Archive for the ‘Sim’ Category

Sushi To Go Express Review

Action, Adventure, Sim | Posted by Zeke
Aug 26 2010

Sushi to go Express 7

Tony Tortuga’s company went out of business like many companies now a days, and the administration did not help it out with a stimulus package. That means poor Tony the turtle is out of a job, but his wife always knew it was about time for Tony to start his own delivery service. He quickly gets orders from different sushi restaurants to deliver the food to their customers.

The play is your basic sim game to click on the restaurant with the type of sushi the client is ordering. After waiting, the sushi is ready to be delivered to the home. You click on the sushi then click on the house with the order and Tony will swim first to pick up the sushi and then to the home. In addition you have to supply the restaurants with fish from the factory when they run out of items. You know when to click on the factory for your fish order when you see the closed sign at the restaurant. Each level is timed but there is plenty of time to Sushi to go Express 5make the sushi and deliver it. Every few levels there are puzzle games to get more points. One such mini play is to go through a maze collecting bags of rice before the stingrays eat them. If you find the wasabi, Tony will swim faster for you.

I felt Sushi To Go Express is a game for kids. The graphics are simple and cute. The sushi is easily identifiable. I didn’t see much difference in the difficulty levels, but it could be because the game kept quitting on me. I have a Mac Book Pro with Mac OS X, version 10.5.8. I even made the screen smaller to see if it would help. It got me a little further in the game before quitting. I’ve talked to others Sushi to go Express 2who were able to play the game without any problems. The game is repetitive with not much action. I found after delivering sushi to one house that same home kept ordering more items. This makes figuring out who ordered when a little difficult, but it really makes no difference in the play. I guess that kept the game going without having different customers rotating through the screen like other sim restaurant or store games like Miriel The Magical Merchant. Another very annoying factor is the strange sound Tony makes when he gets paid. Even though I didn’t find this sim game exciting, I can see some kids and casual gamers enjoying it.

Features of Sushi To Go Express:
-50 Reef Levels
-Upgrades
-Mini Games

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Sprouts Adventure Review

Action, Adventure, Sim | Posted by Meg
Aug 24 2010

Sprouts Adventure

Sprouts Adventure is a sim play where you are the one controlling the lives of young, small creatures called Sprouts. Darkness fell on the land of Sprouts leaving just a few Sprouts to survive on their own after a terrible storm. They are out of food and do not know what to do. You are there to guide the Sprouts back to their original prosperous life in this interesting Mac game.

The play is to meet the needs of the Sprouts, build their homes and buildings to make their lives easier, happier and healthier. The 5 Sprouts in your careSprouts Adventure 2 are called: Tulip, Basil, Rosa, Cypress and Pina. They will let you know what they need with the picture above their heads, and they will verbally let you know with their cute, squeaky voices. In order to feed them, you must click on a Sprout and drag him/her to a patch of dirt to till and work the ground. Afterwards you click on the rain button, drag it to the patch, then click on the sun, drag the sun to the patch, and the plants will grow. Click on any hungry Sprout, drag him/her to the patch to eat. Also dropping any Sprout on a flower will provide food for them.

In addition, you need to click, drag a Sprout to magic stones, butterflies, gems and weeds. This will increase their life attributes. All of which are important for the welfare of your group. In addition earning Karma points will open up various spells for your Sprouts. This can be done by the Sprouts’ offerings, fulfilling wishes from the well and by fishing. There is a day meter to display the time of day. This is important because some spells can only be done during certain times of the day or night. The map when you click on it will show the overview of the entire Sprouts’ world. This will allow you to view when the wild flowers, gems, magic stones and weeds are available. The weeds are important to click and drag a Sprout to remove them.

When a Sprout gets an idea, there will be a light bulb above his head, and by clicking on it you will be able to find out what kind of thought it is. If it is to erect a building since they will need a place to rest, sleep and work in, you drag the supplies to an available site. The first building takes many days to erect but is essential for the Sprouts to sleep in and rest so they will be able to work on all the projects. The more Sprouts you have working will get the job done faster.

