SimCity 3000

Publisher: Maxis
Developer: Maxis
Genre: Modern City-Building
Release Date: May 16, 2000
ESRB: EVERYONE
Number of Players: 1 Player

SimCity 3000 Unlimited is the latest game in the classic urban-planning simulation series. It provides a host of peripheral additions to its 1998 predecessor SimCity 3000 but remains essentially identical otherwise. As such, it's best suited for those who haven't played much of the previous game, although hard-core SimCity fans may appreciate its new scenario-editing features.

Fortunately, the core game has survived the passing months with all its charm intact - the bright pastel colors and intuitive interface design remain good looking by contemporary standards, and SimCity 3000's isometric perspective and simple, tile-based terrain are still perfectly suited to the gameplay. In fact, the game's stylized 2D graphics are anything but passé. Similarly, SimCity 3000's great sound effects and cool jazzy music score still sound first rate, and since there are plenty of different tracks and they all tend to hum pleasantly in the background, you wouldn't think to turn them off even if you've poured hours into the original SimCity 3000.

Then again, if you played a great deal of SimCity 3000 last year, then you might find that SimCity 3000 Unlimited's additional in-game features collectively don't provide enough new material to restore your interest. The more sadistically inclined SimCity players will quickly notice that Unlimited adds several types of disasters that can befall their fair metropolis either at random or at their whim, whichever comes first. These include everything from a ravaging plague of locusts to a brimstone-like rain of superheated space junk. The new disasters are fun to watch, they look good, and they manage to lend a real sense of danger and urgency to the game without being too heavy-handed or serious. Although more-casual SimCity players will prefer never to encounter these ill events, veterans of the series will enjoy having to use new types of tactics to deal with and compensate for the new bad things that can befall their cities.
SimCity 3000 Unlimited offers several new types of terrain that you can build on, but in practice all you'll get is a color swap. For example, you can build your city on whitish, sort of snowy-looking scenery, but it's a purely cosmetic effect that isn't even very noticeable.

However, the game also provides two new sets of buildings that you can choose from instead of the standard urban/suburban houses of its predecessor. These European and Asian building sets look good and help breathe new life into the game for long-time players, and the building sets are generic enough that they're suitable for representing cities throughout their equivalent real-world region - especially since the game also includes a huge library of national monuments and famous buildings that you can place liberally throughout your city if you choose to. So between the European and the Asian building sets and the variety of terrain, you'll actually gain a good bit of flexibility in personalizing your city. You can try to re-create a snow-covered suburb in Japan, a quaint French village on the Mediterranean, and more. Too bad your various city-advisor characters, who frequently offer planning strategies and such, don't change depending on your city's building set. Fortunately, the advisors are cosmopolitan enough as it is. Otherwise, as with the terrain, switching building sets has no actual effect on gameplay.

Minimum System Requirements
System: Pentium-166 or equivalent
RAM: 32 MB
Video Memory: 2 MB
Hard Drive Space: 450 MB
Recommended System Requirements
System: PII 233 or equivalent
RAM: 64 MB

Download

part1,part2,part3,part4,part5,part6
part7,part8,part9,part10,part11

The Sims: Life Stories

Publisher: EA Games
Developer: Maxis
Genre: Virtual Life
Release Date: Feb 6, 2007
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Crude Humor, Violence, Sexual Themes Number of Players: 1 Player

By all accounts, this should have been the version of The Sims that finally won me over to the franchise. Although I understand the appeal of the games, simply moving little people around, buying them lamps and making them hate each other never appealed to me. I want my games to have a point. A story. A beginning, a middle and an ending. So now, Aspyr brings us The Sims Life Stories, which actually gives preset characters, a plot and a climax to reach. The problem? They forgot to make any of them the least bit interesting.

Certainly, by now, you understand how The Sims is played and what it's about. You've got these little people, and you get them jobs and you decorate their homes and you make them fall in love with each other or hate each other and take showers. It's reality TV for the gaming world, with you as the puppet master. And, like reality TV, it seems impervious to our defenses. Through something like twelve dozen expansion packs and plenty more looming, The Sims has become the largest selling franchise in gaming history.

And so, you can look at The Sims Life Stories in one of two ways: either EA is trying to breathe some new life into the series with a new style of game play, or they're just milking it dry. Regardless of their motivation, I wanted The Sims Life Stories to be good. I think a Sims game in this style can be, but Life Stories really isn't.

Minimum System Requirements
System: 1.4 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Video Memory: 32 MB
Hard Drive Space: 2700 MB

Screen Shots

Download
part1,part2,part3
part4,part5,part6
part7,part8,part9

Rome Total War

Publisher: Activision
Developer: Creative Assembly
Genre: Historic Real-Time Strategy
Release Date: Sep 22, 2004 (more)
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Violence
Connectivity: Online, Local Area Network
Offline Modes: Competitive, Team Oriented
Online Modes: Competitive, Team Oriented
Number of Players: 1-8
Number of Online Players: 8 Online

Rome: Total War is the third Total War game from England's Creative Assembly, and, to make a long story short, it's the best one yet. It was naturally expected to build on its illustrious predecessors, which featured epic-scale real-time battles and impressive attention to historical realism and detail. Shogun: Total War was a promising start for the series, while Medieval: Total War built on that promise to create an even more engrossing strategy game. With Rome: Total War, Creative Assembly takes the next step, and it's as much a revolutionary step as it is an evolutionary one, thanks to a beautiful new 3D graphics engine that makes the series' tactical battles--featuring thousands of soldiers--better than ever. The results are nothing short of spectacular, helping make Rome: Total War the very definition of an epic strategy game.

As in the earlier Total War games, there are essentially two distinctly different types of gameplay in Rome. There's the overarching turn-based campaign in which you conquer cities and provinces, make improvements, and move armies around the map as you expand your empire, and then there are the real-time battles in which you use tactics and maneuvers to crush your enemy in combat. After the helpful and informative tutorial campaign, you can tackle the main imperial campaign. You play as one of three powerful Roman families--the Julii, the Bruti, or the Scipii--attempting to increase the size and glory of Rome and shore up your faction's power and influence. As all three factions are Roman, there's literally no difference between them in terms of units and building types, though they do have different responsibilities. The Julii must deal with the Gauls and Germania to the north in a difficult, landlocked campaign. The Bruti are required to deal with the remnants of the Greek city-states and expand the empire to the southeast. And the Scipii are tasked with subduing Carthage, Rome's great nemesis to the southwest.

At least, that's the principle goal of each faction. But there's a fourth, unplayable Roman faction, one that can influence your course during the campaign: the Roman senate. The senate will order you on missions, from blockading a hostile port or conquering a city (and perhaps exterminating the populace, depending on the level of enmity between Rome and the faction in question) to forging a trade deal or an alliance with a foreign faction. It's up to you whether you actually obey the order, as sometimes the senate will try to stretch you thin on purpose. If you carry the orders out successfully, you stand to gain a monetary reward, a useful new military unit, or influence in the senate. Failing to carry out missions earns the displeasure of the senate and affects your standing with that body. By and large, though, the senate missions help to focus the otherwise huge scope of the campaign--instead of being faced with the monolithic task of trying to conquer Europe, you can instead look forward to accomplishing a long series of short-term goals.

