Skip-Bo-Castaway Caper Review

Posted by parttimegamer on January 27, 2012 None comments
Skip-Bo

Skip-Bo-Castaway Caper is a card Mac game similar to spit or speed with cards looking a lot like Uno cards since they are both made by Mattel. The story is that you are stranded on an island and you have disturbed the great volcano. In order to appease the gods, you must play 10 tribal challenges where in each challenge you play 4 matches of this ancient game, Skip-Bo.

You begin the play by making your avatar. You can pick out your do, eyes, nose, mouth, skin color and clothing. You are playing against an islander who will try to take you down. You both will have a stockpile of 30 cards each and an additional 5 cards for your hand. At the center of the game board will be cards faced down and 4 spaces to discard your cards beginning with 1 or a skip-bo (wild). You continue to build the piles in ascending order to 12. The goal is to eliminate your stockpile cards before your opponent. You continue until you no longer can play a card. At this time you will discard one of your cards in one of four spaces above your hand. Your opponent will then take his turn. At the start of each turn you will be dealt more cards to replenish your hand.

That’s the basic play of Skip-Bo in the Adventure mode. The other 3 modes (Classic, Speed and Team) are locked until you complete your 4 matches. In classic mode you play against 3 opponents, Speed is a 10 card round for a fast game, and in Team you are paired with a computer teammate against 2 other computer opponents.

Skip-Bo was a good game but didn’t have the excitement factor as when you play against your friends. I’ve never played the Skip-Bo card game but have played Uno many times with friends where sometimes there will be loud laughter and slapping cards down in a challenge. This type of fun is missing when you play against a computer so the feel of this card game is different. However, with that said, Skip-Bo is a relaxing game when you cannot find your buddies. Those new to the card game will find its tutorial clear and easy to follow, but be sure to take the hints off as soon as you learn the play or it will get annoying covering your hand while you are trying to make a play.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Renovate & Relocate: Boston Review

Posted by parttimegamer on January 26, 2012 None comments

Renovate living spaces from penthouse to a suburban home and more in the northeast city of Boston where colleges abound and restaurants, shops are trendy and inviting. Mac hidden object game Renovate and Relocate: Boston will challenge you to renovate rundown places and to redecorate a home.

The story will take Olivia who just moved to Boston to start a new life. She must redo her dated and very messy penthouse. Scenes will require you to find a lot of objects to clear out from the messy entrance of her apartment building to cleaning out her contractor’s lawn. You’ll find each scene filled with many items you must click on to clear from the list located at the bottom of the screen with the hint button on the lower right. You will find your usual clipart type of objects like footballs, tools, medals, watermelons, shoes, etc.

After clearing out different places your room is cleared out to the drywalls and you can start remodeling the space as you like it. You will have 3 choices to pick for different things. You can choose your flooring, walls and appliances. Tony your contractor will do all the work. You’ll also visit furniture stores to be rewarded furniture and home decorations to add to your places.

There are over 30 levels to play with some renovating activities. There’s a lot to do but the HOG scenes are fairly standard with unrelated objects spewed all over the place. The remodeling part of the game is controlled by having only 3 choices to make. The story is limited. The scenes could have been in any city. The penthouse did show the skyline of a city, but can’t really tell if it is Boston or some other city. To be fair I’ve been to Boston and can’t really tell what their skyline looks like. It’s not like New York or San Francisco where you can definitely make out buildings. This game is easy to play and it may be good for children (although there are a lot of misspelled words), but I didn’t get much out of it even though I like going to Boston. I give it a 2.5 out of 5.

Rating: ★★½☆☆

Burger Shop Review

Posted by bostongamer on January 25, 2012 None comments
burger
 

Burger Shop is an interesting game that makes you the entrepreneur of a new fast food innovation.  You discover some blueprints and out of sheer curiousity, decide to build the machine.  What you create is some sort of Burger-Tron that cooks hamburgers and cheeseburgers to feed the customers.  Now that you have your super burger machine, you are ready to start making some money.

To make a hamburger you click on each component (bun top, meat, and bun bottom) as they come out on the conveyer belt.  The next step is to incorporate the other items on the menu.  Fries and drinks come from separate machines, but the cups come out on the belt.  When the order is completed, the customer will leave a tip and generally be happy as long as the order did not take too long.

Personally, this game was not all that great.  It was a good idea, but quickly became monotonous with all the clicking.  It felt like I was working at a fast food restaurant instead of enjoying a game on my computer. Once you start adding more menu items, it becomes hard to distinguish between some items and becomes rather confusing.  I would not play this game again, but it could be because I actually did work flipping burgers for a couple summers, and the experience was all too similar.

Rating: ★½☆☆☆