The Gray Gamers

I am not a fan of time management games. There are a lot of genres I like, this has not been one of them.

Someone suggested I try Airport Mania, so I did it as a favour to them. They did me a favour.

Put out by South Winds, this little gem breaks the time management game mold with an excellent interface, good graphics and a few surprises. It isn’t big game company formulaic.

The game came out in 2008 and has remained in the top ten time management games.
I haven’t seen a bad review for Airport Mania First Flight, it’s just different enough to remain engaging.

The game is not just time management, there is strategy involved and I think that’s one of the things that hooked me. You go to a friendly flight school tutorial to learn to be an air traffic controller, and you’re off. 

The object of the game is to land planes, load, unload, fuel and do maintenance and send them on their way. The quicker the turn around time at each airport the more points you get. Points help you upgrade, and that is part of the key to the draw of Airport Mania. New runways, gates, defoggers, VIP parking, inflight movies and food you as airport manager install to help the planes happy  draw you deeper into play.

The graphics are great, and although I’m not inclined to use the word cute, the soundtrack, the planes and the scenery at each airport level have style. As the airport manager you can also get points by getting the planes landing and taking off earlier,  which gets upgrades and rather than be annoying, it’s really fun. Tee upgrades you choose matter, and increases the strategic intrigue.

It is one of the most friendly games I’ve played, if you have never tried a time management game this one is a great starter.  How you manage your environment adds interesting complexity to the game. Don’t let the cartoonish cute planes fool you, this game isn’t just child’s play. What you buy or don’t buy to upgrade your airports adds to the strategic element of what a premise that seems simple., keeping planes happy and your airport running smoothly.  As the capacity of  my airports grew I found myself even more challenged.

Again, it’s little things (called easter eggs in game talk)  in each level background like a balloon or zeppelin or chatter from a building that can make you smile. Every once in awhile while you’re busy managing your traffic, along comes a plane needing special attention such Air Force One, a plane with a medical transplant or with a pregnant lady needing to land now. Part of the strategy of keeping the planes happy is not just landing and take off on time or ahead of schedule. If you get swamped with operation management, giving your guests some food or a movie can put smiles and green bars back while you scramble to untangle the potential mess.

You can go back and play a level you feel you didn’t do well one, which suits my temperament.
If a standard or master score isn’t good enough, aiming for expert will keep you happily engaged.
There is a trophy room which has some unusual awards and medals to shoot for, and has already had  me heading back to improve my strategy.
There are 8 different kinds of planes and they each have their own temperament.
There are 8 airports, 84 levels and I keep seeing something about paper airplanes.

As an added strategy, co-ordinating planes of the same colours to the same gates to create chain combos earns a more points.

Casual games are supposed to be fun, and if you are a hard core gamer waiting for Assassins Creed 2 to come out, well this isn’t your game.  If you like  casual well executed game play,  crisp graphics and a few extra this or that in the environment to capture your attention and you like to play to self-challenge, give Airport Mania First Flight a try. Some games in a hectic industry stand up to time and a crowded field, this is one of them.

If South Winds comes out with an Airport Mania sequel, I’m in.

Good bang for your buck.

Tips and Tricks: Reflexive Arcade has  the spoilers on how to win all the 21 awards.

Windows OS:  2000,  XP,  Vista
Memory: 256 MB DirectX: 7.0 or later
CPU: P 1.0GHz Video: 16MB Video Card
Mac
Mobile: IPhone, IPod touch

This anticipated sequel to Wii Sports is going to make Nintendo a lot of money.
Having to purchase the Wii motion plus so others can play along is going to make Nintento even more money. 
This sequel to Wii Sports has been worth the wait, and will sell on word of mouth alone.

Jan and I parked ourselves at the game store yesterday waiting for it to open and had some lovely chats with people asking us what the heck we were waiting for. We dashed back to my place and seven hours later we stopped playing, happily tired. Well, okay, happily overtired and looking forward to tackling it again.

Even that first day play time was worth the price. Seriously, coming from a penny pincher, that’s saying something. 
I know we are going to have many more Wii Sports Resorts play days and we can’t wait to share it with friends.
Jan has already got a play date with the neighbours.

