Industry Giant 2

Rating:
Summary: business learning
Review: Great way to get students interested in business. Learn how the products you buy are really a collection of natural resources that have gone through a long series of processes. Learn how our economy was created, even the negative aspects to our economy.

Rating:
Summary: A Little Fun, a Little Quirky
Review: Industry Giant II is a good, but not spectacular, game.

The game play is simple enough. I suggest reading through the tutorial, as some of the user interface actions are far from intuitive.

The game is a little short of challenging as all the scenarios, easy, normal and hard can be beat quite handily.

Rating:
Summary: A Little Fun, a Little Quirky
Review: Industry Giant II is a good, but not spectacular, game.

The game play is simple enough. I suggest reading through the tutorial, as some of the user interface actions are far from intuitive.

The game is a little short of challenging as all the scenarios, easy, normal and hard can be beat quite handily.

Rating:
Summary: Ignore the Quirks, Get Into It, and Have FUN!
Review: This game is a little quirky, as someone pointed out, but it was created by a German software company, so it's not going to be perfectly "intuitive" for an American mind. In general, the Germans have a different mindset than the typical American. Case in point: the HVAC controls in a Mercedes-Benz. I am a fairly logical person, but it still took me a while to get a handle on which control did what on an old 190 I had a few years ago.

That said, I have not stopped playing this game for a year. I wish for a less grid-like field of play (a downer on most simulations, I think you'll agree), but the game has a lot of bright points, and the play is engaging for a mind that's interested in production analysis and efficiency optiimization.

The graphic representation of the playing world is excellent - bodies of water vary in color (by depth), wildlife, and human vessels (although they are not exactly to scale). You can turn the clouds and their shadows on or off. Cities grow and metamorphasize over time. There are numerous kinds of trees and terrain in any one scenario.

There are a good number of vehicles available in each of four transport choices: truck, rail, ship, or air, and each has its own cost and benefit makeup. Upon its introduction to the scenario, each vehicle stars in its own animated sequence; the animations are well-done, and the vehicles seem very true to their prototypes in the animations.

There are also something like 100 different products available to manufacture, ship, and sell. You have to build the supply chain to support the creation of each type of product. Most follow this model: raw materials to a mill for processing into useable supplies, to a manufacturing facility that transforms these into final goods, to a retail store to be sold to the end user.

You control all the factors of production from gathering the raw materials to the finished product. You have to manage the level of production and set labor rates at each step in the process. You have to maximize your profits by managing the sell prices of your goods in each store, and keep an eye on which products are seasonal in demand - it varies by quarter.

Overall, this is an excellent offering, especially for the price asked here on Amazon. I am rating it 5 stars because I am still playing it after a year, and not many sims can make that claim in my house. Check out the Gold edition also available here - it includes the upgrade pack with more missions (hopefully harder ones, since I agree that the missions tend to be easy to accomplish), vehicles, etc, which I need to get myself! As I said, ignore the quirks, get into it, and have a blast!

Rating:
Summary: Ignore the Quirks, Get Into It, and Have FUN!
Review: This game is a little quirky, as someone pointed out, but it was created by a German software company, so it's not going to be perfectly "intuitive" for an American mind. In general, the Germans have a different mindset than the typical American. Case in point: the HVAC controls in a Mercedes-Benz. I am a fairly logical person, but it still took me a while to get a handle on which control did what on an old 190 I had a few years ago.

That said, I have not stopped playing this game for a year. I wish for a less grid-like field of play (a downer on most simulations, I think you'll agree), but the game has a lot of bright points, and the play is engaging for a mind that's interested in production analysis and efficiency optiimization.

The graphic representation of the playing world is excellent - bodies of water vary in color (by depth), wildlife, and human vessels (although they are not exactly to scale). You can turn the clouds and their shadows on or off. Cities grow and metamorphasize over time. There are numerous kinds of trees and terrain in any one scenario.

There are a good number of vehicles available in each of four transport choices: truck, rail, ship, or air, and each has its own cost and benefit makeup. Upon its introduction to the scenario, each vehicle stars in its own animated sequence; the animations are well-done, and the vehicles seem very true to their prototypes in the animations.

There are also something like 100 different products available to manufacture, ship, and sell. You have to build the supply chain to support the creation of each type of product. Most follow this model: raw materials to a mill for processing into useable supplies, to a manufacturing facility that transforms these into final goods, to a retail store to be sold to the end user.

You control all the factors of production from gathering the raw materials to the finished product. You have to manage the level of production and set labor rates at each step in the process. You have to maximize your profits by managing the sell prices of your goods in each store, and keep an eye on which products are seasonal in demand - it varies by quarter.

Overall, this is an excellent offering, especially for the price asked here on Amazon. I am rating it 5 stars because I am still playing it after a year, and not many sims can make that claim in my house. Check out the Gold edition also available here - it includes the upgrade pack with more missions (hopefully harder ones, since I agree that the missions tend to be easy to accomplish), vehicles, etc, which I need to get myself! As I said, ignore the quirks, get into it, and have a blast!

Rating:
Summary: Good but not that good.
Review: When I first played Industry Giant 2,I had a hard time figuring out how to make money but, after about two days, I finally got a few stores built that was making money.
This game is NOT as difcult as SimCity 4 but, it does give challanges that you don't face in SimCity 4. you may have to slow down production at one of your plants because demand is low,or setting a warehouse to store only eggs and milk, instead of beef, is only an example of the different desion making you will have to do in this game.

Rating:
Summary: Good but not that good.
Review: When I first played Industry Giant 2,I had a hard time figuring out how to make money but, after about two days, I finally got a few stores built that was making money.
This game is NOT as difcult as SimCity 4 but, it does give challanges that you don't face in SimCity 4. you may have to slow down production at one of your plants because demand is low,or setting a warehouse to store only eggs and milk, instead of beef, is only an example of the different desion making you will have to do in this game.