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Roy H Smith
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I think this guy exaggerates a little but I found this review hilarious!
General/Summary: My ass is sore. My temples throb. My net worth is diminished 59 dollars. I have had no fun. In many ways my experience with this game recall my being pickpocketed in Juarez. Arguably, in that that experience was painless and consumed much less than 200 hours of my life, it was better.
Gameplay: Game play is neither. This is not a game. It is the performance of a joyless procession of tasks interrupted only by the joyless observation of AI performed tasks. It is like watching Brownian movement (not to skip ahead to "Graphics"; but, more correctly, dimly lit Brownian movement through the wrong end of a microscope}. Daringly, one is challenged to send wave upon wave of whatever indistinct stick-holding-guy one can squeeze out against whatever indistinct but oddly impregnable stick-holding-guy the computer has whipped up. The challenge of this game lies in fighting the temptation to join your opposition and (thanks to the inexcusable AI) the laws of physics and economics (I have seen the invisible hand and it is connected to Mr Sid); and kill one's own civilization. Perhaps the much lauded (Should you read the manual) development team designed this game to provide clever insight into the mind of Stalin or the Khmer Rouge. More likely that was the last flare of the dying embers of my hope for a good game. I should mention that in this dismal, poorly lit world, there is no fun way to eat one's young. The other challenge of this game: try not to have a pulmonary embolism between turns.
Graphics: You are God. You are looking down from on high-really realy high- at little teensy oddly colored (as God you might think you had already smote the whole Miami Vice palette) guys with pointy sticks that very well could be some sort of pointy hand-held thing such as a ...stick or musket or hoe or oar or something. Movement rates effectively simulate advanced congestive heart failure in all your pointy- sticked guys. On the up-side, your civilation won't support many of them. On the down side, you must (MUST) watch the shuddering stagger of every pointy-sticked guy belonging to your hegemenous computer over-lord. The terrain has all the color and variation of a nursing home. One could make an argument for buying $59 worth of pointy sticks and distributing them to nursing home patients with significant cardio-pulmonary disease and watching for about 200 hours. Same entertainment value but probably more legal issues.
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02-03-2002 02:02
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