Game review: Magic Seeds

Magic Seeds is a weird sort of time management game. You are given some seeds and it is your job to grow the plants. While this sounds rather boring, the really interesting part comes from trying to cross-pollinate the plants. You start out with some sunflower seeds. Once the plants are mature, you can cross-breed them. Cross-breeding the two sunflowers will give you tomato seeds. (No, I'm not sure how that works either but it does in the game.) Then, after the tomatoes are mature, you can cross-breed the sunflowers with tomatoes and get corn. So even though the actual growing part isn't particularly fun, trying to figure out what pairs will give you different seeds is.

In very basic terms, this is a time management game. You have to water the plants and hoe the plants and pick the plants and sell the plants, if you so desire. There are even upgrades you can buy to help you with these chores. But I still think that this is not the point of the game. In my opinion, the point of the game is to try to obtain as many different types of seeds as you possibly can. That bumps it to more of a puzzle game than a time management one. No matter how you want to categorize it, it's still a lot of fun.

Game review: Ice Cream Craze

In the restaurant-themed time management game Ice Cream Craze, you play Jan. Her parents own an ice cream shop but they have decided to close the shop and retire. However, Jan had dreamed of taking over the shop. As her parents head off for a two-month vacation, Jan takes over the shop in order to prove that she can handle the business. The gameplay follows a lot of the counter-based restaurant games. Customers come up to the counter, order an item, you make the item, give it to them and take their money. There is a bit of a change here though. Instead of just clicking on a machine that will make your food for you, you need to stack your items in the appropriate order. For example, if a customer wants an ice cream cone with a chocolate scoop on top of a vanilla scoop, you need to pick up a cone, then pick up a vanilla scoop then pick up a chocolate scoop. While this is easy in the beginning, it gets a lot more difficult in the higher levels when they add new flavors and toppings and pies.

I found the game to be extremely entertaining. Besides just having the "satisfy your customers" goal, the challenge of having to juggle the ice cream flavors and everything made it a bit more exciting. Of course, I felt really stupid when I screwed up since all it requires is paying close attention. Luckily, you can just restart a level and fix your mistake. This was probably one of the most fun time management games I've played in awhile.

Game review: Monster Mash

While Monster Mash is listed as a time management game, it doesn't really fall under that genre. If anything, it's a strategy game. You are presented with a small village that is about to be attacked by various monsters. It is your job to set up different towers to destroy the monsters before they reach the village. Generally, I'm not very good at strategy games. For some reason, I have a difficult time figuring out where to place troops in order to defeat my enemy. However, I had a wonderful time playing this one. Each tower type shows you a range circle so you know exactly how far their guns will shoot to kill the monsters. The game challenges you by giving you more than one type of monster, which may require more shots before it falls dead. Some of the monsters even give power-ups. Sadly, I can't get past the level where there is a constant stream of monsters. Perhaps one day I will figure out the magic combination to pass the level but, until then, I will keep fighting the good fight!

I think this game would be good for people that enjoy puzzles. Since the focus of the game is based on not leaving any gaps between your towers' ranges so you get the maximum shots at the monsters, it definitely fits within a puzzle genre. I also think that people that enjoy strategy games like Starcraft might like it as well

Game review: Pat Sajak's Lucky Letters: TV Guide Edition

I almost feel dirty writing this review. Pat Sajak's Lucky Letters game is basically a crossword puzzle. This particular version is all about television shows. The levels are broken into decades so, if you happen to know more about television shows from the 90s, you can choose that decade. Then you won't be bombarded with questions from shows in the 70s. If you know a bit about television, the game is extremely easy. Most of the questions are from extremely popular shows and even if you come upon a show you don't know, you can skip that one and you'll eventually solve it after answering the rest of the puzzle. The game was fun but it was all fluff. I haven't even finished the 60 minute demo and I'm already bored with it after finishing three decades. Skip this game and try for something a bit more difficult.

