Game Review: 1602 A.D. (or Anno 1602)

I've owned this game called 1602 AD for a number of years now, and since I have nothing better to do I'll do a review about it.

New Man In Gap Highscore!!!

21 =P.

THE NEW NOOBY GAMES

So Matthew just decided to add some games to this blog!!! =D.

Man in Gap: if you don't know how to play this game you will probably die in it. It's fairly simple actually, just guide your figure into the safe gaps to avoid being smooshed by the walls. I'll admit it: I suck at that game. My highscore is only 19 ='(.

The other game: Continuity. I never played this game until around 2 minutes ago. Basically you guide your figure to collect keys and open red doors and move level screens around. Again, I am not very good at the game.

=D

=D =D =D Hooray I beat those damned Space Invaders 4-2. http://www93.hattrick.org/Club/Matches/Match.aspx?matchID=313436116&TeamId=1677466&BrowseIds=315867121,313436104,316151797,313436107,316263947,313436111,316486055,313436116,316701512,313436119,313436123,313436127&UpdateViewedReport=False

I'm "Rovers" by the way.

That means that.....I stay 3rd but Zeal go first after bashing bot team mongolians 10-0 and everything will go down to that Zeal-Invaders game on the 27th. However, my win means that if Zeal ties/beats Invaders, they will almost certainly promote. That's good for me, since I want them out of my league as fast as possible because their team rating is like 42 times better than mine, and Invaders are an easier opponent so I might actually promote next season! =D

Hattrick- Game 11

My Hattrick season has been "disastrous". The only team I've actually beaten are the computer-controlled bots, and I'm 3rd out of 3 human managers. To be fair, I'm a noob, and also both have much more talented players and more managerial skill and the scores aren't actually that bad. 0-2 against Space Invaders and 0-4 and 1-2 against Zeal FC. I'll be playing Space Invaders again in around 15 minutes, and since I'm feeling nice I'll actually try to win and do Zeal a favor because if I win, Zeal will be #1 by goal difference. Still, I might just fail miserably and everything will be on the Zeal-Invaders game on February 27th.

So for all fellow noobs, wish me luck!

Mousebreaker

Ever heard of it?

Mousebreaker produces great online soccer games, bettered by very few in the world. And they create it all through flash, and the games have tremendous depth-they're easy to play but hard to master.

Overall my favorite game on Mb is probably the "Jumpers for Goalposts" series, where you guide a striker from the rookie leagues to the World Cup final.. And my favorite Jumper for Goalpost is #2. #1 was really hard because nearly all of your goal chances were volleys, which I suck at. And the all-new Jumpers for Goalposts 3 takes too much to run and often slows down my computer, to the point where lag kicks in and it takes 5 seconds for my command to register, and by that time I would've missed the chance. Give me #2 any time: the controls are easy, there's virtually no lag to worry about (due to its simplistic graphics) and the gameplay is great!

Other than JfG, the Volley Challenges are rather fun too. You play a season as a team in the English league pyramid and try to become league champion through scoring points from volleys. Each match has a "draw" and "win" target, and when you run out of balls at the "draw" target you get a draw and so on. The zombie world cup game used to be really fun, but since I've beaten it its' grown really easy, and the manager games are very good, except 2010 where the action moved way too fast.

The Combo games are among the better games on Mb. You control your team's offensive prowess, creating opportunities by passing, crossing and shooting to victory. It would've been much better if we could control the defensive aspect of the game too, but sadly no game is perfect.

Injuries >=(

Alright I am pissed >=(.

I am right in a crunch match for my league in Hattrick this Saturday and now 3 of my BEST players are injured. 2 defenders and 1 forward. And that hurts since I have a profound lack of both.

Luckily, one defender, Garry Poitiers (rated Solid in Defending) recovered today. But the other two are still in the hospital. The other defender, Henrik Stenwald, is one of my best wingbacks (passable in both Defending and Winger) and the forward, Etienne Laviolette is a great multiskilled player (solid Playmaking and Set Pieces, passable Scoring, Defending and Passing) with a Technical specialty to boot.

So I am left with playing Kevin Meyers and Jonathan Coe (both rated inadequate in Defending; Coe has inadequate Winger and Meyers has passable). Yeah not the best defenders in the world. To cap it all off, my goalkeeper Andrea Giaccardi is in weak form and only has inadequate Keeping anyways.

In attack, I play Paul Moore, who also has passable Scoring but is desperately needed to boost my midfield rating. Levent Avunc, originally on the wing, is now suddenly an inner midfielder with inadequate stamina, so I have to sub him off after the second half. On the wing is Amichai Shinfeld, who up until last week was playing for my youth team and only has inadequate Winger.

