WHAT'S
HOT
Graphically, this is a very nice looking game.
Not to mention the amount of variations on the individual units. Giving
you a great game without boring you with the same looking "room"
on every floor. Replayability is also a strong factor in a sim-based
game. And Tower Mogul certainly has a lot going for it in this category.
SETUP
Nothing out of the ordinary here. For my install,
I chose to store the game on my 512Mb CF card running on my HP iPaq
2215 with XCPUScaler.
PROGRAM
FEATURES
Here's the list (copied verbatim) of features
in Tower Mogul:
Over
60 different building units to construct
Lets you build a commercial, residential or corporate tower
Various building disasters
Customizable controls and options
Save and load your games
In-game tutorial for first time sim players
And many more cool features to keep you glued to your Pocket PC for
hours!
eSoftInteractive
kind of plays down their feature list (hiding most of the cool features
under the "and mary more"). Hopefully, this review will give
you a deeper view into what Tower Mogul is capable of and the great
replayability available in this game.
When starting Tower Mogul, you are first greeted
by eSoftInteractive's
logo (and cute sound bite).
After the loading page finishes (about 8 seconds), you are then shown the Main Menu with the New Game, Load Game, Options, and Quit choices (note the "Press Copy" marking as explained above).
Choosing New Game allows you to name your tower (using their provided software keyboard), the difficulty setting (Beginner or Hardcore), OK (green check) and Cancel (red X) options.
_
Next is the Load menu, where you can choose from one of the four available saved games (assuming you have one saved). Load time is minimal (5 seconds to load a 4-star saved game).
The Options menu allows you to choose from 3 styles of background music (Twang, Groove, and Chill) or turn the music off completely, turn off or on for the sound effects, adjust the in-game volume. You can also turn the game grid on and off, enable or disable the "Keep device turned on", or toggle the scroll areas. The "Keep device on" keep the Pocket PC on as long as the game is running. Finally, you can toggle the in-game special effects, and hide the tower virts (citizens) for slower Pocket PCs.
LET'S
PLAY!
We are going to begin with the Beginner
setting, and Tower Mogul does a great job of getting a beginner started
with an extensive in-game tutorial. The Overview covers everything from
what your objectives are and game controls:
_
To toolbars, buttons, and tips:
_
The tutorial then moves on to help you build the start of your first tower and get you on your way (as shown in the screenshots below):
_
_
_
As you can see above, the building is starting to take shape. Let's continue on with the tutorial:
_
_
And so the tutorial continues. Several steps later, you are putting in your first unit (a burger joint), some stairs, and are well on your way to creating your first highrise (as seen below):
_
After completing the tutorial, you are given free reign to do what you wish in this game. Your only real objective is to reach that coveted 5-star mark. There are mini-goals in order to increase your star rating, along with giving you additional units to expand the style and content of your tower.
_
As play continues and your tower becomes more (or less popular), you will start experiencing disasters such as bomb threats, fires, and power outages which you can solve by dispatching maintence or security units, or adding power generators. Failure to take care of the alert can lead to more and more units burning away, or several units exploding (in the case of the bomb threat).
_
_
_
Clicking the statistics button (looks like a bar graph on the lower button bar) gives you access to the advisers comments (which range from witty to philosophical), your income statement, and line graphs showing you both population and money information.
_
_
The info button (looks like a magnifying glass on the lower button bar), gives you access to ratings information not only about your units, but also your elevators (to hide the elevator shaft, or adjust the floors they reach), and whether or not a unit is occupied or even making any money.
_
_
The home button allows you to save (this does seem to take longer and longer as your tower becomes larger and larger), load, change options, view the credits, and quit (with a helpful make-sure-to-save-before-you-exit feature).
_
There is a lot more to this game that even what I've hinted at above. And even more that the game could take on (which I will note below). Here's one last screenshot of a small section of my 5-star game, complete with sky lounge and movie theater.
HELP
SUPPORT
The in-game tutorial is great. It doesn't
explain a couple of minor items (such as the maximum height for elevators),
but the help section and forums at eSoftInteractive
will provide enough tips, tricks, and troubleshooting tools for anyone.
SYSTEM
REQUIREMENTS
According to the website, XScale and ARM
processors are supported. It makes no mention of storage space requirements
on eSoftInteractive's
webpage, but according to another review listed there, it takes 2.5Mb
of storage space and needs 5Mb of system memory to run.
BUGS
AND WISHES
As with any program, if you start looking
hard enough, you will start finding bugs. Rather than relist all of
them here, you can check out the eSoftInteractive's
forum. I will only mention a few of the more game-limiting ones and
some of my wishes.
PURCHASING
You can buy
this software directly from eSoftInteractive
or from Hadango.
The price shown is $11.95.
PROS
Great graphics
Playability
Great support
Easy to learn and play (even in the hardcore mode)
AWESOME PRICE!
CONS
Some lockups
OVERALL
IMPRESSION
Well, I hope you made it this far. And while I
realize this review was long, I only covered about 50% of the content
that is available in this game. This game is already great, but it's
potential to become a must-have game such as Bejeweled is close at hand.
So, if I were you, I'd snag this for $11.95 before they figure out that
they can charge even more. I will definately be watching and waiting
for upgrades (which I understand are coming soon) to fix some of the
minor issues that I stumbled across. Overall, I give this game a 4 1/2
star rating, and a 5-star rating if they fix the minor bugs soon, build
a waste complex, and get 50 more registered users (*wink*).
Have you played this game? See something that isn't quite right? Tell us what you think! Click on the Discussion Link below.
