Rating: 
Summary: The potato chip of video games
Review: System on which this was tried out: Pentium III 733 MHz, nVidia TNT 2 Pro, 128 MB RAM, Win98, with a monitor with 1024 x 768 resolution. (Mind you, the games herein aren't the type to put one's hardware acceleration to the test.)Installation is *very* fast. The installer lets you specify the drive and directory in which the game will be installed (except for the Sierra utilities package), but not the icon's group; they'll wind up in the top-level menu. Being a Sierra product, the installer will install Sierra utilities in your startup menu if you don't already have it, with no option to skip them (although you can uninstall it separately); the utilities are the Sierra-typical uninstall/readme/support/auto-update. Auto-update, if invoked, asks you to connect to the net, searches your system for Sierra products, then queries Cendant Software's site to check for any patches or other updates, including updates to the Sierra utilities package itself. The Sierra utilities wind up under Program Files on drive C, no matter where the user asked the actual game to install, and the icon for the utilities is added to the start menu. The bonus screensaver, when active, isn't *just* a screensaver showing what the various games look like, but provides a row of icons that link into the various games. As for the 11 games themselves, here's what they're like. _Solitaire_ is completely separate from the standard MS solitaire. A player must be added to the game by name the first time it's played; after that, Solitaire keeps score until you ask it to clear itself. The face card figures are Bad Dog (the kings), the Hula twins (the queens), fish (jack); toasters are superimposed on the aces. If you quit a game, any exposed face cards and aces change (e.g. cage appears around toasters). 5 games are puzzles. _Bad Dog 911_ gives you a scrambled set of letters; find a set of words at least 3 letters long within a time limit. (A window cleaner hanging off a dial clock can scramble to safety if you get enough words.) In _Fish Shtick_, each scrambled set of letters (one per fish, swimming across the screen) forms a word; get the word before the fish reach the finish line, then on to the next word. _Zapper_ gives you yes/no trivia questions with a time limit for each. In _Moo Shu_, the player slowly demolishes a pyramid of tiles by removing matching exposed pairs; the game gives you a fortune cookie when you finish. _Roof Rats'_ objective is to rescue tenants from the roof of the building by removing blocks of rooms under them (old lady has to be brought to the ground, kangaroo can hop down from a few levels up, etc.) _Hula Girl_ is related to pinball and PacMan; the player's hula twin must jump from platform to platform as they roll up the screen, dodging her evil twin and 'yucky' things, trying to pick up extra hula hoops and treats. (_Mowin' Maniac_ is *very* similar to PacMan, but your character drives a lawnmower.) _Toaster Run_ is the cutest of the lot. You as a flying toaster have to navigate the dangers of a house to find Super Guy and return him to his crib, collecting bread for extra energy and toys for extra points. Drawback: navigation through *arrow keys* (ouch). Tradeoff for clever graphics: the layout of the house is fixed. _Foggy Boxes_ - taking turns with the computer to draw lines on a grid to 'control' boxes - does nothing for me. Neither does_Rodger Dodger_, an abstract collect-items-without-being-hit game. But 8 decent games out of 11 isn't bad. Overall, the package is a pleasant way to clear your mind or kill a little time without getting too involved.
Rating: 
Summary: After Dark Games
Review: The hilarity of the After Dark screen-saver has always been one of my best sources of stress relief over the past few years, and the After Dark Games provide even more interactive entertainment. With cute graphics, groovy music, and lots of madcap humor--not to mention the fact that they install *really* easily and they only take up a tiny amount of hard drive space--these 11 games are the perfect way to take a quick break from your work when Minesweeper gets too tiresome. They're not made to drive you away from your friends and family, however, so if you're looking for deep, immersive gameplay, you'll be better off playing an RPG. A few of these games are simply classics with an After Dark twist: "Solitaire" is the classic card game, "Mowin' Maniac" is a whimsical and often maddeningly difficult version of "Pac-Man" that takes place in someone's backyard, and "Moo-Shu Tiles" is just like the game "Shanghai", only with a few scathing twists (layouts include the shape of a piece of roadkill, and the winning fortunes affront players with statements like "You look like something the cat refused to bring in from the rain.") The only one of these remakes I don't really like is "Foggy Boxes"--a version of the famous "dots and boxes" game--and that's just because I win almost every time even in the Hard mode. The puzzle games, which are my favorites, include "Bad Dog 911", "Fish Shtick", "Zapper", and "Roof Rats". "Zapper" has the best graphics and sound of all the games, and it consists of a bunch of very interesting (but admittedly useless) true/false trivia questions in a race against the clock. You get bonus points and extra time for three correct answers in a row, and then the Zapper jackpot increases. It's not really all that difficult (my highest score ever was 9750 and the jackpot starts at just 50 points). "Roof Rats" is much more difficult, and it's a game where you have to rescue tenants from the top of a large building by detonating adjacent rooms of the same color. I have managed to beat the "Hard" mode in this game only 5% of the time. "Fish Shtick" and "Bad Dog 911" are both games in which you have to unscramble words in a limited time period. They're both very fun, but they each have two little problems with them: first, words are taken from unabridged dictionaries, so they may seem obscure to people who've never taken courses in molecular biology before. (For example, "otceyo" can be unscrambled as "coyote" or "oocyte".) And second, the clock continues to tick while you pause the game, so you are not allowed to look for a dictionary or other cheating device at any time during gameplay. The last three games are arcade-style, and they're the most original games of the bunch. "Hula Girl" is a platform game that scrolls from top to bottom, in which Hula Girl jumps down platforms, picks up desserts and extra hoops, and tries to avoid things that make her "yuckometer" go up. "Toaster Run" features the famous flying toaster, and you control his flight as he flies through a dangerous house in order to get into the nursery and put "Baby Guy" into his crib. And in "Rodger Dodger", you take control of a little purple spheroid and pilot him around, picking up the green things and avoiding the red things. These three games are also very fun, but they're overall a little less difficult than the others. These 11 games are all different in gameplay, so they should satisfy any gamer who just wants a little distraction--whether it's using reflexes dodging killer red pyramids, or using the old noodle and trying to solve words. The only real complaint I have with this package, as a matter of fact, is that it doesn't feature some of my favorite parts of the orignial screen-saver; I was disappointed to see that there was no game involving "Daredevil Dan", or a version of "Rat Race", or the all-time classic trivia game "You Bet Your Head". These were, in my opinion, the funniest forms of entertainment that the original After Dark screen-saver had to offer. But what we have in the package still works as a funny and thoroughly engaging little diversion that never fails to delight. "After Dark Games" is extremely easy to get into and undoubtedly difficult to put down, and I highly recommend it for anyone who hates being an easily-bored person (come on, you know who you are....).
