I’ve long been a devotee of Hoyle’s PC card games (both
Hoyle Classic Card Games from the early 1990’s and the updated
Hoyle Card Games 2003, listed at
http://www.epinions.com/Hoyle_Card_Games_2003_PC), yet until this summer I didn’t know that Hoyle also dabbles in board game software. While looking for absolutely any excuse to avoid working on my Master’s thesis, I happened upon
Sierra’s Hoyle Board Games 2003 at Office Max. Many wasted hours later, I’m still hooked thanks to the wide variety of games, versatility and high fun quotient of this software.
Games
Board Games 2003 includes a total of 18 games. This extensive selection means there’s truly something for everyone, from sophisticated, experienced game players to kids. Many of the games are traditional favorites (such as checkers, chess, and backgammon) or familiar games whose names have been changed in order to avoid copyright violations (for example, Hoyle’s “Yacht” is identical to “Yahtzee”). In addition, most of the games have some variable settings to offer you even more choices. Here’s the complete rundown of games:
Backgammon
Battling Ships (Battleship)
Bump ‘Em (similar to Trouble)
Checkers
Chess
Chinese Checkers
Dominoes
DoubleCross (sort of a wild and wooly Scrabble)
Gravity Tiles (a spatial relations game)
Mahjong Tiles
Mancala
Master Match (Mastermind)
Pachisi
Reversi (Othello)
Rummy Squares (Rummy-O)
Wordox (similar to Scrabble)
Word Yacht (Boggle)
Yacht (Yahtzee)
Navigation and Game Play
The first screen you see after booting up Board Games 2003 displays the 18 game icons plus icons for “Facemaker” (more on this later) and “Internet Games” (apparently you can play online, but I haven’t used this feature). Once at the game screen a window allows you to adjust settings particular to each game, choose players, and choose your skill level (beginning, intermediate, or advanced). Buttons at the bottom of the screen allow you to navigate to different games or back to the main screen and also change settings mid-game (although in most games changing settings causes the game to restart). There’s also a “help” button that will allow you to view general instructions or instructions specific to each game. The same help information is also available in the booklet accompanying the software. Both of these resources are complete and easy to follow. In fact, I taught myself to play several games I wasn’t familiar with by reading these instructions. There’s also a “demo mode” that allows you to see a sample game, but I’m way too impatient to sit and watch without playing!
Each game features an animated board and game pieces, plus animated players. The graphics and animation are crisp, detailed, and colorful. In most cases animation is relatively quick, too, but there are a few exceptions (notably, Battling Ships). Game play is mostly intuitive and easy to learn. Most games can be played by clicking game pieces and moving them. In many games you can also just double-click the mouse to move or select pieces, making play fast and uncomplicated.
Players
Board Games 2003 shares the same cast of 10 animated “interactive opponents” that appear in Hoyle’s Card Games 2003. These include 6 human opponents of both sexes and various ethnic backgrounds and 4 opponents of other species, including Harley the grizzly bear, Roswell the space alien, Marvin the T-Rex, and - my personal favorite - Cap’n Scurvy, the crotchety seafaring parrot/pirate. All the players have a short biography available for you to peruse, and spout quips and comments during play. The writers of this software have a sense of humor that shines though in many of their characters’ scripted lines. For example, if you make a move that vexes Cap’n Scurvy, he’s likely to tell you, “In me younger days, I’d have pooped on your head for that!” You can change the players’ “attitude” from “talkative”, where they comment on virtually everything that happens during game play, to “serious”, where you’ll only hear from them when necessary to advance play. This is a bonus, since during certain games I’d rather think about strategy than listen to the players chatter.
Each player also has a button displayed next to him or her labeled “Revenge”. This allows you to exact your vengeance on players who thwart or otherwise annoy you by causing them to be hit by animated pies in the face, boxing gloves, or electric shocks, all with hilarious sound effects and character-specific yelps. If you’re juvenile and spiteful like me, you will LOVE this feature (it has also made me yearn for a “Revenge” button to push in my car!).
You also have the option to designate certain players as “preferred” for each game, or you can just choose players at the beginning of the game. It’s also possible to play the games with another person or persons.
Facemaker
Another super-cool, engaging feature of Board Games 2003 is the ability to create a player to represent you that actually looks like you! Facemaker allows you to choose from a plethora of body and face shapes, facial features, hairstyles and clothes. As a result, the players that my husband and I have created really do look like us, down to my husband’s goofy Hawaiian shirt. If you’d rather reinvent yourself, that’s also possible – the array of options and combinations is staggering (Mullet and a clown suit? Sure! Moustache and a dress? No problem!). And if you suffer from multiple personality disorder, you have the option to create and save any number of characters to suit your fancies.
What’s good
Besides the variety of games and flexibility in creating characters, Board Games 2003 gets points for ease of game play, excellent graphics, truly helpful “help” files, and sense of humor. As a result, these games can become seriously addictive. I can’t tell you the number of times where what I intended to be a 10-minute break kicking Cap’n Scurvy’s feathered behind turned into a multi-hour grudge match.
Board Games 2003 is also a wonderful substitute for real board games if you don’t have other game lovers in your life who want to play, don’t own all of these games, want to learn new games, or want to practice ones you already play.
What’s not so good
Unlike Card Games 2003, Board Games 2003 doesn’t allow you to change the speed of game play. In most cases this isn’t an issue, but some games are slow enough to discourage me from playing them. An example is Battling Ships, which features gorgeous animation of guns firing at realistic looking ships, complete with explosions and splashes when missiles hit their targets. Although the visuals are great, sometimes you just want to speed through them to advance the game, but you don’t have that option.
The skill levels also create some weirdness. Although I’d consider myself an advanced player on several games, I play only at the intermediate level since the advanced setting tends to give unfair advantages to your opponents (for example, in word games like Word Yacht, Wordox and Double Cross you’ll receive a selection of letters like “XQVZW” while your opponents receive a bunch of R’s, S’s, E’s and T’s). Likewise, playing on the beginner setting gives you the same unfair advantages, and causes your opponents to make incredibly stupid moves. This is fine when you’re learning a game (or having a bad day and REEELY want to win), but it gets old fast.
The software has a built-in dictionary to help in you in word games that’s also problematic. Many of the words in it (usually abbreviations or words of foreign origin) aren’t accepted in the word games, while many words that are accepted in the games aren’t listed in the dictionary. Go figure.
Finally, the game has crashed on me a few times. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does (and I’m winning!), it’s irritating.
Nevertheless, these minor flaws are ones that you quickly adapt to, and I haven't found that they significantly diminish my enjoyment of this excellent game package. I highly recommend it, and defy you to remain unaddicted!
