Hotel Dash 2: Lost Luxuries

Hotel Dash Suite Success must have been a big enough success to warrant Hotel Dash 2: Lost Luxuries. I’ve lost count how many games Flo appears in, but PlayFirst has a winning character in its hands and it’s smart to take advantage. Even after playing many games starring Flo, I never tire of her. She’s just one of those likable people. I’m talking about her like she’s real, aren’t I?

Restore five nature-themed hotels in Hotel Dash 2: Lost Luxuries, a fun and exciting Time Management game! Help Flo excavate themed hotels and turn them into exotic resorts in hopes of hosting the International French Fry Festival! Glide down zip lines to prep rooms, cater to guests’ requests, and renovate hotels with unique accents. Will DinerTown finally win the honors of hosting the festival? Find out in Hotel Dash 2: Lost Luxuries!

Alien Hallway

Talk about a strange name. “Hallway” evokes images of walking down many a bland hallway. Some felt sterile with all white walls, lighting and floors. Some felt heartwarming with family photos and color on the walls. So I’m seeing aliens fighting in a white hallway. The reality is you defend the planet from alien invaders. Wait. Men in Black? Independence Day? Scores of other alien invading movies?

Control the entirety of Earth’s army and defend the planet from the green invaders in Alien Hallway, a fun Action and Strategy game! The fate of all mankind is in your hands as you try to destroy the evil aliens before they demolish Earth! Upgrade your base and units to improve your troops and give humanity a fighting chance! Blast your way through countless enemies and save the day in Alien Hallway!

World’s Greatest Places Mahjong

How I miss playing mah jongg every Wednesday morning with a rocking group of gals. Occasionally, I’ll see announcements for mah jongg games or tournaments (that don’t occur on a weekly basis), but I never join them because I’m not fast. My Wednesday group has taught me a lot about the game, but I have a lot more playing to do before I can play in tourneys.

These games are nothing like solitaire mah jongg, which I played many times before the kids came along. I had one edition that came with a zillion tile themes ranging from sports and flags to cartoon characters and cars. World’s Greatest Places Mahjong (yes, different spellings) combines the Seven Wonders with the tiles. Not original, but still enjoyable when you add power ups.

Dive into a world of Mahjong and learn about the new Seven Wonders of the World in World’s Greatest Places Mahjong! 100 million people have voted, and seven new locations have been chosen. Use your Mahjong talents to clear the boards and discover which locations were picked by people all over the world!

Filed Under: Card Games, Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Diner Games, PC Games, Releases, Strategy Games, Time Management

When I drink my morning coffee, I always choose my Alice in Wonderland mug first. (It’s based on the Disney cartoon movie.) Although I love Alice in Wonderland, I haven’t pushed myself to see Tim Burton’s version. I’ve caught bits and pieces of the movie and it feels strange to me. OK, I know strange describes Alice in Wonderland, but Tim Burton goes further. If you can’t get enough of Alice, here’s another opportunity.

Embark on an amazing adventure through a fascinating story book in Slot Quest: Alice in Wonderland. The task at hand asks you to restore four famous stories that are being maliciously rewritten by four evil characters. Defeat the evil villains, including the Queen of Hearts, Wicked Witch, Mr. Hyde, and the Evil Dragon. Unlock new slots as you progress through each storybook. Complete quests, earn Achievements, and win!

Download and try Slot Quest: Alice in Wonderland

Filed Under: Card Games, Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, PC Games, Puzzle Games

Pull out your clubs (and your diamonds, hearts and spades) and enjoy a round of Fairway Solitaire! This card game includes 70 unique courses in locations ranging from exotic forests to Scottish highlands. Choose your golfer and experience realistic golf commentary, hilarious wild shot cards and three fun mini-games.

If you like solitaire games — especially Golf — ya gotta have this one. I was addicted to it for months and months. Read Fairway Solitaire game review for details.

This $2.99 Catch of the Week runs through Sunday, May 23 at 11:59pm.