Minimum System Requirements
System: 1GHz or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB
Hard Drive Space: 2900 MB

Screen Shots

Download
Part 1,Part 2,Part 3,Part 4,Part 5,Part 6,Part 7,Part 8,Part 9,Part 10,Part 11
Part 12,Part 13,Part 14,Part 15,Part 16,Part 17,Part 18,Part 19,Part 20,Part 21,Part 22
Part 23,Part 24,Part 25,Part 26,Part 27,Part 28,Part 29,Part 30,Part 31,Part 32,Part 33

Sim City 4

Publisher: EA Games
Developer: Maxis
Genre: Modern City-Building
Release Date: Jan 12, 2003
ESRB: EVERYONE
Number of Players: 1 Player

Long before game designer Will Wright created the best-selling computer game of all time, The Sims, he created SimCity, an innovative game with a clear, compelling premise: You're the mayor, and your goal is to plan a city from the ground up (and from a godlike vantage point) and then nurture it, eventually turning what starts as a sleepy little town into a bustling metropolis. SimCity was challenging and plausibly realistic and even had a surprising amount of humor, especially for a game with a seemingly mundane subject. About 15 years have passed since the original SimCity was first released, and while the classic SimCity series is still well known among PC gamers, it has only reached its fourth full installment. And SimCity 4 for the most part isn't a huge departure from its predecessors, either, not that it really needs to be. The game does have a number of new features and a few additional layers of depth on top of the preceding SimCity 3000, and its visuals have been impressively overhauled. However, due to the presence of some stability and performance issues, as well as a few noticeably lacking features, SimCity 4 doesn't seem as polished as it could have been. On the other hand, it's still a complex and detailed strategy game that can entertain you for hours on end and even teach you a thing or two.

One of the biggest changes to the gameplay of SimCity 4 is evident from the start. Immediately as you begin the game, you're presented with a view of SimNation, though it's not much of a nation at first. SimNation is divided up into numerous smaller square segments, yet each of these in fact can hold an entire city of your making. These cities can even interact to some extent, exchanging surplus energy, water, and such for cash. At any rate, getting started is as easy as clicking on any SimNation square, naming your city, and appointing yourself as mayor, and you're off. But before you begin, you may wish to take the step-by-step tutorials of the game's mayor mode—the heart of SimCity 4—and the god mode, where you can terraform the land to your heart's content, making the terrain as flat, as hilly, as undulating, or as improbably strange as you like. It's easy to use the terrain-morphing tools found in this mode, and while it's perfectly viable to just pick one of the ready-made territories to start your city in, it's tempting and straightforward to custom-tailor your own.

Minimum System Requirements
System: PIII 500 or equivalent
RAM: 128 MB
Video Memory: 16 MB
Hard Drive Space: 1000 MB

Recommended System Requirements
System: PIII 1GHz or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Hard Drive Space: 1000 MB

Screen Shots

Download
part1,part2,part3,part4,part5,part6

Sid Meier's Railroads

Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Firaxis Games
Genre: Business Strategy
ESRB: EVERYONE
ESRB Descriptors: Alcohol Reference
Offline Modes: Competitive
Online Modes: Competitive
Number of Players: 1-4
Number of Online Players: 4 Online

Sid Meier's Railroads! might not have "tycoon" in its name, but it's still a very addictive economic strategy game that just about anyone can enjoy. Regardless of your affinity for trains, Railroads! is an engaging and surprisingly deep game that lets you do much more than lay track and watch miniature trains chug across the map. You can connect cities to trade goods and haul passengers, purchase and supply industries, play the stock market, bid on new technology, and watch cities grow as you supply them with the goods to take them from tiny backwater towns to thriving metropolises. But as complex and rewarding as building a railroad empire can be, it rarely feels daunting or tedious, which is perhaps the best thing that can be said for a game of this type.

There are 15 different fictional and historical scenarios to choose from in Railroads! The historical scenarios take place in real-world locations such as the American Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, Great Britain, France, and Germany. These scenarios cover the entire history of the railroad, from its beginnings in the mid-19th century all the way through modern day. The era affects what types of engines you can purchase, as well as the general economy. For example, if you play in any of the European countries in the first half of the 20th century, you'll want to focus on processing and shipping steel to support the war effort.
more>>

Minimum System Requirements
System: 1.4 GHz Pentium 4 or equivalent
RAM: 512 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB
Hard Drive Space: 2000 MB

Screen Shots

Download
part1,part2,part3,part4,part5,part6,part7,part8

Black & White

Publisher: EA Games
Developer: Lionhead Studios
Genre: Real-Time Strategy
Release Date: Mar 26, 2001 (more)
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Comic Mischief, Violence

After three years in the making, Lionhead Studios' first game manages to live up to the extremely high expectations after all. It's a massive game about lofty concepts--gods and miracles--and yet the game is genuinely funny. The scope of Black & White is so far in excess of a typical game design that it seems surprising that the finished product turned out so polished and so playable. Still, its many different elements require a lot of explanation--the game has lots of mainstream appeal, but its sophisticated mechanics may quickly confound more casual players. Black & White is clearly a labor of love by designer Peter Molyneux and his staff. While some aspects of it take getting used to, and can even be frustrating, there's just so much to see and experience in Black & White that its shortcomings should not turn you away from this incredible game.

Because so much about Black & White seems so unusual, it's only natural to be curious about exactly how the game plays. It's definitely true that some aspects of the game simply defy categorization--however, it's also the case that, at its core, Black & White is a strategy game that's reminiscent of several of Peter Molyneux's previous games from when he was at Bullfrog Productions. You play as a god, depicted throughout the game merely as a disembodied hand, and your object is to gain the worship of villages throughout the world. You have complete control over the 3D perspective of the game and complete control over more or less everything else in the world. You can personally see to making villagers work more efficiently. As you gain more followers, your sphere of influence grows over the land, eventually encompassing other outlying villages, which you'll have to convert to your faith. Their belief in you is quantified within the game, and the more faithful villagers you have, the greater the territory you control, and the more potential you have for creating miracles--which are essentially magic spells.
more>>

Minimum System Requirements
System: PII 333 or equivalent
RAM: 64 MB
Video Memory: 8 MB
Hard Drive Space: 600 MB

Screen Shots

Download
part1,part2,part3,part4,part5,part6
part7,part8,part9,part10,part11,part12
part13,part14,part15,part16,part17

Battle Realms

Publisher: Crave
Developer: Liquid Ent.
Genre: Real-Time Strategy
Release Date: Nov 7, 2001
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Blood and Gore, Violence
Number of Players: 1-8

Battle Realms, the first product from Liquid Entertainment, has style in spades--everything about it is slick, and it's noteworthy for that reason alone, as well as for many others. It's a martial-arts-themed real-time strategy game featuring dozens of great-looking units from four unique factions, impressive graphical effects, and an innovative resource model. It has a polished, attractive presentation, an open-ended campaign, and several good multiplayer modes. Battle Realms does have a few gameplay issues that diminish some of its strategic appeal, as the action can prove to be difficult to manage. But it's still a very worthwhile experience despite these things and should provide many hours of enjoyment for all kinds of real-time strategy players.

The setting and characters of the game are clearly inspired by some of Hong Kong's most spectacular martial arts films--particularly the work of director/choreographer Tsui Hark--as well as some of Japan's action-packed comics and animated films, like the gory and stylish Ninja Scroll. The incredible fight sequences featured in last year's film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are also a good frame of reference for what you can expect from the battles in Battle Realms. Nothing is mundane in the game's fictional Far East-like world--even simple peasants can fight as trained martial artists should the need arise. All the game's various units and characters don't just stand adjacent to each other and hack away, as in most other real-time strategy games. Instead, they'll attack with a variety of moves and techniques and put on quite a show in the process. Thanks to the game's beautifully animated fully 3D units, not to mention the attractive terrain graphics and the overall detail found in the game, Battle Realms certainly looks impressive.

