So from 2 games beaten last month, to 4 games beaten already! Shorter games though….
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Cinemaware Anthology: 1986-1991
55 minutes playtime
no achievements
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The Plan
6 minutes playtime
1 of 1 achievements
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12 Labours of Hercules IV: Mother Nature
6 hours playtime
14 of 22 achievements
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The Park
89 minutes playtime
14 of 14 achievements
Defender of the Crown
Part of the Cinemaware Anthology, Defender if the Crown is a classic strategy game released in 1986, where you’re tasked with conquering Britain during the 12th century. The problem is that you’re of course not alone in wanting to conquer Britain, and you’ve got several other factions that compete with you. This game does play a bit like a proto-Total War, you conquer territories, earn income from them, build armies and so on. But like North & South, another classic Amiga strategy game, you’ve also got some minigames to play. In Defender of the Crown that includes jousting, and swordfigthing.
On the strategic map you’ve got a few choices. Hold a tournament, invade another province, build an army & raid an enemy castle. You can only hold a tournament every second turn, and if this option is available, you always want to pick it. It’s easy to win, once you learn the trick to it, and you can earn land from it. Unlike military invasions, where you can only get one piece of land per turn, tournaments can give you a grand total of three, which frankly breaks the game. Apart from that, the game is quite simple and easy to get into, with an interface that’s surprisingly good for its age, and graphics that looks like they could be from a mid 90’s point & click game (so it’s really good!)
I would not recommend going out of your way to get this one, but if you’ve got it, it’s worth a shot. It’s short & easy
The Plan
I almost feel like cheating for including this, but hey, I beat this game, and even got all the achievements, so it goes on the list.
The Plan is a short game where you’re a fly, who flies up and up. And that’s pretty much it. I know this is supposed to be art, but honestly I don’t get it. Sure, it looks pretty, but I think it’s trying to say something, and I’m missing the point.
12 Labours of Hercules IV: Mother Nature
If you’ve played any of the previous 12 Labours of Hercules, you know exactly what this one is about. Because it’s just more of the same, very little has changed.
12 Labours of Hercules is a series of time management games, where the trick is simply to manage your workers in a efficient way, sending them out to clear things that block the road, getting resources, building things and so on. Each level is like a small self-contained puzzle, and you’re just supposed to find an efficient solution, and implement it fast enough. It’s really very simple, and these are among the more casual games out there. Still, they are entertaining, and worth playing.
The Park
The Park is a game set in the Secret World universe. You’re exploring a park, looking for your son who’s gone missing, while finding clues about what’s happened, and of course, trying the rides! If you’ve played TSW, the park might look familiar. The layout is not identical to the one in the game, but several of the rides similar, and many assets seem to be re-used.
The Park has a few issues that makes me hesitant to recommend it. First of all, it runs really poorly. A game that looks like this should run better! Also, the clues you find are hard to read. My eyesight is not bad, and I had to lean in close to the screen in order to read most of the things. Would it have hurt them to use a larger font? Also, the story is really predictable. I figured it out after the first ride, and then I was just waiting for the “big reveal”. And it’s short. 1,2h, with no reaplay value, and it still felt padded with excessive amounts of walking between things. Voice acting was quite nice at least, and the main character’s voice felt believable. But overall, The Park was a letdown. It’s not the worst game ever, but it deserves its “mixed” score on steam.
Thank you for the review on The Park. I’m always excited for any horror game and thought this one had potential to at least be decent. It’s a shame that it will likely not be as good as I had hoped. Still, I will try to knock it out while spooky month is here. I have never played The Secret World, is it important in the slightest that I play it before The Park? or more just familiar setting?
There are some minor things that you’ll likely enjoy more if you’ve played TSW, but overall you can enjoy one without the other.
I remember playing The Plan long ago, found out about it here on BLAEO. It was a cool game that shows you different perspective on the world, how something so common to us as leaf falling or wind gust can be really a challenge and that the end is inevitable :)
I loved Defender of the Crown on my ex-roommate’s Amiga 500. The soundtrack was great!
I enjoyed The Park even though I haven’t played TSW. I don’t know how you finished it in 89 minutes. I really enjoyed the detail in the game, reading all of the notes, book titles, etc. But I’m slow at pretty much all games. :p
I beat it in less :P Those 89 min involves a bit of accidental idling about a year ago.
The really small font was annoying, so I ended up not reading everything carefully towards the second half of the game. That probably saved me a bit of time. I can read the text on screen right now even if I move back more than an arms length further (I’m already sitting about an arms length + 1 hand away from the screen), but I had to lean in to read the text in The Park.
I don’t remember this being a problem, but I was playing with a TV as a display. And maybe there was a setting for font size? I don’t recall if this is the game I’m thinking of where you could do that.
I almost never try to beat a game quickly. I like to run around, view the scenery, take funny screenshots, read as much content as I can, etc.
When you played the game on TV, did you play it at a lower resolution than 1080p? I get the feeling that that might have been the problem, that the documents did not scale properly with resolution, and that they were designed for 720p.
I really don’t recall, I’m afraid. I feel like I did something to make things legible (change resolution or some other setting) but for the life of me I don’t know what I did. There are threads all over the Discussions about the illegible text.