Strategy Games

PC Game Review: Plants vs. Zombies

If I could only say one thing in this review, it’s this: Go get Plants vs. Zombies now. The only people exempt from this rule are those who don’t like look of the zombies. Plants vs. Zombies oozes innovation in all parts of the game including game play, game modes, humor, length and rockin’ music. The game gives you a big spudow (exploding potato) for your buck and then some. Furthermore, Popcap Games may have blown away the massively popular Bejeweled 2 and Chuzzle
with this one.

You have various plants at your disposal with different super powers to help you prevent the zombies from reaching your house and eating your brains. The thought of zombies sounds creepy, but they don’t scare my six-year-old who instead giggles at their funky movements and traits. You might even think they’re cute and funny.

Like people and animals, the zombies have different personalities. One is a football player and harder to attack, another wears a traffic cone on his head (maybe he was a construction worker in a past life) and another loves his newspaper and gobbles things faster. Their characteristics give you an idea of how hard it will be to fight them. Watch out for the singer zombie that brings an entourage with him!

Once you meet a certain zombie for the first time, it goes into your almanac. The suburban almanac describes defines every zombie and plant along with its strengths. If you haven’t encountered a plant or zombie, it won’t give you a heads up. So be prepared for whatever comes your way.

So much happens in this game — all of it a blast (literally, too). For one, it has five games:

• Adventure: Five rounds with 10 each taking place on the front lawn, night time, the backyard with the pool and on the roof. You have a select number of plants to pick and they each come with a price. But you don’t buy them until you plant them.
• Mini-games: 20 unique games where several are a more advanced mode of an earlier mini-game.
• Puzzle: Two games. One contains nothing but cases. Inside the vases are plants or zombies. You put the plants wherever you think it’s best to help defend against the zombies. The other game gives the zombies a chance to practice attacking the lawn with cardboard cutouts of the plants, so no plants are harmed. You want the zombies to make it across to eat the fake brain at the end of the lawn.
• Survival: Playing different scenarios five times and changing up the plants between each level.
• Zen garden: Manage a garden of plants beginning with two plants. Give them water and plant food. This no pressure game only calls for feeding the plants when they need it.

You can shop for special plants and tools at Crazy Dave’s shop. He’s craazzzzyyyy and lets you get away with good deals. In his shop, you can buy another slot so you can add more plants into your arsenal for the next zombie battle.

Daytime battles require different weapons than nighttime battles. The sunflowers don’t produce as much sun, so you can rely on mushrooms. However, they only produce a little sun and produce more as they grow. Mushrooms can work in the daytime, but they’re asleep and need help to wake them. So it’s obvious you have all kinds of strategies to play with in this little treat.

Many games come with multiple modes. I tend to only like the main one. I took pleasure in almost every game as much as the main one — a rarity. The music will have you gettin’ down while you wear down those zombies. When you finish the main game, sit back and enjoy the surprise and hilarious ending.

Plants vs. Zombies is ripe for more brain eating sequels. I can’t tell you how long I’ve been working on this review to get it right, but it doesn’t turn out the way I want it to. Nonetheless, Plants vs. Zombies provides hours of a good time.

Download Plants vs. Zombies for PC or for Mac

PC Game Review: Youda Marina

Playing Youda Marina during Memorial Day weekend (a time when many go to the lake) has me yearning to jump in the car to drive to the nearest lake to rent a motorboat and go water skiing. That yearning didn’t last long as a glance at the window pulled me to reality as the skies are gray. Youda Marina does a better job than Mother Nature in giving me the feeling it’s a sunny day. Before I knew it, several hours flew while playing the time management and strategy game that takes place (where else?) on a marina.

You manage and run a marina complete with building docks, entertainment facilities, emergency services, lighthouses and the radio station. As you work in growing the marina, you need to do what you can to attract visitors and entertain them during their stay. The game reminds me of Build-a-Lot because it involves building structures, changing rates, deciding where to place things, earning enough money to build more structures and meeting goals. They both have similar graphics style.

The game takes time to learn. Its well-done tutorial guides you through the first round and only nudges you when you need to know something new. You need to build various-sized docks to accompany the different boat types and sizes. You can also control how much to charge for the empty docks.

