User Reviews: Most Recent

Grimlaura's picture
Grimlaura

Posted 2 hours, 4 minutes ago

User review by Grimlaura

3

A strategy building game in the tradition of Roads of Rome and others but this goes obviously in Egypt. As usual you collect resources like stone, food and gold, building farms and mines, and houses and so on. The goal is to restore broken roads, banish bandits and monsters, feed the people, rebuild temples and statues and restore Egypt in the end.
The game goes trickier as you play and more and more tasks has to be solved.
You get 12 awards evolving from bronze to gold, for gathering resources and points, or solving missions.
Also you get something called achievements which are in fact pieces of a big fresco.
Unfortunately the in game graphics and levels environment are a bit busy and very yellowish and you have to get your eyes accommodated with the scenery.
I was getting a bit tired after a while. And through the end the tasks goes complicated but repetitive.
Overall if you like the genre its a good game that will keep you busy for quite a long time. The rating closes to 3.5 but not close enough to round to 4.

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sotong's picture
sotong

Posted 3 hours, 30 minutes ago

User review by sotong

4

This game was surprisingly good and entertaining.

Not the best graphics but still the scenes & artwork looked rather pretty. Music was soothing and suited to the magical theme. Ambient sound was good, as well as effects and animation. There were no voice acting here and although there were some dialogues/conversations between the goblins and the princess, they were kept to minimal thus not making the game tedious.

I found the story quite interesting, although this type of plot can be quite predictable. At least it was cohesive, structured correctly and easy to understand. Nothing worse than a messy story and this one is definitely not.

Gameplay was more of adventure because I didn't recall playing many hidden objects scenes. The scenes were mainly picking up pieces of stuff to solve puzzles, open chests, locks, and completing tasks & actions. It was alright!

The puzzles were quite fun. Some were easy while some a little cryptic. The diary helped in retaining some clues but I did find the hint a bit unhelpful. For example, when I was stuck the hint only highlighted the place/object I needed to interact with without telling more.

Overall a fun and enjoyable game.

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Trans1000's picture
Trans1000

Posted 11 hours, 52 minutes ago

User review by Trans1000

5

I really like this game but it requires alot of waiting. You wait 6 hours for your robot research to finish, you wait 4 hours to play a mission again, 4 hours for the next chapter, 4 hours for more attacks, so in the end, you have nothing to do. Another thing I'd like to complain about is that ALMOST EVERYTHING cost Cash. I dont have any cash. I cant buy sum because Im a 12 year old kid so I dont have money & its really hard to get cash without buying with real money. The good thing is that the game is rather entertaining when you have nothing to do, therefore I play it alot.

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krystal850's picture
krystal850

May 23, 2012, 12:37pm

User review by krystal850

5

Wow this was an excellent adventure !! Beautifully drawn, bright, colorful and incredibly detailed. Loved the talking pirate skeletons. Lots of inventory items and a ton of HO scenes. And if you really couldn't see an item in the HO scene.. well you could just play a game of Toggle Majhong instead and it would give you the item. Very inventive and a nice change from having to use a hint. There were several places in this game where you had to find pieces in order to construct tools that you needed and other times where you had to make potions to move forward. Loved the creature that protected the treasure chest. creepy fingers. Each time you gave him a coin he would show you a video peice of the story. The cut scenes and music were great and the length was perfect. Not too long not too short. The map was quite helpful and would point out areas where things still needed to be done. Nice ending. Really enjoyed this one. Great game. Have not played the extra yet. I would like if these CE games would start adding collectables rather than sound tracks or wallpapers for extras but that's just my preference. I would rather have more gameplay than add ons later. But I did completely enjoy this one. Well worth the time and money investment. I almost didn't try it as I am usually not crazy about pirate stuff but this one might change my mnd. Don't miss it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
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Grimlaura's picture
Grimlaura

