Game Review: Women’s Murder Club

James Patterson’s Women’s Murder club has been a successful series of novels, a TV show and a series of casual mystery PC games before coming to the DS. The new Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion seems designed for a casual DS gamer to tuck her into her purse, instead of a Patterson mystery novel. Most of WMC is played with the DS turned sideways, using the read-only screen to display a list of objects to find, instructions, or images to accompany the action in the interactive screen, which creates a book-like format for more of an interactive novel feel.

WMC follows the usual pattern of story cutscenes, hidden objects and minigames. The hidden objects casual adventure game is a pretty crowded genre, so it’s hard for a new game to really stand out. Probably the most unique characteristic was the James Patterson characters.  Players solve crimes and meet with the WMC ladies as Patterson’s detective Lindsay Boxer, and supporting characters with solid personalities made this more that just a reskinned HO game.

The story progresses via cutscenes and dialogue options. Players have some choices for what to say, but it was more of a quiz on recent plot events. Believable banter makes the cutscenes worth reading, and the linear storyline makes it feel like reading a novel, not being hemmed

Random side note: The mysterious Chinese markings found on the victim actually do say bu zhong, Not Loyal. My Chinese  literacy is just good enough to be completely thrilled with the developers for using real words when dramatic red scribbles would have acceptable. (It always cracks me up when I see upside-down characters or random other words.) Good work, THQ.

A lot of the game was hidden objects, whether it was tidying a crime scene or looking for clues, but this was a particularly bad HO. The small DS screen doesn’t really lend itself to searching, and players search a picture that’s larger than the screen, for maximum squinting-at-the-screen annoyance. It was also the Highlights magazine type of hidden objects, instead of the cluttered-room HO. It felt oddly childish to look for giant peace signs and lightning bolts, especially on crime scenes with mysterious dead bodies. The game does mix up the hidden objects a bit by giving players a clue instead of a list of items, but still gives the feel of an activity book more than an adventure game.

The story leads to several minigames, which were much more engaging than the picture find. When I got the Women’s Murder Club press release, I was pretty excited to see the game included a science lab minigame, and the puzzle’s gameplay didn’t disappoint.

One of the minigames was a mah-jong game, which is also accessible under an icon that says China (This character is a different zhong, an object lesson on why I am not so good at Chinese!). I usually consider mah-jong games to be computer solitaire 2.0, but I found something charming in the tiny tiles and stylus interface, and ended up playing this minigame more than I’d expected.

Women’s Murder Club: Crimes of Passion offers a solid storyline and characters from the popular novels to fans of the hidden objects mystery.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Women’s Murder Club Coming To The DS

After  Women’s Murder Club: A Darker Shade Of Grey, and Women’s Murder Club: Death In Scarlet comes a new WMC, Women’s Murder Club: Crimes of Passion, this time for the Nintendo DS and DSi.  I think the portable DS system, with the stylus-driven games, is perfect for casual gaming, and I’m seeing more and more story-based casual games coming out. I’ve been carrying the  Sims (or Sims Castaway!) in my purse, and I also saw a Nancy Drew game for the DS the other day.

From the Women’s Murder Club: Crimes of Passion press release:

“When I dreamed up the ladies of the Women’s Murder Club, I knew they were women of action; women on the go,” said James Patterson. “I never dreamed they could come to life like they have in the Nintendo DS version. This new game gives fans a chance to become a member of the Women’s Murder Club anytime, anywhere.”

And by “anytime, anywhere” I think he means “while waiting at the airport”.

I was lucky enough to get a look at some screenshots from the upcoming game. I had to include this one, because there just aren’t enough science-themed puzzles in games targeted to women!

Obligatory hidden objects minigame. It works well in a mystery-solving game, but I just don’t see what’s fun about squinting at the screen.

Nintendo DSi users will get a special feature that uses the camera, (can’t wait to see how they integrate that) but the game will also be available for the regular DS.

Popularity: 34% [?]

Game Review: Sims 2: Castaway on the DS

One day, you’re standing on the dock, waving goodbye to a friend, when you slip and fall and land in a crate, which is sealed and loaded onto a cargo ship, which is caught up in a storm and your Sim is shipwrecked on a deserted island! Your poor shipwrecked Sim must survive on this island, at first by finding food, building a shelter and starting a fire.

The zaniness we love about the Sims arrives in Castaway once you’ve gotten a handle on sleeping and not-starving. Your Sim can build an SOS sign for Dharma initiative-style airdrops of random things, like a victrola or a candy bar.  As you collect island items, you can cook tasty dinners (your Sim was getting tired of bugs and raw fish), make new clothes, make tools or decorations, build a new house, make a canoe and just create all kind of island crafts. You can even make and play an ocarina! And, as you explore more, you’ll also befriend the other island refugees, and check out the ancient temple. All tropical islands have an ancient temple, don’t you know?

