New Games Tagged 'Sim' on The Great Games Experiment New Games on The Great Games Experiment http://www.greatgamesexperiment.com/css/logo.jpg New Games Tagged 'Sim' on The Great Games Experiment en-us Kudos 2
]]> 01 Oct 2008 11:27:41 Caveman Craig
]]> 31 May 2008 12:58:22 Internet World Walkabout
]]> 25 Mar 2008 01:23:18 Grimm's Hatchery
]]> 10 Feb 2008 01:43:21 Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice
]]> 19 Jan 2008 04:08:51 Championship Bass
]]> 07 Jan 2008 01:02:56 Ultimate Hunt Challenge
]]> 07 Jan 2008 12:53:29 Endless Ocean
]]> 15 Nov 2007 08:13:57 Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe
]]> 04 Nov 2007 12:19:04 Harvest Moon: Tree of Peace
]]> 14 Oct 2007 05:07:28 Kudos Rock Legend
]]> 04 Oct 2007 09:52:01 Village the Game
]]> 09 Aug 2007 11:01:32 Sim City: Societies Featuring an all-new, revolutionary feature set, SimCity Societies allows players to create their own kinds of cities, shape their cultures, societal behaviors and environments. Build an artistic city, an Orwellian city, futuristic city, green city, spiritual community or any society you want! With more accessible and innovative choices than before, SimCity Societies is the most versatile city building game.

Features:

  • SimCity Societies is the most versatile city building game.
    • o SimCity Societies provides the ultimate building block tool kit, allowing players to combine, connect and re-arrange elements of their city like never before
    o This innovative, modular approach to city-building makes SimCity Societies accessible to players of all levels, while at the same time provides tremendous new possibilities to players familiar with the SimCity™ series.
  • Revolutionary new resource management: control the societal energies of your city.
    • o SimCity Societies introduces new kinds of resources for buildings to produce or consume, called "societal energies."
    o How you mix and match these energies—knowledge, creativity, spirituality, obedience, wealth and industry—determines the core attributes of your city. Will your city be happy and creative, spiritual and knowledgeable, will it be wealthy and powerful or obedient and fearful? Its fate is in your hands.
    o A new system in SimCity Societies picks up on cultural cues and adjusts lighting, music and the appearance of your city on-the-fly!
  • Make an artistic city, an industrial one, a police state ….or anything you want.
    • o Build your own kinds of cities! Strive to create an Orwellian Utopia, a city of technology, a city of contemplation, a candy land filled with gingerbread houses and chocolate factories or wherever your imagination takes you.
  • Build out the city with unique homes, workplaces, leisure-time venues and parks.
    • o Choose from more than 350 unique buildings which can be combined, connected and re-arranged in almost limitless combinations.
    o Inspiration comes from the wide range of architectural styles, ranging from the realistic to the fanciful, from rural to urban, from industrial to futuristic.
    o Each structure reflects its name and nature, and many offer a click-on action for you to play upon!
    o As your city evolves, you’ll be able to unlock new buildings to help advance your society.
  • Share your own unique cities with your friends online.
    • o SimCity Societies allows you to create your own unique cities to share with your friends online.
    ]]>     17 Jul 2007 03:22:07     Chocolatier Conquer the world with chocolate! Become a master chocolatier one ingredient at a time in this spirited adventure. Search the globe for exclusive recipes and the sweetest ingredients . . . but watch out for conniving competitors! Between trips, set up your factories to maximize production in a fast-paced frenzy of fun.

    Do you have the savvy for scrumptiousness to climb the ranks from Apprentice to Master Chocolatier?

    Featuring two game modes, an original storyline, and gorgeous full-screen graphics, Chocolatier is a scrumptious treat for the whole family.
    ]]>     29 Jun 2007 02:26:38     admin:x This game has taken me three years to design. Its purpose is to allow free reign in the game to hack/learn/progress etc, on an almost epic scale. All players in the beginning are visible to each other, with many many in game modules and missions, jobs, listings, time frame network windows etc. As an admin in the game i will also administer special missions etc that players may do, to earn credits etc. An infrastructure has been coded over a long time, and i am preparing artwork mock ups at the moment as a teaser, as its a 2d and 3d game, incorporating huds and all 3d elements into a unique venture into the "space" of the internet. There is also a web based interface, and am hoping to start the mobile interface for j2me type phone to use a gprs/internet connection to monitor game status from afar. The game itself is too large to explain here, and for privacy/copyright reasons wont dive into details of gameplay s much. Its a fast paced, almost real time game requiring many skills, and yet with more than several variations to all gameplay aspects based on your skill, and the level you choose, it has unending possibilites. All the above, and, it will be
  • completely * moddable, as in, dont like your interface? code a DLL/module/my file format type and you load it in game. Allowing the engine to be used for INCREDIBLY large variations to the game. This game, i feel will be immensely fun to play, especially with your close friends, but an Rpg/mmorpg,single player,lan and even a teaching method. It obviously does not duvulge into real world hacking techniques, perhaps portraying a concept without portraying detail is what i mean. U do hack "realistically" and all sorts, yet it wont teach u to become a hacker.

    • Uplink was an inspiration, and many other things. A team wud be considered, but a large scale rewrite is taking place due to new ideas and core changes :P Either way, im hoping to just get some feedback and get my concept out there.

    Im open minded, so feedback is advised :)

    FuzzYspo0N
    ]]>     03 Jun 2007 05:56:06     Faces Of War Through the eyes of Allied, German and Russian squad leaders, experience the most immersive World War II time strategy game where each battle is played out and won differently based on your tactical choices.