Rating:
Summary: Perfect to play when you get home from work or school
Review: The hilarity of the After Dark screen-saver has always been one of my best sources of stress relief over the past few years, and the After Dark Games provide even more interactive entertainment. With cute graphics, groovy music, and lots of madcap humor--not to mention the fact that they install *really* easily and they only take up a tiny amount of hard drive space--these 11 games are the perfect way to take a quick break from your work when Minesweeper gets too tiresome. They're not made to drive you away from your friends and family, however, so if you're looking for deep, immersive gameplay, you'll be better off playing an RPG. A few of these games are simply classics with an After Dark twist: "Solitaire" is the classic card game, "Mowin' Maniac" is a whimsical and often maddeningly difficult version of "Pac-Man" that takes place in someone's backyard, and "Moo-Shu Tiles" is just like the game "Shanghai", only with a few scathing twists (layouts include the shape of a piece of roadkill, and the winning fortunes affront players with statements like "You look like something the cat refused to bring in from the rain.") The only one of these remakes I don't really like is "Foggy Boxes"--a version of the famous "dots and boxes" game--and that's just because I win almost every time even in the Hard mode. The puzzle games, which are my favorites, include "Bad Dog 911", "Fish Shtick", "Zapper", and "Roof Rats". "Zapper" has the best graphics and sound of all the games, and it consists of a bunch of very interesting (but admittedly useless) true/false trivia questions in a race against the clock. You get bonus points and extra time for three correct answers in a row, and then the Zapper jackpot increases. It's not really all that difficult (my highest score ever was 9750 and the jackpot starts at just 50 points). "Roof Rats" is much more difficult, and it's a game where you have to rescue tenants from the top of a large building by detonating adjacent rooms of the same color. I have managed to beat the "Hard" mode in this game only 5% of the time. "Fish Shtick" and "Bad Dog 911" are both games in which you have to unscramble words in a limited time period. They're both very fun, but they each have two little problems with them: first, words are taken from unabridged dictionaries, so they may seem obscure to people who've never taken courses in molecular biology before. (For example, "otceyo" can be unscrambled as "coyote" or "oocyte".) And second, the clock continues to tick while you pause the game, so you are not allowed to look for a dictionary or other cheating device at any time during gameplay. The last three games are arcade-style, and they're the most original games of the bunch. "Hula Girl" is a platform game that scrolls from top to bottom, in which Hula Girl jumps down platforms, picks up desserts and extra hoops, and tries to avoid things that make her "yuckometer" go up. "Toaster Run" features the famous flying toaster, and you control his flight as he flies through a dangerous house in order to get into the nursery and put "Baby Guy" into his crib. And in "Rodger Dodger", you take control of a little purple spheroid and pilot him around, picking up the green things and avoiding the red things. These three games are also very fun, but they're overall a little less difficult than the others. These 11 games are all different in gameplay, so they should satisfy any gamer who just wants a little distraction--whether it's using reflexes dodging killer red pyramids, or using the old noodle and trying to solve words. The only real complaint I have with this package, as a matter of fact, is that it doesn't feature some of my favorite parts of the orignial screen-saver; I was disappointed to see that there was no game involving "Daredevil Dan", or a version of "Rat Race", or the all-time classic trivia game "You Bet Your Head". These were, in my opinion, the funniest forms of entertainment that the original After Dark screen-saver had to offer. But what we have in the package still works as a funny and thoroughly engaging little diversion that never fails to delight. "After Dark Games" is extremely easy to get into and undoubtedly difficult to put down, and I highly recommend it for anyone who hates being an easily-bored person (come on, you know who you are....).
Rating:
Summary: After Dark Games
Review: This is an awsome game!! All the games in After Dark Games are great, I can play for hours and I love them.
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