PC Game Reviews, Previews and Screenshots

After stumbling upon Freight Tycoon, Inc. at GamersGate, I became immediately intrigued and embarked on a search for more info. Is there a demo? What are the specific elements of gameplay? Is this like Transport Tycoon of old, except just with trucks? Good lord, why won't anyone tell me anything?!? This game has received zero attention from everyone, including its publisher. Counting this very review, there appears to be exactly one review of this game online.

And that's too bad because it's actually a decent game.

I really wanted to like Sins of a Solar Empire. I think Stardock is a great company with exactly the right stance on copy protection (it's harmful to everyone). And I think Ironclad Games is doing a fantastic job of listening to their customers. The very same day that I posted a review complaining about the lack of speed control options in Sins, a helpful reader pointed out the fact that a recent patch corrects that oversight.

So, with handy dandy speed controls in hand, I gave Sins of a Solar Empire another go. Objectively, I can say that Sins of a Solar Empire is a very well designed real time strategy game. Subjectively, it bores me to tears. But this is obviously a matter of taste.

SpaceForce: Captains had tremendous potential, but was probably doomed from the start. I imagine the first meeting regarding the game went something like this: "Gentlemen, I have a splendid idea! You're all familiar with the tremendous success seen by the Heroes of Might and Magic franchise. Let's see if we can capitalize on that by copying their play style wholesale. Except, we shall do it...In Space!"

So yeah, SpaceForce: Captains is, in fact, a wholesale rip-off of the HoMM franchise in every way, save two. First, it is, as previously mentioned, in space! And second, to call it a steaming pile of manure would be an insult to respectable animal fecal matter everywhere. At least manure can be re-purposed as fertilizer.

If I had a PC games hall of shame(now there's an idea!), SpaceForce: Captains would be a serious contender for the #1 slot.

I bought Tarr Chronicles on the strength of its demo. Based on the demo, I expected a sweeping space odyssey of a game where I get to play the role of some sort of space-fighter pilot. I'm thinking Freelancer. Or StarLancer. Or Elite. Or Privateer. The demo showed the basics of flying around and shooting things, things which it does reasonably well. What I did not expect was that the demo would actually be a fair representation of the total game.

Fact is, you have no freedom in Tarr Chronicles at all. The entire game is on rails. And that's a bad place for such a game to be.

Crysis finds itself among that rare breed of games that differentiate themselves by having ludicrous system requirements, but fail to bring anything actually interesting to the table. I downloaded the demo for two reasons. My primary reason for downloading it was to see if by brand spanking new Alienware machine could play it. It can. Thankyouverymuch, Alienware.

The second reason was to see if I cared enough about the game to actually buy it. I don't.

As mentioned previously, I recently ordered an Alienware gaming computer. As I was finishing my Devil May Cry 4 review, it arrived. Since then, I've been busy playing all the PC games that I couldn't play because my previous machine gave up the ghost as well as those that my old computer could never, ever play. After years and years of building my own machines, I now see the folly of my ways. Never in my wildest dreams could I have built a machine this completely awesome, and I didn't even get the top of the line Alienware. I got the "low end" gaming rig which, after some customizations, can play any game out today. Many of them maxed out. It will even play Crysis at 1680x1050. Granted, at that resolution, Crysis is set to "medium". But I don't care. It's not like I like Crysis all that much anyway.

It even came with a hat!

Sudoku has risen in popularity over the last couple of years to the extent that there are dozens and dozens of versions available. It's in the paper. It's in the little booklets at the checkout counter of your favorite grocery store. The first electronic version of Sudoku I tried was "Sudoku Mania" for the DS.

Worst. Game. Ever.

As games go, Sudoku has relatively few interface requirements. You need to be able to enter numbers, and you need to be able to enter potential numbers - also called penciling in. Those two things are required for a fully functional Sudoku game. Period. Of the games surveyed, only two utterly fail on that point (which is somewhat surprising), but many of the others have such poorly designed interfaces that I seriously have to wonder how the designers manage to get out of bed and dress themselves in the morning.

As some of you may know, a couple of months ago my main gaming rig decided to give up the ghost as the result of a power outage/spike we had. Since then, I've been playing few PC games because the $250 walmart jobby that I bought (so that I could continue doing my day job) wasn't really up to the task. No play: no reviews. Well, that's all about to change.

Last night I ordered Alienware.

The Sims Carnival SnapCity, a game with a name that only a mother could love, is most easily described as the mutant child of Sim City and Tetris. I once read that the likelihood of two really intelligent people having a stupid child is higher than of two normal people having a really stupid child. SnapCity is that stupid child. Sim City is one of the hardest games ever, and everyone eventually loses at Tetris. I'm not sure that you can fail at SnapCity. Unless, I guess, both of your parents were really, really smart.

But that doesn't mean that it isn't fun. The music is nice. The graphics have a cartoony shinyness to them which makes the game easily pleasant to look at. And the gameplay, while kind of silly, is just interesting enough that after each level you'll wonder what the next one holds. It's never held my attention for more than an hour at a time. But an hour is usually about 45 minutes longer than I planned to play it to begin with.

Just one more level....

Puzzle Quest is a deceptively simple RPG set in the Warlords universe. The thing that differentiates Puzzle Quest from just about every other RPG in existence is the method of combat resolution: it uses a series of gem matching puzzles. Surprisingly, this means that combat is less random than in your standard RPG which uses, well, random numbers where PQ uses random numbers plus skill.

That's all you need to know. So, stop reading this, crank up your 360 and go download it from Xbox Live! In addition to the XBLA demo, there's a PC demo available as well, and it turns out you can buy a digital download of the PC version here. Or you can get it from Amazon.