    Command American, English, Soviet and German troops during world-renowned battles that include D-Day, new winter missions and the storming of Berlin.
    ]]>     01 Jun 2007 11:29:38     Star Wars: X-Wing From Wikipedia: Star Wars: X-Wing is the first LucasArts DOS computer game set in the Star Wars universe, as well as the lead title in the X-Wing computer game series. It attempts to "realistically" simulate the experience of combat in the A-wing, X-wing, and Y-wing starfighters of the Rebel Alliance. Fans of the Wing Commander series of games often put forward the mistaken notion that X-Wing was somehow inspired by, or derivative of Wing Commander, but the truth is that X-Wing was built on an evolution of the same game engine that underlay the Air Combat Classics series of World War II flight combat games, (Battlehawks 1942, Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain, and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe), that were developed by Lawrence Holland for Lucasfilm Games. In fact, Larry Holland has reported that Chris Roberts approached him at a trade show to boast that he had reverse-engineered Battlehawks 1942 to create the Wing Commander game engine which he then attempted to pitch to Lucasarts as the basis for a Star Wars flight combat game! The failure of that pitch led to creation of Wing Commander.

    X-Wing's main advance was that it featured a fully 3-D engine instead of bitmaps and sprites. The game also demonstrated a significant step forward in the AI and mission scripting so that players felt immersed in a believable simulation of the Star Wars universe, and faced intelligent adversaries that seemed responsive to the player's tactics. This was in stark contrast to the simple-minded AI of the Wing Commander series that was essentially an arcade shooter for gamers who wanted to experience the fantasy of being a starfighter pilot without requiring anything resembling the necessary skills. X-Wing was a flight combat simulator that required a high level of situational awareness, and some semblance of actual dogfighting skills. The X-Wing series appealed more to "hardcore" gamers and in its original floppy disk version was often found to be too difficult for more casual gamers.
    ]]>     17 May 2007 03:06:27     Sid Meier's Railroads! Sid Meier's Railroads! marks the return of the watershed title in simulation/strategy gaming that launched the popular tycoon series
    ]]>     05 Apr 2007 12:18:34     Trust & Betrayal: The Legacy of Siboot (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siboot):

    "Trust & Betrayal: The Legacy of Siboot, often abbreviated simply to Siboot, was a game designed and programmed by Chris Crawford and published by Mindscape in 1987.

    "Siboot", the name of a character in a novella included in the manual, is a reversal of the syllables of "Bootsie", a cat which Crawford had. Bootsie had to be euthanized due to an irreparable injury to his jaw. Crawford suffered much grief while contemplating that he was unable to talk to Bootsie in order to try to comfort him, before he had to be put down. One day while pondering this, Crawford had a flash of insight: his next game would be Talk to the Animals, which evolved into the very different Trust & Betrayal.

    The final design can be summarized as follows: The player, a creature named Vetvel, must compete with six other acolytes (each a different alien species) for the Shepherdship. Each of these characters has a distinct personality. Each morning, the acolytes wake up knowing one of each of the three "auras" the others possess. They must trade knowledge with each other in order to try to gain enough knowledge for the "mind combat" that takes place every night, which is basically a fancy Rock, Paper, Scissors game that depends on the aura counts for the players involved. The game is won when a player gets eight auras in all three categories. However, in giving away somebody's aura count, the player betrays that person, which angers them and may make them less likely to trade aura counts with the player. Therefore, a player has to know whom to trust and whom to betray, hence the title: Trust & Betrayal.

    The game had several unconventional features. For instance, it featured an inverse parser, a method for constructing sentences out of words while only presenting words that make sense for the given context. It also placed some emphasis on facial expressions as a visual form of feedback. It even had a primitive form of tooltips: if the player clicks and holds the mouse button on an icon (the game's abstraction of a word), one can see its meaning. The number of icons is small enough, and the pictures intuitive enough, that they can quickly be committed to memory. It also featured "interstitial stories", interludes that appear through the game that present the user with one of several choices, some of which may affect the game. For instance, to use an actual example from the game, if game designer Chris Crawford appears and lectures the player, and the player responds "Go to hell, Crawford!", then he or she loses some favor among the other characters, making the game harder to win.

    Siboot didn't hold up very well in the marketplace and did not recoup its investment. It sold 5,000 units on the Apple Macintosh. A preliminary IBM PC port was made but never finished; however, it can be found on the web, although it has some problems (for instance, the random number generator is not initialized properly)."
    ]]>     29 Mar 2007 05:22:53     Population Control In population control, you are tasked with watching over sheep, foxes, and grass, to ensure that the three species are able to coexist in harmony. Should the foxes or sheep die out, you lose.

    As the game progresses, the species breed to survive. As they breed, the foxes and sheep move towards the 'perfect' form of evolution - low food intake to survive, yet strong bodies.

    Every day, you earn actions that can be used to place animals on the field, mutate a species that is growing too strong, or cause it to rain to help the grass grow.

    How long can YOU maintain balance?

    This game plays interesting as a sandbox. Since the game will play forever until you lose, the fun is in setting goals for yourself - for example, seeing how many sheep you can sustain at once (my limit was 1800), how quickly you can generate a lot of a single species, how long you can sustain 100 foxes, etc.

    Another challenge I discovered that you cannot do without editing the ini file (until I add a main menu) is to set the number of sheep and foxes both to four, and try and grow a large enough herd of sheep to actually survive.

    If you want the game to play faster, use F1-F5 to set the game speed. If you want to slow the game down to watch the soap-opera like plot (line drawing) evolve, hit F6.