True to its source of inspiration, combat in Battle Realms can be quite chaotic. You actually have little control over your units besides being able to move them about (you can make them run by double-clicking), order them to attack, and initiate their special abilities if they have any. It's surprising that you can't do more with your units. They're very autonomous--they'll automatically rush to attack nearby foes, prioritize threats properly, and even switch between ranged and melee attacks as necessary. The pathfinding in the game is great--tell your units to go somewhere, and they will, stopping to fight any enemies along the way. But you can't set your units in formations and must instead move them as a rabble (though the rabble moves at the speed of the slowest unit in the group); and the pacing of the combat can be so fast that you'll just have to wait and see whether your forces survive. It can be very difficult to pull units out of battle, as they will seem to keep trying to lurch back into the fray. Also, since the game's units are large and tend to spread out when they fight, it can be all the more difficult to keep track of everything that's happening in a big battle, since it won't all fit onscreen.

Micromanaging the combat is necessary to sway the odds in your favor--individual units can have special abilities or equipment that can be used in battle to debilitate their foes, bolster their allies, and much more. Still, the breakneck pacing of the combat will often force you to simply use all of your special powers and abilities all at once, hoping for the best. But not all of the game is this fast-paced--it can take a while to bring enemy structures to the ground, during which time the enemy can flee with a few peasants and set up a new base of operations elsewhere, making the battle drag on.

The peasant, your basic unit, is automatically produced from peasant huts it can build. The more peasant huts you have, the faster peasants are generated. But the more units you have, the slower peasant generation becomes, until you reach your maximum unit limit--up to 50. Peasants can build other structures and can also gather the game's two resources, rice and water. New buildings cost a surplus of rice and water. Training new units costs rice and water too.

The resource model is slightly more complex than that--rice grows back slowly, but it'll grow back faster if you have peasants water it. And you don't just buy military units as you do in most real-time strategy games--your peasants train themselves into them. Thus, the resource gathering in Battle Realms becomes a challenging proposition. The more peasants you have, the more resources you can gather--but unless you upgrade peasants by training them to be troops, you'll be defenseless. It's an interesting system, especially once you factor in some of the finer details, like rains suddenly replenishing all your rice paddies or having to use water to put out buildings that have caught fire. Fortunately, the building process moves quite briskly in Battle Realms, and since there are fairly strict upper limits on how much rice and water can be stored, you'll have a good sense of when your economy is well underway and be able to commit to military training.


Minimum System Requirements
System: PII 400 or equivalent
RAM: 64 MB
Video Memory: 16 MB
Hard Drive Space: 600 MB

Recommended System Requirements
System: PIII 700 or equivalent
RAM: 128 MB
Video Memory: 32 MB
Hard Drive Space: 600 MB

Screen Shots

Download
part1,part2,part3,part4,part5,part6

Rise of Nations

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Developer: Big Huge Games
Genre: Historic Real-Time Strategy
Release Date: May 20, 2003 (more)
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Blood and Gore, Violence

Connectivity: Online, Local Area Network
Online Modes: Competitive, Cooperative, Team Oriented
Number of Players: 1-8

Designer Brian Reynolds had already made a name for himself with his work with Sid Meier on turn-based strategy classics such as Civilization II and Alpha Centauri. But Reynolds went off and founded a new studio called Big Huge Games and began work on the historically themed Rise of Nations, a game that has finally arrived on store shelves. This superb strategy game combines the best elements of real-time strategy with the conventions of the turn-based blockbusters that Reynolds had worked on previously. By combining some of the concepts of Civilization with the general gameplay of Age of Empires, Reynolds and Big Huge Games have created a truly outstanding game.

Rise of Nations might resemble Microsoft's Age of Empires games at a glance--like other, similar games, it has a host of different civilizations (18, to be exact), each with unique bonuses and four to five unique units. But beyond that, the game has a lot of depth, more so than other real-time strategy games, thanks to novel concepts such as national borders, city assimilation, and more. While these new features might seem foreign to real-time strategy players, fans of Brian Reynolds' turn-based strategy games should know them well.
Unlike in other turn-based games, in Rise of Nations, cities are a focal part of your strategy. Each of your cities has a radius around it that constitutes your national border. You can build other buildings only within your borders, and you can build only a limited number of different improvements for each city (such as a maximum of five farms each). Since expanding your empire depends entirely on your cities, the game makes you think harder about how and where you should expand. This focus on cities also means that each one will become a distinct community, with its own farms, temples, universities, and so on--actual cities will populate your empire, unlike in other real-time strategy games, where most of your structures are at your main base, while your additional town halls exist in isolation near some resources.

This intriguing concept of national borders works as you might have expected it to in an epic turn-based game, such as Civilization. In practice, national borders add depth to the game without being overwhelming. For instance, since your national borders grow with the number of cities you control, you may wish to aggressively expand your empire by building lots of cities, but you'll be limited by the extent of your research in civics. In addition, any troops you send across the borders of an enemy nation sustain attrition damage (to simulate the difficulty in supplying them over vast distances). It's an intuitive feature, and it also prevents your enemies from rushing you early on in the game. However, both you and your opponents can recruit supply wagons that protect armies from attrition damage.

In the meantime, you'll be able to recruit a wide array of different soldiers from different nations across different time periods. Like other real-time strategy games, Rise of Nations uses a rock-paper-scissors unit balance system--for instance, cavalry are devastating against some archer units, while pikemen can make short work of cavalry. Rise of Nations' combat is fast-paced, though it also features interesting tactical considerations, such as flanking and rear attacks, as well as special abilities that your general units can use to provide extra defense for your troops, cause your troops to move on a forced march, or even hide your army briefly to set up an ambush. Cities are also crucial to warfare in Rise of Nations, since successfully attacking a city doesn't destroy it, but instead captures it for your own use. As such, battles over cities are crucial and potentially very rewarding, and they also make the stakes a lot higher in multiplayer battles, which, despite the game's epic historical scale, can often be completed in less than an hour.

Thanks to its turn-based roots, Rise of Nations has other interesting features that aren't common to real-time strategy games, but these features allow the already varied game to offer you even more options. For instance, you can build wonders of the world (just like you could in Civilization), and these powerful monuments can provide bonuses to your troops as they stride into battle in real time. In addition, Rise of Nations doesn't have any troop transports, so you don't have to micromanage your troops as they march individually onto a boat. As long as you have a docks structure in place and the right technology level, all your land-based units will automatically become transports when they cross water. And as you'd expect from a game designed by Civilization II's cocreator, Rise of Nations offers multiple victory conditions to suit a variety of different play styles. You can win by conquest, by controlling 70 percent or more of the entire map, by building or capturing a critical mass of wonders, or by capturing and holding an enemy's capitol.

Minimum System Requirements
System: Pentium 500 Mhz or equivalent or equivalent
RAM: 128 MB
Video Memory: 16 MB
Hard Drive Space: 800 MB

Screen Shots

Download

part1,part2,part3,part4,part5

part6,part7,part8,part9,part10
part11,part12,part13,part14,part15,part16

7sins

Publisher: Digital Jesters
Developer: Monte Cristo
Website: www.7sins-game.com
Genre: Simulator
Release Date: 24 Mar 2006
Age Rating: 18+ (BBFC)

Think you can roll with the high life? Reckon you're a true player? 7 Sins is your chance to prove it. Money, fame, power and sex are at your fingertips...but everything has its price. If you want a piece of the action, you're going to have to lie, steal, seduce and cheat your way to the very top of the social elite. Make friends, make enemies, learn their secrets and desires and then use it against them to get ahead. With outrageous mini-games and hilarious social interactions, you'll soon discover that sinning really is the best way of winning!Features:
Exciting 3D interactive environments in which the player gets to mix with the rich, beautiful and famous.

