Survival: The Ultimate Challenge

Rating:
Summary: Survival
Review: Everything Psyko says is true except after playing nonstop for three days I have yet to figure out how to put a roof on my huts, how to light the signal fires for help, or how to get my character to get aboard the raft to go for help!!! My biggest problem with the game is that each action your characters perform requires too much input on your part. For example, if you want your character to gather water, you have to click on the water container for them to pick it up, then click on the river for them to fill it up, then click on the location you want them to take the water container, then click for them to put the container down. Too much work on my part! But if anyone could tell me how to put those roofs on, light those signal fires, or get on the raft I'd be much less frustrated!

Rating:
Summary: Just another $20 dollar game.
Review: First of all. It's not Survival: The Ultimate Simulation, it's called Survival: The Ultimate Challenge. Just in case you are confused. It's an ok game. If you've played any other game published by Activision -Value-, it's not that great but it does make a good god game and simulates how you would survive if you're stranded somewhere. Once you start, you should build a shelter because it always storms the 2nd day. You can build different sized huts depending on the skills one of your castaways have. If you don't get a hut built in time, and it is hard to do, you're characters stay out in the storm and when it is over most of them will be sick so you have too have your characters give each other first aid. The game isn't very detailed. Example: If you have a rock, you can make a real looking knife in a min. just by scraping at it. If you have one rock, you can make a four wall fountain made of tons of rocks but it won't be complete until you use more rocks. You also see your characters building stuff just by hitting at it with their hands. You also can step right through the object when your building it. The good thing is that there are quite a few ways to survive; you can build a signal fire, build a boat, build a raft, make a HELP sign. Things change if you're in a different climate too. If you're in tundra, their ae no plants so you have to kill animals and make you're hut roof out of pelts instead of leaves. If you're in a cold, snowy climate; you can build an igloo instead of a hut and you wear jackets instead of tye dye clothes. The rest you will have to find out for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Fun to play - in a strange sort of way
Review: The strange sort of attraction that keeps me coming back to the TV show (you know which one I'm talking about) also keeps me coming back to this game. Apparently the licensing to the TV show went to WizardWorks, who won't be releasing the game for a while so you'll have to do with this in the meantime.

As far as the game itself, well there is nothing excellent about it in any specific areas. The graphics are pretty bad all around, even the intro movie looks like it was done in an hour. The music is alright, if just to provide a little background atmosphere - kinda like listening to some new age instrumental CD. It's really the gameplay and the 'value' price that saves it.

Basically a bunch of random people suddenly appear on an island and it's resource management skills that build up the traits and equipment necessary to get them rescued. Like the show, reality kinda goes out the window. For instance, there are trees all over the place, but only certain ones can you use to make a shelter from. Regardless of their individual abilities, anyone can pick up a rock and make a knife or spear out of it. Character movement is unintuitive, they have a tendency to get stuck in areas or lost without some serious handholding. At one point in the game I sent two characters to go kill a large rhino for food. One ended up getting killed because the other didn't have the brains to go around a tree to where the rhino was.

One lacking feature that could've made this game much more interesting would have been to create a "fog of war" effect where the island is not revealed until it's explored. It's strange, but apparently the entire layout of this "uncharted island" is revealed to us upfront - stranded with a map, I guess.

Anyways, there's plenty to whine and nitpick about, but the game is fun to play, regardless. It's your basic "once you create this, you can do that" type of game. The pace moves along so you're really not stressing - you can simply kill some time building up your characters various ways until you get the resources (signal fires, HELP signs, rafts, etc...) that can get you rescued. It's a fairly easy game to play so kids may enjoy it too. If this type of game or scenario appeals to you, check it out.

Hope this review helps you in your decision.

P.S. For the reviewer asking about creating a roof - first you have to make sure your shelter is 100% completed, then simply gather leaves or animal pelts, click on the shelter, and an option will come up to "built roof from leaves" or "... animal pelts".

Rating:
Summary: Fun to play - in a strange sort of way
Review: The strange sort of attraction that keeps me coming back to the TV show (you know which one I'm talking about) also keeps me coming back to this game. Apparently the licensing to the TV show went to WizardWorks, who won't be releasing the game for a while so you'll have to do with this in the meantime.

As far as the game itself, well there is nothing excellent about it in any specific areas. The graphics are pretty bad all around, even the intro movie looks like it was done in an hour. The music is alright, if just to provide a little background atmosphere - kinda like listening to some new age instrumental CD. It's really the gameplay and the 'value' price that saves it.

Basically a bunch of random people suddenly appear on an island and it's resource management skills that build up the traits and equipment necessary to get them rescued. Like the show, reality kinda goes out the window. For instance, there are trees all over the place, but only certain ones can you use to make a shelter from. Regardless of their individual abilities, anyone can pick up a rock and make a knife or spear out of it. Character movement is unintuitive, they have a tendency to get stuck in areas or lost without some serious handholding. At one point in the game I sent two characters to go kill a large rhino for food. One ended up getting killed because the other didn't have the brains to go around a tree to where the rhino was.

One lacking feature that could've made this game much more interesting would have been to create a "fog of war" effect where the island is not revealed until it's explored. It's strange, but apparently the entire layout of this "uncharted island" is revealed to us upfront - stranded with a map, I guess.

Anyways, there's plenty to whine and nitpick about, but the game is fun to play, regardless. It's your basic "once you create this, you can do that" type of game. The pace moves along so you're really not stressing - you can simply kill some time building up your characters various ways until you get the resources (signal fires, HELP signs, rafts, etc...) that can get you rescued. It's a fairly easy game to play so kids may enjoy it too. If this type of game or scenario appeals to you, check it out.

Hope this review helps you in your decision.

P.S. For the reviewer asking about creating a roof - first you have to make sure your shelter is 100% completed, then simply gather leaves or animal pelts, click on the shelter, and an option will come up to "built roof from leaves" or "... animal pelts".

Rating:
Summary: A slow paced Sims style survivor game
Review: There are several senarios, from shipwrecks to plane wrecks.
The game doesn't come with any real hints on how to survive in the game, it is all left up to you. You collect fruit, water, wood, stones, and other items to survive. You can build tools with these items. Then use the tools to build shelter, rafts, signal fires and other things in an attempt to survive until you are rescued. You try to keep clear of the large animals while using a speer to hunt for small game. You can also speer or net fish. The graffics are fairly simple in this game, But in my opinion this game doesn't really need them to make this a playable game. Overall its a watered down graffics "The Sims" style game with a survivor setting.