    This game is considered to be feature complete. The only other progress to be made to it will be bug fixes and perhaps a main menu. (as such, please report any bugs found)

    All graphics are original and created by me (although a friend helped me with the fox, if it weren't for him it would look like a red huskey). The music is by another friend. All SFX were found in free SFX libraries online.
    ]]>     17 Mar 2007 05:53:55     Roller Coaster Tycoon 3: Soaked! Expansion for Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. Adds Pools, water rides, aquariums, and a host of other new features to add to your parks.
    ]]>     05 Mar 2007 12:22:54     Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 Part coaster design, part financial sim. Design rides, decorate your park, place food and drink stalls, and hire staff to build the kind of park you imagine. Ride the rides from a first-person view.
    ]]>     04 Mar 2007 11:58:03     Frontier: First Encounters First Encounters is the sequel to Frontier (1993), which itself was a sequel to the seminal 1984 game Elite. The game was created by David Braben’s company, Frontier Developments. Many fans of the game refer to it by the shortened title of FFE.

    Like Frontier, First Encounters features realistic Newtonian physics and the ability to land on planets. It has graphics that are an improvement over Frontier (the main difference being Gouraud shading) and, as well as employing the same open-ended gameplay of its predecessors, it also features a storyline concerning an alien race called the Thargoids.

    Like the other two Elite games, it has been re-released as shareware and can be freely downloaded from the Elite Club site.

    Being a DOS game, First Encounters has difficulty running with Windows XP or Windows 2000 machines, although the official site does offer solutions to get the game running. A recreated game engine called JJFFE allows playing the game on Linux, Windows and DOS.

    First Encounters plays much like its immediate predecessor Frontier: the game is a combination of trading, fighting and a variety of other activitiesâ€â€
    ]]>     03 Mar 2007 01:23:22     Frontier: Elite II Frontier: Elite 2 is a computer game written by David Braben and published by Gametek in 1993. It is the first sequel to Ian Bell and David Braben's earlier game Elite, and is available for Commodore Amiga, Atari ST and PC computers.

    Frontier (or FE2 as it is commonly referred to) retains the same principle component of Elite—namely completely open-ended gameplay—and adds to this realistic physics and an accurately modelled galaxy. There is no plot within Frontier, nor are there pre-scripted missions (as there are in its sequel, First Encounters); instead players explore space while trading legally or illegally, carrying out missions for the military, ferrying passengers from system to system, engaging in piracy or any combination of the above. As a consequence, Frontier cannot be completed or "won"—instead, players themselves decide what to aspire to and set out to achieve it.

    The game has since been released as shareware and is available as a free download, although being a DOS game, users of Windows 2000 and Windows XP may initially have difficulty getting it to run. Using emulation such as DosBox will get the official shareware version of the game to run on modern operating systems including Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux.

    In Frontier, the player assumes the role of one of Commander Jameson's grandchildren, having inherited from Commander Jameson one hundred credits and an Eagle Long Range Fighter. By the game’s standards, this is incredibly modest, and is used as a spur to encourage players to earn money by whatever means they feel is appropriate.

    As with Elite, much of Frontier is concerned with trading: players can buy and sell much—from food and computer parts to guns and slaves—with the intent of making the most profit from each trading run. Thus, learning to compare prices in various systems is essential for profitability, and calculating overheads for each trip (such as fuel, missiles, and hull repair) are essential skills. It often becomes apparent that a particular trading route is profitable, such as the Barnard’s Star-Sol route. It is worth noting that some items (particularly narcotics, nerve gas, weaponry and slaves) are illegal in most systems and attempting to trade these in a system in which they are illegal will result in being fined by the police, which can often escalate into violence. It is often worth the risk, however, as illegal goods generally have a very high price on the black market.

    Frontier substitutes Elite’s arcade flying style for one based rigidly on Newtonian physics: momentum must first be neutralised to bring the player's craft to a stop, and turning 180° has no effect on the direction of travel until previous momentum has been counteracted. The craft’s control is largely left to the player, but often day-to-day tasks—such as navigating from a hyperspace exit-point to a desired planet or space-station and docking—can be handed over to a ship's autopilot.
    ]]>     03 Mar 2007 12:22:46     Elite Elite is a seminal space trading computer game, originally published by Acornsoft in 1984 for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers. The game's title derives from one of the player's goals of raising their combat rating to the exalted heights of 'Elite'. It was written and developed by David Braben and Ian Bell, who had met while they were both undergraduates at Jesus College, Cambridge. Non-Acorn versions of the game were published by Firebird.

    Elite was one of the first home computer games to utilise wireframe 3D graphics. Another novelty was the inclusion of The Dark Wheel, a novella by Robert Holdstock which influenced new players with insight into the moral and legal codes which they might aspire to. It elevated the technically complicated software beyond the pigeon-hole of "game".

    Elite's open ended game model, advanced game engine and revolutionary 3D graphics ensured that it was ported to virtually every contemporary home computer system, and earned it a place as a classic and a genre maker in gaming history. Even now, over 20 years after it was published, Elite is frequently used as a yardstick by which any new space trading game is measured. It has often been said that "Elite has been imitated but never bettered". While this is perhaps somewhat hyperbolic, it is certainly true to say that Elite was a hugely influential game, serving as a model for more recent games such as EVE Online, Wing Commander: Privateer and the X series of space trading games.

    The Elite universe contains eight galaxies, each galaxy containing 256 planets to explore. Due to the limited capabilities of 8-bit computers, these worlds are procedurally generated: A single seed number run through a fixed algorithm the appropriate number of times and creates a sequence of numbers determining each planet's complete composition (position in the galaxy, prices of commodities, and even name and local details — text strings are chosen numerically from a lookup table and assembled to produce unique descriptions for each planet). This means that no extra memory is needed to store the characteristics of each planet, yet each is unique and has fixed properties. Each galaxy is also procedurally generated from the first.

