Dopewars

.: By: Jason Surguine :: Device used: E-125 :: April 3, 2001 :.

All right, when I first started playing this game I felt a little guilty. I mean, I’ve always been told that drugs are bad and you shouldn’t be a drug lord/dealer when you grow up. And that is the entire plot behind this game. You basically a drug dealer trying to make the most money you can without being killed. That’s it.

This is a very simple text based strategy game. Graphics are almost nonexistent. There is a pretty decent opening graphic/title screen but that’s it. The rest of the game is just menu driven.

Not much can be said for play control, its just menu based off the PocketPC OS. So, if I wanted to complain about the play control of this game, I might as well do a review on Windows CE 3.0, and I’m not going to. And it’s just basic tapping and sliding anyway, nothing more complicated than playing Solitaire. I will say that everything is pretty well laid out on the screen, so you don’t have to search around for the cancel or done buttons.

Sound is almost nonexistent in this game. There is no music anywhere in the game and only a few, albeit nicely done, intermittent sound effects.

The gameplay itself is actually quite amusing for a while. All the menus are filled with slang and some drug lingo. But after awhile, this wears off, and the game is basically, borrow a lot of money, buy the most expensive drug at the lowest price, and then sell it when it’s (ridiculously) high, and it’s really not that much fun.

It’s not very difficult either. There are options in the game to change the prices on the drugs, which ones have what sales, and the probabilities/difficulty levels of the cops, but even on their highest difficulty levels, it’s really not that tough.

Overall, this is a novelty game. Fun to show to your parents when you come home for dinner and show them what you’ve been doing lately (maybe not), but of no real replay value after the cool-I’m-a-drug-lord-thingy-effect wears off.

Pros:

• Easy to pickup and play

• Cool slang

• Old Skool text-based strategy

Cons:

• Easy to put down and never play again

• Game grows old fast

• Old Skool text-based strategy (i.e. no graphics, scarce sound effects, could be much better)

.: Game category: Strategy Games :: Reviews Index :.