Complete interaction with other characters – seduce them, humour them, bore them or be as nasty as you want!
Non-linear gameplay – players have control over which missions or mini-games to undertake.
Sprawling locations with players encouraged to 'be bad to be good' to progress to new areas.
Themed challenges based around each of the seven sins – Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed and Sloth.

Humour – A heavy dose of 'lads mentality' with visual and audio gags focusing on drinking, voyeurism, pranks and sexual conquests.
More than 20 different mini games, including erotic dreaming, beer chugging, and SEX!

Minimum System Requirements
Windows 98/Me/2000/XP
128 MB RAM (256 MB RAM recommended)
900 MB free hard disk space
1.0 GHz Intel Pentium or AMD Athlon equivalent (1.5 GHz recommended)
DirectX 9.0c compatible video card with at least 32 MB video memory DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
DirectX 9.0c

Screen Shots

Download

Ride Carnival Tycoon

Genre : Business Strategy
Company : Valuesoft
Rating : E (Everyone)
Discs : 1
Additional Info : 1 Player
Release Date : 07/11/2007

Description
Are you ready to build the greatest midway on earth? Summer nights flashing lights stomach churning rides girls and guys all combine to make the perfect carnival. Attract them thrill them feed them frighten them and leave them yearning for more! From parking lots to big time - start small building local fun fairs outside malls and grow your business one happy customer at at time. Strap into any of the 25 different rides at your disposal and feel what your crowds feel as you plunge through the electrifying twists and turns. Maximize your money making potential by planning and constructing additional carnivals as the others are coming to a close. Choose set-up and design your food and drink stations - 12 delicious food and drink options available! Come one come all!

Game Info
players design and manage their own virtual carnivals in this budget-friendly business simulation from ValuSoft. Game booths, food stands, and curious spectacle tents are available for prime placement on the midway, along with more than two dozen different rides, but beginning carnies will have to work their way up to be able to afford the most profitable attractions. Sandbox-type play lets creativity reign, while ten preset missions put management skills to the test.

Download
part1,part2,part3,part4,part5,part6
part7,part8,part9,part10,part11,part12

Empire Earth II

Publisher: VU Games
Developer: Mad Doc Software
Genre: Historic Real-Time Strategy
Release Date: Apr 26, 2005 (more)
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Blood, Violence
Connectivity: Online, Local Area Network
Online Modes: Competitive
Number of Players: 1-10
Number of Online Players: 10 Online


Empire Earth II has a lot of good points, but it's no friend to the casual real-time strategy gamer. While developer Mad Doc Software has improved on Stainless Steel's 2001 blockbuster, increased depth and additional options have turned a huge game into an absolutely colossal one. This sequel remains a standard historical RTS, but it's also a grab bag crammed so full of new features, interface amenities, and complexities that it's bursting at the seams. Still, if you can commit a great many hours to familiarizing yourself with all the game's nooks and crannies, expect to be rewarded with an enjoyable addiction that will cost you weeks, if not months, of your life.

Thematically, this is the same old Empire Earth. Mad Doc hasn't strayed far from the adventurous formula of the original game. Half a million years of human achievement have once more been broken down into 15 epochs and 14 major civilizations representing all recorded history. Every step in human evolution is depicted. Resources are gathered, and armies are built on a truly epic scale. In the same game, you might see Neolithic tribesmen--one step removed from the Flinstones--gathering food and stones, as well as a future society that wages war with battle mechs that process uranium. Hundreds of buildings and military units are developed and deployed. Each epoch has its own tech tree featuring 12 items to be researched in military, commerce, and imperial categories. You can venture all the way from weaving to sentient artificial intelligence, from seasonal hunting groups to automated highways, and from tanning animal hides to nanomachines.

Game modes are standard for a historical RTS. A tutorial and three solo campaigns trace the development of the Aztecs, Koreans, Germans, and Americans from different points in the history of each civilization. Single-player "turning points" missions see you revisiting D-Day on either the American or German side, or fighting the ancient Chinese Three Kingdoms conflict on behalf of the Wu or Wei. Skirmish mode lets you set up online or offline battles between as many as 10 human and/or computer opponents in game types that feature nine different victory conditions.

In short, almost everything is where you left it. That said, the crucial word here is "almost." Mad Doc has introduced a number of interface tweaks in an attempt to make Empire Earth II more user-friendly than its predecessor. The new citizen-manager overlay screen, for example, shows resource piles and other locations, like universities where stragglers can be put to work. You can take in the entire map at a glance, check stats showing how many citizens are assigned to each resource pile, and organize those who have slipped through the cracks.

War planning has also received the one-stop-shopping treatment. When you want to coordinate an attack on a mutual enemy, all you have to do now is sketch out some circles and arrows in the war-plans applet and then send them to one or more allies for approval. This is a great boost to solo games, providing the illusion that you're fighting alongside human players. It also comes in handy in multiplayer games with real human opponents. Not only does war planning provide you with a ready way of discussing tactics, but also it enhances teamwork by making it so easy to draw up such battle plans. In fact, it makes it even more tempting to betray allies by sending them confusing tactics while simultaneously preparing underhanded offensives.

Picture-in-picture is another evolution of the interface, providing you with the ability to be in two places at once. It lets you both keep an eye on specified locales and manipulate units and buildings. Essentially, it works as a secondary game window. For example, when directing an army on the front lines in the main screen, you can observe your town and queue the production of units in the PIP. Up to six points of view can be bookmarked and then toured simply by hitting F1 through F6, making it a snap to move between town centers in larger games.

That's not entirely a good thing. Despite Mad Doc's good intentions, the PIP doesn't make Empire Earth II easier to play. If anything, it makes the game more complicated, as in both single-player scenarios and skirmishes against the computer, use of the PIP can lead to information overload. Since there are always a dozen or more tasks demanding your attention, it's too easy to get so caught up scanning from one hot spot to another, in addition to micromanaging, that missions can start to feel a lot like work. Games online now are more hardcore and unforgiving. If you want to really compete in multiplayer contests, you have to master the PIP, because odds are good there will be at least one multitasking guru in every game you join.

Gameplay itself seems to have received less attention in the design doc than the user interface. Not that this is a bad thing. The historical RTS template upon which Empire Earth II is based is solid in every way--save for clunky pathfinding, which remains a sore point in specific locations, especially at sea and when off-loading troops from ships--so it's a good thing Mad Doc stayed away from what wasn't broken.

Minimum System Requirements
System: Pentium 4 1.5 or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB
Hard Drive Space: 1500 MB

Recommended System Requirements
System: Pentium 4 2.2 or equivalent
RAM: 512 MB
Video Memory: 128 MB
Other: Windows XP

Screen Shots

Download:
part1,part2,part3

Empire Earth

Publisher: Sierra Entertainment
Developer: Stainless Steel
Genre: Historic Real-Time Strategy
Release Date: Nov 12, 2001 (more)
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Blood, Violence

Number of Players: 1-8

Empire Earth is a real-time strategy game that spans about a half a million years of human history, the last 200 of which take place 200 years from now. So if you're the type who appreciates ambitious game designs, then you've found one in Stainless Steel Studios' first game, which was conceived by the designer of the original Age of Empires. Actually, Empire Earth has a great deal in common with Ensemble Studios' highly successful Age of Empires series. Even the games' graphics look similar, though Empire Earth uses a fully 3D engine, unlike Age of Empires. Similarities aside, Empire Earth is a huge game to say the least--it's much more time-consuming and involved than the typical real-time strategy game, and its staggering variety of units is as impressive as it is intimidating. Real-time strategy is sometimes criticized for favoring shallow, action-oriented gameplay rather than strategic depth--but that's definitely not the case here. In fact, Empire Earth is best reserved for hard-core real-time strategy players who won't mind the game's less-than-stellar graphics and sound but will instead relish the ability to relive 14 different epochs of human warfare.