Between managing boat requests to dock, facility updates (repairs, payment and emergencies), the game pace turns frenzied in campaign mode. You have to click on every boat to dock it, every event to kick it off and every emergency to send out emergency services personnel. It grows tiresome to keep clicking these things. However, clicking the boats has merit due to the several docking options available and the chances of boat’s captains accepting the offer vary. Maybe it would ease the pain of frequent clicking by offering “automated” tools as an upgrade.

Sometimes the game doesn’t recognize clicks or won’t put down a building or dock even though the area turns green (to indicate it can go where you have it spotted). When it’s time to renew an event, the game doesn’t always recognize the clicks.

The goal of the game is to complete the tasks, much like in Build-a-Lot. Tasks ask you to add a specific structure, earn X amount of money or have X visitors to the marina.

Relaxed mode is available as a calmer alternative to campaign mode. Both modes come with four types of environments: shore, bay, island and lagoon. Each requires a different strategy to succeed. Instead of handing out tasks, relaxed mode lets you do as you will with the money you have on hand. It helps to play campaign mode first to get an idea of what it takes to run a successful marina. Though the pace turns harried, campaign mode feels more purposeful and enjoyable than relaxed mode.

After completing all the tasks and earning every promotion, you’ll want to play again because the tasks aren’t identical in every game and you still need to see if you can conquer a different layout. Youda Marina has excellent replayability value. Next time you’re in a sailing mood, it’s much cheaper to play Youda Marina than to drive out to the lake and rent a boat.

Download the game from your favorite site

• Big Fish Games
• Playfirst

PG Game Review: Dinertown Tycoon

Adding “Tycoon” to the Dinertown Tycoon name is a smart move. This way people don’t confuse this game with Diner Dash even though Flo appears in it. Plus, many gamers know what it means to be a tycoon game. A tycoon game involves running a business, making decisions and running the day to see how your decisions make out.

I loved Fairy Godmother Tycoon (FGT). If you don’t like FGT or tycoon games, this isn’t for you. Dash fans will recognize many of the 25 customers from the various Diner Dash and Wedding Dash games. This one doesn’t quiet measure up to FGT, but provides enough entertainment for a rainy day afternoon, or in my case, fighting a cold.

In this one, Flo goes up against Grub Burger, which has a secret sauce containing the mysterious Ingredient X (I think it’s the same ingredient that makes a lot of us Sonic drink fans keep coming back. Except Sonic is a good company. Grub ain’t.). Flo manages the menu with 90 dishes available for the buying, stocks up ingredients, set prices and buy new signs to attract the public.

Flo manages various types of restaurants as she makes way through five neighborhoods in an effort to run Grub Burgers out of town. The game leaves room for mistakes as I am guilty of a few. For instance, I accidentally click to buy a new dish, when I meant to close the window. I wish Dinertown Tycoon had an undo feature.

Like most tycoon games, you need to strategize before starting a new day. Where do you spend the money? Ingredients? Advertising? Signs? You also get a newspaper so you can see what’s hot as you prepare for another day. The newspaper has one hot ingredient and a Daily Chef Challenge. Beating the challenge will help you drive down Grub Burger’s takeover. More on that in a moment.

Start the day and watch the people eat at the restaurants. Sometimes you’ll notice a bubble over their heads with their thoughts. They could be unhappy with the prices, a satisfied Grub customer, a happy Flo customer (hearts) or coming to your restaurant because of an ad. You’ll be able to identify what kind of ad influenced them to come so you can figure out if you put it in the best place or not.

Some customers come out of your restaurant with a coin over their heads. Click to receive the tip. It’s a clever idea to encourage interaction with the stimulation, which is usually hands-off. However, clicking the coin products a fountain of coins and blocks your view as others may have coins.

Customers also disappear behind some of the game’s features or the restaurant is near the edge, making it harder to see the customers. On top of it, you’re looking for Flo. If you find and click her, she’ll send people your way. It’s a frenzy trying to watch for coins and Flo especially if you own more than one restaurant.

At the end of the day, you’ll see the totals for each customer. The goal is to sell 50 or 100 dishes (depends on the neighborhood) to each customer to complete the neighborhood and push out Grub Burgers. If Grub sells too much Ingredient X (there’s a test tube with green goo to measure its progress), you’re out of business. If you meet the Daily Chef Challenge, you’ll lower the Ingredient X meter.