The Sprouts will be better when they are happy, curious, nourished, motivated, and rested. In this state the Sprouts will do wonderful things for you. This Mac game is like Virtual Villagers and My Tribe except it is a little easier to play since you can accomplish many things Sprouts Adventure 3without killing your little Sprouts. This game will be appropriate for younger children to learn a sim play of this type. There are achievements and discoveries to collect and find. Since the area is confined to a small area, and with the overview, it is easy to collect all the items for increasing life’s attributes. In addition, spells are locked and open up slowly one at a time for you to incorporate it in the play. Increasing your population comes from the earned eggs. You click on the egg, drag it to an open area and wait.

Sprouts Adventure is an adorable sim play for children and casual gamers to have fun raising a group of Sprouts who will become a useful, lively and responsible citizen of their world. I think the sounds effects and artwork are appropriate assets to this game. The play is enjoyable, if not a little slow, and fun to establish new inhabitants in their own village.

Features of Sprouts Adventure:
-Be a Deity
-Earn Karma to Unlock Spells
-11 Structures
-Dozen Sprouts

Rating: ★★★½☆

Plan It Green Review

Sim | Posted by musicaltrack
Aug 17 2010

planitgreen

Plan It Green, what a clever and current name, I initially thought. Then my second thought about this game was of some boring environmental game that would no doubt put me to sleep immediately and lecture about how wasteful I am. However, I was completely wrong! Plan It Green, besides the double entendre, is a fun and inventive game that actually makes taking out the recycling fun. Moreover, the game is generally focused on making the town of Greenville more “green” but it feels more like a game of SimCity than in your eye environmental improvement exercise.  Can you see Al Gore on stage lecturing about buying energy units?

The game has two game options: Campaign mode and Free Play mode. Campaign mode is the main story and as you finish saving districts in Greenville as the new mayor, you unlock the districts to play in Free Play. In Free Play you do not have the goals to meet like in Campaign mode. The game begins in a semi-tutorial and helps you along the way as you proceed. There is a task bar for each level and when you perform all the tasks listed, you move on in the latter mode. These tasks vary from upgrading houses to make them Plan It Green 1more eco-friendly to building parks and recreation for citizens. There are different areas in which you can work as well, like the town center (where you focus on businesses) and the industrial sector (where factories and clean energy are the priorities). Some of the ecologically correct upgrades are solar panels, water reclamation system, recycling bins and eco gardens.

As I said before, this game really reminds me of a SimCity game that has gone green. What is most important is to finish all your goals in the allotted number of days. Personally, I felt like the time limit the game presented was a little too pressing, but it did help the game continue on a good pace. The fact that there were sometimes vague goals (like raise green awareness to 20%). It was a good
game with a definite agenda at forcing children to relate to a green community. Overall I would give Plan It Green four out of five stars.

Features of Plan It Green:
- Improve 8 Neighborhoods over 45 Levels
- Pick the latest eco-upgrades
- Create a Green City

Rating: ★★★★☆

Trial of the Gods – Ariadne’s Journey Review

Adventure, Hidden Object/I Spy, Seek and Find, Sim | Posted by Meg
Aug 13 2010


Pearls are a central theme in both Mac match 3 games Trial of the Gods – Ariadne’s Fate and Journey, and that’s a good thing in my book. I cannot have enough pearls in my jewelry box. In the sequel Ariadne is saved and reunited with Theseus, but alas, life is not so easy for these two lovers of ancient Greek mythology.

Theseus is sent to ward off the Amazon invasion, but gets captured instead. Now Adriadne must venture out and save Theseus. She implores the gods to help her on her journey, and Aphrodite offers to assist her in return for gifts to repair her tattered temple.

In order to get Aphrodite gifts you play a match 3 or more similar objects game. You begin by matching tiles with pearls to release them, and as you travel along the path to get closer to Theseus, you get different types of match plays to earn. At the market place you match purses of gems to be first in line for the goods. The purses do not swap so you have to figure out how to get other items lined up to make the match.

