Game: Solitaire Antics Deluxe

Reviewed by: Ruth Ann Hiner

Hello everybody. This is Kirk's mother, as Kirk has asked me to fill in for him on this review. He feels that I might do a better job of rating a solitaire game, because I play them more often.

When Kirk moved back from New York, and I just want to say that I'm very glad he did. I never liked the idea of him living there, but I will admit that it was a pretty nice city when I visited him with my sisters. We went to see "Phantom of the Opera" which I just love. I think they should fix the potholes on Broadway, though, because my sister Lois fell in one of them. I suppose we could sue, but she wasn't hurt and I'm really not the suing type.

Anyway, when Kirk moved back he brought with him an old black and white Macintosh that he let me use for recipes and addresses and such. It was okay for that, but I preferred to use it for solitaire and Tetris. Tetris really frustrates me, but so does Kirk.

A few months later, Kirk's friend Jack from high school bought a new computer so he traded Kirk's old one back to him for a printer. Kirk then gave it to me; I believe he called it Elsie 2. Anyway, the only difference I can tell between the old one and new one is that now solitaire is in color. I still sometimes play Tetris, and I have a new game called Jewelbox that Kirk downloaded after hearing it mentioned in a Shonen Knife song. That boy sure likes some weird bands.

But because I play solitaire so much, Kirk asked me to try Solitaire Antics Deluxe and write a review. Since he took his father and me out to dinner a couple weeks ago, I said I would.

First off, it upsets me that I can't play Solitaire Antics Deluxe on Elsie 2. I'm told it's because my computer is too old. I think people should make games that work on all computers, but Kirk says this is impossible and, in fact, is part of the reason why Windows never works right.

Anyhow, I've been rambling, haven't I? I hope I'm not boring you. I'll try to stick to the game now.

First off, what I like best about Solitaire Antics Deluxe is that there are fifty different games you can play. I didn't play them all, because I don't have time to read all those instructions for all of them. If I had Kirk's computer longer, maybe I would've learned more.

I also liked the different backgrounds you can use. You can choose from twenty-five background pictures or any number of colors. You can even use your own images! However, there are only seven card designs, and none of them are very pretty. If I made this game, I would've offered more card designs and fewer background designs.

The games themselves were a lot of fun to play. It was much faster than my old solitaire game, and I even had the option to control how quickly the cards moved. I also liked that I could chose to have playable cards tagged if I needed help. I don't use that option very often, but it is helpful when I'm teaching myself new games.

Lets see...what else? Oh, the ants, of course. After you win, and sometimes while you're playing, different ant cartoons will appear on the screen. They fly hang gliders and drive tanks and UFOs and such, and they're really cute. One time, an ice skating ant got hit by an ant on a snow mobile. I thought that was pretty mean, but Kirk said it was hilarious. That boy always did have a weird sense of humor. He even thought "Howard the Duck" was funny...and don't tell him I told you this, but he owns the soundtrack.

I guess I should say here that you can play the game without the CD in your computer, but the cartoons won't work that way. You can also turn off the cartoons altogether if you don't like them, but I left them on.

Solitaire Antics Deluxe has many options like that. For instance, you can have the cards move to the foundation by themselves, or you can chose to move them yourself. You can even have it tell you when there aren't any more moves. Most solitaire games I've played can do this, but that's what I like about Solitaire Antics Deluxe. It gives you all the normal options, but also comes with more games, the ability to customize games (you can tell the computer how many cards to draw, how many reshuffles you can have, and so on), and those crazy ants.

I just thought of something else. They also have tours you can play. The three different tours takes you through a collection of games to complete, and their difficulty is based on the tour. You can choose either Total Games Played, Timed or Best Total Score Tours. I didn't take any of the Tours because I don't know how to play all the games.

Kirk was hoping I'd like this game enough to buy an iMac just to play it on. Solitaire Antics Deluxe was a lot of fun, but I don't think Denny (my husband) would be too happy if I spent $1,000 just to play solitaire. So although the game is right up there with best games I've played, I think I'll be content to play it on Kirk's PowerBook when he comes to visit.

Thank you for reading my article. I hope it was okay, since you're used to my son's reviews. Why do any of you care what he thinks, anyway?

Have fun on the internet...but stay away from the pornography.

Genre: Card

Format: CD

Developer: Masque Publishing

Publisher: Ant Software

Minimum Requirements: PowerPC, System 7.1, 8MB RAM, 20MB hard disk space, CD-ROM drive

Network Feature: No

3Dfx Support: No

Retail Price: $19.99

Availability: Out now

 

Raised on Intellivision and "Tron," Kirk Hiner has been an avid gamer ever since he was tall enough to look through the viewfinder on the Battlezone upright. Although he makes a living using a PC (not by choice) to design websites for Dynamics Online, Inc., Kirk never strays from his 9600/200 or 3400c for computer gaming. When he's not playing the latest Logicware release, he can either be found working on his next "never to be published" novel, rereading anything by Kurt Vonnegut or watching RAW is WAR.

.

November 21, 2008