Catch the PC version.

Catch the Mac version.

Filed Under: Card Games, Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Discounts, PC Games

One of the first Windows-based computer games I played was Golf solitaire. I can’t figure out how such a simple game could be so addicting even years later. I bore easily with repetition, but not with Golf. And the game has received some amazing interpretation into adventures including 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.

Of course, you’ll have power ups and barriers to keep Faerie Solitaire — but not so much that it becomes a confusing mess. Every now and then you’ll get a bonus card between 1 and 10. You can use these cards like you do when you take a new card from the stock pile except these won’t restart your “moves in a row” number so use these cards wisely.

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.

This is not a lazy game. Golf solitaire requires some planning ahead. Faerie Solitaire with its added barriers and extras calls for more strategy than a basic game of Golf. Although the graphics aren’t impressive and the story pointless, the game had me hooked for the entire weekend and it’s become one of my favorite solitaire games. I still want to play because I want to find the rest of the eggs. But beyond that, I’ll have to move on to another game — but that’s part of a reviewer’s job.

Download Faerie Solitaire.

Filed Under: Card Games, Game Reviews, PC Games

It may be this blog’s birthday, but the presents will go to readers like you. All the birthday details here. Here are the games up for winning!

• Reflexive contributes a total of 10 copies of three games! Some are for Mac.
  • Big Kahuna Reef 2: 4 copies (2 Mac and 2 PC)
  • Ricochet Infinity: 2 copies (PC)
  • Airport Mania: 4 copies (2 Mac and 2 PC)
• One full copy of Orchidia PC game from Joyboost. See Meryl’s Orchidia review.
  • One full copy of Spinword PC game from Joyboost.
  • One full copy of Astraware Classic Collection, which includes Astraware Sudoku, Astraware Solitaire, and Astraware Board games. Astraware is one of Meryl’s favorite — if not the best — developer of handheld software.
• Two full copies of Magic Farm Game PC games from Oleg Kuznecov of Meridian’93.
• Unicorn Castle from PC game from Oleg Kuznecov of Meridian’93.
• One copy for a reader and one copy for a guest blogger. My Magic Farm review.
• One Alawar PC game package including full copies of Virtual Farm, Curse of Montezuma, and Alex Gordon.
• Full copy of First Class Flurry PC game from Chanon Sajjamanochai of Viquagames. Meryl’s First Class Fury review.
• Full copy of Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper PC game from Mark Kanter of Bang Out Games. Meryl’s Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper review.

Filed Under: Arcade Games, Card Games, Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Diner Games, Game News, PC Games, PDA Games, Puzzle Games, Strategy Games, Word Games

Popular game Slingo Quest returns for a different destination. In Slingo Quest Hawaii, the game takes on a (what else?) Hawaiian theme. In the bingo slash slot machine game, players try to match numbers in a row while earning power ups, jokers, tricks, and bonuses to help them along the way.

Players travel from island to island in Quest mode similar to many of the time management games where trails contain dots indicating your progress. Classic Plus mode works like arcade mode where players repeatedly play the game.

The game relies on luck and little else to get Slingo, five matches in a row. However, you win bonuses for making patterns and clearing the board. The hardest part is clicking the numbers, picking power ups, and using tricks. Otherwise, the game takes little effort. Those who like Slingo Quest will delight playing this tropical edition since it contains more of the original plus new features.

New features include:

• Tricks that come with powers you can use before spinning.
• Game modes including Speed Slingo, Volcano Slingo, and Special Shape Boards (The game comes with two different game modes: Classic and Quest. These modes occur as you play).
• Power ups such as Power up Vision (see through the numbers), Power Shots for matching five cells in one shot, and Tiki Jokers that create Slingo from one match.
• Collection of Hawaiian postcards (also known as trophies).

Let me share a lesson I learned the hard way when using Super Jokers first so you don’t waste them like I did. Super Jokers can clear any number on the grid whether they’re in the same column or not while Jokers can only clear items in the same column. The first click applies the Super Joker (unless the number is one of the selected numbers) before applying any Jokers.