There are many power-ups you get for making combos. The emerald will destroy tiles horizontally and the topaz will do the same diagonally. The onyx will eliminate tiles horizontally and vertically, the quartz will make the same type of item of one kind disappear, the celestial sphere will destroy tiles around the selected tile and the caduceus’ staff will shuffle tiles surrounding a tile. You either make matches or bring items down to the bottom of the screen to collect them. When Ariadne needs to have her fortune read, you must bring down cards. If you see coins appear on the board, you must click on them quickly to collect them. They only appear for a short time. If you see tiles with 2 items, you can match this tile with either of the items.

Aphrodite will also grant Ariadne gifts like the porter who will escort her through shortcuts on her journey for awhile. Along the journey, you will play hidden object games to collect more items. These HOGs are quite simple, but they do break up the match plays. After earning gifts for Aphrodite, you will play a sim type of game by placing these gifts in appropriate locations in and around the temple. Move the piece around the board until you see the outline of it appear and place it at that location.

The main plays are the match 3 games. You can either play the Adventure and follow the story of Ariadne or play Ariadne’s Loom where you bring the ball of yarn down the board to complete the needlepoint picture on the left. The play is similar to the Adventure except you do not follow the story or play the mini games.

Trial of the Gods – Ariadne’s Journey is very similar to the first game, but with added games like the HOGs and the sim games. Both of these games are simple and not much of a challenge so if you are looking for a difficult game, this is not the one. However, you can play it timed in order to up the ante a little, but if you want a easy, relaxing fun day, try playing this colorful match game with added side games.

Features of Trial of the Gods – Ariadne’s Journey:
-2 Modes to Play
-Hidden Objects
-Restore Aphrodite’s Temple

Rating: ★★★½☆

Life Quest Review

Adventure, Hidden Object/I Spy, Sim | Posted by Zeke
Aug 12 2010


The principal of your high school encouraged you to choose wisely and move on with your life. He also said you can be anything you choose to be. Life Quest is a Mac game where you choose your career path while competing with your high school rivals.

You begin by choosing your avatar and all your characteristics and colorings. The scene is a grid of a city where you can go to all the unlocked stores, houses, and schools like any other town this size. You are given $20 from your generous parents and your sister will take you shopping for clothes. You choose the top, bottom and shoes, and you get to coordinate the colors. Once outfitted, you are on your own, sort of. Your sister will constantly remind you to eat. She starts to get on your nerves after awhile.

You get calls from classmates who are your rivals and you must complete their goals in order to beat them in this race. In order to do anything you must make money. Daphne wants a goldfish so you must go and get a pet before she does. You must keep an eye on the time meter and happiness meter. The fork and knife icon appears when you need to eat, but as I mentioned before your sister will let you know. When you get a job, you click rapidly on the work button so you can make as much money as possible before the end of the day. The time is fast in this game so you must try to do everything as quickly as possible. Another way to make money is to spot hidden gnomes in different scenes. They should include more hidden gnomes for a challenging HOG.

There are many more ways to spend your hard earned money like buying food, getting furniture, pets, electronics, and transportation. However, you must work fast because your day is very, very short. You can’t get much done in a day so plan your route carefully. Hopefully you can get a scooter for $500 quickly.

There are a lot of things to do to keep you engaged before the day is abruptly over. At least you don’t get sent to the hospital every time you work too hard like in Mac game My Life Story. Life Quest is easier to play and interesting to unlock all the businesses around town. The competition between your rivals is a little strange but it keeps your mind on the need to rush around and beat your opponent. Even if you lose to your rival, when you complete the goals, you win. The artwork is good and the music okay for the game. If you like sim time management games like this, you’ll like Life Quest. It’s better than most.

Features of Life Quest:
-Create Your Own Avatar
-Choose Your Life’s Path
-Find all the Gnomes

Rating: ★★★½☆