Jan likes to ignore instructions and get straight to game play.
Just like Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort gives you that opportunity, and game play has been significantly expanded for those of you tired of your Wii Sports.

Wii Sports Resort is a compilation of mini games with some surprising additions.
For me the star of the game is the the resort Wuhu Island. The graphics are lush, there are great little details catching your attention, like the outfits your Mii’s wear. I noticed others details like the grass in golf, the divots and leaves when I whacked the ball into the trees and realized it’s going to take playing several times before the upgraded graphics don’t distract me.

Make no mistake, having your Mii’s family on the island cheering you on is a big plus for Grandma Jan.
We’d be playing and she’d start laughing, “Oh look, there’s so and so!”

Miis vacationing with you in the game brings the warmth of Wii Sports to us world weary gray gamers.  That is a Nintendo feature which can’t be underestimated for the gray gamer crowd.

I’m going to do a review, because writing a game site for casual and gray gamers can be discouraging. While we read about the game industry acknowledging we gray and casual gamers do our share of pay and play, game sites written by pros can be snarly and technically picky to the point of numbness. Interestingly, Wii Sports Resort isn’t getting the snark I expect to see from the boys club.

Wii Motion Plus: While the instructions for hooking up the Motion plus are quite detailed, it’s really easy and nothing to be intimidated about.
It’s like tupperware; snap in, snap out. The Wii Motion Plus sleeve gives you a good grip on on your remote, which I really needed when I started swinging my sword.
Snapping that little sucker onto your remote, where you snap in your nunchuk  gives you the player a ratio of 1:1 real time precision. You can read up on technical aspects, let me just say it works. It responds precisely to your movements. Jan noticed that most in golf. One Motion Plus comes with the game, we had to wait over a month to get our hands on another one. You don’t have to snap it off for games that don’t read the Plus btw; and putting on the nunchuk is the same as your original remote.  To recalibrate it, the screen asks you to lay it on a flat surface. Takes a few seconds and you are back to incredibly precise play.

Airsports
The game opens with you in a plane getting ready to parachute down to the resort. On the way down you can do formations with your Mii’s. Cute opening. Anticipatory.
The Island flyover:  Interesting because it gives you an idea of the future potential of this series.
Dogfight: Holding your remote like a paper airplane you take to the sky to fly to shoot your opponents balloons attached to the back of the planes. You swoop down to the island to gather new balloons.  I would have liked to try it more, gives you an opportunity to find out where all the venues are at the resort.  Truth is it was the most boring game, but with several new games added one has to be the worst. This was it.

Bowling:
The standard game is fun again.
The graphics are better (I keep saying that but it’s absolutely true) and you get to take the Wii Sports training game of knocking down 100 pins in a 10 frame game against opponents. 
I found 100 pin  to be quite the sensory satisfying game, I cranked up the sound,  listening to all those pins go down was a blast.
Replay is a bit faster so you are less likely to skip it, and I quickly learned from my mistakes.  The Motion Plus took a bit of adapting too, you have to release the ball  just the same as you do at the bowling lane.
You get two choices on how to release the ball, which evens things out for new and experienced players.

Just to ratchet bowling up a notch there is an opponent obstacle game called spin control.  This is where I found the slightest movement important. Jan won of course, she’s a mean bowler. The obstacles were a fun surprise.

Table Tennis aka Ping Pong

No tennis at this resort, since it was so popular in Wii Sports the spin offs are out and selling as separate games.
 If you’ve played Wii Play and tried the table tennis,  completely forget what you learned.
This is a whole new game with your Mii. I lost a game to Jan because I got gawking around. The table is outside and my kid sisters Mii was standing watching with a drink in her hand.  Since that is probably what she’d do in real life I got laughing and missed returns.
There are two games, match and return match. I would have played this for hours, Again I think it is the Motion Plus that makes the play more intense. I’m not a big table tennis fan, the movement sensitivity is delightful.

