked all of the available careers. They all have funny names and progressing career paths is an enjoyable feature of Virtual Families. Examples of career names include being a pen designer, a donut decorator and my favorite name of all, a pesto sauce creator. And if by any chance you dreamt as being one of those, well, I guess this game is your chance to become one inside a virtual world.

The game also lets you review all your living family members on the Details tab located at the bottom of your screen. Opening this window lets you check on the status of each individual like happiness, hunger level and energy. Tracking each character’s career is also possible, letting you know on how much you need to train each unit until you make him/her progress in career.

Cool additions to Virtual Families are the Family Tree and Store features of the game. In the family tree, you can review on how you started growing and multiplying characters, and your progress in making a big family worth bragging. The store on the other hand, holds all the essentials to keep your family surviving. Groceries, medicines and other items can all be bought in the store depending on how much money you have in the bank. And you can even buy house upgrades as well, enhancing your family’s way of living.

In my opinion, Virtual Families is simply an enhanced version on what Virtual Villagers had left at. The game still has secrets you need to unravel aside from the usual collectibles and trophies you can collect as you progress through the game. Relationships are given more importance in this release too, since you’ll really have to expand your family to keep enhancing your gameplay. And like its predecessor, turning off your computer will still simulate a living family, therefore pressing the need for you to check on them from time to time.

One downside though is how slow-paced the game is on its first few parts. It’s quite a disappointment that you can’t fast forward the gameplay whenever your characters are sleeping, leaving you with nothing to do until they wake up. I guess the game is not really meant to be played in a continuous basis, instead just to check on it whenever you have some time to spare on playing.

All in all though, with its many objectives and in-game secrets, Virtual Families is really a game worth buying. It doesn’t only ensure you hours of fun, but even unlimited days of playtime as you build families generation after generation.

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Be a King

Posted by Ruff on April 4th, 2009

(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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All products, and in our case, casual games almost always provide you with tempting offers before you purchase them. But there’s really nothing more enticing than offering you to become a king. And for the time management strategy game Be a King, you can get to feel like monarchy as you expand territory and build settlements in order to make your kingdom prosper.

The game setting is during the year 950, which is more commonly known as the medieval times in Europe. While we all know that those years were dark times of death and suffering, one prince knows better than just to rule with the sword. You get to play as this prince, as you expand your estate and improve the well-being of all your people. Certainly, this is the first step to absolute wealth and power of your nation, as you pave the way for you to becoming the greatest king that ever lived.

Be a King is a time management game but it does not rely on time to create challenge in its gameplay. It concentrates more in the application of strategy and planning, and time is just a tiny factor to consider when you play each level. What I mean is that you can take your time in every level as long as you want; however, if you’re aiming to get gold trophies for your efforts, you ought to finish as fast as you can.

As for the gameplay, there are objectives set in each level before you get to move on with the next. Most of the time, you are tasked to build specific structures, coupled with other objectives like achieving a rate of profit or growing your town population. This won’t be a walk in the park though, because you’ll soon discover that there are factors you should consider too, like finance and occasional robbers and bandits trying to hinder your town’s progress.

The menu of Be a King is very simple and easy to grasp. After finishing the tutorial levels, you are already equipped with all the skills you need to conquer the other levels with ease. Setting up buildings, making upgrades and keeping your town safe and supplied are the only skills you need to master the game. The whole game is only composed of a handful of buildings too. And while this may be a lacking feature for some, for me it’s a very convenient thing.

This does not mean though that you’ll have access to all structures right off the bat. As you progress through the levels, you’ll be presented by newer buildings and upgrades for you to use from then on. It’s also essential for you to plan your first steps of action, since some of the later levels will even bombard you with enemies before you even get to place your first farm on the field.

The interface of Be a King is very nice and the game is well presented with good visuals and simple animations that won’t take much toll on your computer system. Voice-overs add a feeling to the game’s medieval touch but stopped appearing after the tutorial levels. The random side quests and hero tasks mostly reward you for doing them, but can sometimes be a disadvantage depending on chance. But all in all, contributes to the fun factor of the game’s innovative gameplay.

I guess the only drawback of the game is its overall challenge. Once you get a working strategy into play, all you have to do is to rinse and repeat on the next levels and you’re certain to win. Furthermore, it’s easy not to lose when you already have a money-pumping town built. All you have to do then is to fulfill all objectives and you finish the level.

Still, I say Be a King is worth the purchase. It’s definitely one enjoyable casual game to play and worth a sequel too, if I might suggest.

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