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  • Fish Friends Review
    Reviews
    Fish Friends Review

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    From Happy Aquarium to FishVille, aquarium sims are hot right now in social gaming. Fish Friends is Playdom's entry into this crowded genre, but it may be too little and too late. Even though Fish Friends is already at over 1 million MAU, it's hard to imagine large numbers of players passing up other aquarium sims to play it. Fish Friends offers pleasing visuals, but its gameplay is simply too insubstantial as of this writing.
  • My Vineyard Review
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    My Vineyard Review

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    In theory, My Vineyard is a Facebook sim about owning your own winery. In practice, it's far more comparable to FarmVille than any sort of business-running game. You plant grapes, you stomp on them, the juice ages in barrels, and finally you sell of the barrels for cash that you use to… buy more grapes. The main things that set My Vineyard apart from other games are its pre-rendered 3D visuals and its slightly more adult approach to its subject matter.
  • Treasure Quest Review
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    Treasure Quest Review

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    Treasure Quest is sometimes described as a game portal rather than a social game, which isn't too far off. In theory you start a "game" of Treasure Quest by creating an avatar. You can level up and unlock more outfits for your avatar, which you pay for with virtual currency you earn by playing particular games. The games are fairly typical single-player casual fare and form the meat of Treasure Quest's experience.
  • My Tribe on Facebook Review
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    My Tribe on Facebook Review

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    If My Tribe's title sounds familiar to you, there's a very good reason for that. Big Fish initially released My Tribe as a casual PC download a little over two years ago. The Facebook version adds social game mechanics and a cash item shop, but otherwise appears to be largely identical to the earlier version. Readers may recall Gamezebo pointing out that My Tribe was essentially identical to the Virtual Villagers series of games two years ago and that statement is still basically true.That is, again, more interesting on Facebook than off of it. Cloning is rampant in social gaming, but My Tribe is one of the first attempts at doing something in the Virtual Villagers vein on the platform. The result is something with a lot more depth and variety than most social games, though there's also a trade-off in terms of complexity.
  • Mall World Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    Mall World Review

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    Mall World is a game about fashion. You sell fashion, buy fashion, create fashion for friends, create fashions in mini-games… you get the idea. It's also very specifically a game about women's fashion, so this is not a game to play if you expect to be able to create so much as a male avatar. The game only suggests inviting female friends to play it, unless you go out of your way to be able to invite people from your full list of friends.
  • Hospital Town Review
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    Hospital Town Review

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    Atlus's Trauma Center sparked a boom in "medical" video games in the console space, but the craze has extended to surprisingly few Web games. Hospital Town is one of the first "medical" Facebook games to catch our eye and it offers a promising social take on the genre. While there are action mini-games to play in Hospital Town, the bulk of the gameplay is more sim-like and focuses on hospital management. You need to assign patients to beds for treatment, check them out when they feel better, and decorate your hospital.
  • Big City Life Review
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    Big City Life Review

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    Despite the sudden popularity of farming, fishing, and treasure hunting on Facebook, the text RPG remains probably the most ubiquitous type of social game. Most are nearly interchangeable sets of repetitive missions focusing on gloomy action-movie themes like organized crime, vampires, dragons, or all of the above. Playdom's Big City Life takes the genre in an entirely different and welcome direction by basing its game around the mundane adventures of everyday urban life.
  • Hero World Review
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    Hero World Review

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    Hero World is a game that should be more fun. It's a text RPG (think Mafia Wars) using a superhero theme, where you create your own superhero and then go out adventuring. In theory, you can grow your superhero from a dull newbie into a mighty powerhouse by completing missions, forming a superteam with your friends, and battling supervillains. Superheroes should be a good fit for the text RPG format, but Hero World squanders a lot of its potential.