The game starts slow, but picks up as players gain more surprises, beautiful scenes, and bonuses. With so many features and power ups, it takes time to learn how things work. Furthermore, the game play changes — so avoid taking any plays for granted. Give the time time — it should start kicking in before the free hour is up. Slingo Quest Hawaii is a vacation for the entire family and it only costs a few bucks not hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Note: Quick reviews are based on playing one hour of the game.

Filed Under: Arcade Games, Card Games, Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Game Reviews, Game Talk, PC Games, Puzzle Games

One of my favorite gigs is doing game reviews for here, The Diamond Games, and Gamezebo. It means playing games without feeling any guilt. Plus, when I can’t focus or complete work tasks — I go to the games knowing that I’m working on a review since it doesn’t require focus (well, most don’t).

The casual games industry has come out with many entertaining and absorbing games this year. Most of these games are responsible for those nights where I stayed up past my bedtime.

Rather than sorting the best ones by category, we simply pick the top 10 and list them in alphabetical order.

1. Build-a-lot: One of the more original games that also hooked Paul.
2. Chocolatier 2: Another original game that is even better than the original Chocolatier.
3. Cradle of Rome: A match three where you do more than quickly make matches and score enough points. You also have to try to “find” the towns people by making specific kinds of matches.
4. Dream Chronicles: A hidden object and puzzle game with a nice story, beautiful scenes, and great puzzles.
5. Farm Frenzy: Old MacDonald’s farm was never more entertaining.
6. Gemsweeper: I never liked Minesweeper, but this one reeled me in.
7. Miss Management: The cartoon graphics, character dialog, humor, tasks, everything makes this one stand out from the management games.
8. Peggle
9. Wedding Dash: I like Diner Dash, but I liked Wedding Dash better because the customers are drawn better and the game is more doable than Diner Dash, which is too hard.
10. ZenGems: A different twist on match three with gorgeous visuals and great sounds.

Worthy noteables

• Azada: Challenging puzzles.
• Virtual Villagers 2: Play G-d to the adorable villagers who have their own personalities. The ending knocked it out of contention. While games are about the experience, not the ending… this one tells a story and it feels like it ends abruptly without giving all the information.
• Fairway Solitaire: A creative solitaire game that takes Golf solitaire to another level.
• Mortimer Becker and the Secrets of Spooky Manor: Awesome graphics and fabulous puzzles. Too short.
• Mystery Case Files: Madame Fate: Engrossing story, superb graphics, and clever puzzles. Missed top 10 because of a strange ending.

Love to hear your favorites and why.

Filed Under: Arcade Games, Card Games, Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Diner Games, Game News, Game Talk, Games, Hidden Object Games, Meryl's Notes Blog, PC Games, Puzzle Games, Strategy Games, Tech

Playing sports was my thing while growing up, but it was mainly team sports like softball, basketball, volleyball, and soccer. However, I took a few classes or lessons in single player sports like gymnastics, golf, and tennis. Golf just didn’t fit me as holding a club felt awkward. Maybe it was because it was too different from holding a bat. But one golf game that I played numerous times was the card version.

I couldn’t believe I never got bored playing basic solitaire golf that came with Windows in the mid-’90s. I even loaded the game on my Palm handheld and played that for a long time. Since then, I got too busy to play the solitaire game.

Furthermore, after becoming a game reviewer, I didn’t have the luxury of sticking with a game for a long time. Whenever I played a game past my bedtime indicated a sign that a game was a hit and I blamed Fairway Solitaire for my recent tiredness.

The basic game isn’t good enough today. Most of your favorites probably have newer versions containing power ups, trophies, and other bonuses. Solitaire golf receives the same treatment.

The power ups show up in the golf shop. As you play each hole, you earn bucks to use in the golf shop for power ups. For a female golfer, buying a skirt provides her with the ability to x-ray a card to see through it.