Empire Earth is clearly designed to appeal to those who enjoy Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. Those familiar with Age of Kings should be able to jump right in and start playing Empire Earth, which borrows most of that game's controls, interface features, and even some of its keyboard shortcuts. As in Age of Kings, in Empire Earth, you must spend a considerable amount of time focusing on gathering various resources. All four of Age of Kings' resources have been appropriated for Empire Earth. A fifth resource, iron, has been added to further complicate the resource-gathering process. Most resources are found lying out in the open, in square-shaped deposits conveniently strewn about the map. Hunting for food also plays a big role throughout Empire Earth. All manner of realistic-looking 3D animals are there for you to hunt: cute giraffes, cute hippos, cute walruses, cute elephants, cute horses, you name it. Be careful, though--if you hunt too zealously, you'll wipe out the species. However, if you consciously let some animals live, offspring will appear, letting the delicate cycle of life continue for later exploitation.
Unfortunately, unlike in Age of Kings, there's no market structure that you can build to trade a surplus of one resource for another. This makes it all the more essential that you constantly weigh the importance of each individual resource in your short-term and relative long-term strategy and that you aggressively expand your territory to claim the resources you'll desperately need. If you're locked out of a particular type of resource, chances are that defeat will be close at hand. Then again, most units require only two out of the five resources, so you can focus your strategy accordingly or at least change your military spending to account for low quantities of particular resources.

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings wasn't exactly a simple game--despite being more than two years old, it's still popular, thanks in large part to the sheer variety of strategies possible because of all the different units and playable factions. Empire Earth takes that game's recipe and doubles it. In fact, there's little denying that Empire Earth has by far the broadest scope and the greatest breadth of content of any real-time strategy game to date. From stone-age rock throwers, Roman chariots, medieval knights, and Napoleonic musketeers to World War I-era biplanes, World War II-era tanks, and 22nd-century giant robots, Empire Earth's variety of units is almost ludicrous. All told, there are more than 200 units in all, a number rivaled only by the impressive 1997 real-time strategy game Total Annihilation--but only if you count the additional units found in Total Annihilation's first expansion pack. Empire Earth also features a good variety of buildings and technologies, though these aren't quite as exhaustive as the unit options. In fact, many of the buildings remain the same throughout all the epochs.

Does the additional breadth and complexity of Empire Earth mean it's a better game than Age of Kings? No, of course not--you can actually have too much of a good thing, and Empire Earth is evidence of this. Using the default game settings, resource gathering is painfully slow. Not only that, but the costs required to advance from one epoch to the next are extremely high. It's theoretically possible to play a game of Empire Earth starting in the prehistoric epoch and work all the way on up through the nano epoch. But this would literally take hours upon hours. Fortunately, there are options available for optionally speeding up the gameplay, as well as a deathmatch mode that starts you off with plenty of resources, thereby letting you focus almost exclusively on unit tactics. At any rate, you're unlikely to see all the epochs in a single battle because an aggressive computer opponent will do its worst to write you out of history at the earliest opportunity. At the standard or hard difficulty settings, the computer will quickly expand across the map and will hit you hard and with just about everything it's got. Like most everything else about Empire Earth, the AI is no joke.

Perhaps the designers intended to make a scathing critique on how little humankind has evolved over the years, but the various epochs in Empire Earth actually aren't all that different once you get past the obvious graphical distinctions. Throughout all 500,000 years of history, you'll still need to gather food, wood, gold, stone, and iron. You'll do this by assigning peasants--called civilians here--to walk up to these resource deposits and scoop them up, exactly like in Age of Kings. Those same pumpkin patches feeding your cavemen will be feeding your modern-day military men millennia later--you'll have stealth bombers, but you won't have supermarkets. That same clump of gold will fuel your entire war machine throughout history. Similar quantities of resources will be used to train or construct historically analogous units. In the year 2200, you still won't have any technology that can cut through the fog of war.

Minimum System Requirements
System: PII 333 or equivalent
RAM: 64 MB
Video Memory: 4 MB
Hard Drive Space: 450 MB

Recommended System Requirements
System: PIII 600 or equivalent
RAM: 128 MB
Video Memory: 32 MB
Hard Drive Space: 450 MB

Screen Shorts

Download:

part1,part2

Sid Meier's Civilization III

Genre: Historic Turn-Based Strategy
Release Date: Sep 14, 2004
Players: 1-8; 8 Online
Publisher: Atari
Developer: Firaxis Games
ESRB: EVERYONE
Connectivity: Online, Local Area Network

From Firaxis Games and Sid Meier, the creative genius behind some of the most critically acclaimed computer games ever produced, comes the latest offering in the Civilization III franchise - Civilization III: Complete. Gaming fans can now enjoy Civilization III, the highly addictive journey of discovery , combined with the updated and enhanced multiplayer expansion pack Civilization® III: Play the World™, as well as all of the great new Civs, Scenarios, and Features from Civilization III: Conquests! Civilization III: Complete provides more ways to win, more ways to explore, more strategies to employ, and more exciting modes of play all in one box! Civilization III: Complete gives Civ® fans the opportunity to enjoy unmatched strategic gameplay alone or against players from around the world.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Operating System: Windows® 98/2000/XP
Processor: Pentium® II 400MHz
Memory: 128 MB RAM
Hard Disk Space: 500 MB available hard drive space
CD-ROM Drive: 4X Speed or higher
Video: DirectX® 8.0a-compatible video card (must be able to display @ 1024 x 768)
Sound: DirectX® 8.0a-compatible sound card
DirectX: DirectX® version 9.0b (included) or higher
Multiplayer: LAN or Internet connection required for some multiplayer modes Broadband connection recommended for 5 or more players

Screen Shots

Download :
Part1,part2,part3

Monopoly Tycoon

Publisher: Atari
Developer: Deep Red
Genre: Business Strategy
Release Date: Sep 24, 2001
ESRB: EVERYONE
Number of Players: 1-4

Most previous PC games based on Monopoly have gone in one of two directions: They either combine the classic property-trading game with another popular license, as in Monopoly Star Wars Edition, or they use the strong Monopoly brand and distinctive graphics to spruce up another type of game, as in Monopoly Casino. Fortunately, Monopoly Tycoon breaks the mold by using the popular board game as the base on which to build a strong and innovative, and great-looking, real-time game of business management and city building.

Monopoly Tycoon is the kind of game you might have imagined as a kid while you played the real board game. The game includes all the familiar Monopoly elements, such as buying and selling properties and utilities, collecting rent, and managing your money, but it expands on the idea by letting you build a variety of retail and residential buildings and then manage your businesses by setting stock amounts, prices, and rent. If you've ever wanted to see what an expensive Boardwalk hotel would look like up close, this is your chance. While Monopoly purists may be wary of the numerous changes and additions that have been made to the classic game, the end result is a pleasing and challenging blend of city building and economic management, all created in the familiar, lighthearted style of Monopoly.

