Entertainment

As I was a cruzin’ for new games, I found that eSoft Interactive, the home of one of my ‘All Time Favorite’ games, Traffic Jam, had several titles I had not seen before, including the previously reviewed Traffic Jam 2. I also asked for codes for a couple of other games that looked interesting- Earth Day, and Spot!, They were kind enough to provide codes for all of them.

Astraware’s Platypus ($19.95) is a side-scrolling shooter. Yeah, I know, *Yawn*. If you’ve seen one shooter, you’ve seen them all, right? As usual, Astraware ups the ante.

While the life of a Palm Software Reviewer at a prestigious site like The Gadgeteer may seem glamorous, in reality I have to wade through a lot of mediocre stuff to find something that rings my bells enough to write about it- whether it is because I love it or I hate it. Toyspring’s ‘Bike or Die’ ($14.95) is a breath of fresh air in what has been a rather tedious season.

The Death of a Good Idea, A Cautionary Tale

Once upon a time, a perfectly nice little company had a perfectly nice little game- eSoft Interactive’s Traffic Jam, based on a board game with the same name. It used few resources, was stable, intuitive, attractive, and fun. I would stack it up against any other company’s offerings for its price of $9.95.

Suit of the suicide king in a standard deck?

Body of water where the Republic of the Maldives is located?

Don’cha love trivia? I love trivia. I played Trivial Pursuit
when it came out in the early 80’s and routinely beat the pants off so many people that no one would play with me anymore. In hindsight, I am not sure if it was their humiliating defeats, or my winner’s dance that they objected to the most, but I digress.

I love Games Magazine, but generally not every game in the magazine. I feel about the same way about Simon Tatham’s Puzzles Pack. (Thanks to The Gadgeteer Forums poster Mark Reid for the heads-up on this one!) Some of the 27 games in this freeware collection are pretty cool (Black Box, Guess, Map, Same Game, Unequal and Tangle so far are favorites), several are variations on the theme, and a couple I still have not figured out.

Aspirin. I know I have aspirin around here somewhere. Man, what a headache.

Ok, I’ve just been playing Astrawareís Hidden Expedition: Titanic, and I have a massive headache. Actually, I have a couple of them.

I remember where I was and what I was doing when we landed on the moon for the first time. After hearing Neil Armstrong’s first words, I hopped on my bike and tore through the neighborhood shouting it out. It was an exciting time, and already I was displaying the telltale signs of massive nerdiness.

Most sports simulations use the same interface- push and hold a button to aim, then push and hold for power, then tap to shoot or release. While it is annoying that no one seems to have figured out a better interface for playing, say, mini-golf, it is nice that the interface is becoming almost intuitive.

Your PDA has been infested… infested by a world of pesky gnomes that pop up from holes a la ‘Whack-A-Mole’. Ye gods- this demands our immediate action! Taking our trusty stylus, we can bop, pop, bash, or hammer the invaders to submission!

Most personality profiles have four major categories that they think we fall into. Usually we are ‘mostly’ one category, then partially another… which results in twelve general types like the Zodiac signs! (Of course, we all know there are really 10 types of people those who understand binary, and those who don’t!)

I’m a bit of an odd-ball. I prefer Dr Pepper over colas. I prefer ‘Mythbusters‘ or ‘Good Eats‘ to ‘Survivor’ or ‘Desperate Housewives’. I even kinda like mini-vans and don’t like iPods so much. Worse, I prefer dice games to card games [hanging my head in shame]. I’ve always enjoyed a category of dice game called ‘10,000‘- although it has many other names, like ‘Cosmic Wimpout’.

I’ve been playing Astraware’s Cake Mania, and the sweet, sugary, fun to play game was getting on my nerves. I turned to another Astraware game- My Little Tank (MLT). This shoot-em-up has been out for about a year but somehow slipped under my radar.

There seem to be two major groupings of “running a business” simulators. Those where you make decisions, set things up, then let run (such as DopeWars) and those that make you hustle to keep up with all of the things going on, like Lemonade Stand or Insanaquaium. Astraware’s Cake Mania is definitely one of the latter!