    The player, initially Commander Jameson, starts at Lave Station with 100 Credits and a lightly armed trading ship, a Cobra Mark III. Most of the ships that the player encounters are similarly named after snakes, or other reptiles. Credits can be accumulated through a number of means. These include piracy, trade, military missions, bounty hunting and the mining of asteroids. The money generated by these enterprises allows the player to upgrade their ship with such enhancements as better weapons, shields, increased cargo capacity, an automated docking system, and more.

    Travel between planets is constrained to those within range of the ship's limited fuel capacity (7 light years); fuel can be replenished after docking with a space-station in orbit around a planet - a challenging task without a docking computer, as it requires matching the ship's rotation to that of the station. Players can upgrade their equipment with a fuel scoop, which allows raw fuel to be skimmed from the surface of stars - a dangerous and difficult activity - as well as collecting free-floating cargo canisters and escape capsules liberated after the destruction of other ships.
    ]]>     03 Mar 2007 12:00:49     Colonization Colonization has many similarities to Sid Meier's previous title, Civilization. Both games pit the player as a godlike leader of an embattled civilization, the objective being to gain supremacy over rival civilizations, primarily through military means and discovery, transformation and utilization of the land. In Civilization the player begins the game in 4000BC, with a "primitive" tribe which gradually builds up a sophisticated conglomeration of cities... infrastructure, units, resources, etc.

    The Colonization experience begins in 1492. The player is asked to select one of the four world powers (England, France, Netherlands, Spain). The journey begins with two units, travelling on a ship to the new world, and as the ship moves into the unknown, the map is revealed. Subsequently, the new world is discovered, the Indians are met, a colony is built, colonists begin to change the land to be more productive, the ship is sent back to Europe to collect more colonists, selling any superfluous items, and the exploration of the world begins. The game revolves around, harvesting, manufacturing and trading goods. Resources gleaned from the land are converted into commodities and either used, or, sold (most of the time back in Europe). The prices of commodities fluctuate depending upon supply and demand. The more of a commodity you and the other three colonial powers sell, the less the markets will be willing to pay for them. With money a player is able to buy goods, recruit new colonists, ships or artillery. Whilst maintaining an income, the player is also required to protect his colonies from potential invasion, through employing soldiers. Moreover the player is required to manage his citizens effectively, educating the populace in various skills which increase their productivity in those areas (farming, mining, lumberjacking, fishing, blacksmithing, carpentry, etc.) that are required. There are three areas of employment in the Colonization world, primary resource gatherers, secondary resource manufacturers, and the more specialised units such as soldiers, statesmen, pioneers, Jesuit missionaries and preachers. Each level of specialisation requires prerequisites, both to be taught and to make effective use of. The geography of the land determines the productivity of a colony, for instance some squares produce a lot of food, whilst others produce none. Thus it becomes necessary to link the various colonies together, transporting goods from places in which there is an excess to places in which there is a demand. Normally roads are built for this, as they grant increased movement.

    Specialist buildings and special squares, as in Civilization, have greater output. Specialists, who produce more per turn, can be trained or recruited. Indentured servants and criminals are as good as ordinary colonists in primary production but not so good at manufacturing or statesmanship; but they can be transformed into improved types by education. Missions established in Indian villages eventually encourage converts to join a colony; they are better than ordinary colonists at most outdoor pursuits, but not industrial ones.

    Horses can be bought and sold, but they also multiply in any colony that has two or more of them and a food surplus. They help any colonist move further in a turn, add to military strength, and allow Scouts to do profitable things in native settlements or foreign colonies.

    Ships of several types (Caravel, Merchantman, Galleon, Privateer, Frigate and Man-O-War; which can be purchased or eventually built) move goods, horses, and colonists around and some of them can attack, while wagon trains (which can be built) move goods and horses on land.

    Relationships must be carefully maintained with Indians and other colonial powers, including waging war if necessary, having strong defensive units and fortifications, or recruiting the peacemakers Benjamin Franklin and Pocahontas. Destroying native settlements yields a quick profit and makes their land available but prevents the substantial long-term gains to be made by friendly bargaining and trading. It also counts against your final score.

    The king of your home country meddles in your affairs from time to time, mostly by raising the tax rate but occasionally by forcing you into wars with your rivals.

    Moreover, the player must pay attention to political development and recruiting Founding Fathers (roughly corresponding to the Civilization Advances of Civilization), to ensure the best possible chance of success.

    On the easiest level, the action takes place, essentially, at the speed in which you want it to. You are left to your own devices, learning the mechanics of the game. With each increase in difficulty level, the restrictions that bound successful endeavours become more pronounced. The game is eventually won by seceding from the motherland, signing a declaration of independence and defeating the armies which are sent to usurp your "unalienable rights". Successful navigation through this game requires the player to think, to strategise, to effectively make use of what is provided, to map, and cultivate the land, to negotiate between rival factions, and occasionally to conduct military campaigns. Whilst the military aspect is important, it is less so, than in the Civilization series, focusing more heavily on aspects of trade, and the inter-relationships between peoples, and colonies, which make up a community. In doing all these things the player is required to develop certain fundamental notions which influence both the game world and the real world, such as: infrastructure restrictions and requirements, methods for increasing productivity, the importance of economic and civic growth, the centrality of trade, that some resources are more useful and more valuable than others, the importance of education, that newspapers and diplomats influence public opinion, that religion can affect people's allegiances, even that it's more sensible to use those member of your population who aren't proficient in a trade or profession, as soldiers, the influence of historical figures on colonial New World societies, and the list goes on.
    ]]>     02 Mar 2007 02:04:34     Front Office Football Front Office Football is designed to represent a snapshot of professional football as it exists under the current salary cap system. You play the role of the general manager of a team. In order to succeed in Front Office Football, you need to perform as well as possible in four different areas.