The set up cards also contain hazards and bonuses. Because of these, you may not play golf the way you would when playing old-fashioned solitaire golf. Different situations call for different strategies, and that could mean sacrificing a long drive for a short one. A long drive occurs when you pick up at least six cards in a row without drawing a card from the pile, which drives up the multiplier and money pot.

Along the way, you can pick up irons and use mulligans. An iron has a number between one and nine. How a iron works: If there’s a card with an 8 on the board and the golf bag contains a 7 iron, pull it out so you can grab the 8. Mulligans let you undo the last move. Beware that the game only lets you use one mulligan at a time.

Cards that contain a water hazard appear with a light blue shade. When you play these cards, the animation and experience match the feel of a water hazard. Cards in a sand trap won’t flip over until you find the wedge. So instead of making a long drive, you target the cards blocking the wedge to open the sand trap cards.

Although a tutorial explains the game and the different types of cards, it may not click right away. The best way to learn the game is just play it. A hole ends when you either clear the board or run out of cards in the draw pile.

When you begin a round, a positive number appears in the box on the lower left corner of the screen. As you remove each card from the board, the number shrinks. Just like in the game of golf: The lower the number, the better the score. Thankfully, a game with a par 7 goes onto the scorecard as par 5 (the maximum). When the score falls below par, it means more cash.

The end of a hole shows the statistics for that hole including the longest drive, time taken, long drive multiplier, and the cash earned. The scorecard tracks the score for all nine rounds. Players earn bonuses for low scores and successfully completing courses, which unlocks more courses and there are 70 courses available.

As for the Wild Shot mini-game, I wouldn’t call it that. The mini-game is too mini (oxymoron?). You can either play the shot or drop it and lose $200. Playing Wild Shot could lead to either good or bad results. Select “play” to flip the images and select “stop” to stop the images. What happens next depends on whatever image appears. You could lose cards, try to put for a hole-in-one, lose or win money, or gain an extra mulligan. Though I’m not crazy about Wild Shot, it surprisingly contains many possibilities. After playing the game for a couple of days, I continue to discover new possibilities. This is the only handicap of Fairway Solitaire.

Well, the game may have one other mini-game, if you call it that. An optional course appears every few course. Rather than playing it like the others, it’s timed play. If you clear the board before time runs out, the game awards bonus points. A long drive also adds a few seconds to the clock. It makes me cuckoo, but it’s also a nice change of pace.

As a package, Fairway Solitaire offers everything for a grand old time including great cartoon-style graphics, lively music, and addicting play. That’s why it earns fore and one-half stars. Lousy golfers like me have a chance to be winners in golf using cards instead of clubs as our weapon.

Typically after completing a review, I move on to the next game. Not this time. I must play more Fairway Solitaire!

Download and try Fairway Solitaire.

System Requirements

• Windows Vista, XP, 2000
• 800 MHz minimum
• 256 MB RAM
• DirectX 6.0 or later
• 54 MB hard drive space

Filed Under: Card Games, Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Game Reviews, PC Games

Solitaire mahjongg today looks nothing like its older counterpart from 10 years ago. Back then, the biggest features were the variety of themed tile sets and the graphics. Now they come with stories, different modes of play, power ups, and other twists. Mahjongg Artifacts, Chapter 2 follows Mahjongg Artifacts’ footsteps in providing a quest mode that occurs in five countries. Well, actually, four countries and one virtual place.

In Quest mode, you go on a — what else? — quest to find a friend. A level consists of a full solitaire game, but it doesn’t require clearing the board to succeed. The level ends when you find the two matching golden tiles. Power ups, hints, undo, and shuffle help you along the way. The game works like any other mahjongg game in that you make pairs. As you make matches, you earn pearls.

Rather than freely giving players all the hints, undo, and shuffle they want, players must purchase them with pearls, which are the game’s bread, dough, moolah, lolly, loot, dinero, or whatever you call money. Add the power ups to mix and the game keeps players hopping. Instead of spending mucho pearls on shuffle, watch for power ups that swap tiles, move a tile to the top, and shuffle a small section of tiles, among others.

