FGR – April 15th 2011 – Tetris Battles, Zombie Lane and a lack of wine…

Welcome to the Facebook Game Review! In this daily series (except perhaps on the weekends), I will be looking at, sharing my thoughts and giving verdicts on the hottest and coldest entrants to the Social Gaming ring. Each post will feature a new game, an update on existing ones, and a final score.

Introducing… Tetris Battle

I’ve gotta get one thing out there before I start… I hate Tetris. It’s just one of those games that I’ve never, ever enjoyed! I’m not a big puzzle gaming fan in general, but I always found Tetris boring as hell. It’s so repetitive! One thing I did like was the alternate music. In fact, there are only 2 puzzle games I’ve ever enjoyed; Portal (Portal 2 coming out in 4 days!) and Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (SPF2T)

Tetris Battle is basically SPF2T but using Tetris instead of the awesome gem bomb puzzle system thingy that Capcom used. I do love the concept though. Puzzle games against other people = a good idea. Puzzle games are designed to challenge your brain, to make you think “I’m a really intelligent dude”. What better than to actually put your brain into the ring and see it battle another one? Then you’re not just kidding yourself, alone in a room playing Bejewelled for the last 6 hours… you intelligent bastard.

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Tetris but cutesy - Who cant this appeal to?

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FGR – 14th April 2011 – Wine Guru & Zombie Lane update

Welcome to the Facebook Game Review! In this daily series (except perhaps on the weekends), I will be looking at, sharing my thoughts and giving verdicts on the hottest and coldest entrants to the Social Gaming ring. Each post will feature a new game, an update on existing ones, and a final score.

Introducing… Wine Guru

Back when I was in Shanghai reviewing social games, I used to use GameZebo as my resource for the most up-to-date list of Facebook games. Now I’ve started the Facebook Game Review, it’s back to GZ to see what’s on my plate this week. Wine Guru is what I decided to check out.

Wine Guru is an Argentine Vineyard Simulation, although I’m sure it’s very basic compared to the real thing. You log in, pick one of 2 grapes, click the one square you have cash to click and then select how much you want to water your grapes per season. Once you have done that, you click it by harvesting and wait for an hour. It’s 1:36am so I’m probably not going to wait an hour to update you on it, so you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow for the riveting news!

Wine Guru is not a great game. I think that is a pretty fair assumption even though I’ve played it for about 5 minutes. There is literally 5 minutes worth of gameplay and none of that is particularly entertaining. It’s such a strange game, it really throws a curveball at me. It’s got this whole professional wine-making vibe to it, with detailed information about the region and the grapes. It even tells you more than you want to know about wine barrels! Yet the first thing you see is this…

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Samuel Greens vintage 2011 Argentinian Wine, Using a telephone?

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