After Dark Games |
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Tuesday, December 22, 1998
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After Dark Games |
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Tuesday, December 22, 1998
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Toasters and Bad Dogs and Roof Rats, Oh MY! |
| I'm not
much of a Mac fan myself, but I have it admit that one of
the best successes coming from the land of mac has been
Berkeley Systems' After Dark screensavers. Berkeley has a
gold mine with its humorous and lovable characters within
the program - from the mowin'Maniac to Hula Girl to those
engaging toasters and the powers that be at Berkeley are
not stupid. They recognized an opportunity and have thus
developed After Dark Games for the PC Gamer. And After Dark Games is not a bunch of screen savers. Weeelll, there ARE screen savers included, but it's not JUST screen savers anymore. Actually, the screen saver acts as a gateway and past that gateway, you'll find 11 classic and original games that highlight your beloved After Dark characters like the Toaster, Bad dog and the ever-popular Roof Rats. And a really cool feature about ADG is that they'll only use about 35 MB of Hard Disk Space. Once installed, it'll run without the CD so you won't have to hunt around the house every time you want to play the games only to find that your dad is using the cd for a coaster for his beer or your older sister is using it as a frisbee and throwing around with the dog outside. Some of the games are classic arcade-style action games, some are word games, some are abstract puzzles and some are classic board or card games. they are all fun and challenging games and although there isn't really anything here that hasn't been done before, the games are executed so well, that you're hooked before you know it. And speaking of being hooked, if you've ever spent days in front of the screen playing solitaire with bleary eyes swearing "I'll just play one more hand and then I'll go to bed..." then After Dark Solitaire is for you. In this game there are seven rows of cards and you're supposed to build stacks of alternate black and red cards in a descending order. As I said before, watch out for this one because it can be addicting. Mowin' Maniac is another of my favorites though. There's a little guy riding a tractor who mows the lawn Pack-Man style, trying to avoid attacks from dogs, zombies, golfers, etc. there are 20 levels and you maneuver him around the lawns and in doing so, he picks up extra items in the grass for points. There are also gas cans for powerups and gardeners with rakes ready for his head that can cause you problems. It plays like an old arcade game from the atari days, but it's still a LOT of fun and the graphics are MUCH better than they were in the past. Bad Dog 911 is that great little canine puppy that likes to rip your screen to shreds while burying stuff all over the place. In this game, he's harassing a clock cleaner on a platform. The stupid little dog is knocking it over in his usual obnoxious manner and you're supposed to build it back up. It plays kinda like scrabble. You're given a bunch of letters and you've got to make as many words as you can before the time runs out. With each word you make the platform gets rebuilt a bit more. It's a challenging game, but I have to admit that it's tempting to just focus your attention on Bad Dog's frolics, let loose a belly laugh or two and let the clock cleaner fall. :) Fish Shtick is another letter game, only this time the little fishies are swimming in your monitor with a letter. You're supposed to be quick enough against the clock to figure out what the fishies are trying to spell before they make it to the other side of your screen. It can be frustrating to play if you're not quick with words, but then again, if you want revenge,
Darn those Roof Rats... |
 Look out, there's the mow'in Maniac! Just get some fish sticks out of the freezer and have them for lunch before you start up one of the other games on this cd. You'll feel much better, I assure you. Foggy Boxes is a strategy/puzzle game. In it, there's you and a hand behind a foggy window. You're both out to capture the most boxes and you do this by connecting dots on a grid. You're supposed to capture more of the grid than the foggy hand thingy by connecting the dots into squares. This game reminded me of the days I spent with dot-to-dot books on car rides only with a strange 3d effect and a mouse instead of a pencil. Kinda weird, but fun nonetheless. Rodger Dodger has been made into an abstract arcade action game that makes you the one in control of a geometric ball. The blob collects all the spirals on the game board and as the game progresses, it gets harder and harder to control the action as the pace picks up into a frenzy. Hula Girl is the infamous Hula Girl from the After Dark Screen Saver in an arcade game. Bahula has to stay on platforms as they move up the screen. She has to dodge broccoli and frogs and grab ice cream and cake in order to win. This one reminded me of the old Mario Brothers games I was obsessed with where you had to jump from cloud step to cloud step to get through the levels. Roof Rats is a tetris style puzzle game. There's a condemned building and on the roof of it are a bunch of tenants who obviously didn't pay attention to the notice to evacuate the building. It's your job to blow up each room in an order designed to allow the bulldogs, big ugly men, rats, silly kids and kangaroos to jump off safely. The trick is that you can only blow up rooms that have adjacent rooms of like colors. tough, huh? Zapper is kinda like "You Don't Know Jack" on a budget. It's a trivia game that is simple and fun to play. The questions are fun and can be answered with an easy yes or no. (I've always hated multiple choice tests, haven't you?) Mooshu Tiles is a tile-matching game that reminds me of T'aipe. The concept here is not hard ... you have to clear the board by matching tiles of identical content. Sounds easy, I know, but although the concept may be easy, the gameplay is harder than you think and is very addicting! Toaster Run, however, is probably the star of the show here. In TR, you pilot a flying toaster through the house trying to find Baby Guy who has broken out of his crib. As you fly, you're supposed to collect bread, rattles, blocks, bottles, etc. and stay away from the rays from the tv, weird toys, and slinky, etc. The graphics here are really cool and this one is my choice for the all-time favorite of all the games. The idea behind this collection of games is ingenious, and Berkeley definitely didn't cut any corners when it came to graphics. They are all done with top-of-the-line animations. The sound is well done with little soundtracks that are well tailored to the games. With three levels of difficulty, it's a game that will appeal to both newbies and experienced arcade gamers. All-in-all, I'd have to give the entire collection a thumbs up. There's a little something in here for everyone and I'd lay you odds that if you buy After Dark Games and try it once, you'll be hooked. |
Company: Category: Arcade NOTES: Interest: 90% TOTAL : 91% Requirements: Operating System: Memory: Sound Card:
Joshua Westhoven TSM's |
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