Basketball 

I didn’t think I’d like this but I did. The time 3 point contest was intuitive, all you have to do is use the b button to pick up the ball.  Gives you time to concentrate on your shots. The pick up game is surprising, I didn’t expect the gameplay. Let me put it this way. Jan’s a thief. Her ball stealing skills are as irritating as all get out. You get to play as opposed to concentrate on what buttons you need to push.

Frisbee

Some of you may have gotten the dog frisbee as a promo. 
There are two frisbee games, but let me say I let out an ”oh cool!’ when we started Frisbee dog.
You get your own dog.  That shouldn’t have elicted an ‘oh cool!’ but it did because if you’ve played games rushed to the Wii console with no thought to detail and what makes the Wii fun, it was cool to get my own dog.
The dogs aren’t Mario Brothers cartoonish and they have as much fun as you do.
Frisbee golf. What can I say. Jan is the game golfer so we spent a lot of time playing this and I got sucked in. I think it’s the same course as Wii Sports, but it’s the graphics details again that got me gazing around and that have bumped play up a level. Jan can babble about it, I had fun trying. I had only heard of disc golf a few years ago, you don’t have to be a golfer to like this. I found it pleasant and relaxing.

Golf
This builds on the Wii Sports golf, like the bowling does, and Jan got all excited because there are nine new holes to play. But she was also disappointed because there were only nine new ones to play. Having said that, she says the game play is a lot more precise, and muttered something about slice. I phoned earlier today to ask her about it, I thought I’d better ask while I can. 
She’ll disappear for a few days working on her Wii Resort golf game while she has the opportunity.

Archery
I was an archery instructor as a camp counsellor and I enjoyed this. You have to use your nunchuk to draw back on your bow and the feel and sound is a lot more realistic than I would have anticipated. There are three levels of difficulty and I enjoyed the personal challenge. I can see how people who play high end fantasy games on more expensive consoles might find it boring, but I certainly didn’t.

Sword Play
This  game lived up to it’s hype, and let’s not pretend that this was a feature of the Wii Motion Plus that Nintendo didn’t hype.  This has been a key part of Nintendo’s advertising. 
Again, for us world weary types that don’t want to play with even fake blood, having the guy from Wii Fit boxing tossing melons and sushi and bread and bamboo at you is hilarious in Speed Slice. You can’t just hack, as soon as what has been tossed lands, an arrow shows you which way to slice.  As quick as you and your opponent can move, you snooze or lose. Duel. You and your opponent are on a platform over water.  One misplaced thrust or parry and your Mii tumbles off the platform into a  laugh out loud fall into the ocean complete with a graphically satisfying splash. I cranked the sound up on this one too. Loved the feel of the remote also. Showdown pits you against numerous opponents, however I can’t say much about it because I didn’t get to explore it, I did the bridge dash. It reminded me of sword play and the game of war when I was a kid. Again, random hacking at guest Miis coming at you doesn’t cut it, your movements have to be deliberate.  Really cool. I can’t wait to get back at it.

Cycling
If I have to pick a favorite, hands down this was it. You use the nunchuk and remote to pedal. There are two modes; road race and vs. Over exert yourself in a race and you get dehydrated, turning blue or red. There are three hearts at the top of your screen that give you an idea of how hard you are working.  Too much and you lose a heart and have to start slowing down and coast. The races take you all over the resort, you are peddling different altitudes and again I got gawking around. There is a bicycle built for two race which requires you to work with your partner.  The environments were terrific, you cycle on everything from sand and grass to cobblestone.  There isn’t a lot of fussing with buttons,  there one to brake if you remember too, the rest is up to you. Strategy matters. 

The Water Sports

There is room for future development potential here. You get introduced to water sports through canoeing, jet skiing and wake boarding.  The jet skiing course brings up rings similar to the smoke rings you have to dive through in another Wii game called Playground. The wake boarding is fun, reminds me of a few courses in Wii Ski.  You get points by moving precisely through a timed run.
The canoeing is harder, I had a tendency to over-paddle. And I admit it, I got gawking around again.