  • Team Performance. On the field, your primary goal is winning the coveted Front Office Bowl. Your fans, players and staff all want to see that championship banner raised to a new position in the ring of honor surrounding your stadium.

  • Financial Performance. Off the field, your team needs to show a profit, or the owner will become angry and threaten your job. You need to control salary and staff costs while balancing the need to spend money to build and upgrade your stadium against the risk of facing stagnant ticket revenue with an aging arena.

  • Roster Value. You need to negotiate contracts, sign free agents, make wise decisions in the amateur draft and outsmart opposing general managers in trade. Building a strong, capable roster means everything in Front Office Football.

    • * Franchise Value. The bottom line is that a happy owner has a franchise that's the envy of professional football. Nothing means more to the owners than seeing their franchise on the top of the list of most valuable franchises. You help put your team on that list by excelling in the three other categories, but the best general managers look for opportunities to move the team in order to find a home town with a strong economy that will support your team like none other.
    ]]>     19 Feb 2007 02:53:51     Streets of Sim City Streets of SimCity is a 1997 racing and vehicular combat computer game published by Maxis. The novelty of this game stemmed mostly from the fact that the player could race cars around cities that had been created in SimCity 2000. The game is in full 3D, which was a departure from Maxis's normal fare. It is one of the few games in the Maxis series that Will Wright did not work on, and the last Maxis game to be developed and released without supervision by Electronic Arts (which acquired Maxis in 1997 and assisted development of Maxis games thereafter). Despite features such as being able to load cities from SimCity 2000, the game was known more for its bugs, including unexpected crashes, issues with vehicles stuck in buildings, people walking backwards and being able to drive through trees.

    The game is known to be the black sheep of the "sim" line, since it in no way actually simulates driving with precision. It instead focuses more on the goals of blowing up other enemy cars, winning races, evading cops, and hitting the occasional cow. The game can be controlled with a keyboard, a joystick, or a gamepad. As a result, the game was mostly only popular with SimCity 2000 users, which like SimCopter, allowed players to explore SimCity 2000 cities, created by themselves or otherwise. There is also a network mode in which players can play deathmatches with up to seven other individuals.
    ]]>     13 Feb 2007 02:12:45     Trauma Center: Under the Knife Trauma Center: Under the Knife, the player assumes the role of Derek Stiles (Kousuke Tsukimori in the original Japanese version), a young doctor who must perform surgeries and other medical operations. Derek is a descendant of the Greek god of medicine, Asclepius, and is gifted with extreme concentration, an ability referred to as the "Healing Touch." Well suited for the handheld's touchscreen, the player takes on the role of Dr. Stiles at the operating table, and makes incisions, removes diseased areas, and sutures the patients back up.
    ]]>     09 Feb 2007 01:34:22     Mister Mosquito Mister Mosquito is a video game for the PlayStation 2. Originally released only in Japan, it was later released worldwide.

    Made up of a series of levels, which you may choose at will [they do not automatically carry on like many games] before each level you will be 'briefed' by a sardonic female voice on the concept of the level, the room it takes place in and the target there, plus any dangers, and be given a small text display with a fairly cryptic hint or two

    You play as a comical cartoon mosquito ('Mr Moskeeto') and you must stock up on blood through the summer so that you may survive the winter ahead, to do this Mr Moskeeto has taken up residency in the house of the Yamada family, father Kenichi, mother Kaneya and teenage daughter Rena, Kenichi enjoys flower arranging while wife Kaneya is a hobby photographer, Rena is a student about to go on a trip who listens to Progressive Jazz and is into martial arts.
    ]]>     08 Feb 2007 09:42:51     SimCity 3000

    Overview


    SimCity 3000 was published in 1999 by EA Games and developed by Maxis. New features included the ability to import SimCity 2000 cities, terrain skins, city advisers, a news ticker and landmarks. New disasters were included, such as whirlpools, UFO attacks, and locust swarms. However, old disasters in the series, such as floods and hurricanes were omitted.

    Gameplay

    Gameplay in SimCity 3000 is similar to other SimCity games. However, new industries, utilities, and other buildings have been added. SimCity 3000 allows for farms and hi-tech industry. Although hi-tech industries were represented to a degree in SimCity 2000, they were upgraded in SimCity 3000. They now had their own distinctive architecture, and produced less pollution. Farms were also added, giving players the option to build rural cities. The addition of garbage disposal added a third resource players had to manage- waste. Landmarks from around the world were added, giving players the ability to add a cultural flair to their city, as well as the benefit of the land-value increase.
    ]]>     02 Feb 2007 04:26:07     SimCity 2000

    Overview


    SimCity 2000 was published in 1993 by Maxis. The game included many innovations over its predecessor, SimCity. The perspective of the game shifted from top-down to isometric, giving cities a new look. Cities could be rotated and viewed from different angles. The terrain now had elevation. Many new kinds of transportation and infrastructure were introduced. Variable generated newspapers were created, which features articles about recent inventions and disasters, as well as opinion-polls. The game also allowed for the development of custom content, through an external utility called SimCity Urban Renewal Kit, or SCURK.