I’ve written such angry things about sparkly pink shopping games as “girls’ games”, that I hate to admit when I fall into a traditional girl pattern, but, well, I love pretend cooking. I like it in World of WarCraft, too, if that make me sound any less like an eight-year-old girl. I also like making Sim clothes and playing dress-up. Castaway avoids being an unappealingly feminine game by also having survival puzzles and mini-games about fish-catching and fire-building. Oh, and the game’s not pink, which is always good in my book.

Sims 2: Castaway seemed to make much better use of the DS interface than Sims 2. In the regular Sims 2, you’re forced to ignore the stylus, and use the clumsy buttons to navigate, but you can’t put the stylus away completely, because you need it to select menu options that really should be hotkeys or at least accessible by arrow keys. Sims 2: Castaway takes better advantage of the DS-specific interface, using either the stylus to move, and even creating minigames that require use of the microphone. The top screen is used to display the meters that are very familiar to Sims players.

One interface annoyance is the crafting book. When crafting, your Sim cannot create multiples of the same item. You need to select the crafting spot, tap Craft Things, then click the item you want to make,which leads to a screen showing you what materials will be reguired. On this screen, you must click Make. Then you’ll see a picture of what you’re making, and you must click OK. Then you see a picture of what you made, and you’re forced to click OK one more time. If you want to make a duplicate (or a second item), you’re back at the crafting book, and you need to do it all over again. And if your item is on the second or third page of the crafting book, it can be even longer. And if you need three of one item to make something special, well, seems like EA figured out how to most of the suck the fun from a crafting game.

I was a big fan of Sims 2 for the computer, so I expected to like Castaway. It was even better than I expected, with the exotic island theme, a zany but cohesive storyline, and all the adorably realistic animations we expect from the Sims.

Popularity: 40% [?]

Game Review: Sims 2 on the DS

I wrote this up for my own blog, but I wanted to share it here, too.

You’re on your way from someplace much cooler to someplace much cooler when your car breaks down in Strangetown, and the Sims 2 game begins. A local yokel says he can fix that, but while you’re waiting (it goes without saying that the required part’s on backorder in Strangetown), you take over as manager of a creepy, rundown hotel, in this little town of odd events.

Almost everyone who’s played the Sims knows that the ghosts, alien abductions and general parmanormal silliness are the best part of the Sims, so the makers of Sims 2 for the DS toned down the time spent watching your Sim sleep or cook dinner, and increased the zany encounters.

You play as one Sim, not a household, and the story is much more linear than the PC versions.  It’s also no longer a sandbox game. Players have limited control over hotel guests, but important penthouse guests arrive, check in, and send players on unavoidable missions. I happened to like the penthouse missions, especially goth cultist Ava Cadarva, but it wasn’t the almost-unlimited sandbox play style we knew and loved in other Sims games.

Via Visiting Strangetown: Sims 2 on the DS on Simpson’s Paradox.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Looks So Fake

Even decades later, Pac-Man is still a fun classic game. It doesn’t rely on cutting-edge graphics. if you see Pac-Man next to a blue rectangle, and the blue rectangle turns white bit by bit, that’s Pac-Man drinking a glass of water. You’d never think it looks fake.

Have you noticed that as games get prettier, complaints about things “looking so fake” are more common? When playing a game with detailed graphics, something on the Unreal Tournament engine or similar, any awkward animation stands out. We notice a character’s arms held at a weird angle or the omnipresent mitten hands, and it seems like a glaring error when it’s in a pretty game.

The Sims 2 did a great job by keeping things cartoonish so it was easier to accept odd moments of animation (And some of the toddler animations were amazingly true to life!), but more importantly the game was also engaging and entertaining on other levels and didn’t rely entirely on pretty graphics. I guess game graphics are just like movie special effects. I won’t be turned off a solid, entertaining game just because the graphics aren’t cutting edge, and I’ll lose interest in a gorgeous game if it’s nothing but pretty.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Press Release: Globulos Reopens, Free To Play

Supercute gaming site Globulos.com, which offers a bunch of casual multiplayer games, reopens with a free-to-play basic model and a cash shop for extras.

The 20 games and the 50 playing fields are playable 100% for free. Games are 1 against 1 player, 2 against 2 or melee of 4 players. The gameplay is a mix between arcade fun and simultaneous turn based strategy. The kawaii style was noticed by the Japanese Nintendo official magazine, Nintendo Dream with a full page article.

Some options like character customization or power-ups (teletransportation, invisibility and a lot more) can be purchased using Globbies, the website currency.