You begin the game with a set amount of money in 1930, at which point the game's virtual city is only sparsely built. You can proceed to invest in property, utilities, and railroads, as well as build businesses. The game's easy-to-use research and analysis functions help you choose where to build different types of structures--for instance, a poll conducted on a specific city block may reveal that the various inhabitants want more bread and meat, indicating that a butcher shop or bakery would do well at that location. It's important to do some research before building, since there are more than 40 types of potential businesses, and some will be more profitable than others. The game also provides statistics on what types of people live in or commute to the city, which helps you figure out what kind of residential structures to build.

The property-management portion of Monopoly Tycoon comes into play when you want to lease an entire city block. You compete against up to five other business owners during the game, and at any point, one of you can flag a city block for auction, and all the others then have a chance to bid for that property. Once you've leased a block, you become the landlord and collect the rent from the businesses on that block for a period of time. If you lease all of the blocks in a color group (which represents a district or neighborhood, as in the board game), you gain the right to build hotels, along with other advantages such as lower buyout costs. As the years pass in the virtual city, new businesses become available, such as ice cream parlors, bowling alleys, and nightclubs, and eventually supermarkets, video stores, and computer stores.

Monopoly Tycoon has a wide variety of single-player scenarios with goals that range from building the largest empire by a certain year, to gaining the most popular votes to become mayor of the city. There's even a Survivor-style last-man-standing scenario, where the city inhabitants vote players out of the game one by one. The game runs in real time through day/night cycles, each of which represents five years of game time, and time can also be accelerated to speed through the occasional slow period. Most scenarios last between 30 minutes and an hour or so as the game progresses from the 1930s up through the 1990s. The game includes three difficulty levels, which adjust the strength of the opponents' artificial intelligence as well as your starting funds, and even the easiest level should provide plenty of challenge and entertainment for most players.

screen shot

Requirements:

Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP,

233MHz CPU,

64MB RAM,

200MB free disk space

Download

part1,part2,part3,part4,part5

RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 soaked

Publisher: Atari
Developer: Frontier Dev.
Genre: Business Strategy
Release Date: Jun 23, 2005
ESRB: EVERYONE
ESRB Descriptors: Comic Mischief, Mild Violence
Number of Players: 1 Player

Few games were as anticipated, or as mildly disappointing, last year than RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, the latest in the gargantuan mainstream hit series based on the simple idea that building theme parks can be an addictively fun and family-friendly affair. The first RollerCoaster Tycoon practically kick-started the entire Tycoon game genre by selling millions of copies, and so there were many fans eagerly awaiting the third game in the series and the big leap to 3D that it represented. And while RCT3 did deliver on the graphics, it stumbled a bit in terms of gameplay. It also felt like it was rushed out early, suffering from a myriad of bugs and other weird gameplay issues. Well, the good news is that, almost nine months later, Frontier has turned out RollerCoaster Tycoon 3: Soaked!, the first expansion pack for the game. Not only does Soaked! include all the latest updates to clean up the gameplay, but it also tosses in a ton of new content that's beautiful to behold.

As you can probably guess from the name, Soaked! is all about getting wet, but in a good way. Water is very much the theme of this expansion, from fantastic, imaginative waterslides to giant wave pools, killer whale shows, and more, all packed into eight brand-new scenarios. In addition to all the water, there is a sandbox mode that lets you create your own park from scratch. Like before, the single-player "campaign" (and we use that term loosely) starts you off with three scenarios unlocked. Each scenario has three different levels of difficulty, and all you have to do is accomplish the most basic goals to unlock another scenario. However, you can keep on playing a scenario to unlock the more-advanced goals, which provides hours of gameplay for each scenario as you carefully accumulate the money and research to create an even more-spectacular park.
These new scenarios offer a nice bit of variety, from the Loch Ness-like Monster Lake map that features beautiful green hills and a tranquil lakeside setting to the desert-based Fountain of Youth, which rises out of a hole in the desert to encompass the surrounding landscape. But what's most impressive about these settings is the amount of imagination that each possesses, and it's almost daunting to think that, with practice, you too can build something as wondrous and daring. It'll take quite a bit of practice, though, as the user interface remains about the same as that from RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. And if there's one complaint we have regarding the interface, it's that it feels unnecessarily complex. Frontier has its own conventions for basic interface issues--such as main menu screens--to confuse you, and trying to manipulate all the little buttons in order to design and fine-tune a ride or coaster can be halfway maddening at times, especially when you accidentally erase a tile or object, which happens far too often. Of course, practice does make perfect, and if you get to Soaked!, odds are that you're a RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 veteran by now, anyway. But if you're new to the series, or picking up Soaked! after a long interlude away from the main game, then be prepared for a learning curve.
Soaked! does feature plenty of improvement to the core gameplay, as well. Gone is the bewildering peep behavior from the main game. For example, in RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, rides went from being red hot to ice cold inexplicably within a matter of moments, and trying to decipher your peeps' behavior was baffling at times. Now there's much more of a logical cause-and-effect relationship between you and your peeps, as you can adjust the many different prices and variables to your heart's content and see how they react to them. And once again, Soaked! proves that RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 is a micromanager's dream, as you can control everything from the amount of pickles and condiments that customers can put on their burgers to choreographing the laser light shows, fireworks, and dolphin acts. It's so easy to get lost in all the little minutia of the game, and before you know it, you realize that you've been charmed by it all. It's simply fun to watch your peeps have fun, whether it's jumping into a pool or dragging their friends onto a wild ride. Or if they shake their heads at a souvenir counter, you want to know why so you can address the issue. (Thankfully, all it takes is to select a peep to see his or her thoughts.)

Considering that it requires about the same amount of computational power as RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, it's impressive the way Soaked! improves on the graphics of that game, mainly through the excellent water effects. Water simply looks realistic, and it's so cool because there are many ways that you can interact with it. For example, you can stir a pool up with your cursor and watch the peeps react to the waves, or you can move the camera too close and see water splash onto the screen. It's also fun to see all the new interactions your peeps have with the environment, like how they paddle along on their inflated swim toys, or watch the gorgeous and elaborate Las Vegas-style mock sea battles. There are a few blemishes, though. The collision between peeps and their environments seems a bit off in places, and you'll see peeps meld into their deck chairs and other pieces of furniture like they're being swallowed alive. Meanwhile, the light bloom effects are lavished in disgusting amounts, making it all but useless to sort out any graphical details. It's best to simply turn it off to begin with. The expansion is rather hit or miss in terms of audio, as the effects remain good (and they sound downright great on a surround-sound system), but the music is still a bit too New Age for our tastes. It can be very mellow at times, which doesn't feel like the right tone for a theme park game.
Soaked! represents a nice improvement over the original game, and overall it's a great expansion that adds plenty of new content while also addressing some of the glaring gameplay issues of RollerCoaster Tycoon 3.

Minimum System Requirements
System: P3 933 or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB
Hard Drive Space: 800 MB

Recommended System Requirements
System: P4 1.3 Ghz or equivalent
RAM: 512 MB

Download
part1,part2,part3,part4,part5,part6,part7,part8
part9,part10,part11,part12,part13,part14,part15,part16

SeaWorld Adventure Parks Tycoon 3D

Publisher: Activision Value
Developer: Activision
Genre: Business Strategy
Release Date: Sep 29, 2003
ESRB: EVERYONE

Number of Players: 1 Player


When Chris Sawyer and MicroProse published RollerCoaster Tycoon in 1999, virtually no one could have imagined the impact it would have. While there were earlier games built around the idea of constructing roller coasters or theme parks, Sawyer brilliantly merged the two ideas into an addictively simple game that sold a gazillion copies. It also launched a wave of competitors, from Microsoft's Zoo Tycoon to the latest takeoff, SeaWorld Adventure Parks Tycoon. It's probably a good thing that SeaWorld is published under Activision's budget label, because it comes off as an extremely lightweight imitation of the original.