You can also conduct market research to get to know a customers’ likes. These consist of three ingredients. When you offer a dish with at least one of those, you’ll improve your chances of meeting your 50 to 100 customer goal for that customer type. Oh, and it costs money to do the research. So it’s a balancing act of buying the right amount of ingredients, new menu items, ads and all that.

One thing I don’t realize for more than half the game is the Daily Chef Challenge telling me to sell 12 sale dishes or 12 premium dishes. Whenever I fiddle with the price, nothing happens until one time I decide to go way low and discover the price name changes from “regular” to “sale.” Go high enough and it turns into “premium.”

Also, I wish the game would let me know how close I come to meeting the Daily Chef Challenge. I sold at least 12 premium-priced dishes, but I didn’t win it. Why? It needs to clarify these things.

It only takes an afternoon to get through all five neighborhoods even with my losing one neighborhood. The ending also disappoints. At least, the game lets you replay the neighborhood in hopes of making every dish to earn the associated trophy. Considering there are many routes you can take in your decision-making, it’s a challenge to play the game twice, thrice or many times as you try different approaches.

Although not tops, Dinertown Tycoon is a fine tycoon game.

Chocolatier Goes Mobile for Verizon Customers

Make yummy chocolates during Valentine’s Day with Chocolatier on mobile! Verizon customers Text CHOCO to GAME (4263) to play Chocolatier anytime, anywhere on your cell phone.

Text CHOCO to 4263.

Man, it’s a shame I don’t have Verizon mobile. I’d love to see how this looks and plays on the small screen. If you know — please share.

PC Game Review: Chocolatier Decadence by Design

You have to hand it to PlayFirst for the company’s impeccable timing in releasing the third Chocolatier right before Valentine’s Day. Yes, you heard right — third. It doesn’t count as a fourth because The Great Chocolate Chase is a time management game, not a traditional Chocolatier one. The three games fall into the simulation category, and it’s still delicious.

Whether the game brings new things or not, I’m happy to see it back in the fold knowing it’ll have a new story, characters, ingredients, and products. Those will always occur with every new release. Nonetheless, new features shake up a game to give it a fresh look. As expected, Chocolatier Decadence by Design adds all of these, coffee products and a new ingredient mini-game for coffee products.

You work with the Baumeister family as with all the previous editions. This time it’s after WWII and the story includes love, drama, competition. All the factors that go into an engaging story with a variety of characters. Some characters won’t stand out and others will. You travel the world to find the finest ingredients — to manufacture bars, truffles, infusions, exotics and more — as Baumeister expects nothing less. Thank goodness, this one contains no bugs as ingredients.

Still, you discover fruits such as mangoes and strawberries, spices like saffron and peppers, dairy, nuts and much more. I appreciate the game makes it take a long time to discover all the ports and ingredients so something new comes along almost the whole way through the game.

The ingredient mini-game remains the same for the various candy products. The ingredients flow through the machines and you shoot them into moving containers that must match the primary container. For instance, a truffle requires two cacaos, truffle powder, flavor, and spice. Make sure each container has these five ingredients.

To make it harder, containers can be red or blue. You get more servings when you put all red ingredients in red and blue in blue. If you mix red and blue, you’ll only get one serving for putting all the ingredients in the container. The factory adds a recycling bin so you can move ingredients you don’t need in there instead of wasting them. But not all factories have the bin and it’s tough to get it in there when you have a red container getting in the way of a blue ingredient.

The additions of colors and a recycling bin aren’t enough to shake up this mini-game. The coffee mini-game, on the other hand, brings something new. You still shoot ingredients, but this time you need to make matches of three or more to get a serving. Make a match of four or more and your servings increase. I’m glad the game doesn’t use this one in all of the factories, but it would be nice to see something different.

The world map shows locked ports that you won’t open until later in the game when you meet the right people. Not all ports will have shops. Several ports only sell one ingredient and there’s nothing else to do there. These places have exotic items. Of course, you’ll have to get special cacao from specific locales and the same goes for coffee. It’ll involve a lot of traveling. Chocolatier Decadence by Design prepares players for the frequent and longer trips by providing more transportation upgrades.