    Gameplay


    The game begins with the player either using a random terain, or terraforming their own through several tools. After the God-mode phase is finished, now a staple in all SimCity products, players are asked to select a difficulty level and begin constructing their city. The difficulty levels impacted starting wealth, starting loan and the disaster frequency. Players then construct their cities from a variety of infrastructure and zones, balancing their budget. There is no set up objective, and the game never ends.

    Other Notes


    SimCity 2000 Network Edition was published 3 years later with the ability to play on-line. Similar to SimCity 4, players could buy and sell resources, as well as construct region wide transportation networks.

    The SimCity 2000 Special Edition is packaged with SCURK.

    SimCity 2000 cities can be imported into SimCity 3000.

    SimCity 2000 can also be used to construct custom cities for use in the games Sim Copter and Streets of SimCity.
    ]]>     02 Feb 2007 03:25:57     Sim City 4 Sim City 4 is the latest installment in Will Wright's Sim City series. This edition includes impressive new features, such as a powerful landscape editor, new city management techniques, and the regional city system.

    Like its predecessors, the player is charged with building a city from the ground up: laying streets and roads, zoning for industrial, commercial, and residential buildings, and making sure that the citizens (or sims) are content, all while trying to keep the city in the black. New to the series are civic buildings that only cover small areas, forcing the player to build around them. SC4 also incorporates a new, incredibly detailed traffic algorithm, forcing the player to put a great deal of thought into city layout. The new region mode allows the player to create multiple cities in the same region, which allows for trade and even inter-city travel for the sims.

    These new additions combined with the proven formulas of the past make Sim City 4 a much more difficult, yet much more rewarding city building game for gamers of all types.
    ]]>     30 Jan 2007 11:32:28     SimTower The point of this game is to create the best office tower there is. You accomplish this be meeting certain goals to move up the ranking. You tower is ranked between 1 and 5 stars and the final rank of Tower. Once you reach a certain rank you can not lose it. Though going up the ranks can be hard sometimes. The goals required to increase your rank vary from building a certain structure to meeting a population requirement. You can place more than just offices though. you can put in anything from shops and restaurants to movie theaters and hotels. As you go up the ranks more and more choices become available to you. You also have the ability to chose who gets charged what for rent on a space by space basis. The game will go on forever like any other Aim game even after you reach Tower status.
    ]]>     26 Jan 2007 02:50:58     Trauma Center: Second Opinion Dr. Derek Stiles is back, but he's not the only surgeon on call - Dr. Nozomi Weaver joins the team, bringing along everything the doctor ordered! Difficulty modes, new surgical implements like the defibrillator, and an exciting never-before-seen conclusion. So what are you waiting for? If one dose of Trauma Center wasn't enough, it's time you got a second opinion!
    ]]>     24 Jan 2007 09:19:37     Star Wars: TIE Fighter Published by: LucasArts
    Developed by: Totally Games
    Genre: Space simulation
    Number of players: 1
    Release date: 1994, 1995

    It is a time of chaos in the Empire. Rebel factions strike from hidden bases, pirates plunder unsuspecting civilian spacecraft, and traitors plot behind the Emperor's back. You, a rookie pilot in the Imperial Navy, must rise to action for the glory of the Empire and the good of all mankind.

    The player's character is unnamed (however, in sources outside the game, name is Maarek Stele), but features such notable Star Wars characters as: Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, and even Admiral Thrawn from the books.

    Star Wars: TIE Fighter is somewhat of a sequal to Star Wars: X-Wing, however this time the player is the "bad guy." With various objectives ranging from destroying pirates and Rebels to flying wingman for Darth Vader himself, TIE Fighter offers a great deal of enjoyment for those who love the Star Wars universe.

    Gameplay involves managing your weapons/engine/shield (if available) systems while dogfighting enemy spacecraft or attacking larger capital spaceships. Additionally, missiles are limited (if even available), so must be used carefully. Because this is the side of the Empire, the fighters you will be flying initially are very vulnerable to damage. Two or three hits to your TIE Fighter and you're toast, and destroying shielded enemy Rebel fighters in such a craft can be challenging.

    Mission objectives are crucial to completing stages of the game, and advancing the storyline. Additionally, there are optional bonus objectives, which influence the secondary advancement in the Emperor's secret order.
    ]]>     24 Jan 2007 07:45:12     Heresy War Currently in development, Heresy War is a combat space simulator that focuses on delivering a completely immersive experience for both casual and hardcore gamers alike. The player plays a role of a space fighter pilot that gets thrown in the middle of a raging civil war. While trying to put an end to the civil war, a third ,mysterious force gets involved in the conflict and threatens to destroy everything that the humanity stands for.
    ]]>     23 Jan 2007 12:53:58     Evil Genius In this game you play the role of one of three evil masterminds intending to hold the world random. But doomsday weapons don't grow on trees, and the agencies of the world won't just sit back and let you do your evil thing uninterrupted.

    You will have to train evil henchmen and minions and send them out to plan and execute evil plans all over the world, while building a base to store that loot and develop new technologies. But you will also need arrays of traps, the more complex the better, to stop snooping spies, agents, and even super agents the likes of which you are probably familiar with from movies.
    ]]>     19 Jan 2007 06:39:27     Red Ace Squadron Pro Fly a World War I bi-plane, and experience aerial combat in its purest form. No jets, no computers, no heat-seeking missiles - just the wind in your struts and blazing machine-guns!

    Red Ace Squadron is the follow-up to the best selling Master Of The Skies: The Red Ace. You won't need to learn complex key commands or read a huge manual to play - your plane is controlled solely by the mouse and a few other keys.