The 20 games are: Arena, Football, Croquet, Tic-Tac, Save the King, Darts, Funky Foot, Bomber, Rally, Volley, Sumo, Flipper, Pétanque, BomberKing, 4-Square, Snooker, PacGlob, Basket, DartsKing, Monster.

A Nintendo DS game is being developed and is targeting the upcoming DSiWare channel.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Nintendo DSi software region-locked

Software specifically created for the Nintendo DSi will be region-locked, meaning that European software will only work on European consoles, and more importantly US and Japanese software won’t.

Previous DS handhelds – and GameBoys before them – had been region-free, meaning that software purchased in the US or Japan could be played on European hardware.

However, Nintendo told Eurogamer this afternoon that DSi is region-locked “because DSi embeds net communication functionality within itself and we are intending to provide net services specifically tailored for each region”.

“Also because we are including parental control functionality for Nintendo DSi and each region has its unique age limit made by different independent bodies.”

The good news is that this only applies to software that is compatible exclusively with the DSi, and that existing DS software remains region-free. Internet browsing and photo sharing also works globally.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Best of Niner Niner July 06

Niner Niner, a collaborative weblog network, has over 25 great blogs and this “Best Of” highlights just a few of the posts that were written by some of the Niner authors, in topics that range from High Heels, Ajax, HIPAA Privacy Regulation to gadgets, books and health. 

In Ajax Blog, Sreejith introduces us to a few new things. First is Vox a new blogging service from Six Apart that uses WYSIWYG with a taste of web 2.0. After that we learn about Krun.ch and Wishlistr.

Blogging Naked: Scarification and lip plates are shown to be some of the newest and more popular form of “self-expression” in recent years.

Bookadoodle: Nancy Callahan posted more in her series “Getting Published” and this latest edition was part 5.

Boomer 2.0 had posts that pointed out that boomers can still have that second career and another that shows many are not even planning retirement anytime soon.

In Class Action Questions find out about lawsuits involving pyramid scams, hair raising beauty product claims and why State Farm was penalized.

Credit Cardenza: Unfortunately, millions of people are drowning in  credit card debt, have to worry about credit scams and fraud, and let’s not even talk about the international fees.

Dealsneak managed to sneak more than a few deals pass us this summer including, the Samsonite laptop case, a gorgeous leather bench, and a sweet looking Thermaltake Tsunami computer case.

Feed Money discusses the fact the Ebay has jumped on the contextual ad bandwagon as well as blog feeds and a program called RSS To Blog.

If you need to Fix Your Finances one of the first steps is learning how to save your money. After that you can check out Mvelopes to learn all about budgets.

At Games For Money you can find places to play free online gambling games and also learn some card counting tricks and tips.

The High Heels Blogs show us which killer heels are on sale including boots, sandals, slides and mules. Also take a look at some killer wedding heels for this summers nuptials.

A few notable gadgets that were blogged in the HyperGadget blog were the Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader, and the jumbled and messy looking organizer.

Over at the Medcare Forum, Kathleen Milazzo tells us more about that scary mad cow disease and our medical privacy laws.

Find out just how much house you can afford before you go running off to get that mortgage. And is the housing bubble really ready to blow? All this and more in Mortgage Updates.

At My Secret Side Biz learn how to make a profit, how to get your own powerwash, and simple business and Ebay tips.

On Healthy Living: Sarah White tells us all about a new study that could help with asthma reduction when it comes to do light exercise that involves stead breathing like yoga.

On Movies has a decade of super heroes list that includes recent and unreleased movies. Leafworks reviewed The Omen and we got to see the trailer for the new Ghost Rider movie.

Powersellers Blog: Ebay has done it. They finally reached 200 million members and they are also expanding into new ideas. Also people are fed up with Paypal while crooks are finding more ways to defraud your account.

Seo Updates: Yahoo one of the biggest email services was hit with a worm and Google expanded into real estate but won’t be making a browser, at least not anytime soon.

Get some free exercise tips from The Diet Logs. You will certainly need them if you plan to take a bite of this $100 burger.

Living the Single life? Well take a look at some great break up lines and if your looking to meet people Leafworks posted a great review of club La Rumba.

Thumb Gods: Nintendo is no, no to the name Wii for their new console a game system that is at the end of this long list containing The Evolution of Video Game Consoles.

Las Vegas Revealed that it was ill prepared for a massive disaster, but til then you can still get married and get comp’d in Vegas.

Wander the World, well the State of Colorado with Leafworks. He takes us to the Cherry Blossom Festival, Gothnic in Denver, Old Colorado City, Plaza del Arte Festival in Downtown Denver and Garden of the Gods.

Popularity: 4% [?]