Upon finding the two golden tiles, the game cuts to the comic book style scene with a story update. The well-drawn scenes have an anime look and feel. The story could use a smoother transition from start to end and provide more details. Furthermore, the story is incomplete and ends abruptly. The good news is that it doesn’t take much away from Quest mode thanks to the travels, tiles, and artifacts. Artifacts hide in every level, but the artifacts don’t tie in tightly with the story as they could have.

After spending five levels in a country, players move on to the next. Most countries are in Europe and Asia with one in an unknown place. A new country means experiencing a new theme of tiles and a welcome change of pace. With 25 levels in all, the Quest could go on a little longer. I’d trade Endless mode for a longer quest. Hey, I’ll even trade Classic mode for a longer trek.

Since there are five countries, there are five tile themes. Each one is lovely, but sometimes it’s hard to tell what goes with what. Mahjongg players know that some pairs don’t have to be identical like the flowers and seasons. With themes, it isn’t easy to figure these out. The same goes for the power ups. I think using tooltips would help.

The game awards trophies, which pumps the players’ egos and motivates them to keep on. These rely on tooltips, but sometimes they don’t pop up without some effort. My eyes are thankful for the feature that reveals open tiles so I don’t spend a lot of time trying to find them. OK, so this is a shortcut or cheating perhaps, but more games await my eyes for reviewing. They need a break!

Download and try Mahjongg Artifacts and Mahjongg Artifacts, Chapter 2.

System Requirements: Windows

• Windows 2000/XP/Vista
• Pentium 3 800 MHz or faster processor
• 256 MB RAM
• DirectX 8.0 MB or later

Filed Under: Card Games, Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Game Reviews, Puzzle Games

With so many solitaire games out there for computers and handhelds, you’d think, “Enough already!” Astraware didn’t let the thought of a crowded market stop them and it was a winning move as Astraware Solitaire hit a Blackjack.

The company earned my respect years ago and continued to keep it with its releasing high quality games for the small screen. Astraware Solitaire comes with 12 games, ranging from the easy to hard and from takes skill to relies on luck. Some take a long time to play while others are fast. So points awarded for variety.

If you’re not familiar with a game, the main screen lets you know the difficulty, chances of winning, time it takes to play, and whether it takes luck and/or skill. Games include the following:

Calculation, Canfield, Clock, Four Seasons, Freecell, Golf, Idiot’s Delight, Klondike, Pyramid, Spider, Sultan’s Harem, and Yukon.

Every game comes with customizable options such as how many calls to deal, how many redeals, and how to build fondations. If you don’t know what these means, tap “i” for more information. Astraware Solitaire offers plenty of help in explaining every game.

When you win games and do certain things, you also earn Trophy Cards (like badges). Trophys will eventually unlock additional backgrounds and deck card backgrounds. Go in the Trophy Room from the Main Menu to see the collected trophies and the uncollected trophies. When you complete a full Trophy Desk, it unlocks the deck for use in games. Very cool feature.

It looks like Astraware has every possible useful feature a solitaire card game can have including statistics. The statistics shows total time played, number of games, average time per game, wins, losses, longest winning and losing streaks, and current streak. Statistics are also available for each card game. With all these features, it’s amazing how fast the game runs.

Excellent solitaire package. It’s customizable, gives awards, and comes with unlockables. If you buy just one, you should be more than happy with this one. Astraware Solitaire is available for Pocket PCs, Smartphones and PalmOS PDAs.

As usual, you may try before you buy. Trial users may play up to 20 new games in any combination of the different solitaire types on offer. Additionally, unlockables (card/background graphics/trophies) may be unlocked, but aren’t available for use until the user has registered.

Filed Under: Card Games, Casual Games Reviews, News & Talk, Game Reviews, PDA Games