If you've played any of the recent games with "tycoon" in the title, you'll instantly recognize the interface and mechanics of SeaWorld Adventure Parks Tycoon. Your job is to create a moneymaking theme park, from scratch, by designing everything from the layout of the park to which rides and amusements are available. You control everything from ticket prices to concession prices, and you can even charge customers, known as peeps, to use the bathroom. Once it's all set up, just sit back and watch the peeps enjoy your park while you tweak and fiddle along the way.
It turns out that it's a good and bad thing being the only game to bear the official SeaWorld Adventure Parks license. While you get to use most of the rides and attractions found at SeaWorld's three main parks, including Shamu Adventure and Shipwreck Rapids, that's all you get. You can't design your own coasters, and, as SeaWorld has a limited number of rides and attractions, there's not a lot to choose from. After a few levels, it begins to feel like you're reconfiguring the same park again and again. To paraphrase Henry Ford, "you can build any adventure park you want, so long as it's SeaWorld."
The game comes with 12 levels that are split into three groups of varying difficulty, so it's easy for new gamers to ramp up to more difficult challenges. Most of the levels have objectives that are fairly easy to reach, though some of the latter levels put you under considerable time constraints to accomplish your goals. These time limits can be frustrating, as you've got to build an almost perfect park to reach your objectives. There is a sandbox mode that allows you to build to your heart's content without worrying about objectives or time limits, though, once again, the limited amount of content doesn't allow for a lot of variation in park design.
SeaWorld Adventure Parks Tycoon retains the traditional 2D look and feel of most tycoon games, and it does look very pretty. There's an excellent level of detail in the graphics, though there are some maddening omissions. You can't rotate the map in 90-degree increments--a feature that's almost standard in every other game in the genre. This makes it almost impossible to fine-tune construction behind large buildings because you can't see what's going on. In addition, you can't rotate certain buildings at all during construction, so you're forced to place them as they are.
Some of the animation is well done; for instance, you can actually see the dolphins leaping out through hoops. The peeps, however, don't exhibit the same amount of emotion and interaction as they do in other games. Like a virtual person in The Sims, an individual peep just walks around looking to satisfy a current need, whether it be going to the bathroom or finding something to eat. Additionally, it's hard to tell your customers apart from your park staff since zooming in is of little help, as the graphics are a bit pixelated up close.

Musically, the game's soundtrack seems to consist of a few colorful tracks that capture a nice Caribbean/nautical mood. The sound effects are adequate, though there's a lot of background chatter as your peeps walk around. Overall, though, they're par for the genre.
SeaWorld Adventure Parks Tycoon packs about 15 to 20 hours' worth of gameplay, and it's not a bad game for younger gamers. And with the slim amount of content, it's a good thing that Activision is only charging $20 for it.



Minimum System Requirements
System: 500MHz Pentium II or equivalent
RAM: 64 MB
Video Memory: 8 MB
Hard Drive Space: 700 MB



Download
part1,part2,part3

Harvestmoon Back To Nature (PS)

Developer(s) : Victor Interactive Software
Publisher(s) : Natsume Co., Ltd
Genre(s) : Simulation/Role-playing
Mode(s) : Single player
Rating(s) : ESRB: Everyone
Platform(s) : PlayStation; port for PSP

Harvest Moon: Back to Nature is surprisingly one of the most satisfying role-playing experiences to be found on the PlayStation. Instead of following the standard flashy FMV, save the world formula, Back to Nature involves you in the day-to-day tasks of running a farm, maintaining friendships, and building a family in a not too flashy but thoroughly involving manner.
The game brings you to your grandfather's farm, which you've recently inherited, in the sleepy town where you spent your vacation ten years ago. Offered a three-year trial by the mayor and the townsfolk, it is up to you to restore the homestead to its former glory and productivity, as well as earn the admiration and affection of the citizenry. These goals go hand in hand, as the citizens provide you with additional help and greater doses of love based on how well you've rebuilt your farmlands and how often you shower them with presents. A generous neighbor does well in Back to Nature, and only the most charitable of play styles will give you access to all that the townsfolk have to offer.
A great farmer needs a great wife, and wooing one of the local girls is one of the most enjoyable aspects of Back to Nature. With five girls to choose from, each with different likes, dislikes, schedules, and birthdays, it's a lot to keep track of. The quickest way to your chosen paramour's heart is by stalking her day and night, appearing at all her favorite spots, and showering her with gifts at every turn. At first, she may seem annoyed, even scared, but your constant attention will eventually turn her black heart a rosy shade of red on your love indicator, which is conveniently visible during dialogue. At this point, you may offer her a blue feather, as local custom dictates, and take her hand in marriage. Wedlock means no more late nights at the bar, more constant female attention, and eventually a baby.
Back to Nature has one of the most enjoyable sets of characters ever featured in a role-playing game. What makes them so intriguing are not their limit breaks, elemental bent, or how deep they are steeped in political intrigue. Instead, they each have relationships with each other, and those relationships are affected by your involvement with their respective friends and families. The characters are emotionally real, becoming jealous if you try to steal their girl, happy if you marry their daughter, sad if you turn them down for a date, and so on. Several of the characters in this seemingly simple game have fairly realistic characteristics, drinking themselves to sleep every night, running away from home, and participating in the local cockfights. The possibility of courting and marrying a girl afflicted with raging alcoholism was a nice touch. While the gravity of these situations is questionable more often than not, they do add an atmosphere of mock realism that works very well.
Several elements most other games would consider side stories or minigames play an important role in Back to Nature. For example, raising a happy dog, horse, and chicken not only provide you with benefits in the fields, but also at local competitions. You can win the local horse race, dog show, or chicken sumo competition with your animal companion. Once your house has a kitchen installed, there are over 100 recipes to be made using a combination of the crops you harvest and the utensils ordered over the home shopping network. Entering one of your more complicated recipes will surely win you the cooking festival, something sure to attract the attention of the ladies. While most RPGs reward experience with statistic increases, Back to Nature rewards you tangibly, with additions to your house, barn, and stables, opening up greater possibilities for profit and character interaction.

Download

Sid Meier's SimGolf

Developer(s) : FiraxisMaxis
Publisher(s) : Electronic Arts
Designer(s) : Sid Meier
Release date(s) : 23 January, 2002
Genre(s) : Simulation/Strategy/Tycoon
Mode(s) : Single player
Rating(s) : ELSPA: 3+ESRB: Everyone (E)PEGI: 3+
Platform(s) : Microsoft Windows 95-XP
Media : 1 CD

The game features a complete system that allows the player to build their own golf empire. Players begin with some money and choose a country to begin building the players' course. Once there, players begin by placing a teeing ground and a putting green for Hole One and are then allowed to go on adding or modifying what lies between: trees, rough, bunkers (or sandtraps), landmarks, benches, paths, flowerbeds, terrain and just do about anything players would normally see in a golf course. Players are advised not to waste money because if the coffers stay in the red long enough, the game is over. If players design the course well, they can manage to build an entire 18-hole course while obtaining profits. Players can also populate their course with a variety of staff, such as gardeners who will pull out any unsightly weeds, greeters that will talk to customers and drinks stands to help golfers quench their thirst.
Everything players add (or fail to) will modify the overall mood of the golfers. Keeping them happy will allow them to invest in the players' course or donate a valuable landmark. Reward buildings, such as marinas, airstrips, theme parks or churches, will be provided and may be used to beautify the landscape. Other facilities made available as players progress through the game include a bar, a putting green, a tennis court and homes to Hollywood stars or other international celebrities. These landmarks have different properties that help the environment in some way, improving unpopular spots and otherwise calming down angry golfers (Every part of the course is rated in this way, so that players have to raise its value with fun, skill and intelligence to have customers like it).
The game also enables the player to save their professional golfer, Gary Golf, and then play championships with him to earn some extra money to further embellish or expand the course. Maxis has also set up a website where players can visit the exchange part and enter a huge archive of player-designed Championship courses for players to download and play, which adds immensely to the long-term value of the game.
The game is fairly easy to pick up and play, compared to The Sims 2, for example. In the long run, however, it takes skill and dedication to build really beautiful, profitable courses that work. Another thing that adds to its depth is the fact that golfers come to play in pairs and usually talk about their own interests. If players put the proper landmarks in the proper places, these stories may progress and have a happy ending, which also adds to players' course. There is also a 'sandbox' mode, which allows you to play the game with an infinite amount of money, so you can hone your designing skills.