I appreciate the game tracks all the agreements I make because I get carried away at times. The screen that tracks all the things you need to do is a vast improvement with a larger and clearer screen. A couple of font choices, however, need improvement as they’re barely readable.

Chocolatier Decadence by Design introduces the ability to develop and name your own creations in the test kitchens in Iceland. Another superb idea for enhancing the game. The product creation screen graphics quality remains subpar and clunky. After you make your new product in the kitchen, you move into marketing where you select the looks, colors, design, and name. Well, this screen gives you no reminder of what ingredients you have added to your new product to help you come up with a name. The game won’t let you back up.

The new features and additions enhance to the game, but I would like to see a couple of more new features especially for the ingredient mini-games. Nonetheless, Chocolatier Decadence by Design occupied an entire weekend including a couple of late nights — something I don’t do often. I look forward to the next adventure. Until we meet again, Baumeisters.

Download Chocolatier Decadence by Design.

PC Game Review: My Tribe

My Tribe came to my rescue during winter break. I can’t play fast action games like diner-style games because of hand surgery. My Tribe and hidden object games kept me entertained as I couldn’t do much else including typing and laundry (staring at a pile of laundry racks up the guilt, so it’s not a good thing though it gave me a valid excuse not to do laundry).

Generally, I try to avoid comparing games in a review. As a Virtual Villager fan, I must compare My Tribe and Virtual Villagers (VV).

Both games call for patience especially the start where you need to build up on science points that can get you places later. But once you have all the science points in the world, you don’t need them anymore.

Innovative in My Tribe is the use of moondust and stardust. These help you with potions, building, increasing villager strength, hair style changes (whoopee di doo) and more. I like the way you mix potions using the potions screen instead of having a tribe member fetch everything and mix it up.

I’d rather hunt for one moondust or stardust at a time than for VV’s collections, which make me dizzy. You can also build lunar and celestial towers to receive a shower of dust all at once. Although it’s tiring to keep your eyes open for flying dusts, you can build an observatory that lets you know when one lands. Well, I can’t hear the sound it makes over the music and other sound effects. I’ve tried playing with the sound controls, but nothing worked. The game should have an option for visual notification.

Trees and flowers are available for planting. Flowers don’t do anything except add color. Trees provide wood. The tree feature should work like the flower feature — keeping the plant window open until you close it. I often plant more than one tree at a time and have to keep opening the plant window. The flower window stays open and lets you spray flowers.

The potions screen has three types of potions: element, liquid and catalyst. Elements include solid things like mushrooms, rocks, wood. Liquid is seawater, rain water, and fountain water. Catalyst consists of stardust, moondust, and golden relics. Pick one item from each category, mix the potion and pour it on an object, ground or person.

The game’s marketing materials say you can mix loads of potions. Half of them are cosmetic, so no sense in wasting moondust to give a villager a new hairdo or color job.

Both tribe games involve earning points so you can upgrade science, construction, etc. Well, one of the four categories is art. I don’t see much difference between level 2 and 3 art (clothing design and nothing else).

Art lets you build a clothing hut and make clothes. Males and females get three tops and three bottoms plus you can customize the color. After two or three outfits, it loses excitement unless you were big on Barbies and dolls as a kid. Well, in Virtual Villager, science points help you buy clothes. Not exciting there either.

Both provide skills for each tribe member. My Tribe goes overboard in including rock and wood gathering skills. I’d lump these under construction. I’d also blend farming and fishing so the villager can do both as he or she pleases.

My Tribe does a better job of increasing a villager’s point earning capability. VV would sometimes take ages even when you keep pushing the villager to do something.

Barrels also show up at sea on occasion. They might provide recipes, ingredients or change a person. Or they might destroy buildings or explode.

Both games let you produce babies. My Tribe, gratefully, doesn’t take women out of commission until they’re babies are two-years-old as they do in Virtual Villager. Instead, the mama goes right back to work.

In Virtual Villagers, only children under age 14 can pick up stuff. In this one, anyone can pick up stuff except babies. It was annoying that adults couldn’t pick up anything in VV. If they could build buildings, they should be able to pick up things.