    Play for either the Allied Forces or the Central Powers across 14 new single-player missions, or take on human opponents in the all-new Multiplayer mode. Whether you choose to play online or alone, Red Ace Squadron is the ultimate propellor-drive dogfighting experience.
    ]]>     19 Jan 2007 06:21:17     Wing Commander: Prophecy Wing Commander: Prophecy was the last direct sequel in the Wing Commander franchise. It is a sci-fi combat flight simulator that took many new directions in its design and story, compared to the previous games in the series.

    Just some of the new innovations were a new main character (Lance Casey instead of Christopher Blair, who was the main character in the previous three games), a new enemy (Nephilim), and a new game engine (VISION), amongst other changes.
    ]]>     04 Jan 2007 08:41:28     Sim Farm As Maxis say it, "Sim Farm is SimCity's country cousin", and it is indeed correct as Sim Farm is in a sense, connected to Sim City.

    In this game, you manage a farm instead of a city. Every harvest month, you provide and sell your crops to the (Sim) City (symbolically speaking), and you also watch the demand of the (Sim) City and take advantage of it.
    ]]>     01 Jan 2007 07:29:48     SimCity

    History

    SimCity was first developed on the Commodore 64 in 1985 by Will Wright. It gained much of its popularity after it was released on the PC and MAC in 1989. It spawned a legacy of "Sim" games, some successful, and others not so, that are still enjoyed by players today. Sometime after the release of SimCity 4, SimCity Classic Live was made available by EA games to registered members.


    Game Summary

    SimCity is a city simulation game. The player plays the roll of god and mayor, building a city from the ground up. This requires careful balance of expansion and budget management. Players can change everything from taxes to education funding. There are no legal restrictions as well, players may levy huge taxes, as well as drop police funding down to 0 in order to raise money, but they also must deal with the effects of their actions. SimCity also has a number of disasters that can occur in your city, ranging from fires, to nuclear melt-downs, even alien invasions. SimCity uses a top-down view.

    Purchase Details

    The game is no longer in production. You may be able to find copies on amazon or Ebay, as well as your local used games store. Also, you can play SimCity Classic Live for free.
    ]]>     31 Dec 2006 09:30:39     Switch Ball Switch Ball is a sequel to the award winning CrazyBall. Switch Ball is the first marble simulation game using PhysX Ageia that just keeps it funner than your average marble sim. You can use the mouse for the camera and movement of you marble and you can use the arrow keys and W,A,S,D keys for the camera. When you first pick up and play the demo you will notice that it is at 20 Frams Per Secound (fps), it is because Atomic Elbow were not finished fixing the frame-rate before releasing the tech demo.

    What really makes Switch Ball different to the other Marble Sim games out their is the use of PhysX Ageia. Not many of PhysX Ageia's special features such as Cloths and Fluids were included in the tech demo but at one point in the demo you puch black marbles into a cannon and shoot a pile of boxes to unblock the path.

    Switch Ball will be released some time next year (2007). You just have to check it out and make sure you have a look at it next year.

    Price Not Announced.
    ]]>     30 Dec 2006 10:58:12     The Sims An entire world of Sims awaits your quirky command. It's your neighborhood, they're your Sims, and whether they prosper or perish is completely up to you!
    ]]>     30 Dec 2006 07:44:33     Microsoft Flight Simulator X Flight Simulator X will awe flight simulator fans and real pilots alike. All-new eye-popping graphics, actual missions to accomplish and a wider range of airports to visit recreate the experience of being a pilot, right down to the smallest detail. Complete point-to-point objectives and skill-based tests, or just fly around the world if you'd prefer that to ferrying passengers or cargo. Whatever you choose to do as a pilot, it's available here in Flight Simulator X Deluxe.
    ]]>     27 Dec 2006 06:02:31     Tropico
    WE DON'T NEED NO STEENKIN' YANQUIS!

    As the newly installed dictator of an obscure Caribbean island, build a path of progress for a nation mired in poverty, civil unrest and infighting. Oh, and uh, stash a few million in your Swiss bank account just in case you need to take early retirement.

    Tropico takes the addictive building-oriented gameplay of hits such as SimCity 3000 and Railroad Tycoon 2, combined with a healthy dose of Latin American political intrigue, and bundles it up in an easy-to-learn, hard to master, utterly addictive package.

    Tropico is first and foremost a builder. Tropico provides over 85 structures to build, from hotels and spas for tourists to banana groves, sugar plantations and bauxite mines for food and basic exports, to rum distilleries and cigar factories for basic industry. Industry, mining, agriculture, or tourism, you choose to shape the economy to your vision. And don't let your lust for Yanqui dollars overcome your concern for the plight of your people. (or they'll overcome your palace guards and teach you a lesson in mob justice) As a precaution against such unpleasantness, may we suggest paying off the radio stations and educating your citizens to the, um, true benevolence of your rule?

    Your island's inhabitants are fleshed out individuals, most of whom support you as their leader (at least initially). They go about their daily business striving for happiness under your enlightened rule. They have homes, jobs and identities, and they like being safe, well-fed, employed and spiritually enriched. Plan your growth well, and you'll have plenty of money to buy your people's favor. Plan your growth poorly, and, well, there's always martial law!

    Tropico takes the addictive building-oriented gameplay of hits such as SimCity 3000 and Railroad Tycoon 2, combined with a healthy dose of Latin American political intrigue, and bundles it up in an easy-to-learn, hard to master, utterly addictive package.

    Additional Game Features:

    • Rotating map, deformable terrain, 3D objects, high-res sprites, as well as anti-aliasing. 3D acceleration also provides a higher level of transparency and smoother anti-aliasing on some computers.

