This is the premise for a game developed by Playfirst known as Mythic Marbles. In the game, you aren’t playing with a circle. Instead you will have various game board structures with obstacles to avoid on your way towards being the person with the last marble standing. You can choose to play in two different modes when you play Mythic Marbles; Adventure and Arcade. Both have their own perks and let you explore the world of Mythic Marbles.

The graphics for this game are stunning. The game board is designed with an ancient perhaps Egyptian or Meditteranean type of feel to it. The music until you enter a game board is great. It sounds very Middle Eastern and is soothing on the ears. I actually prefer it to the music in the game board, which has more of a quest like feel to it. The game board music is fine at first, but after a while it can get a tad bit annoying.

In the Adventure mode, you will go through 10 different levels and follow a loosely related story. You play as a youngster who loves marbles. Your dad wants you to get another profession and actually make some sort of living, but you love your marbles so he sends you off to the main town to make it on your own with your marbles. From here, you have the chance to go through levels. You shoot your marbles against other pre-placed marbles. They are placed around obstacles. As you progress the ways to reach the marbles become harder as they are blocked by barriers, near dark hole whirlpools that suck any type of marbles (including your own) in, and morphing circles that send your marbles to other parts of the game board. You must get rid of all the marbles from the board and still have one of yours (at least) on the board.

At the end of each level, you must battle a town marble player who insists their skills are better than yours. To beat them, all you have to do is shoot all of their marbles off the game board before they shoot yours. This is easier said then done as most of them never miss. You will have to battle at the palace for the spot as the ultimate marble shooter when you reach round 10. This is the hardest round as you try to keep just one marble on the board, shooting around barriers on it to hit your opponent’s marbles.

In the Arcade mode, you go through each level and try to beat a player similar to the end of each Adventure level. You can redo levels as you try to get a better record (by having more marbles on the board at the end of each Arcade round). This makes the replayability level high for this part of the game in your quest to keep beating your last score. Ultimately, the entire game is fun to play over and over again, even if you have beaten levels previously.

Bottom Line: If you’re looking for a fun way to spend your free time try Mystic Marbles. It requires skill, practice, and a little luck. Hopefully, you too will soon be a marbles master and have a new appreciation for a game our parents or grandparents once used to play.

Rating:

Technorati Tags: PC Game, Review, Playfirst, Mythic Marbles, games

The Enchanted Plot

In this game, whether you are female or not in real life, you play the role of a young woman named Faye. When the game begins, you have just discovered that an evil woman who has magical powers, Lilith, has cast a sleep spell on your entire kingdom! You also discover that your beloved husband, Fidget, is missing! You deduce that he must have been kidnapped by Lilith. In the meantime, you are the only one who is awake to solve the mystery. Even your daughter, a young and beautiful little girl named Lyra, is entrapped within Lilith’s sleep spell and you are her (and everyone else’s) only hope.

In the meantime, you must find out what secret Fidget has hidden from you, why Lilith has cast the sleep spell and kidnapped Fidget, and several other questions about your past life, to reveal secrets you never knew. You discover these secrets through Fidget’s diary, which he has written, to accompany you on your journey and provide clues to both the present and the past.

At the same time, you must also find hidden gem pieces, which fit into structures called “Dream Pieces”. You will see them as tiny glints of light, which occasionally flash on each screen. There are a total of 115 gems in the game. You can find out how many you have by turning the pages in Fidget’s journal.

You will want to complete the Dream Pieces because they are going to help you defeat Lilith. Until you get to the end of the game, you will need to get through multiple puzzle boards. Some are pretty simple and involve matching shapes together. Others are more complex and have you playing a piano or weighing objects. However, each board brings you one step closer to saving Fidget, removing the spell from the Kingdom and defeating Lilith.

Before you can move on, open a door to head into another room, or leave the village, you must solve each puzzle. The puzzles can be difficult because some objects are hidden incredibly well. On some boards, it can be a little confusing, when you are trying to figure out how to solve the puzzle. In these boards, you can have a little bit of assistance if you wait for the flash of light on the screen. This glint is a clue/hint to the puzzle and clicking on it generally helps you figure out what to do. This was one of the few annoying parts of an otherwise enjoyable game.

Dreamy Graphics

This was perhaps my favorite part of the game. Developed by Playfirst, “Dream Chronicles” is by far, one of the most visually pleasing casual games I have ever played. Each screen has intensive and high resolution graphics that have a dreamlike quality. Each screen is different and looks exciting. The lighting inside the home is a bit dark, but once you get outdoors, the lighting is better. Additionally, lightening your screen resolution helps with the darkness factor.

If I had to rate “Dream Chronicles” just on its graphics, I would give it five out of five stars. From the welcome screen to the puzzles, everything is so visually pleasing it makes the whole game worthwhile.

Soothing and Carefree Audio

The Audio for “Dream Chronicles” is soothing. I’ve played many games where the music becomes incredibly annoying and repetitive. However, this isn’t one of those games. It is quite catchy though. I found myself humming along with the music even when I wasn’t playing the game! You also can hear sounds when you click on objects, complete part of a puzzle, or solve the screen/puzzle completely.

The nice thing about the sound in “Dream Chronicles” is that you can turn down both the music and other sounds individually. If you like the music, but get annoyed by the sounds, you can turn down just the sounds. If you like the sounds, but not the music, you can turn down just the music. You can also mute all of the sounds and play with your own music or background sounds.

I would rank the audio four and a half out of five stars.

Artificial Intelligence

The Artificial Intelligence of the game is done for you. You do not have to move your character, Faye through the game. She is moved for you. All you have to do is use the mouse to click on doors, objects, gems, and various other objects. You may have to drag an object somewhere or guide it to a particular place. Otherwise, everything is done for you.

You would think with such a simple setup, “Dream Chronicles” would get the highest rating. However, the mouse does not always work as it should in the game. It can be hard to click on things just right. Even knowing what I was supposed to do, I had trouble with a few of the clicks. I had others in my house test the click out as well, but they were unsuccessful. After multiple tries, the clicks would eventually work. As a result, the AI received a rating of three stars. This problem only happened on a few boards, and made the game only temporarily annoying.

Replayability

Once the game is solved, you know the secrets and answers to the questions you had to answer from the very beginning of the game. You can replay the game, but it isn’t a game you would play for years to come. I would be willing to play the game on occasion, from time to time, if I was bored. However, since the game has the same exact puzzles, which you already solve the first time you play the game (with little to no variation whatsoever) it really is unnecessary to replay the game at all.

Due to the lower replayability factor, the game only receives two stars in this area. While it might be fun to play it once or twice further down the road, it is not the type of game you want to keep playing over and over again!

Final Thoughts

“Dream Chronicles” is a beautiful, fun game to play with minimal problems when it comes to the artificial intelligence of the game. The sound is enjoyable and the story is unique enough to keep you interested the whole way through. If you’re looking for a little fun, and a chance to relax from your busy life, then consider purchasing “Dream Chronicles” from PlayFirst. Chances are, you won’t regret it.

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Technorati Tags: PC Game Review, Playfirst, Dream Chronicles, Casual Game, Puzzle, Dreams

In the end, as much as we liked it, the games went back into the box and off the computers. We’ve promised ourselves that when we buy some Alienware systems we will bring the games out of the box and take up the Sims 2 again. Until then our systems apparently cannot handle such power, despite their high-level abilities of them in other areas.

Star Rating:

Technorati Tags: The Sims 2, PC Game, game review, popular game, Software

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