Game review: Big City Adventure: Sydney, Australia

My daughter really enjoyed playing the Big City Adventure: San Francisco hidden object game with me. So I decided to give the Sydney, Australia version a try. I did play this with my daughter as well. The game takes you around the main tourist attractions of Sydney to find a variety of objects. Just before each level, there is a tidbit of information about the location so there's a bit of educational value tossed in with the entertainment. When you complete a location, you are rewarded with a token in the shape of something related to that location. For example, you might get a koala-shaped token from the zoo.

My daughter and I enjoyed this version of the game as much as the San Francisco version. Most of the words are easy enough for a young child to read them without much help and most of the objects are fairly easy to find as well. This is definitely a game that an adult could play with a child while still enjoying the game. Both will be able to participate so it won't turn into an instance where the adult does all the work and the child just watches. The game is still fun if you play it by yourself, especially if you are interested in Australian attractions.

Game review: Go-Go Gourmet

Go-Go Gourmet is a restaurant-themed time management game. Well, it's sort of restaurant-themed anyway. You play Ginger, a woman trying to obtain master chef status so she can take over her grandfather's restaurant. Unlike normal restaurant-themed time management games, you don't deal with the customers at all. The only "interaction" you have with them is their face appears on their order slip. You start out with a small repertoire of dishes. In order to make the dish, you must find the necessary ingredients in the kitchen and prepare them in proper order. As you get farther in the game, you learn how to make more dishes and the kitchen fills up with various ingredients and cooking utensils.

Basically, this game is mixing a hidden object game with a time management game. You have to kick out the orders quickly and you have to search for the ingredients, which aren't always in the same spot they were before. I really enjoyed playing the game. Even when things started to get crazy, it was still really fun. The only down part of the game is that some of the meat ingredients look alike. It's a little difficult to tell the ground beef from the sausage. Other than that, it's a very fun game.

Game review: The Nightshift Code

My daughter really enjoys playing hidden object games with me. So I loaded up The Nightshift Code for us to try out. Of course, I always start off by telling her that the game may be too difficult for her and to let me know if it is. For the most part, Nightshift is a typical hidden object game. However, in the higher levels, the game tries to up the difficulty level by giving you a list of objects that can be found in multiple rooms. You have to click between different locations just to finish one list. The problem there is that the list doesn't tell you which room it goes to. So you end up spending a lot of time looking for objects that may not be in the room you are in! I didn't find it particularly difficult but it was very annoying.

I did enjoy some of the mini-games. One, for example, had a puzzle where an object would represent a word in a sentence. The game gives you multiple sentences and you have to figure out which object goes with each word. It was slightly difficult but just enough to make it fun instead of aggravating. I wish that there were more of these types of puzzle games available.

Game review: Dress Shop Hop

Another game from the creators of Diner Dash and Wedding Dash, Dress Shop Hop is a fashion-based time management game. Flo (from Diner Dash) and Quinn (from Wedding Dash) tell Bobbi (Dress Shop Hop) to open her own clothes shop. Of course, the heroine of this games listens to her predecessors. They have rather successful businesses themselves after all. Ohhhh....I really wanted to like this game and I did in the beginning but then it goes to hell. Much like other time management games, you move the customer to their "table." In this cast, the "table" is a machine that helps the customer decide what clothes they want. Then you have to go to the fabric machine to get their color fabric and take that to the sewing machine that makes the clothes. The problem with all of this? The machines take forever to do anything and the customers get impatient quickly. So by the time you reach the second chapter of the story, it's difficult to complete each level. If the machines moved a little faster or if the customers were a little more patient, the game would have been a lot better. As it is, it's frustrating to have to play the same level multiple times and still not be able to complete it.

Game review: Polly Pride: Pet Detective

The hidden obeject game Polly Pride: Pet Detective tells the story of Polly, the owner of a pet shelter who also does a bit of detective work on the side. If you have lost your pet, Polly will find it for you! I thought that this "pet detective" twist to the hidden object genre was interesting. In each level, you have the opportunity to find a lost pet from one of the previous storylines. While it doesn't change the actual gameplay any, it does give the game a little bit more of a emotional tie. People don't like losing their beloved pets so it feels good to help someone, even a person in a video game, find their animals.