    • Tropico uses the S3D engine (S3D is Railroad Tycoon II's graphic engine). The planes and ships use full 3D models, as do air and water animals (birds and fish).

    • Wide range of difficulty levels. Difficulty is based on many factors set up by the player, such as your character attributes, island size, political stability and many more.

    • Downloadable maps available - both developer and user-created.

    • Map editor available in patch.

    • Games can be saved and loaded at any point.

    • Single Player only.

    Developer: PopTop Software
    Publisher: GOD Games
    Released for Windows: April 26, 2001

    Platforms: PC, Mac

    Minimum System Requirements
    OS: Windows 95/98/2000/ME/N 4
    CPU: Pentium 200 MHz
    CDROM
    RAM 32 MB
    Disk Space: 820 MB
    ]]>     20 Dec 2006 02:40:10     PlayDetective: Heartbreakers An adventure game where you play the role of a private detective.
    Your main task is to investigate infidelity cases by conducting surveillance, collecting and analyzing evidence, solving puzzles.

    Game Features:

  • 17 episodes (additional episodes will be available through free and commercial expansion packs).
  • Use phone conversations, photo cameras and eavesdrop devices to capture evidence.
  • Recover deleted sms (text messages) evidence.
  • Conduct lie detector (polygraph) tests.
  • Play fun mini-games and earn money.
  • Buy and sell investigation tools.
  • Confront suspects.
    • ]]>     19 Dec 2006 10:33:05     Afterlife As a Demiurge, your job is providing an afterlife for arriving souls. Constructing and managing Heaven and Hell are at your disgression, including whether you even provide both options! But in spite of your somewhat godlike powers, you are expected to make the whole thing profitable while providing services divine and infernal for the eternal residents of your "planet".

    Only the most dedicated sim players are likely to keep up with the high management requirements, though the game's unique humor and barrage of puns makes the game fun for all (Guess which realm contains a prison called San Quentin Tarantino?).

    Your responsibilities are extensive, as you must train angels and demons, advance technologies, and plan and manage effective zones within your realms. Your management expertise must include a "feng shui" sort of skill for balancing the "vibe" of adjacent structures for maximum efficiency.

    Additional Game Features:


    • Interface will seem familiar to Sim City 2000 players, though the excellent 3D isometric graphics, unique wit and outstanding soundtrack stand apart.

    • Soundtrack by Peter McConnell, whose extensive work for LucasArts included the many Star Wars titles of the 1990's, Grim Fandango, Sam & Max Hit the Road, The Dig and so many others.

    • Single player only, featuring 3 difficulty levels.

    • Game doesn't actually end unless your management fails badly, causing the Four Surfers from Apocalypso pay a visit and you're back to square one!


    Developed and published by Lucasarts, June 1996

    System Requirements

    MAC: Requirements: MacOS version 7.1 or higher 33Mhz 68040 or higher, PowerPC recommended Double Speed CD-ROM drive or faster 8MB of RAM, 5 MB free; 16MB recommended 256 color 13" or larger display required 8MB hard disk space

    PC: 486 DX2-66 MHz or higher, Min 8Mb memory,MS-DOS 6.00 or higher, Hard drive required with 1Mb free, Double speed CD-ROM drive or faster, MSCDEX version 2.2 or higher, 256 color VGA or SVGA display (PCI or VLB recommended), SoundBlaster 2.0, Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16, AWE32, Pro Audio Spectrum, Gravis UltraSound, Ensoniq Soundscape, and 100% compatibles, Microsoft compatible mouse.

    Trivia! Typing SAMNMAX three times while holding the shift key unleashes a hoard of bunnies (Maxes) which destroy your afterlife by their relentless hopping.

    MS-DOS/Windows 95 compatible.
    ]]>     18 Dec 2006 09:26:21     F-22 Interceptor F-22 Interceptor is a 1991 flight simulator created by Ned Lerner and Gene Kusmiak. It was released by Electronic Arts and Ingram Entertainment for the Mega Drive/Genesis.

    The player controls one aircraft, the F-22 Raptor, throughout the game. At that time, the real aircraft was known as the YF-22 Lightning II, and had only first flown in 1990. Like LHX Attack Chopper, another flight simulator by EA, the playable aircraft had not yet been developed.

    The player has three skill levels to choose from: Cadet, Training, and Combat. The player must then pick one of four campaigns: the USA, Korea, Iraq, and Russia. In each level, the player's F-22 is targeted by surface-to-air missiles, enemy aircraft, and artillery. The mission is to destroy the targets and complete the objectives using a wide range of missiles, from heat seeking missiles, precision-guided bombs, and chaffs. The aircraft is also given two cannons for engaging enemy targets.

    At the end of each mission, the player is required to either land on a runway or an aircraft carrier. Sometimes in-flight refueling is needed to prevent the F-22 from crashing.

    As the game progresses, the player will be able to unlock an Aces campaign, where he will face off with advanced pilots from North Korea, Iraq, Russia, and the US.

    The game also had a rudimentary mission editor.
    ]]>     13 Dec 2006 11:08:38     Game Biz 2 Go back in time to 1980, and see if you can make your mark in the up-and-coming "video game" business. Try and keep pace with the rapid changes in platforms (Atari 2600 or Colecovision? Apple II or Commodore 64? Mac or PC?) over the years, visit trade shows, hire and manage employees, build corporate headquarters, make deals with publishers, and build yourself into the future game development powerhouse!

    Game Biz 2 is freeware.
    ]]>     09 Dec 2006 09:04:12