May 23, 2012, 5:15am

User review by Grimlaura

4

Considering the premises it was a nice surprise. The story its not very original but different than the latest dark gloomy ritual / mad scientists / doctors / criminals things. The game goes as HO puzzle adventure with a clever built in of a classic adventure game. You have to solve different tasks in adventure puzzle like manner and even there are repeating the HO scenes are not too many. As the story and tasks goes fluently the inventory doesn't get overloaded. There's no map but there are not too many locations available at any point in game so you can go through without it. The diary has very simple and interesting visual clues, like a scrap-book, in a childish like manner (after all the hero its a boy).
The graphics are well made with a story book like appearance, very clear and colorful and enjoyable.
The sound goes ok.
Overall its a nice little game with a classic adventure touch but a bit too simple, not very challenging, and doesn't bring something new to the genre. I first considered a 3.5 stars but I'll give the 4 for being different (as in colorful and relaxing) than the latest covered by darkness games.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
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sotong's picture
sotong

May 23, 2012, 2:06am

User review by sotong

1

Installed, played for 15 minutes and concluded that this was a BORING game!

Graphics were average and the scenes were junk piles. Colours of some items were altered to blend with the environment in the way that your eyes will miss them, for example black cactus & pot when one expected to see a green cactus & a nice clay pot. I played the game on full screen (24" monitor) & the graphics looked a bit grainy, so I changed the options to windowed mode. To my horror, the game's native resolution was 640x480! It was so tiny to even search for items in that window size!

Music was boring, as well as ambient sound, effects and animation. I found lots of spelling mistakes; some were on the items list while some appeared on the diary. Bad grammar too; especially having singular and plural of items. Item in singular could appear in plural & vice versa, for example a bunch of wrenches appeared as a wrench in the list. Some description of items were questionable too.

Initially I thought this may be like the Zumanji board game (with reference to the movie) but it ended up a spin of dice, then the 4 gems moved on the board and these were the 4 locations the player was required to find the items. It was a great disappointment. Gameplay was of course straight forward finding items from a list. I didn't quite get the searching for the gems and really couldn't be bothered with it anyway. Some scenes required interaction, like a box with some cryptic text that required solving but there were no clear clues on how to solve it. It was all trial and error. Sometimes these "puzzles" opened & revealed gems while others opened and revealed irrelevant items. Awful!

The story was incoherent and really really boring. Didn't know what was happening and in the end, I didn't care!

Bad game!

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PinkJellybean's picture
PinkJellybean

May 22, 2012, 4:21pm

User review by PinkJellybean

2

Sadly, this game didn't have much to keep me entertained so I gave up after a good while :( The finding fragments of certain items search was no fun, I mean a key is split up in 5 tiny pieces? no thank you. The graphics were so so. The characters all resemble real life celebrities, which was the most amusing part of the game for me.

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Hank29hm's picture
Hank29hm

May 22, 2012, 12:56pm

User review by Hank29hm

4

I tried the game as a demo from PC Gaming and I really liked that demo. I want to buy the full game.

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couchpotato's picture
couchpotato

May 22, 2012, 12:20pm

User review by couchpotato

4

I think the story is interesting, but the game play is distracting...a boot to move you to the next area instead of an arrow... call me old fashioned, but I like the arrow. It's small, it doesn't distract from the screen... and to locate an item of interest, there is a large spyglass, also distracting from the beautiful screens, it's way too large, and I'd rather have a tiny little eye or something... I only played the demo and I'm trying to decide if I want to purchase it to find out what happens to the little boy captured by the sandman, will he make it to the pirate ship??? More than likely a purchase, since i am curious to see how this one ends. You'll love the story which I think is original, the ghosts, or other children who are captured by the sandman, and you'll want to see if you can free the little boy from the sandman. Interesting game.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful
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Duckyohara's picture
Duckyohara

May 22, 2012, 12:07pm

User review by Duckyohara

4

This is the follow-up to the very charming Gardenscapes -- where you inherit an old mansion (yay!!!) with a very neglected garden. To fix it up you have to earn money through regular yard sales which are fun and lively. It's delightful how your cursor makes things move and change -- candles light up, curtains sway. Your trusty butler Austin gives you advice and makes amusing comments. This time it's the house itself that needs fixing, but basically it's the entry hall and mezzanine you can renovate, and you sell off stuff from the rest of the house which looks remarkably shipshape. Go figure.

It would have been a lot more fun to open up different rooms to fix up, not just the entry/mezzanine, and MUCH MORE fun if the furnishings offered were more varied and ... tasteful (all the couch/side chair sets were stuffy and dull). Still, Austin and Fido (your dog) are excellent company for this hidden object game -- and the music score is one of the best!

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