My Tribe limits the population to 50 (you can get 52 if you manage to have two couples produce twins at the same time as I did). I prefer the limited population so you don’t make yourself crazy trying to give everyone a preferred skill. It forces you to control your population’s age.

I love that you can build a dock and ark so your tribe can sail to one of millions or billions of islands. Don’t be impressed by that number. They look alike after you’ve solved all eight of the mystery items. Each island holds three mystery items. You also work to collect 25 trophies. Once you do all that, you might not be motivated to play the game again unless you simply like to hang out with the tribe.

The game lacks keyboard control. Yes, arrow keys can move you around the island, but not as well as it could. You can use the Map view to see the island from a higher perspective, but it pauses the game. Map view doesn’t open very fast. Virtual Villagers provides plenty of keyboard options for easier management and traveling around the island.

The game has a bug as of this writing — if you have tree saplings that haven’t bloomed into trees and you hop into the ark, the game crashes. It sets you back a little, not much.

My Tribe is neither better nor worst than Virtual Villagers. It provides another addicting experience for those craving a new world of villagers. Once I get pass the slow start, the game captivated me that I checked on my tribe too many times even with fast speed (you can do pause, slow and normal speed as the game keeps going when you exit unless you pause, of course). Speaking of which, I need to check on ‘em as I want to set sail for another island to earn the five island trophy.

Download the game from your favorite site:

• Big Fish Games
• PlayFirst
• Reflexive with Game Center Solution

PC Game Review: Build-a-lot 3: Passport to Europe

I raved about Build-a-lot 2: Town of the Year. When the Build-a-lot 3: Passport to Europe started showing up, it both thrilled and worried me. It’s a marvelous game, but how could it be better than the previous? HipSoft succeeds to take the game to another level. I can’t wait to see how the company manages to make #4 better — if that in the works.

We get to go to Europe and work in its beautiful countries including England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. While I love the varied locations, I would like to see more of the culture and architecture appear in the locations next time.

It has the distinction of being the most difficult Build-a-lot game of all. I have to replay a few levels especially one many times before I can finally conquer all the goals before time runs out.

The game comes with new features of including services buildings. These being fire department, police department, post office, and hospital. House catch on fire, people get hurt, and robbers break into homes. When you don’t have these services, you have to click the houses as soon as you can to prevent the crisis from getting out of hand.

Landmark buildings also enter the landscape in the form of clock towers, hedge mazes and two others. Landmarks not only add character to your neighborhood, but also up the appeal. With workshops and sawmills, and banks affecting the appeal of houses, the landmarks help make up for that.

When I read all the details of the new features, I freak. The details sound overwhelming, so I fear the game’s interface will finally become cluttered. Miraculously, the information / data screens stay clean despite all the things we need to track. We track workers, materials, goals, rent, and more.

Also new in this edition is the weather factor. When it’s freezing or wet, we all slow down, right? OK, those of us not born and bred in ice cold weather or wanna be mermaids. When bad weather hits, the workers slow down.

We also see run down homes. You can either upgrade them or smash ‘em to make room for something bigger ‘n better. It also gives us an opportunity to buy homes for less money.

The levels vary greatly to prevent boredom. One level may focus on money while another requires increasing the appeal big time. Rarely, does a level provide just one goal.

Build-a-lot 2: Town of the Year could easily fall into the trap of your applying the same strategy to all levels. That won’t work in Build-a-lot 3. You must change your strategies to get through the game.

One thing that amazes me is casual mode. This would be the “endless” mode for the typical game with two modes: story and endless. Campaign mode is the main one. Casual mode has no clock requirements, but it’ll motivate you to better your scores time-wise. I never like endless mode, but find this one actually enjoyable. This extends the game play beyond story mode.

What can I say? I’m impressed with Hipsoft’s ability to retain the things that make Build-a-lot so addicting while adding new features that fit without weighing us down. {Hearty applause}

Download it from your favorite site:

• Big Fish Games
• Playfirst
• Reflexive Powered by Game Center Solution

PC Game Review: Alice Greenfingers 2

Alice Greenfingers introduces a concept many of us forget about when playing casual games: Taking your time to enjoy the game. Alice can’t die or lose anything. That same concept carries over to Alice Greenfingers 2 without seeing much improvements on the complaints regarding the original.

