Blysster Rate 4
Back in the 80’s when I was
old enough to learn about games, and subsequently get addicted to them, my
father showed me a game called M.U.L.E. Most of you old-school C64
gamers will remember this game as one of the greats of it’s time. I’m not
sure WHAT the appeal is, but to this day I play M.U.L.E. with the help of
a C64 emulator and it goes down in my personal history as one of the all
time BEST games ever. Much to my joy, I was informed that a newer version
of M.U.L.E. has been put on the market (Thank you Qwake for the heads up!)
but not by the original makers. Shrapnel Games decided to produce a very
similar game called Space HoRSE (Yes it’s supposed to look like that.) While
skeptical at first, I played the demo and within minutes KNEW I had to buy
this game. Below you’ll find out the dirty little details of the game.
INSTALL/SETUP: Space HoRSE is exceedingly
easy to set up. Just put in the disk and let it do it’s thing. It is a
fairly small game so it won’t take up much space on your computer and certainly
doesn’t take long to install. The minimum requirements are so low it’s not
even worth mentioning, suffice it to say it will work on damn near ALL computers.
GETTING STARTED: This game is all about
ecconomic strategy. You are a traveler from a far away world. Your job
is to colonize and make successful this tiny little planet. You are given
a few resources to start with but be ready to work hard to reach the goal
of the game! Your goal is to be the number one player by the time the 12th
turn is over with. You also want to make sure your colony survives, so sell,
sell, sell… keep an eye on the store and it’s needs and try to beat down
your competition!
The manual leaves a few things to be desired but I can overlook that
since I NEVER had a manual for M.U.L.E. I’m just happy I have a book at
all! Follow the instructions and begin setting up your game.
You may choose a color and a starting level such as "new", "good" and
"pro". I suggest starting out at “New” no matter how cocky you feel, because
this game will screw you big time otherwise. I don’t care HOW good you were
at M.U.L.E., Space HoRSE will eat you for breakfast. After choosing colors
and starting level you can choose a race. You can be a Space HoRSE Clone,
a Space Rover, a Robot, Pink Matter (my kids love this one) and several
other beings. I haven’t noticed a particular difference in the species,
and I don’t believe one is better than the other, but it’s a neat little
read if you want to learn about what they are and where they came from before
choosing, more for the “Cute” factor than anything else.
Set your choice of “Classic Auction” or leave it unchecked and begin
the game. In Classic Auction you are able to go forward and backward to
try and trick the other players into buying a property. You run them up
and raise the price even if you don’t want the land at all, but then step
back at the very last second and screw them out of a butt-load of money.
One problem with this is the computer will also do it to YOU so beware. Without
it checked you are unable to back down out of a deal, if you raise the price
you CANNOT back down and trick the other players, you have been warned.
You’ll be taken to the first screen and a sexy female voice will tell
you “Good Luck”, she also comes in at various parts of the game to announce
needs and instructions. Take a moment to check out this screen, you will
be ranked at the end of each of the 12 turns. Your goal is not only to
be NUMBER ONE, but also make the colony very successful. You do so by farming,
mining and many other activities. It’s a game of buying low and selling
high. You won’t find battles and war and hacking and slashing, but you will
find a battle of the brains when it comes to planning your lots and managing
your resources.
LEARNING CURVE and GAME PLAY: Exceptionally
easy to learn, you’ll be out and about buying and selling in no time. The
controls are odd; quite a bit different from the original game. You use
the mouse buttons to go up and down in auction mode and the arrow keys to
move around the colony and lots. They don’t seem very intuitive so you’ll
have to make a conscious effort to learn them, but it actually shouldn’t
take very long to do so.
Select your first lot, I suggest a lot on the river and don’t forget
to click your button to make the other computer players go through their
turns. Once it is your turn to play you’ll need to go into the store, buy
a HoRSE and outfit him for food. You can outfit him for anything you want,
but food is your best bet at first. Without food you will not be able
to play! Your time is dependant on having plenty of food; YES the game
is timed. Install your HoRSE into your lot, make sure you are ON the flag
and not to the side, if you try and install your HoRSE in the wrong spot
he’ll run off and you’ve just wasted your money.
You’ll then see your first production phase and watch your crops grow.
