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

The casual games industry has spoiled me with the diversity of games with beautiful graphics, varied puzzles, and complementary music. So card games don’t appeal to me as much as in the past … that is, until Jewel Quest Solitaire. The card game blends Golf solitaire, match three / color match, a good story, great sound effects, and crisp graphics to create something atypical of card games.

I have not played any modern card games with a twist, but I’ve played Golf — the solitaire game — thousands of times. It’s a simple game (are games simple anymore?), but somehow it gripped me for many hands. In Golf, the object is to remove all cards from the stacks by pulling cards that are one higher or one lower than the face up card on the pile.

The building block for this solitaire comes from the popular Jewel Quest, a match three style-game with an adventure theme. Here you step in the dirty shoes of Indiana Jones look-alike’s nephew. Hey, the game uses the Indiana Jones font style. The Indian Jones here is Professor Percy Pack, a scholar who passes his worn brown fedora to you, provides you with his journal, and shows you how to play the homemade card game.

The game tells the story in a cool office setting with an old style slide projector with pictures appearing black and white complete with old-time radio sound narration. Open the journal to begin playing solitaire with cards having jewels and stones on them instead of aces, clubs, spades, and hearts. Unlike Golf and most solitaire games, the layout changes every time you successfully complete a layout.

The original Jewel Quest enters the picture in your second layout. While you play solitaire, jewels appear in a small match three grid in the corner of your screen. Depending on the cards you play and your progress, you earn jewels that appear on the grid. If a match occurs, then the tile turns gold. The primary goal is to clear the cards followed by the secondary goal, which is to turn all tiles into gold.

You won’t likely turn all the tiles gold while playing solitaire — however, you’ll earn “swaps,” or turns, for playing the match three part of the game. The more swaps you win, the more moves you can make in turning the tiles gold. You play match three as soon as you clear the cards off the board. Each swap represents a move, so aim to turn all the tiles into gold within the number of moves you have available. The game rewards bonus points if you don’t use up your swaps.

I thought I almost finished the game when I got a pleasant surprise, but I won’t spoil that here. Let’s just say the game play lasts a long time. Jewel Quest Solitaire comes in two modes: Quest, the adventure part where you make matches; and Just Cards, where you play solitaire without the color matching part. However, while you play solitaire in Just Cards mode, the color match grid will appear and your moves can turn tiles into gold. You just won’t get to do any swapping.

The developer and publisher missed an excellent opportunity here to convert solitaire fans into Jewel Quest fans. There should be a third game mode along the lines of “Just Color Matching” where you play the color matching game without the solitaire. This consists of the original Jewel Quest. Considering Jewel Quest II exists, it could lead to solitaire players taking an interest in the two Jewel Quest games.

The surprises don’t stop there. The game takes care not to spoil players with power ups in the form of wild cards as they appear every so often. A regular wild card works as any card of your choosing. Another wild card adds another pile so you can have more than one foundation pile for matching cards.

There’s even a good / bad wild card where you can choose any card to discard, but also it erases any wild card rules in effect. In other words, if you have two or three piles of cards, this wild card gets rid of the two piles that you’re back to one pile. The neat thing about power ups and this game is that you can’t use the same strategy throughout — it requires adjustment.

Jewel Quest Solitaire single-handedly renewed my interest in solitaire games — not an easy task considering all the superb games available in the casual games market. After playing the game for over a week, it still surprises me. Jewel Quest Solitaire II is available for those who want more.

Download and try Jewel Quest Solitaire and Jewel Quest Solitaire II.

System Requirements: Windows

• Windows ME/98/2000/XP/Vista
• 800MHz or faster processor
• 512 MB RAM
• 16 MB video card (32-bit graphics)
• 50 MB hard drive space
• DirectX 7.0 or later

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

Get caught in a web of addictive fun with this amazing version of Spider Solitaire! This classic card game has never looked better with 8 unique game modes and cool new twists that include combo bars, multipliers, grades, and more! Are you a novice? No need for despair, tune into in-game tutorials that allow players of all skill levels to join the fun. You’ll discover gorgeous graphics and exotic sounds that enhance the game and liven your day with Ancient Spider Solitaire!

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