Petville is another facebook game by Zynga, who are also the makers of the previously-reviewed Cafe World and Farmville. In Petville, you create a humanoid furry creature and control them as they live their life, in a vaguely Sim-like way. The graphics are actually pretty impressive in this game. The number of appearance options you have when making your pet is pretty massive, and the resulting pets are generally really cute. I’ve played some other pet-type games on Facebook, and none of them come anywhere near Petville’s level of detail. As an added bonus, the (Flash-based) game runs at a respectable speed as well, just about the only Zynga-made game that does (though it frequently suffers from slow loading in the evening.)

By far the funnest part of Petville is the decorating options. You can decorate your house from a nearly overwhelming number of items that are available to purchase.  There’s dozens of carpeting options, dozens more paint/wallpaper options, a huge variety of windows, furniture and electronics,  kitchen appliances and even cars. Clothing options are similarly massive with just an overwhelming number of shirt, pant, dress and shoe options. There’s even a lot of costumes available, so you can dress your pet up as anything from an astronaut to Santa Claus.

Read the rest of this entry »

Farmville is a game that’s gotten some attention lately, though, not really the positive kind. Apparently even Dr. Phil had an episode about it, dealing with people ‘addicted’ to Farmville (I know about that only from what I’ve heard. Trust me, I don’t watch Dr. Phil.)  Apparently there’s 60 times more people playing Farmville than there are actual farmers in the US. So its a pretty popular game.

Without a doubt, its a pretty casual game.  You plant some crops, come back later and harvest them.  That’s about 90% of the game there.  Like the best of casual games, ‘playing’ it doesn’t require much time investment, which is why it often winds up eating up so much time.  When you play a game like World of Warcraft, you always have to ‘plan’ your playtime – you know that if you’ve anything else that needs to be done in the next hour or so, its really not worth starting the game up at all.  There’s always a fairly hefty minimum time investment to get anything done. Read the rest of this entry »

Lately I’ve been playing a lot of games over on Facebook. There’s an amazing amount of games available over there. Some of them are pretty good. Some of them are amazingly bad.   I’ll start by reviewing one of the first games that I started playing on Facebook, Cafe World.

I’m a big fan of cooking shows. I’ve been watching FoodTV for years, and am a fan of Top Chef Read the rest of this entry »

A lot of gamers really dislike ‘casual’ games. I’m not one of them.  In my own opinion, the so-called ‘casual’ games movement is often just a return to where video gaming started: small and fairly easy to understand.  Accessible, in other words.

Return to Ravenhearst is a great example of how casual gaming is essentially gaming returning to its roots.  It very much feels like an old-school adventure game from adventure gaming’s CD-ROM based heyday.  Had it been released in the mid-90′s, during the era of 7th Guest, Gabriel Knight, and the like, it would be remembered as a classic.

Read the rest of this entry »

The subtitle of this post is “The Corruption of my Mother.”  You see, she’s never really been a gamer.  A bit of Pacman and Frogger back in ye olden days.  Some Solitaire and Bejeweled more recently.  That’s about it.

About a year ago, McDonald’s had one of their Monopoly games.  They’ve gotten a lot fancier than the stamps you used to lick and glue to a gameboard – now you enter a code on the gamepiece online, and it keeps track of your properties.  I landed on Chance, and my prize was a video game download from RealArcade.  There were a few options, but I chose Little Shop of Treasures.

It was a reasonably fun game. You search for hidden objects in ridiculously overcrowded shops in order to serve customers.  Pretty much the definition of a ‘casual’ game. I figured I’d show it to my mom and see how she liked it.

Read the rest of this entry »

You can get the game Burger Rush for free by visiting this link and watching a commercial for Chilis. Apparently this is how Chilis makes their burgers or something. I’m not really sure. (Note: it isn’t actually a game BY Chilis – they’re just using it for advertising purposes.)  It is, however, a relatively fun game. I got it a couple of weeks ago and have played through it, and in my own opinion, its worth getting.

Read the rest of this entry »