With the first production phase, nobody will be much ahead of anyone else;
you have only one lot each so you nobody has an advantage. Sell your surplus
and let the games begin!
You’ll see the black screen with the four boxes again where the players
are lined up one by one. Hopefully at this point you’re in first place. The
game will get very difficult very soon so hang onto your hat. You go through
another phase of land selection and then installing the HoRSE and more production
phases. Buying and selling, keep an eye on the status of all the other players
as well. Watch the store levels so you can change your lots around to fit
the needs of the colony, if they are low on power make more power lots etc.
There will be many times the game will throw a curve ball at you with
random events. This is where my only true gripe comes into play. These random
events are supposed to help keep the game interesting. It is supposed to
throw good or bad things at ALL the players, so far every time I have played
the game all the bad events happen to me and it seems as though the computer
is TRYING to make me lose. Perhaps my computer has taken on a mind of it’s
own and is sabotaging me, more likely the “random” generator has a bug.
Things like pest invasions will eat all your crops on one of your food lots,
a meteor will strike and kill your HoRSE, or my favorite (the one that hits
me EVERY time I play) a midget in a clown suit steals all my money. I hate
clowns…. And this random event does NOT help. My delusions that my computer
somehow has become sentient and is sabotaging my game aside, it seems pretty
weird I would be hit with all the bad events and my computer opponents get
all the good ones (They always win the “Homemade Bikini Contest”.)
Because of the evil little “random” (notice the quotes) events in the
game I ALWAYS lose. Granted I am not guaranteed to win even if the random
events didn’t happen, but the chances would increase dramatically. Perhaps
a suggestion to Todd Gillissie to give the option of NO random events is
in order.
One other tiny flaw, which doesn’t affect me too badly, is the Zirconium
assessment feature. You get a land sample and return it to the lab, it
tells you if there is no, low, medium or high amounts of zirconium in the
plot. Without fail the game will tell me the plot has “Very High” levels
of zirconium, even when the computer player just tested it and it came
back with NO zirconium. After speaking with Todd Gillissie, the creator
of Space HoRSE, I learned that you must walk to the plot you're trying to
assess for Zirconium. If you do what I did and stand just outside the
colony store you will be assesing the STORE and not the plot. It doesn't
matter where you click, it is dependant on where you're standing. Thanks
Todd for the heads up!
GRAPHICS: Compared to the original game
Space HoRSE is amazing to look at. Compare it to the other games on the
market today and it’s really pathetic. Those of you who will be buying Space
HoRSE are not going to be getting it for the graphics or mind blowing movies,
you will be getting it for sheer game playing enjoyment and it delivers
that beautifully.
The map looks almost identical to the original with the river running
down the center, the store in the middle and random mountains which change
every time you play. The characters are cute and the shapes well defined
with smooth edges and a clean look to them. A bit of effort was put into
making them nice to look at. Movement is fairly realistic, the bird flaps
it’s wings and Lumpty kind of jumps where it needs to go, my kids absolutely
adore Pink Matter though, which sort of slides and oozes along the ground.
The movies aren’t the best out there, they look like something from 8
or 9 years ago but that isn’t the point of the game. I’d rather have a fast
loading and fast running game than one that bogs down my machine. The lack
of outstanding graphics makes this game one that can be used on virtually
ANY computer.
SOUND and MUSIC: The creators made an
effort to keep the music as close to the original as possible and they succeeded!
It has the same catchy feel to it, I always watch the beginning movie instead
of clicking past it, just so I can hear the music. It reminds me of simpler
days (comma 8 comma 1) And I enjoy that. It isn’t going to win any awards
but fans of the original will appreciate its classic feel.
FINAL THOUGHTS: Well made and well presented
in an affordable package. It’s simpler to load than my emulator and gives
me the M.U.L.E. fix I crave every now and then. Gilligames did an amazing
job re-creating a favorite from the past and I applaud their effort.
RECOMMENDED: If you enjoy classic gaming in
an updated, but not overdone, form then spend the tiny bit of cash this
game costs. You’ll be transported to the 80’s and the loving arms of your
C64 while you haggle with, barter with and destroy your opponents with glee.
A must have for M.U.L.E. fans and even those who have never seen the game.
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