Blog of Casual Games | Casual Games

Archive for February 2010

Feb/10

3

Virtual city

The selection of time management and casual simulation games nowadays offers you any kind of challenge – development and construction, power and services. G5 Entertainment decided to go further and presented in Virtual City a somewhat different concept of city development – transport services.
In Virtual City you will play an owner of a trucking company. Ever heard of logistics? If no, it’s your happy day! Developing supply chains, for example, will be up to you. You will be doing all kinds of chores from pleasant like people transportation to rate unappealing but necessary like garbage hauling.
The game progresses with each level and eventually you will start constructing houses and buildings but mind that from start to finish the only money you have will come out of your trucks. So moving people, garbage, manufactured goods and raw materials will bring you profit. Keep the garbage in mind whatever you do.
The time management element in this game will make you scratch your head a couple of times. Even in simplest tasks like supplying shopping mall with pies will need a lot of effort in planning. Raw materials like wheat and flour need to be made and transported. Remember to bring milk from dairy farm. It’ll take another truck too. And another to bring ready pies to the mall. Now, I believe, you are starting to get the picture.
And while this all happens the garbage keeps collecting so you will eventually need dumpsters to take it away. Take away where you are asking me? Well, to the recycling plant you are going to build.

Of course your time is limited and each goal is timed. Don’t worry even if you break the time limit the game will go on. Or, if you want you may start over and try to finish the level in time.
The game starts small as usual. Sooner or later though you will be challenged with stations and marinas. Need I tell you about space shuttle launch center? I suppose it’ll be a surprise.
As Virtual City is a modern game the environmental impact is measurable and it influences the happiness of people in the game.
Overall Virtual City has 50 separate challenges which are located in 5 different states. Each state offers different natural conditions and thus different job needs to be done. As soon as you complete one or two towns you are able to unlock the sandbox mode for that state which gives you some money and open space to build whatever you fancy. This mode is not timed so have your fun.
Actually despite some similarities Virtual City is a fine game of its own which deserves a high mark.

virtualcity

No tags Hide

This is a hybrid from iWin that combines a hidden object quest related to Egyptian lore with classic Jewel Quest gem-swapping. Recently the developers try to entertain us more and combine several genres. In this particular case it worked.

Rupert and Emma will visit Egypt, solve ancient puzzles and reveal a captivating story told in journal entries and sketches. They will be looking for each hidden object in a busy outdoor or indoor scene. Along the left hand-side of the screen the objects you need to locate within the specified period of time are listed. Incorrect clicking gets you penalized – if you click on an incorrect items three times you lose 30 seconds off the clock.

Puzzles and other mini-games are also here. For example, you must swap gems on a board so that at least three have formed a vertical or horizontal row. Doing so will vanish the line and new gems fall down the board.

In contrast to other recent hidden object games when you revisit the scene in search of new items they will be in the same locations as the already found ones. It makes the game a tad too easy for me. Though to be fair it’s a good example of a hidden object game with good graphics and music – just not as good as some of the others I’ve reviewed.

jewelcurseemeraldtear.jpg

, Hide

« Previous Page

Next Entries »