The game opens with a slow and inefficient tutorial. I don’t notice Uncle Berry, sitting in a rocking chair, is talking to Alice. The location of the uncle and the dialog appearing just doesn’t catch your eye when you’re busy with Alice. That’s probably a good thing as the uncle’s character doesn’t grow on me.

Having played the original, I go for the shovel and the game tells me not to do that. I accidentally pick up dandelions and discover that’s what I am supposed to do. Then Uncle Berry comes to life and gives me instructions to clean the dandelions.

When I finish, I see an apple fall from the tree and pick it up. Once again, the uncle gives me instructions after the fact. I get way ahead of him as I shovel four plant plots. Sounds like I need to boss the guy instead of the other way around.

In fact, I’d like to turn him off and send him inside the house where he won’t bug me instead of wait around for him to leave. Regardless how I feel about Uncle Berry (my real uncles are great folks, thank you), the tutorial needs help.

Usually, you can click the screen or dialog to get more dialog. In this case, an “X” appears in the dialog. My first instinct is that it will close the box and skip the tutorial. It turns out the “X” works like clicking the dialog box to get more dialog. Little things like this add stress to the game as players have to work harder than necessary in areas where they don’t want to do the work.

Alice Greenfingers 2 has no stress-inducing factors unlike the original. A round doesn’t end until you meet the goal whereas before, it ended when the day ended and you keep going until you meet the goal. You also don’t set the prices or worry about watering in the beginning.

The best new feature is the upgrades that appear between levels. These upgrades include more plants, more land, more market space, more popularity with customers and more supplies. Of course, we get new plants like sunflower seeds. Also available for the buying are bees, sheep, and other non-plant related items.

The dandelions and apples are new features to the game as they don’t involve digging and planting. The apples also add $2 in the bank for every picked one. No need to sell them in the market. Occasionally, you’ll do special assignments for Unc.

This game may be too stress-free – not counting the usability problems — is there even such a thing? This game may not qualify as a game, but rather as an electronic dollhouse where you can do whatever you want.

Who wants to garden aimlessly? Garden lovers have goals for their gardens. They don’t plant everything they find and then leave it. They also have to deal with upkeep. Perhaps, having two modes would work well here with a Free Farm mode and Goal mode.

The graphics in Alice Greenfingers didn’t stand out and this one shows no improvement. I know I’m not the only reviewer to complain about the graphics in the original. I do like the graphics on the game’s title page and between levels. Had the game itself had similar graphics, it coulda been sumthin’.

I believe players won’t want to own both games. You might consider playing the demo of both games to see which you prefer. People looking to simply have fun without an ounce of stress or speed will prefer Alice Greenfingers 2’s slow and untimed pace.

Download Alice Greenfingers 2 from your favorite site:

• Big Fish Games
• Playfirst
• Reflexive (sold through GameCenterSolutions)

PC Game Review: Cinema Tycoon 2: Movie Mania

The movie business has changed a lot since I was a wee one. Movie theaters showed two or four movies at a time, not 16 to 24 that you see today. In Cinema Tycoon 2: Movie Mania, Mr. Pickwick hires you to turn his run down movie theaters into mega-plexes. Of course, rivals nip at your heels by upgrading whenever they can.

Every stage contains several goals to meet before saving the next theater. Most goals require earning so much money and implementing one thing such as two ticket windows or installing 16 screens. Players start a new theater with $5000, a couple of screens, and not much else.

Whether you’ve played tycoon-style business management games or not, the tutorial will familiarize you with everything you need to know. The reports contain more information than you need, so don’t let them overwhelm you.

You’ll need to stock up on food and drinks, select movies to show, price tickets and food, select upgrades in hopes to attract more theater goers, and run promotions. You can’t do it all as you only have so much money available. Plus, you’ll need to prioritize. Do you need to upgrade the sound system or do you need to change movies?

After you set up everything for the day, run your day. You can watch the ticket booth, concession stand, and movie theater all at once or view them one at a time. It’s not required to watch the day go by as the excellent reports will give you all the details you need. Cinema Tycoon 2 has a 2x Speed option where you can watch the action two times faster or simply push a button to end the day.