System Requirements

300MHz Intel Pentium II or better

64MB RAM

300MB free hard drive space

Windows 98/Me/2000/XP

Download

part1,part2,part3

About Alice Greenfingers

Alice's big dream is to run her own businesss, growing ecological crops and raising healthy animals like in the old days.Her dream is finally coming true as she found the perfect place to rent in the countryside. With the help of a friendly shopkeeper and grandmother's good advice, Alice now begins the hard work of making a living out of growing, harvesting, folling the market trends and selling ripe crops down at the local market.

Download

This game was developed by Arcade Lab:
Ola Zandelin - Producer
Dan Saedén - Programming
Daniel Zandelin - Additional Programming
Ola Zandelin - Graphics
Daniel Zandelin - Sound Effects
Åsa Kronquist - Quality Assurance
Martina Zandelin - Quality Assurance
The music was composed by Melin Music.
Alice Greenfingers, copyright © Arcade Lab / Swedish Game Development AB, 2007.
FMOD Sound System, copyright © Firelight Technologies Pty, Ltd., 1994-2007.

System Requirements
Windows 98, 2000, XP, Vista or compatible
10 MB free hard disk space
300 Mhz Pentium II or better CPU
DirectX 3 or higher

Download

School Tycoon

Just when you thought you'd been the tycoon of everything, along comes School Tycoon. The game puts you in charge of a school's operations, so you must make concessions between the school's budget and the students' education. It's rather simple for a tycoon game, and there are some noticeable bugs that can be frustrating. However, the game's simplicity does work well to create an entertaining strategy gaming experience, as long as you're not looking for a hardcore number-crunching game.
Right from the start, you know School Tycoon is going to be lighthearted. The introduction cinematic is amusing to watch because it features a stressed-out, bumbling principal who boils over the edge and tells you to run the school. You apparently take him up on the offer, so you can either solve 24 challenges or build a school from the ground up in a sandbox mode. The challenge mode is divided into eight beginner, eight intermediate, and eight difficult scenarios where you'll have to do everything from merely getting 30 students into your school to earning $100,000 within a certain time frame. The beginner challenges will only take you about an hour to finish in total, while even one difficult challenge can take you several hours to solve. If you want to start from scratch, you can play the instant action mode. This sandbox mode has no objectives, so you can just build and build to your heart's content.
You can construct all sorts of classrooms, from those used for mathematics to those used for English. There are about 10 different subjects that your students can learn. You start off with a small, portable classroom that will seat just a few students. Later on, you can build medium and then deluxe versions of classrooms for each subject, and these upgraded classrooms can house more students and can better educate them. However, academics aren't the only part of a student's life because he or she also needs to keep fit. You'll first build a basic gymnasium and field, but soon you'll unlock other athletic structures, like tennis courts, basketball courts, and football fields.
You do have to hire teachers for each of these buildings or else your students won't learn a thing. A teacher has three traits: fun, strict, and skill. The first will affect students' morale; the second will affect students' levels of discipline; and the third will affect students' academic and athletic abilities. Teachers' wages are based on how high these three traits are. You'll need to hire low-quality teachers at the start of your career because you won't be able to afford better ones. You'll notice that the teachers' salaries represent the highest cost of your school. But once you have a solid foundation, you can start to hire more-expensive teachers. If you don't like the selection of teachers available, you can just close the menu and reopen it to get a new set of teachers to choose from. It may be a simple way to approach the situation, but at least you won't be stuck with someone you don't want. Your school is ranked on several averages, including the three listed above. Better teachers are the best way to influence your scores.
Students will quickly get bored with your school, unless you provide them with a nice environment and good entertainment. You can pretty up your campus with trees, shrubbery, statues, and pathways, and you actually have a wide assortment of each to choose from, so even you won't get bored easily. You do have to maintain these frills though, because each item will degrade over time and may even catch on fire. Maintenance crews repair buildings, janitors sweep pathways, and landscapers keep trees healthy. They incur an extra cost though, because they are hired help. You also can--and should--build entertainment structures, like arcades, halfpipes, and miniature golf courses, to keep your students active outside of class. Both landscapes and entertainment will drive up your student body's morale and will keep students enrolled.
You want to keep your students enrolled because, presumably, they affect your income. Part of the game's simplicity results from its budget. You can see your costs, but you never see where income is derived from. The manual is no help either. You have no idea if your new pizza joint is providing you with income from lunch sales. (It would be nice to be able to charge a little more per slice to give you a slight income boost in a pinch.) The budget also seems to change often, so even though it says you will earn $2,000, you may actually earn less if a student happens to leave right before the next cycle. The charts also aren't very detailed, so don't expect any rewarding information beyond simple line charts.
There are several issues in the game that can get frustrating. First, when you reload a saved game, everything is reset. You can no longer track stats from your earlier play session. What's even more detrimental is that somehow your budget gets wacky. You can save the game with $5,000 in the bank, but when you load it, you'll find yourself $3,000 in debt. It becomes a real problem when you can't earn enough to get yourself in the black after three days. The game will declare you bankrupt, and then it's game over. Also, the game's disasters tend to strike with frightening frequency. Even one disaster can get you fired. For instance, just by losing all your decorations, your students may end up leaving. You can't save often and load to avoid these disasters because of the aforementioned problem, so you really must leave your game session up to fate. You also can't put out fires, so an outbreak of them can also spell your doom.
School Tycoon doesn't have cutting-edge graphics or sound, but it is a pleasant game to play. The environments and buildings are bright and colorful. You can easily design your school so that nothing is even close to repetitive. There are a wide variety of students, so you also won't see dozens of clones being taught in your classrooms. You can rotate and zoom in to get different views of your campus, if you need to see something from a different angle. You also won't get bored from the music or sounds. There are appropriate classroom sounds, from bells to friends chatting after bumping into each other.
It's easy to just roll one's eyes at the thought of another tycoon game, but it's not fair to dismiss School Tycoon for its name. It may not be the most complex tycoon game in existence, and it may have some unfortunate bugs, but its various gameplay elements work. There is a fair amount of micromanagement required in choosing the right teachers and constructing the right buildings, but it doesn't reach a point that makes the game unbearable. So if you're looking for a management game that won't overwhelm you with details and spreadsheets, School Tycoon should be right up your alley.

System requirements:
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
Processor: Pentium II 300
Memory: 32 MB
700 MB free hard disk space

System recommand
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
Proccessor: Pentium III 800 MHz
Memory 128
700 MB free hard disk space

Download
part1 , part2 , part3 , part4 , part5 , part6 , part7 , part8