Xonix  ::  Fish Tycoon ::  Thought of the Week

Xonix

Intorine's Xonix is quite a bit like the old arcade game Qix. The game involves drawing boxes in order to "section off" parts of the screen and contain your enemy. If your enemy makes contact with one of your lines before you’ve finished drawing it, you lose a life. As in Qix, you'll need to section off a certain percentage of the screen for each level, and the enemy gets faster and more aggressive as the levels advance. Also like Qix, if you wait too long before drawing a box, you'll also forfeit a life. (Xonix does have one minor difference from Qix in that you can only see the parts of the screen you haven't blocked off.) Xonix has been around for quite a while, and it's available in the Allure Games pack, which goes for $34.95 and contains eight different titles. Now at version 1.3, Xonix itself is available as a free download. Sound and graphics were never really the point in this type of game, but Xonix does a good job of recreating the game play without making it look too antiquated. Trust me when I say that the game is challenging and a lot more fun than it sounds. If you liked Qix or are uninitiated, Xonix is a painless way to get acquainted with the concept.

Fish Tycoon

LDW's line of off-the-wall business simulators continues with Fish Tycoon. Their first title, Plant Tycoon, was an unusual game that had you grow and sell plants with the ultimate goal of breeding four magical plants. FT applies the same formula to the world of aquariums. Your goal is to raise fish, nurture them to adulthood, get them to breed new and interesting species (including eight magical superbreeds), sell them at a profit, upgrade your shop, and increase your profitability.

The good news is that if you enjoyed Plant Tycoon and aren't turned off by the idea of raising tropical fish, you'll more than likely also enjoy Fish Tycoon. The game uses a similar real time design, meaning that it continues running when your device is turned off (remember that the on-off switch on your Pocket PC doesn’t actually toggle the device's power—it simply takes it in and out of suspend mode). As I pointed out in my review of Plant Tycoon, this type of game play may or may not work for you depending on your style of gaming. If you're the type who likes to play the same games every day, then you'll be in good shape. If you're like me, however, and you like to play games in spurts, then set them aside and come back later, you'll probably end up with a tank full of dead fish. The game does offer three difficulty modes and four speed settings (one of which is "pause"), but even at the slow setting you'll need to check the tank at least once a day.

LDW once again gets the mechanics right for this type of game: managing your fish and keeping the business growing has an undeniable appeal. However, those who are looking for an aquarium simulator or a virtual pet will probably be disappointed. As someone who's kept fish off and on over the past couple of decades, I can say that the realism is a bit lacking. Although the fish do look like freshwater tropical fish, their names aren't correct and their swimming is stiff and unreal. And while the game does keep track of things like the various diseases, little details like not getting to actually see the fish eat will make the game seem a little unsatisfying to many who've run fish tanks as a hobby. However, if you're in it for the business simulation aspect and willing to overlook the compromises that were made, FT is worth looking at.

Thought of the Week (off-topic)

I decided to start 2005 with a new ISP in order to save a little money. As a consequence of switching, I ended up with one week of downtime between disconnection of my old service and the start of my new service. Any time that I've spent without the Internet over the past couple of years has made me realize how useless a PC without it is and how dependent on it I've become. In the past few days, I've had to spend extra time at work so I can: (1) order prescriptions online, (2) keep up with social contacts, (3) pay credit card bills, (4) research and assemble this newsletter, (5) check e-mail, (6) keep track of auctions and pay for items I've won, and a few other things I can't think of at the moment. Not to sound like some technology-dependent wimp, but if there's ever some sort of Internet catastrophe that leaves us all offline for a couple of months, we might have to resort to such crude and archaic inventions like telephones and the U.S. Postal Service.

At least for the next week or so I won't have to worry about getting more spam or picking up more spyware.

Allen Gall’s The Week in Games is a free service of POCKET PC magazine and POCKET PC magazine ONLINE: in-depth articles, tips, an Encyclopedia of Software and Accessories, and links to the best Windows Mobile PDA and Smartphone Web sites

This Newsletter is published by Thaddeus Computing, Inc., 110 North Court Street, Fairfield, IA 52556.

Allen Gall’s The Week in Games  Copyright © 2005 by Thaddeus Computing Inc.

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