You might want to watch it a couple of times as it’s fun seeing what the game puts on the movie screen. It also has movie posters in the ticket booth window reflecting the current selection. The concession stand also contains the latest items you have in stock as well as the video arcade (once you make enough money to buy and grow the arcade).

“Hot” and “Cold” appear in the list of movie genres to help you decide what to play and not play. Sometimes, you won’t get a hint and will have to decide for yourself based on what you know about the current locale. Movie titles will make you smile with a lampoon of real movie titles such as “Hair Gel,” an obvious copy of “Hairspray.”

Reports come complete with arrows showing up, down, or no change from the previous day’s showing. You can also view line graphs or look at the data in table format. The dashboard gives you a quick overview of the day’s news and the previous day’s sales. Sometimes, a window pops up with commentary from a resident or colleague giving hints on what you might want to do.

Kids can learn a lot about running a business from Cinema Tycoon 2. It contains profit and loss reports, balance sheets, and loan options. Short on cash? Borrow up to $3000 from the bank or $5000 from a loan shark with much higher interest rates. Sometimes, you need to resort to both.

I think the game moves along too easy until I reach Level 8 where I keep filing Chapter 11. But I eventually conquer the level and go on to finish the game. Hence, it would make a great game for a family to play together or let the kids try it on their own.

Cinema Tycoon 2 deserves to have “Blockbuster” slapped on its game posters as it captivates, entertains, and educates all in one.

Download Cinema Tycoon 2 from your favorite site:

• Big Fish Games
• Reflexive Arcade

PC Game Review: Farm Frenzy 2

When Farm Frenzy 2 hit the download stands, I couldn’t wait to install it and start running my farm. Ohh… big mistake. I can’t stop playing the game and I have games lining up by the day waiting for my eyes and hands.

Like Farm Frenzy, the sequel has me taking care of animals, producing goods, storing them, and selling them so I can buy more animals to make more products. The circle of life on a farm. The original contains sheep, ducks, cows, dogs, and cats. This one brings back the cows, dogs and cats. It uses chickens for eggs instead of ducks, and the expensive ostrich for producing feathers.

The first paragraph of my original review applies to this one: Its fun, colorful, and cartoon-style graphics easily catches my youngest child’s attention. For me, the game keeps me up late as I’m keen on earning at least a silver star in every spot as I work my way around town. Of course, I love the graphics style, too.

Instead of cupcakes and wool, this one cooks up cakes, meat dish (at least, the game doesn’t sacrifice the animals), cheese, fans, hats, and an atelier. An atelier is a workshop and I suppose we’re making dolls or doll clothes.

I wish the game would offer hints for the very difficult levels. Getting gold rarely happens. Just reaching silver feels like a huge accomplishment. I’ve played all the levels and still have some levels to replay because I haven’t earned the silver medal. One level gives gold for those who complete it in three minutes and ten seconds. I don’t even come close. Hints, please!

As I work around paths, houses and fences improve with every level completion. I guess not only do we work to accomplish tasks, but also improve the little country side. Not clear, but it’s rewarding to see improvements.

This comes with awards, but some of the trophies don’t come when you think you’ve accomplished them. I replay an easier level and add cats and dogs so they would pick up all the products and cage all of the bears. But I still don’t earn the trophy. Some trophies need more explanation. For example, “For expedient production.” OK, what counts as fast enough to earn the trophy?

One trophy — that I don’t figure out right away — comes when you find all the gags. On occasion, a bear will peak out from the top. Click them and you’ve found a gag. Well, gee, I don’t want to replay all the levels until I find all the gags. The game never says to click these gags, so I miss them early on not knowing I’m supposed to click them.

Players must unlock unlimited mode by playing career mode. The trophy room describes some trophies as getting X things in “Survival.” Not everyone will figure out Survival = Endless mode.

Farm Frenzy 2 has a few kinks. Every now and then, the game freaks out and spews out an error message. It may take a couple of reloads, but the game eventually works again. Its loading speed isn’t as good as it should be. Waiting for the game to load takes longer than expected of today’s games.

Gotta run. Farm Frenzy 2 teases me with the few remaining blue spots (where I didn’t earn a silver). Obviously, it’s addiction and a joy to play.

Download it from your favorite site:

• BigFishGames
• Reflexive
• Playfirst