1849, Crazy Belts, Rock Zombie
One of my many failed writing jobs was as a movie critic. Since the gig was for a mobile app, my reviews had to be very brief and sometimes even less than a paragraph - I am not particularly good at brevity as you may have figured out by now.
Sometimes however, there are games that, for one reason or another, just don't lend themselves to full on SUPER CEREAL reviews. This is where those games go.
1849
1849 tends to get lost in the shuffle. While not the most interesting time ever, many exciting things happened. Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman doctor in America and was probably immediately vilified, harassed, and insulted by anonymous telegram users with massive insecurity issues. The Roman Republic proclaimed its existence and then lasted about eight months before France said “nah.” James Knox Polk became the first President to have his soul stolen by photography and then he died – coincidence, I think not. The United States Congress passed the Gold Coinage Act so that someday Glenn Beck could sell them to weirdos on his website. The UK annexed the Punjab because they just can't fucking help themselves. Dostoevsky was sentenced to death by a Russian court later in the year beca-
What? Oh, you meant 1849, the game? It's a city building mobile time waster ported to the PC. Totally fine I guess.
AVERAGE
Play it if you are really into casual city-builder games since the mechanics are well utilized even if they are a bit derivative. Don't play it if you are Zachary Tyler.
Crazy Belts
Now this is something you don't see often - a puzzle game about that one scene from Die Hard 2 in the luggage sorter. This is a mobile port in case you were wondering what got it condemned to this purgatory, which means it is very light on features and is obviously set up for the trappings of the mobile format. Still, Crazy Belts is a capable puzzler that asks you to guide color coded luggage into the right destinations through increasingly difficult conveyor belt set ups. It is probably a blast to play while in the waiting room for a STD test or at church, but loses something when you are staring down the infinite possibilities of your desktop computer.
OK
Play it if you like challenging puzzle games that are best played in small doses. Don't play it if you are
Rock Zombie
I don’t want to be hard on a game by one guy from a country that doesn’t have a strong infrastructure of game development already and is clearly learning the ropes, so let's just leave it with saying that this is a beat-em-up about scantily clad ladies fighting zombies that costs 7 bucks and I just told you I want to be nice.
BAD
Play it if you have absolutely no other beat-em-up games to play or want to give this guy the constructive criticism I am incapable of giving. Don't play it if you like your beat-em-up games to have more than one attack.