So I have basically given up for this season. If I lose this game, both Zeal FC (the team I'm facing) will be 6 points above me and the leaders Space Invaders will be 9, unless in the unlikely event that he loses to The Connecticut Elephants whose manager has only joined in December. Even then, the next few games will be against bots and then I'll be facing Space Invaders, who I doubt I can beat.

Hattrick

Yay! The first post about my life =).

Hattrick is an online football (or soccer, for you North Americans) management game. Founded in 1997, it used to be the standard for most online football managements. At its peak in 2005, Hattrick had nearly 800 000 users and some GMs (Game Moderators) were so busy that it was almost a month before most users received their team. Since then, numbers have fallen, as recent rivals such as PowerChallenge's ManagerZone have become extremely popular and give Hattrick much competition. Hattrick now has around 750 000 users, and is in it's 43rd season.

I joined Hattrick in August 2010, midway through its 42nd season. As a beginner I found this game complicated and confusing, but help from the Hattrick Wiki and some experienced users helped my team avoid relegation (demotion to a lower league) and I came 3rd out of 8 teams.

From my perspective, Hattrick is a great game for patient people. For those people who want instant action or technical epicness, Hattrick is not the game for you. There is only one league match per week, on Sunday, and one cup/friendly game on Wednesday. The way Hattrick plays its games is by a system called HT-Live, which lets you follow your games minute-by-minute in text format. If you actually want to see your players kick the ball, I recommend the aforementioned ManagerZone, which lets you see your match in a 3d match engine. However, I had a bad feeling about games that PowerChallenge made, as I used to play a game, Power Soccer, by that company but that basically ended in frustration.

Hattrick is not a game for people looking for big exciting things. There is no booming crowd sounds when a goal is scored, no goal being scored and the ref calling offside. Hattrick is a game for people that give it a chance. I thought about quitting the first day I signed up, but I decided to actually wait a few days. The presentation is terrible, the forum looks like it was from the Stone Age, and overall the site basically begs for modernization.

However, Hattrick is an extremely fun game to play. It takes a lot of thinking putting your player in the perfect position and your team with the best tactic to counter your opponent's strengths and exploit his weaknesses. And it feels great when you see your tactics pay off and you get a win. It is always exciting when you enter a bidding war for a new world class goalie and feel as if you got the final bid until your bidding rival suddenly tops it. And it is tense when you and your opponent are tied late on for a crucial league match and satisfying to say the least when your star forward suddenly scores an 89th minute winner.

Hattrick is a great game. The site could use some modernization, the rules and laws of the game might give you headaches and sometimes the forum users are less-than-friendly but if you can handle all that, Hattrick is the game for you.

Here's the link: www.hattrick.org

Best Game Evaaar: Big Rigs Over the Road Racing

Well I was surfing the Internet and I decided to search the worst video games of all time. Most of them were apparently extremely poor, but one REALLY stood out: Big Rigs Over the Road Racing.

Big Rigs is a truck-racing game made in 2003. The options are really shallow: there are only 5 tracks (one of which will cause the game to crash), only 2 trucks can race at a time and there is no multiplayer. It just seemed one of those generic video games that you can get for $1.95, right?

Think again....

The main thing about Big Rigs is the gameplay. And the main thing about the gameplay is that there isn't any. The truck you race against won't even move, so you'll win basically every race. Although Stellar Stone, the company that released Big Rigs, soon released a patch that actually allows your opponent to move, he'll just stop right before the finish line, so you'll still win every race. Upon winning, you are presented with a 3-handled trophy with the lines "You're Winner!" as apparently Stellar Stone's programmers don't know good grammar. Even more stupidly, the game occasionally cannot distinguish whether you just passed the finish line or not, so sometimes you will be awarded the cup within seconds of starting a game.

Amazingly, the things don't stop there. Big Rigs defies all the laws of physics: your truck can go through houses and trees, fall underneath bridges and even be able to go up 90 degree slopes and off roads without any change in speed. There is absolutely no boundaries for your truck: it can go anywhere, even outside the map. If you do, you'll just simply find yourself floating in a grey/black void and your truck will just randomly jerk until you somehow get back into the map.

Well at least your truck is still realistic, right? Wrong. The backlights in Big Rigs' trucks actually aren't on the truck: they are floating behind it. If you make an abrupt turn, you'll see that the lights aren't connected. Another issue is that if your truck goes in reverse, it can accelerate almost indefinitely but will instantly go back to 0kmph when you release the key.

Obviously, the gaming websites were merciless. On average, the game received an average of 8% and some websites even revamped their whole system in order to give this game a 0/whatever. However, Big Rigs was still sold well, despite (or maybe because of) the glitches.

Don't believe me?