Like Wii Sports, this offering is a winner because it is people friendly.
If you try something, you get a stamp, which is great when you are playing with the kids.
Oh, yeah, okay, I like earning a reward and unlocking levels too.
Some of these games are cathartic, some work up a sweat, some are relaxing;  walk away from reading this remembering  the operative and definitive word for Wii Sports Resort is… fun.

 The potential for this island, this relaxed interactive and intuitive play is huge. 
I really liked the ease of the menu, you get single play and up to four player play in different venues.
The graphics are quite an improvement.
I like that someone who has never tried a Wii could jump right in, and there is enough of a challenge for experienced players.
This play has appeal to the family from my 5 year old nephew to Jan. In the first two weeks of release in Japan, over 1/2 million were sold. (Wii Sports - 46 million world wide)

It’s going to be huge for the gray gamer crowd here in North America.
 I wasn’t expecting anything to top the value I’ve gotten out of Wii Sports.
Wii Sports Resort has. 
And Nintendo has put in a few more surprises, if you can crack the code.
It’s great to wait for something and be pleasantly surprised, isn’t it?

Jan’s review:  Huh. Long overdue and well loved, back to you later.

Awesome bang for your buck.
59.99/Cdn for the game and one Wii Motion Plus
24.99/Cdn for each additional Wii Motion Plus

Well, given the mega company releases a game a day (and some very good games) it’s nice to see the company keep a blog and provide walkthroughs for clients instead of making us dig around their forums. some people love forums, if I have an hour to test their game, a forum isn’t a ‘go to’.
I’m not aware of anyone getting a look at their games prior to release except Big Fish staff so staff putting up tips on the site on release date is a bonus. (If I’m wrong about other sites and writers getting a chance to review a game, please smack me across the head and point out who, ‘kay?)

The blog writing is good, the hints and tips and clearly written – an enhance to your game experience.

Every time you play an environment searching for clues, the dynamics change.

1) Don’t waste time in one location on each level. If you get stuck move to the next location, once you get down to 2 clues left you can solve your puzzle. Your hints work in the Crime Computer. Use those clues to help solve your puzzle and move on the the next level and a fresh batch of clues.

2) There are times you’ll want to bypass a puzzle and move on. Take advantage of that option if you need to.

3) Don’t forget to look for batteries, they are bright green and yellow (you need two, and are usually on the borders of an environment. If you forget you can go back and look at will.

4) By all means if you feel yourself getting stuck go look in another location and come back. You’ll be surprised what that kind of break can make in your ability to see what you were searching for.

5) Clues of similar colour seem to be hidden near each other.

6) Groups of clues (like four animals) are best saved for last, go through your environments first and go back to group clues. Or a clue like a pen is often hidden on a narrow object like a chair leg or fence.

7) Pay careful attention to the hints you are given on the puzzles.

A walkthrough through the game isn’t practical because of the simple story line and play, you can do this.

BigFish Games forum - players help each other out
IGN  forum has great player to player help

 Stil stuck? Need a helping hand?  Ask, and we’ll see what we can do.

Azada is a game I’m quite taken with. You can try it free for an hour by clicking on the Big Fish game of the day on the side bar and using their search menu. It reminds me of Myst, still one of my favorite PC games.

According to independent tracking site game-sales-charts.com, following its release on June 29, 2007, Azada held the #1 sales spot on its home distribution channel, Big Fish Games, as well as the #1 or #2 spot on other major online distribution channels. Azada remained for 142 days in the top 10 charts of its home distribution portal, Big Fish Games. Azada also remained in the top 10 charts for 83 days at Pogo.com, 74 days at iWin.com, 44 days at Reflexive.com, and featured a similar sales pattern on other distribution channels.

Leading casual games industry outlets such as Gamezebo.com have featured several articles welcoming the innovative mechanic and the puzzles of Azada.

Azada was a finalist in the Downloadable Game of the Year category, for the Interactive Achievement Awards 2008.

And a sequel is out also available to try for an hour. This game plays on Mac and PC’s.

Big Fish Studios released a sequel to the game, Azada: Ancient Magic in August, 2008. Azada: Ancient Magic

Azada Review
Walkthrough and tips

Official Azada site